NEWS
Recent News
July 2023
- Putting the rhythm in Algorithm. Workshop on musical rhythm in collaboration with the Stables Theatre and Raz Jayasuriya, for 30 ticketed members of the public. A haptics-assisted Brazilian and Cuban samba drumming workshop where motion tracking, haptics and low-latency networking were used to explore new ways of learning rhythms and to contribute to OU research developing new ways to enhance inclusion and engagement in music for the d/Deaf and blind. Spiegel Tent, Campbell Park.
May 2023
- The CHIME EPSRC Network on Music and Human Computer Interaction held a one-day event on Music Interaction and Physical Disability https://www.chime.ac.uk/music-interaction-and-disability at Cecilia’s Hall, Edinburgh, on May 19th 2023, in collaboration with Drake Music Scotland. Drake Music Scotland provides music making opportunities for people with disabilities, and is the leading national arts organisation playing this role. Some twenty contributors were present, including PhD students, established researchers, performers, composers, and representatives from charities including the Amber Trust and Drake Music Scotland itself. The centrepiece of the event was an extended presentation in person by Sound and Music New Voices 2022 Scottish composer & performer Chris Jacqin on of his work and the challenges of making music with cerebral palsy, during which Chris introduced the video premier of his performance of Ștefan Niculescu’s “Echoes II” with violinist, Gordon Bragg. Specific conditions which were explored in presentations by researchers included dementia, Batten’s disease, cerebral palsy, visual and hearing impairment, and profound physical disability. There were contributions from SMEs Playable Tech (demonstrating Music Bricks) and Digit Music (showing their CMPSR hardware and software). Researchers presented demonstrations of their research systems and prototypes including Strummi (Jacob Harrison), the no-string guitar (Eeve Zayas Garin) the MAMI Tool Kit (Asha Ward) and the Haptic Bracelets and Harmony Space (both presented by Simon Holland and Nicholas Canny). The final plenary discussion suggested that charities, musicians teachers, helpers schools and other organisations typically valued highly the prototypes and systems created by researchers (generally as part of their PhD work) but the absence of the relatively small amounts of funding that would be necessary for dissemination, archiving and maintenance created a chasm preventing much of this work being more widely. Thus it would be highly valuable to create a collective resource that would ensure that research projects in this area are made available for artists, charities and other organisations to be able to engage with, perform with, learn from, and build on. Specific opportunities for collaboration between SMEs researchers and practitioners were identified, and this and other strategic gaps in policy and funding were identified for subsequent follow up. Videos of the presentations can be found here on the CHIME YouTube channel.
Sept 2022
- The International conference on the Psychology of Programming (PPIG) was hosted by Open University on 5 - 9 September 2022. This year’s theme was ‘Turing, Piaget, Radiohead: PPIG and the Muse’, aimed at sparking insights drawing on programming, abstractions, notations, psychology, and music. This was the first PPIG to be held physically since 2019, following the two online-only PPIGs in 2020 and 2021, both during the Covid pandemic. It was also the first PPIG conference to be designed specifically for hybrid attendance. Reflecting the theme, it was hosted by Music Computing Lab at the Open University in Milton Keynes, and held a mere ten minutes from Bletchley Park, where Alan Turing and colleagues triumphed algorithmically in WWII. There were some 67 attendees. PPIG is the premier international conference on the Psychology of Programming, running annually since 1987. https://ppig.org/workshops/2022-annual-workshop
- As part of PPIG, two invited drop-in workshops focusing on insights from musical rhythm were run for physical attendees concurrently on two floors of the Venables building. These were designed to be enjoyable and rewarding in their own right, and to promote reflection on issues of foundational interest to PPIG. Thanks to the workshop devisers and organisers:An algorithmic drumming circle was kindly designed and led by invited speaker Alex Mclean. Participants were invited to bring their own laptops to collectively investigate and make rhythms with Alex’s celebrated pattern weaving, manipulating and visualising systems, the Haskell-based Tidal, and the Web-based Strudel.Noam Lederman: drum conversations with a real-time improvisatory drum agent. An improvisational drumming circle was organised by international-level session drummer, and widely acknowledged music educator Noam Lederman. Participants were invited to improvise drum patterns using various hand drums in musical conversations with a real time drumming agent designed and programmed by Noam as part of his PhD work in-progress at the Music Computing Lab. Noam’s agent has been highly rated to date by professional drummers using it in shedding sessions – complementing this, the workshop demonstrated that the agent could be highly engaging for beginners as well.
June 2022
- CHIME hosted the 2022 NIME Liberating Methods workshop. Workshop attendees werencouraged to arrive with a particular research question they’d like to address, but for which they are not sure how to proceed methodologically. .
March 2022
- Simon Holland (PI) and Tom Mudd (Co-I, University of Edinburgh) have been awarded a new EPSRC grant to create network in Music and Human Computer Interaction (CHIME - Computer Human Interaction and Music nEtwork). Industrial collaborators include Generic Robotic, Playable Technology and TikTok; and charitable collaborators include Drake Music, Special Needs Music, and the Stables Theatre. Academic co-applicants include: Steve Benford, Nottingham; Alan Blackwell, Cambridge; Carola Boehm, Staffordshire; Lamberto Coccioli, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire; Rebecca Fiebrink, University of the Arts London; Andrew McPherson, Queen Mary; Atau Tanaka, Goldsmiths; Owen Green, Huddersfield; Thor Magnusson, Sussex; Eduardo Miranda, Plymouth; and Paul Stapleton and Maarten van Walstijn, Queen’s Belfast. The network aims to connect and assist researchers from diverse disciplines, whether just starting or established, whose interests span any combination of Music and Human Computer Interaction (also known as Music Interaction - MI). CHIME will create a new interdisciplinary Music Interaction community of researchers, industrials and charities to integrate and disseminate knowledge, training and expertise in a wide range of emerging innovative areas through workshops, training, visits and new collaborations. The project starts in April 2022 and has been awarded £46,929 to carry out this work over the next three years. https://gow.epsrc.ukri.org/NGBOViewGrant.aspx?GrantRef=EP/V050540/1 http://chime.ac.uk
February 2022
- Congratulations to Matt Bellingham on the award of his PhD! His research is entitled: Choosers: A Visual Programming Language for Nondeterministic Music Composition by Non-Programmers. His examiners were Chris Nash (UWE Bristol) and Robin Laney (STEM). Supervisors Simon Holland and Paul Mulholland.
January 2022
- Congratulation to Noam Lederman on upgrade from MPhil to PhD registration on his project Enhancing Creativity with Intelligent Music Interfaces: Stylistic Conviction in Popular Music Drumming.
- Innovate UK Grant Success. Haptic Virtual Reality for multi-user, collaborative design at a distance, integrating sighted and visually-impaired users. Alistair Barrow of Generic Robotics (PI), Lisa Bowers (OU PI), Simon Holland and Claudette Davis-Bonnick (University of the Arts) have been awarded a new grant for the MakeActive Project. Technology can routinely provide high-fidelity, real-time, visual, and auditory communication remotely. However, some activities depend implicitly on direct physical touch and feel, e.g. for medicine, teaching, and design. This particularly important for the sight-impaired (SI). The MakeActive Project explores ways to extend existing systems with novel hardware and software that can provide haptic and proprioceptive affordances (making use of the senses of touch and body position respectively) to deepen access and inclusion for all, including sight-impaired users. The project combines prototyping of new hardware and software with user trials with sight-impaired users.
October 2021
- Congratulations to German Ruiz-Marcos on successfully completing his viva voce examination for his PhD thesis entitled ‘Tension-driven Automatic Music Generation’. The research concerns I using purely structural harmonic means to control tension on demand in real -time (e.g. for video games) in music that has coherent long term harmonic structure. His examiners were Colin Johnson (University of Nottingham) and Ben Winters (FASS). Congratulations to German and to his supervisors Robin Laney and Alistair Willis.
August 2020
- The Polifonia Project €3,025,435 (A digital harmoniser for Musical Heritage Knowledge has been awarded by EU, to run 2021- 2024. The bid was initiated by Simon Holland, with Enrico Daga (KMI) as PI and Enrico Motta, Paul Mulholland and Simon Holland as Co-Is. There are ten collaborating partners from Italy, the Netherlands, France and Ireland, and ten stakeholders including the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and the Stables Theatre in Wavendon. The project will design, implement and evaluate innovative multimodal haptic and gestural interaction techniques for music, with particular attention to inclusion for diverse disabilities, including profound deafness.
- This project is highly synergistic with the existing Creative and Performing Arts Digital Inclusion grant from the Stables Theatre with Simon Holland (PI)and Paul Mulholland (Co-I) to enhance the approaches of the Stables and the Milton Keynes International Festival in working with D/deaf and disabled communities as participants, audience members and performers.
- The new project also has strong connections with the existing HAPPIE project funded by Innovate UK to develop novel haptic interaction technologies for visually impaired designers, with Lisa Bowers, Simon Holland and Janet Van der Linden with Generic Robotics Ltd, Sliced Bread Animation and Numerion Software.
- Theo Geogiou has paper published in JMIR (Impact Factor 3.4) on his work on Rhythmic Haptic Cueing Using Wearables as Physiotherapy for Huntington’s Disease. Georgiou, Theodoros; Islam, Riasat; Holland, Simon; Linden, Janet Van Der; Price, Blaine; Mulholland, Paul and Perry, Allan (2020). Rhythmic Haptic Cueing Using Wearable Devices as Physiotherapy for Huntington’s Disease: Case Study. JMIR Rehabilitation and Assistive Technologies Journal. DOI: 10.2196/18589 (Impact Factor 3.4)
July 2020
- Despite Covid Restrictions, the Innovate-UK Funded HAPPIE Project runs a successful series of pilot evaluations with visually impaired designers to evaluate new haptic technologies designed as part of the project. The remote field experiments involves couriering a falcon haptic device and laptop to the participants in turn, while using a tablet, camera and teamviewer and specialised software for remote interaction.
- Riasat Islam has paper accepted by JMIR Biomedical Engineering on wearable motion capture for healthy and post surgical gait tracking. lslam R, Bennasar M, Nicholas K, Button K, Holland S, Mulholland P, Price B, Al-Amri M. Nonproprietary movement analysis software using wearable inertial measurement units on both healthy participants and those with anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction across a range of complex tasks: validation study. JMIR Mhealth Uhealth (forthcoming). doi:10.2196/17872 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/17872.
- Noam Lederman and Simon Holland attend the excellently organised and memorable virtual NIME 2020.
June 2020
- Noam Lederman presents a paper "Developing drum improvisation skills through interaction with a reflective conversational agent" on the final day of the Centre for Computing Research Virtual Conference, 18-19 June 2020.
May 2020
- Emilie Giles, Claudette Davis-Bonnick and Lisa Bowers redesign evaluations of haptic technologies for visually impaired designer so that the evaluations can be carried out remotely. Planned now for July.
- Noam Lederman designs user interaction controls, rhythm transformations, inference strategies for a reflective conversational shedding agent for the upcoming CRC conference.
April 2020
- The Music Computing Lab as a research group adjusts to 100% remote working due to Covid lockdown. Research continues as normal. This is vastly easier at the Open University than for most universities, due to our extensive experience and capabilities for remote research, supervision and teaching.
March 2020
- The Polifonia Project €3,025,435 (A digital harmoniser for Musical Heritage Knowledge ) is submitted to the EU. Decision expected in August.
February 2020
- 4 February - Research Fiesta held at Kents Hill.
January 2020
- Some of us visit at the Saatchi Gallery in London the last exhibition of Tutenkamams' treasures that will ever be held outside Egypt. Simply Stunning.
December 2019
- 17 December 2019 Noam Lederman and Simon Holland attend DMRN+14, the Digital Music Research Network One-day Workshop at QMUL in London.
November 2019
- Agreement in principle established with the Stables Theatre Wavendon on a joint project as part of a 2-year long programme funded by the MK Community Foundation to enhance the Stables' approach to working with D/deaf and disabled communities as participants, audience members and performers.
October 2019
- Noam Lederman starts PhD focusing on the development of drum improvisation skills through interaction with a reflective conversational agent.
September 2019
- Dr AnneMarie Zijlema runs Ideation workshop for haptic devices on 25 September 2019 in the Music Computing Lab
- 24th September Dr Oliver Hodl from the University of Vienna / Cooperative Systems Research Group presents a seminar on Sparkling Instruments
August 2019
- Matt Bellingham presents a paper " Toward meaningful algorithmic music-making for non-programmers" at PPIG 2019, the 30th Annual Workshop of the Psychology of Programming Interest Group 28th-30th August at Newcastle University, UK. Bellingham, Matt; Holland, Simon and Mulholland, Paul (2019). Toward meaningful algorithmic music-making for non-programmers. In: Proceedings of 30th Annual Workshop of the Psychology of Programming Interest Group - PPIG 2019.
May 2019
- CHI 2019 May 4 - 9 Glasgow (ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems). Simon Holland and Riasat Islam attend for Book Launch.
- Launch of our new book New Directions In Music and HCI, at CHI.
April 2019
- Dr AnneMarie Zijlema presents a talk based on her PhD research.
Feb 2019
- Tom Mudd has paper accepted by the prestigious IJHCS - the foremost journal worldwide in HCI. Mudd, Tom; Holland, Simon and Mulholland, Paul (2019). Nonlinear Dynamical Processes in Musical Interactions: investigating the role of nonlinear dynamics in supporting surprise and exploration in interactions with digital musical instruments. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 128 pp. 27–40.
- Katie Wilkie-McKenna joins the music computing lab as visiting researcher.
Jan 2019
- The new book New Directions In Music and HCI, three of whose lead editors are from the music computing lab, has now completed proof stages and will be launched by Springer at CHI 2019 in Glasgow. Our previous book on this topic Music and Human-Computer Interaction has over 30,686 downloads .
- Grant for £998,538 from Innovate UK awarded to Lisa Bowers, Simon Holland and Janet Van der Linden (with Generic Robotics Ltd, Sliced Bread Animation and Numerion Software) for Happie Audience of the Future - Creative touch, Design prototyping.
- 29th January - Congratulations to Dmitri Katz, who makes a successful defence at his PhD viva.
Dec 2018
- Matt Bellingham has completed a new major end-user study of choosers, his innovative graphical programming language Choosers, for algorithmic music composition by non-programmers. The revised design, following from earlier studies, is proving highly successful. Choosers is now fully recursive and has a range of new features.
Nov 2018
Sept 2018
- Congratulations to Tom Mudd, who after completing his remarkable PhD on Nonlinear Dynamics In Musical Interactions at the Music Computing Lab has been appointed to a Lectureship at the Reid School of Music at the University of Edinburgh.
July 2018
- Joe Corneli presents paper on Patterns of Design at Europlop 2018 (the 23rd European Conference on Pattern Languages of Programs) in Bavaria, Germany.
June 2018
- Riasat Islam's paper on Haptic Technologies for Healthcare is presented at at EuroHaptics 2018 in Pisa, Italy.
April 2018
- Simon Holland presents talk on 26th April on Music interaction tools for harmony and rhythm at McGill University Schulich School of Music, University of Montreal
- Dmitri Katz presents two digital health papers at CHI 2018 in Montreal. Designing for Diabetes Decision Support Systems with Fluid Contextual Reasoning is awarded a coveted Honourable Mention Award – indicating a paper in the top 5% of all SIGCHI 2018 submissions.
- Riasat Islam's paper on 'A longitudinal rehabilitation case study for hemiparetic gait using outdoor rhythmic haptic cueing via a wearable device' was presented at 27th European Stroke Conference, 11-13 Apr 2018, Athens, Greece.
March 2018
- Riasat Islam presented 'Gait rehabilitation by outdoor rhythmic haptic cueing using wearable technology for neurological conditions: a case study' at ACPIN International Neurophysiotherapy Conference, 19-20 Mar 2018, Manchester, UK.
Jan 2018
- The OU's HCI group has four full papers accepted for CHI 2018 in Montreal
- Matt Bellingham has completed his end-user study of his innovative graphical programming language Choosers, for algorithmic music composition for non-programmers.
- Congratulations to Kurijn Buys on award of his PhD "Towards a Precisely Quantified Wind Instrument Exciter: A Computational Mouthpiece in Interaction with Acoustic Resonators"
Dec 2017
- Congratulations to Tony Steffert who successfully defended his PhD thesis ‘Real-time electroencephalogram sonification for neurofeedback’ on 5th December. His examiners were Prof Mick Grierson and Prof Marian Petre, and his supervisors were Simon Holland and Paul Mulholland.
Nov 2017
- Demo to Makers of new 3D Printer in the School In Makerspace. 21st Nov 2017.
- Music and Human Computing Interaction ( Holland, Simon; Wilkie, Katie; Mulholland, Paul and Seago, Allan eds.)(2013). Springer Verlag, now has 21,411 downloads.
- Final edits to chapter on 'Haptics for the development of fundamental rhythm skills, including multi-limb coordination', for Stefano Papetti and Saitis Charalampos's forthcomping book on Musical Haptics.
Oct 2017
- Congratulations to Kurijn Buys who successfully defended his PhD thesis ‘Development and Evaluation of a Hybrid Instrument’ on 3rd October 2017. His examiners were Maarten van Walstijn and Simon Holland, and his supervisors were David Sharp and Robin Laney.
Sept 2017
- Conference on Computer Simulation of Musical Creativity 11th - 13th Sept 2017.
- Matt Bellingham gave talk at CSMC "Choosers: designing a highly expressive algorithmic music composition system for non-programmers".
Oct 2016
- Federico Visi, a PhD student at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Computer Music Research at Plymouth University, an accomplished researcher in music, interactive systems, performing arts, and visual media, has joined the Music Computing Lab as a visiting researcher during Fall/Winter 2016.
- Simon Holland served as a Panel member at the STEM Festival Ada Lovelace Day, Peterborough. STEMFEST 1st Oct.
July 2017
- Congratulations to Tom Mudd who successfully defended his thesis ‘Nonlinear dynamics in musical interactions’ on 17th July 2017. His examiners were Dr Thor Magnusson, Senior Lecturer in Music at University of Sussex, and Dr Robin Laney. His supervisors are Simon Holland and Paul Mulholland.
- Congratulations to Riasat Islam who begins his PhD study this month.
June 2017
- Bernhard Schatzl demonstrates pressure chair demo with Support Vector Machine processing and visualisation.
March 2017
- Dr Albert Meroño, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, gives talk The Statistics of Stairway to Heaven: a Semantic story about Digital Humanities 13th March 2017.
Feb 2017
- Hackathons run in London, Birmingham and Edinburgh by members of the school his month to support our Interaction Design module TM356.
Dec 2016
- Matt Bellingham presents poster at DMRN "Designing a highly expressive algorithmic music composition system for non-programmers", 20 Dec 2016.
Nov 2016
- The Routledge Companion to Music, Technology, and Education finally released, including chapter on ' Harmony and Technology enhanced Learning'.
Sept 2016
- Kurijn Buys presented his paper “Improving the stability of a hybrid wind instrument using two microphones” written with David Sharp and Robin Laney at the International Symposium on Musical and Room Acoustics in Buenos Aires, Argentina, ISMRA September 11-13, 2016.
- Simon Holland was a co-chair of the 2016 Ubicomp Workshop along with Eirik Årsand, Nick Dalton, Dmitri Katz, Blaine Price, Clare Martin and Carl_Magnus: ‘Designing, Developing, and Evaluating the Future Internet of Personal Health’, Heidelberg, Germany, 12 September 2016.
- External examining: Doon MacDonald’s successfully defended her PhD thesis on the topic of “The Development and Evaluation of an Approach to Auditory Display Design Based on Soundtrack Composition”. Supervisor Tony Stockman. Examined at the Department of Computer Science at Queen Mary University of London 3 Sept 2016. Simon Holland was external examiner.
August 2016
- Based on earlier research in the Music Computing Lab that led to the devising of the Haptic Bracelets for learning and teaching multi-limbed drum rhythms, we have been applying this technology to gait rehabilitation for various neurological conditions, such as stroke. One of the recent resulting publications: R Stockley, G Donaldson, J Tetley, T Georgiou, S Holland, J Van Der Linden, O Pizone (2016) Walk to the beat: a single case study investigating a novel haptic device to improve walking after stroke CEREBROVASCULAR DISEASES 2016 41, 89-89.
July 2016
- Award from Julie Dyson £74,358 to fund PhD studentship in Digital Health.
June 2016
- Oliver Hodl successfully defended his PhD thesis “The Design of Technology-Mediated Audience Participation in Live Music” at the Technical University of Vienna (Technische Universität Wien) 6 June 2016 (External supervisor Simon Holland).
- Outstanding Radiohead Gig at the Secret Solstice Festival In Laugardalur Park, Reykjavík Iceland. Unusual to come out of a concert at midnight to find out it’s still daylight outside.
- Presentation to the Human Computer Interaction Group at the Institute of Design and Assessment of Technology, Technical University of Vienna by Simon Holland. The Haptic Bracelets: from Music Interaction to Neurological Gait Rehabilitation. Seminar 7th June 2016.
- Theodoros Georgiou and Dmitri Katz each presented papers at the EAI International Conference on Wearables in Healthcare, 14-15 June 2016, Budapest: Georgiou, Theodoros; Holland, Simon; van der Linden, Janet and Donaldson, Glenis, Questioning classic patient classification techniques in gait rehabilitation: insights from wearable haptic technology - and Katz, Dmitri; Dalton, Nick; Holland, Simon; O'Kane, Aisling and Price, Blaine A. (2016). Questioning the Reflection Paradigm for Diabetes Mobile Apps.
May 2016
- Samuel Van Ransbeeck presented his installation Outros Registros (Other Registers) sonifying violence data at a public showing in Rio de Janeiro. This is an outgrowth of his my PhD work with the DataScapR sonification toolbox
- Three members of the Music Computing Lab (Tom Mudd, Katie Wilkie and Simon Holland) were co-chairs of CHI 2016 Workshop on Music and HCI in San Jose California, with eight colleagues from round the world. Simon Holland, Andrew McPherson, Wendy McKay, Marcelo Wanderley, Michael Gurevich, Tom Mudd, Sile O’Modrain, Katie Wilkie, Joseph Malloch, Jeremie Garcia, Andrew Johnston. San Jose, California, USA, 7-12 May 2016.
- Tom Mudd presented a paper on Material-Oriented Musical Interaction at the CHI 2016 Workshop on Music and HCI in San Jose California: Tom Mudd, Simon Holland and Paul Mulholland (2016). Material-Oriented Musical Interaction. Proceedings of Music and HCI Workshop. Eds Mudd, Holland and Wilkie. CHI 2016 San Jose CA USA. Proceedings of Music and HCI Workshop. Eds Mudd, Holland, Wilkie CHI 2016, San Jose CA USA.
- Oliver Hödl presented a paper on LiveMAP Design Cards for Technology-Mediated Audience Participation in Live Music at the CHI 2016 Workshop on Music and HCI in San Jose California: Oliver Hödl, Fares Kayali, Geraldine Fitzpatrick and Simon Holland (2016). LiveMAP Design Cards for Technology-Mediated Audience Participation in Live Music. Proceedings of Music and HCI Workshop. Eds Mudd, Holland, Wilkie CHI 2016, San Jose CA USA.
March 2016
- Grant awarded by Greater Manchester Academic Health Science Centre Network, Assistive Technologies – Reducing Social Isolation to support recovery, health and wellbeing –Rachel Stockley, Josie Tetley (Manchester Metropolitan University) and Simon Holland. £29,997.00.
Feb 2016
- Andrew J. Milne and Simon Holland (2016) Empirically testing Tonnetz, voice-leading, and spectral models of perceived triadic distance. Journal of Mathematics and Music, 2016, 10(1) pp. 59–85. Accepted 6 Feb 2016.
Dec 2015
- Andrea Franceschini of the Music Computing Lab successfully defended his PhD ‘Learning to use melodic similarity and contrast for narrative using a Digital Tabletop Musical Interface’. The examiners were Prof Marian Petre and Prof Eduardo Miranda (Plymouth University). 10 Dec 2015.
- Live performance of Oliver Hodl's Trombosonic - TU Orchester - Uraufführung Akademische Festouvertüre von Dietmar Hellmich. Vienna, December 2015.
- Music Computing Lab Xmas Pub Lunch at the Plough. 17th Dec.
- External examining: Tychonas Michailidis’ successfully defended his PhD viva at Birmingham City University Arts, Design and Media. Simon Holland was one of two external examiners.
- Live performance of Oliver Hodl's Trombosonic - TU Orchester - Uraufführung Akademische Festouvertüre von Dietmar Hellmich. Vienna, December 2015.
- Linson, Adam; Dobbyn, Chris; Lewis, George and Laney, Robin (2015). A Subsumption Agent for Collaborative Free Improvisation. Computer Music Journal, 39(4) pp. 96–115.
Oct 2015
- Welcome to Simon Cutajar, who starts as a PhD student in the Music Computing Lab, with topic “Automatic Music Generation Based On Data Mining.”
- Anthony Prechtl of the Music Computing Lab successfully defended his thesis, on ‘Adaptive music generation for computer games’. His examiners were Prof. Elaine Chew (Queen Mary, University of London) and Dr. Ben Winters (Music). Supervisors were Robin Laney, Alistair Wilis and Robert Samuels.
Sept 2015
- Buys, Kurijn; Sharp, David and Laney, Robin (2015). A comparison of single-reed and bowed-string excitations of a hybrid wind instrument. In: Proceedings of the Third Vienna Talk on Music Acoustics, University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, pp. 290–296.16–19 September 2015.
- External Examining: Duncan Menzies successfully defended his PhD thesis “Technological Support for Highland Piping Tuition and Practice” at Queen Mary University of London, Supervisors Andrew McPherson and Pat Healy. Impressively, the PhD awarded with no corrections. External examiner Simon Holland.
August 2015
- Mudd, T., Holland, S., Mulholland, P., & Dalton, N. Investigating the effects of introducing nonlinear dynamical processes into digital musical interfaces. SMC 2015 Twelfth Conference on Sound and Music Computing Maynooth University, Ireland, July 26 – Aug 1, 2015.
July 2015
- Steffert, Tony; Holland, Simon; Mulholland, Paul; Dalton, Sheep; Väljamäe, Aleksander (2015) Prototyping a method for the assessment of real-time EEGSonifications. ICAD 2015 International Conference on Auditory Display, Graz, Austria, 8 - 10 July 2015. (Won Best Student Paper Award and €200 prize).
May 2015
- Georgiou, Theodoros; Holland, Simon; van der Linden, Janet; Tetley, Josie; Stockley, Rachel C.; Donaldson, Glenis; Garbutt, Linda; Pinzone, Ornella; Grasselly, Fanny and Deleaye, Kevin (2015). A blended user centred design study for wearable haptic gait rehabilitation following hemiparetic stroke. In: 9th International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare, 20–23 May 2015, Istanbul, Turkey.
November 2014
Mudd, Tom; Holland, Simon; Mulholland, Paul and Dalton, Nicholas (2014). Nonlinear Dynamical Systems as Enablers of Exploratory Engagement with Musical Instruments. In: INTER-FACE: International Conference on Live Interfaces 2014, 19th - 23rd November 2014, Lisbon, Portugal.
October 2014
Prechtl, Anthony; Laney, Robin; Willis, Alistair and Samuels, Robert (2014). Methodological approaches to the evaluation of game music systems. In: AM '14 Proceedings of the 9th Audio Mostly: A Conference on Interaction With Sound, ACM, article no. 26. Aalborg, Denmark — October 01 - 03, 2014
Live performance of Oliver Hodl's Trombosonic - Wissenschaftsseminar Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Wien, Vienna, October 2014.
September 2014
Franceschini, Andrea; Laney, Robin and Dobbyn, Chris (2014). Learning musical contour on a tabletop. In: Joint ICMC/SMC 2014 Conference, 14 - 20 September 2014, Athens, Greece.
Hodl, Oliver; Fitzpatrick, Geraldine and Holland, Simon (2014). Experimence: Considerations for Composing a Rock Song for Interactive Audience Participation. In: Proceedings of ICMC/SMC Joint Conference: 40th International Computer Music Conference and 11th Sound and Music Computing (ICMC/SMC 2014). (Georgaki, A. and Kouroupetroglou, G. eds.), Michigan Publishing pp. 169–176.
July 2014
Two students from The Music Computing Lab presented publications at NIME 2014, held 30 June - 4 July 2014. Goldsmiths, University of London: Tom Mudd presented Dynamical Interactions with Electronic Instruments"; while Anna Xambó presented " SoundXY4: supporting tabletop collaboration and awareness with ambisonics spatialisation".
Matt Bellingham's paper "A cognitive dimensions analysis of interaction design for algorithmic composition software" is cited by the paper "Temporal Semantics for a Live Coding Language" less than two weeks after Matt's paper is published.
Fanny Grasselly begins running an experiment on passive haptic learning of drum rhythms.
Nanda Khaorapapong, Doon MacDonald and Tony Stockman from Queen Mary University, London give separate talks covering assistive technology, haptics and auditory display.
Buys, K.; Sharp, D. and Laney, R. (2014). Developing a hybrid wind instrument: using a loudspeaker to couple a theoretical exciter to a real resonator. In: Proceedings of the International Symposium on Musical Acoustics pp. 331–336. Université du Maine - Le Mans, France - 7-12 July 2014.
June 2014
Andrea Franceschini, Tom Mudd, Tony Steffert and Anthony Prechtl present research talks at the Centre for Research in Computing 2014 PhD conference.
Professor John Rink, Professor of Musical Performance Studies at the University of Cambridge, gave a departmental talk at the Open University on "Creating the Musical Work: From Archive to ‘Dynamic Edition’".
Rose Johnson successfully defended her thesis entitled: In Touch with the Wild: Exploring Real-time Feedback for Learning to Play the Violin. Her examiners were Prof Stephen Brewster (Glasgow Univ) and Anthony Steed (UCL).
Tom Mudd presented his paper on Dynamical Systems in Interaction Design for Improvisation at the Workshop on Human Computer Improvisation 2014 as part of the ACM conference on Designing Interactive Systems in Vancouver, Canada.
Simon Holland served as rapporteur for the successful oral defence of Jeremie Garcia, a PhD candidate jointly supervised by three research institutions: Université Paris-Sud, INRIA (Laboratoire de Recherche en Informatique Saclay) and IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique Musique).
Matt Bellingham presented "A cognitive dimensions analysis of interaction design for algorithmic composition software" at the 25th Anniversary Psychology of Programming PPIG 2014 Conference in Brighton 25-27June.
Simon Holland, Fanny Grasselly and Kevin Deleaye give a talk and demonstration at Manchester Metropolitan University on "The Haptic Bracelets: Multi-limb Haptic Interaction from Music to Medicine".
May 2014
Fanny Grasselly studying at the Ecole Centrale de Nantes on the prestigious “Ingénieur de l'École Centrale de Nantes” programme, begins a 4-month internship working as part of the Music Computing Lab, with a special interest in applications to neuro-rehabilitation.
Simon Holland presents A Gait Rehabilitation pilot study using tactile cueing following Hemiparetic Stroke at REHAB 2014, in May 20th Oldeburg, Germany.
Katie Wilkie successfully defends her thesis, 'Conceptual metaphor, human-computer interaction and music: applying conceptual metaphor to the design and analysis of music interactions', to examiners Prof. David Benyon (Napier University) and Dr Janet vanderLinden.
Simon Holland, Fanny Grasselly and Kevin Deleaye give a talk and demonstration at the Orthopaedics Department, Milton Keynes Hospital on applications of the Haptic Bracelets to neuro-rehabilitation.
April 2014
Kevin Deleaye, studying at the Ecole Centrale de Nantes on the prestigious “Ingénieur de l'École Centrale de Nantes” programme, begins a 6 month internship working as part of the Music Computing Lab.
Dr Rebecca Fiebrink, Lecturer in Graphics and Interaction at Goldsmiths, University of London gives a talk on Interactive Machine Learning for End-User Systems Building in Music Composition & Performance, together with a demonstration of her own Wekinator system.
Anthony Prechtl presents "Algorithmic music as intelligent game music" at AISB50: The 50th Annual Convention of the AISB at Goldsmiths, University of London.
Feb 2014.
21st February 2014. Invited lecture given by Simon Holland as part of ESRC Seminar Series: Inclusive environments: shaping transitions from theory to practice. Seminar 3: Translational practices and the operationally of universal design. Talk entitled "Applying principles of embodiment to the co-design of music technologies to support gait rehabilitation after a stroke."
19 Feb 2014. Talk at York University given by Simon Holland on :The Haptic Bracelets: multi-limb interaction from music to medicine.
Jan 2014
Prof Prof Harold Thimbleby gives a talk on human computer interaction issues in medical contexts (tith considerable relevance to recent medical applications of technologies designed and built by the Music Computing Lab).
December 2013
Adam Linson successfully defended his thesis, 'Investigating the cognitive foundations of collaborative musical free improvisation: experimental case studies using a novel application of the subsumption architecture', to examiners Prof. Geraint Wiggins (Queen Mary University of London) and Dr. Neil Smith.
November 2013
Vass Angelis has successfully defended his thesis, entitled: "Validation and Analysis of a gradient frequency oscillatory neural network as a model of polyrhythm perception". His examiners were Prof. Eduardo Miranda (University of Plymouth) and Prof. Uwe Grimm.
October 2013
Tom Mudd begins doctoral research in the Music Computing Lab looking at ways in which dynamical systems alter engagement with digital musical instruments.
September 2013
Oliver Hodl, Thomas Crevoisier and Simon Holland attend the first day of the 14th RPPW Conference on Rhythm Perception and Production in Birmingham, and present a demonstration on Technology for group synchronisation and co-ordination.
August 2013
Thomas Crevoisier creates an iPad interface for Song Walker Harmony Space.
July 2013
Matt Bellingham starts his PhD research investigating User Interfaces for Algorithmic Software. Matt is a Lecturer in Music Technology at the University of Wolverhampton, a signed musician, an engineer and a producer.
Gordon Mackay is awarded his MPhil for his thesis "Improvising Tangible User Interfaces".
July 6–10 Tony Steffert presents "A review of real-time EEG Sonification Research" at the 19th International Conference on Auditory Display in Lodz, Poland.
Jun 2013
27 June Andy Milne successfully defended his thesis 'A computational model of the cognition of tonality'. His examiners were Prof Kevin McConway and Prof Elaine Chew (Queen Mary).
21 June 2013 Simon Holland gave a talk on 'Haptic Technology For rhythm and balance', and a participative demonstration of the Haptic Bracelets, as part of ESRC Seminar Series ‘Understanding technological inclusion in the context of diverse lives’.
2-3 June Several members of the Music Computing Lab give talks as part of Centre for Computing Research Annual Phd student Conference.
7 June Simon Holland gives Talk to Open University's Pioneer Alumni on "The Haptic Bracelets: end-user appropriation of Music Technology".
Simon Holland is appointed external PhD supervisor for Oliver Hodl, with lead supervisor Prof Geraldine Fitzpatrick, Vienna University of Technology.
May 2013
17 May. Filming for Haptic Bracelet Video Takes place.
17 May. Luke Webb, musician and music teacher from visits the music Computing Lab with four talented pupils from Radcliffe School to try for themselves new music technologies such as the Song Walker version of Harmony Space.
April 2013
Anthony Prechtl presents paper on 'Algorithmic music as intelligent game music' at 50th Annual Convention of AISB In London, 1st-4th April.
March 2013
The book "Music and Human Computer Interaction", edited by members of the Music Computing Lab, and the first book in Springer's new Cultural Computing Series, has now been published. Ask your library to get a copy.
Oliver Hoedl joins the Music Computing Lab from the Human Computer Interaction Group in the Institute for Design and Assessment of Technology at Vienna University of Technology, and promptly carries out outstanding work on the Haptic Bracelets firmware.
Oliver presents his Sonic Trombone at Georgia Tech’s Guthman Musical Instrument Competition.
On Thursday 21st March, Simon Holland and Oliver Hoedl gave an invited presentation and four hour participative demonstration of the Haptic Bracelets to Professor Alan Wing and researchers and practitioners at the Sensory Motor Neuro-Science Research Lab at Birmingham University.
Vassilis Angelis was an invited participant at the International Workshop on Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives on Musical Rhythm held in Etihad Towers in Abu Dhabi 17th - 21st March 2013. Other participants included Ed Large, Robert Rowe, David Huron, Justin London, Godfreid Toussaint, Steve McAdams, Kofi Agawu, Xavier Serra, Carlos Guedes, Juan Pablo Bello and William Sethares.
Simon Rolph is editing a new video of the Stern Brocot Band.
On Tuesday 26th March in Birmingham, Simon Holland gave an invited presentation and participative demo of the Haptic Bracelets to some fifty members of ACPIN, the professional Association of Chartered Physiotherapists with Interests in Neurology, who have special interests in the neuro-rehabilitation of conditions such as Stroke, Parkinson's Disease, Ataxia, Head injury, etc. While the Haptic Bracelets were primarily designed for musical purposes, in written feedback from ACPIN participants, the general view was that the approach they embody has the potential to influence practice.
The Stern Brocot Band submitted their new heavy punk prog single "Rocket Socks", to the International Un-Twelve Composition Competition for Microtonal Music. Rocket Socks is written in the srutal temperament, which is subtly different to 12-TET. It is generated by slightly wide semitones (105 cents) and a period of 600 cents. The new single features Simon Rolph's reflective punk vocals and artist and photographer Anna Berry's serenely soaring soprano. Critic and artist Peter Holland, listening to a rudimentary early rehearsal of the piece published on YouTube, commented "Boys… You just recorded your first number one hit single"
On Wednesday 27th March in Hereford, Simon Holland gave an invited presentation and co-ran a participatory workshop with Professor Alan Wing for some seventeen physiotherapists from the Wye Valley NHS Trust. The workshop was part of a research day organised by Fiona Price, a Stroke Research Facilitator from the Stroke Research Network, for the NHS Trust. The participatory workshop examined the pros and cons of cueing the gait or arm movements of stroke, parkinson's, head injury, ataxic, and other patients using the Haptic Bracelets as compared with other approaches. All participants were able to try out the Haptic Bracelets. Written feedback from this group of NHS physiotherapists indicated the general view was that this approach has the potential to influence practice in neuro-rehabiliation.
NAD, (in real life Mustafa Ali) a member of the Music Computing Lab with a background and commercial track record in dance music, has gone back to the recording studio, and his first new track, “A Sense of Finitude”, has been recorded for a forthcoming Studio Rockers compilation album. In the meantime, “Pure Imagination (NAD Wonky Refix) can be found on YouTube with an accompanying video produced by Modal. NAD is beginning work begins on a 5-track EP and album planned for release in 2013.
February 2013
The Stern Brocot Band has been joined by Simon Rolph as vocalist. The band is working on a new microtonal piece composed by Andy Milne that incorporates (amongst other things) shifting additive rhythms. A performance will be uploaded to YouTube shortly.
January 2013
Robot assembly of the sub-miniature components of a batch of sixteen Haptic Bracelets is completed.
December 2012
Katie Wilkie completes empirical work on the Magic Music Mat. This work explores a novel approach to collaborative music interaction design that draws Katie's research on Embodied Cognition and Music.
Vassilis Angelis completes a more rigorous and searching version of the classic Handel experiment on tapping to polyrhythms.
Phil Downs videos the use of Song Walker Harmony Space for selected compositional and performance tasks.
November 2012
Tony Steffert demonstrates professional-grade EEG and other biofeedback equipment to the weekly post-graduate research meeting.
Anthony Prechtl joins the Stern Brocot Band on digital modelling guitar.
October 2012
Two new full time PhD students join the Music Computing Lab, Anthony Prechtl and Tony Steffert.
Richard Seaton starts PhD in the Acoustics Research group on "Pitch drift in a cappella choral singing" supervised by Dennis Pim and David Sharp. Dennis Pim chairs the Open University's undergraduate course on the Technology of Music.
August 2012
Carrie Lennard, a music teacher working with special needs children in London visits the Music Computing Lab on 20th August. Carrie followed up by discussing work by Steve Brewer using customised software with the Kinect to solve some of the problems and address some of the opportunities discussed.
Version 2.0 the wireless Haptic Bracelets is completed and debugged. The arduino-based model is superceded - the new design uses an in-house created printed circuit board and miniature surface mounted components. Maxime Canelli, who will be sorely missed, returns home to France after four highly productive months at the Music Computing Lab.
July 2012
Rosa Fox, who recently graduated with a degree in Music Informatics from Sussex University Joined the team working on the Haptic Bracelets to help with OSC programming and UI design for an iPad controller.
Anders Bouwer re-visits the Music Computing Lab for a month (his third or fourth tour of duty) to assist with evaluation of the Haptic Drum Kit and early version prototype Haptic Bracelets.
Simon Holland, Maxime Canelli, Anders Bower and Rosa Fox visited the Sensory Motor Neuroscience Centre (SyMon) at the University of Birmingham on July 24th. Anders Bouwer and Simon Holland gave a talk on the Haptic Bracelets, and the whole team demonstrated an arduino-based wireless prototype of the Haptics Bracelets, as well as an older wired prototype.
June 2012
The Stern Brocot band gave their first public performance of a new Tajikistan-inspired microtonal piece. Thanks to Phil Downs for filming the performance. This piece, composed by Andy Milne, was performed in the atrium of the Jenny Lee Building at the Open University on 12th June. This performance featured visiting researcher Maxime Canelli on 'Line 6' digital guitar. This piece features timbres shaped to the microtonal scale, using digital instrument design by Andy Milne and Anthony Prechtl, which draws on theory described here -Hex. The performance can be found youtube here -Stern Brocot at the OU.
May 2012
Vasillis Angelis has had his paper "Testing a computational model of rhythm perception using polyrhythmic stimuli." accepted for publication by the Journal of New Music Research, subject to minor revisions.
Maxime Canelli, a 4th Year Engineering student from Ecole Centrale de Nantes has joined the Music Computing Lab for the summer to work on the Haptic Bracelets and Rhythm Bracelets Project. This will involve working with Arduinos, IOS, and human perception research.
April 2012
Andrea Franceschini has begun a PhD in the Music Computing Lab on Music Education.
Anders Bouwer has agreed to return to the Music Computing Lab in July 2012 to work on evaluating the Haptic Bracelets.
March 2012
Adam Linson presented a paper "Improvisation without representation: artificial intelligence and music."co-written with Chris Dobbyn and Robin Laney at the Workshop Music, Mind, and Invention: Creativity at the Intersection of Music and Computation, 30-31 March, 2012, Ewing, New Jersey, USA.Available from Oro.Vasillis Angelis transferred his PhD registration within the Open University from The Music Department to the Computing Department, which is part of the Centre for research in Computing. He remains a core member of the Music Computing Lab.
February 2012
"A MIDI sequencer that widens access to the compositional possibilities of novel tunings" by Prechtl, Milne, Holland, Laney, Sharp, has been published byComputer Music Journal!November 2012
Simon Holland, Katie Wilkie Paul Mulholland and Allan Seago have signed a contract with Springer Verlag to edit a book on Music Interaction in Springer's new Computing and Culture Series. The book demonstrates how new developments in Music Interaction demand approaches beyond HCI concepts such as usability, interaction design, and user experience.
October 2011
The Mobile HCI 2011Award for Most Influential Paper from Mobile HCI 2001 was awarded in Stockholm to Simon Holland and David Morse for their 2001 paper AudioGPS: Spatial Audio Navigation with a Minimal Attention Interface./i This paper has been cited 133 times.
A recent PhD thesis by Roland Adeny from the University of Queensland in the Creative Industries Faculty cites research from the Music Computing Lab some 38 times.
September 2011
"A MIDI sequencer that widens access to the compositional possibilities of novel tunings" by Prechtl, Milne, Holland, Laney, Sharp, has just been accepted by iComputer Music Journal/i. It will appear in Vol. 16, No. 1 (Spring 2012).
August 2011
Anna Xambó and Adam Linson presented papers atICMCin Huddersfield.
July 2011
Anna Xambó, Katie Wilkie, and Rose Johnson presented papers at the workshop on Music Interaction at BCS HCI in Newcastle.
Katie Wilkie, Simon Holland, Rose Johnson, and Grégory Leplâtre organised and ran an InternationalWorkshop in Music Interactionat BCS HCI on 4th July in Newcastle. Seventeen papers were presented, four from the US, two from Australia, with authors of other papers coming from the Netherlands, Spain and the UK.
Craig Hughes, an OU Masters student, had a paper presented at the 8th International Sound and Music Computing Conference in Padua. The paper was co-authored with supervisors Michel Wermelinger and Simon Holland. The latter presented.
June 2011
Andrew Milne presented a paper atMCM in Paris.
Andrew Milne had his paper "Modelling the similarity of pitch collections with expectation tensors" (co-authored with William Sethares, Robin Laney, David Sharp) published in Journal of Mathematics and Music 5/i(1).
The Music Computing Lab devised and hosted a technology workshop for older people on June 17th 2011, on behalf of the pan-European Opt-In project and with the collaboration of Age UK and the Verwey Jonker Institute Utrecht . Amongst other activities, Some twelve older people spent over an hour playing songs and improvising music using Song Walker Harmony Space.
May 2011
Andrew Milne and Anna Xambó presented a poster atNIMEin Oslo, Norway.
Simon Holland was interviewed and quoted by New Scientist and the Daily Mail in articles on research about 'Hand Hacking' carried out by by the University of Tokyo/Sony Japan, whose work cited his own work on the Haptic Drum Kit.MusicJacket appears on Bang goes the Theory
The MusicJacket research team were invited to take part in the BBC's popular science production, Bang goes the Theory. The episode was shown on national TV on 2nd May, 2011.
April 2011
Tom Collins had his paper "Modeling pattern importance in Chopin's mazurkas" (co-authored with Robin Laney, Alastair Wills, Paul Garthwaite) printed in Music Perception 28/i(4).
March 2011
iModelling the similarity of pitch collections with expectation tensors/i, by Andrew Milne, William Sethares, Robin Laney, and David Sharp, is now "in press"—it has been formally accepted—and will appear in the next issue (5:1) ofJournal of Mathematics and Music.
February 2011
Katie Wilkie, Rose Johnson, Grégory Leplâtre and Simon Holland have had their proposal accepted for aMusic Interaction Workshopat BCS HCI 2011.
Research by Katie Wilkie, Simon Holland and Paul Mulholland was published in the recent HCI special issue of Computer Music Journal. Their research wasfeatured on the rear coverand received a mention in the editor's podcast.
December 2010
Anna Xambó presented a poster, and Adam Linson and Andrew Milne gave talks at theDMRN+5 workshop at Queen Mary University.
November 2010
Andrew Milne, William Sethares, Robin Laney, and David Sharp, had a paper (Modelling the similarity of pitch collections with expectation tensors/i) accepted, subject to revisions, byJournal of Mathematics and Music.
Related Conferences and Workshops organised by the OU