The move from analogue audio cassette to digital VCD (Video Compact Disc) in around 2003, as a primary format for recorded music, opened up a new era for music production and consumption in the Bolivian Andes. This cheap digital technology both created new regional markets among low-income indigenous people, quickly making it almost unthinkable for regional artists to produce a commercial music...

Key-finding is a central topic in Western music analysis and development of MIR tools. However, most approaches rely on the Western 12-tone scale, which is not universally used. African music does not follow a fixed tone scale. In order to classify and study African tone scales, we developed a system in which the pitch is first analyzed on a continuous scale. Peak analysis is then applied on th...

One of the most important roles that music serves in human society is the promotion of social relationships and group cohesion. In general, emotional experiences tend to be amplified in group settings through processes of social feedback. However, previous research has established that listening to sad music can intensify negative emotions in people with tendencies to rumination and depression....

The quantitative differences lie in the intervals used in Western and Byzantine music. Byzantine chants contain certain intervals, accidentals, and tonal attractions which result in pitches that do not exist on the equally tempered keyboard, the standard for pitch relationships in contemporary Western compositions. These subtle differences add a unique beauty to BM melodies. Although there was ...

As NIME’s focus has expanded beyond the design reports which were pervasive in the early days to include studies and experiments involving music control devices, we report on a particular area of activity that has been overlooked: designs of music devices in experimental contexts. We demonstrate this is distinct from designing for artistic performances, with a unique set of novel challenges. A ...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Acceptable noise level (ANL) is a measure of the maximum background noise level (BNL) that a person is willing to tolerate while following a target story. Although researchers have used various sources of target sound in ANL measures, a limited type of background noise has been used. Extending the previous study of Gordon-Hickey & Moore (2007), the current study determ...

Holistic processing (i.e., the tendency to process objects as wholes) is associated with face perception and also with expertise individuating novel objects. Surprisingly, recent work also reveals holistic effects in novice observers. It is unclear whether the same mechanisms support holistic effects in experts and in novices. In the present study, we measured holistic processing of music seque...