Papers by Anthony Wiggins
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), Jul 21, 2011
Live coding, the use of programming language in improvised performance, is the subject of growing... more Live coding, the use of programming language in improvised performance, is the subject of growing research interest. However little light has so far been thrown on the visual (as opposed to the temporal) aspects of live coding practice. Live coders project their code when they perform in the name of openness, but in so doing create a troubling issue of audience code comprehension. Relatedly, the constraining pressures of live performance are leading live coders to rethink the visual design of their language interfaces, so they may rework programs at greater speed and with lower cognitive load, using representations that are closer to music compositional structure. These two issues meet at the boundary between human perception and language. We examine this boundary to find high-level understanding of issues in the design of live coding languages, which is then practically applied in the introduction of Texture, a visual programming language for improvising music.
Neuro-oncology, Nov 1, 2015
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), Oct 17, 2022
Humans infer patterns from musical sequences, perceiving them as repeated themes or processes of ... more Humans infer patterns from musical sequences, perceiving them as repeated themes or processes of transformation. Computational means of representing and transforming patterns are reviewed, motivating the introduction of Petrol, a new live coding environment including pattern language embedded in the Haskell programming language. Petrol represents patterns as functions over time, and provides a combinator library for constructing and transforming those patterns, designed for use during live coded music performance.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), Sep 17, 2008
The theory of conceptual spaces, a geometrical form of knowledge representation introduced by Gär... more The theory of conceptual spaces, a geometrical form of knowledge representation introduced by Gärdenfors [1], is examined in the context of the general creative systems framework introduced by Wiggins [2, 3]. The representation of musical rhythm and timbre on the conceptual level is then discussed, together with software allowing human users to explore such spaces. We report observations relevant for future work towards creative systems operating in conceptual spaces.
Stroke and Vascular Neurology
BackgroundHyponatraemia often occurs after subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH). However, its clinical ... more BackgroundHyponatraemia often occurs after subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH). However, its clinical significance and optimal management are uncertain. We audited the screening, investigation and management of hyponatraemia after SAH.MethodsWe prospectively identified consecutive patients with spontaneous SAH admitted to neurosurgical units in the United Kingdom or Ireland. We reviewed medical records daily from admission to discharge, 21 days or death and extracted all measurements of serum sodium to identify hyponatraemia (<135 mmol/L). Main outcomes were death/dependency at discharge or 21 days and admission duration >10 days. Associations of hyponatraemia with outcome were assessed using logistic regression with adjustment for predictors of outcome after SAH and admission duration. We assessed hyponatraemia-free survival using multivariable Cox regression.Results175/407 (43%) patients admitted to 24 neurosurgical units developed hyponatraemia. 5976 serum sodium measurements we...
Proceedings of the SMC Conferences, Jul 21, 2010
Computer language for the description of pattern has been employed for both analysis and composit... more Computer language for the description of pattern has been employed for both analysis and composition of music. In this paper we investigate the latter, with particular interest in pattern language for use in live coding performance . Towards this end we introduce Tidal, a pattern language designed for music improvisation, and embedded in the Haskell programming language. Tidal represents polyphonic patterns as a time varying function, providing an extensible range of pattern generators and combinators for composing patterns out of hierarchies of sub-patterns. Open Sound Control (OSC) messages are used to trigger sound events, where each OSC parameter may be expressed as a pattern. Tidal is designed to allow patterns to be created and modified during a live coded performance, aided by terse, expressive syntax and integration with an emerging time synchronisation standard.
This paper outlines a method for evaluating a new chordlabelling algorithm using symbolic data as... more This paper outlines a method for evaluating a new chordlabelling algorithm using symbolic data as input. Excerpts from full-score transcriptions of 40 pop songs are used. The accuracy of the algorithm's output is compared with that of chord labels from published song books, as assessed by experts in pop music theory. We are interested not only in the accuracy of the two sets of labels but also in the question of potential harmonic ambiguity as reflected the judges' assessments. We focus, in this short paper, on outlining the general approach of this research project.
Leonardo, 2017
How can we describe data when used as an art material? As the number of artists using data in the... more How can we describe data when used as an art material? As the number of artists using data in their work increases, so too must our ability to describe the material in a way that is understood by both specialist and general audiences alike. Based on a review of existing vocabularies, glossaries and taxonomies of data, we propose our own concise taxonomy. To conclude, we propose the adoption of this concise taxonomy by artists, critics and curators, and suggest that ongoing refinement of the taxonomy takes place through crowdsourced knowledge sharing on the Web.
Computer Music Modeling and Retrieval, 2005
The paper concerns the use of multiple viewpoint representation schemes for prediction with stati... more The paper concerns the use of multiple viewpoint representation schemes for prediction with statistical models of monophonic music. We present an experimental comparison of the performance of two techniques for combining predictions within the multiple viewpoint framework. The results demonstrate that a new technique based on a weighted geometric mean outperforms existing techniques. This finding is discussed in terms of previous research in machine learning.
Studies in Computational Intelligence, 2010
We introduce the MIR task of segmenting melodies into phrases, summarise the musicological and ps... more We introduce the MIR task of segmenting melodies into phrases, summarise the musicological and psychological background to the task and review existing computational methods before presenting a new model, IDyOM, for melodic segmentation based on statistical learning and information-dynamic analysis. The performance of the model is compared to several existing algorithms in predicting the annotated phrase boundaries in a large corpus of folk music. The results indicate that four algorithms produce acceptable results: one of these is the IDyOM model which performs much better than naive statistical models and approaches the performance of the best-performing rule-based models. Further slight performance improvement can be obtained by combining the output of the four algorithms in a hybrid model, although the performance of this model is moderate at best, leaving a great deal of room for improvement on this task.
4th International Symposium on Voronoi Diagrams in Science and Engineering (ISVD 2007), 2007
We introduce the use of weighted medial graph structures to represent sounds and musical events. ... more We introduce the use of weighted medial graph structures to represent sounds and musical events. Such structures permit the building of hierarchical neighborhood relationships (symmetries) while mapping time to a weight (of a note, or event). This is useful to relate perceptual organisations (groupings in the sense of Gestalt theory) both visually and aurally. We treat time in a cinematographic way, effectively using a spacetime representation. The use of colour, modulation (of waveforms), orientation, speed, etc., allows us to integrate multiple musical features in our dynamic diagrams. We provide illustrations, including animations, of our ideas.
Artificial Neural Nets and Genetic Algorithms, 1999
We describe a series of experiments in generating traditional musical harmony using Genetic Algor... more We describe a series of experiments in generating traditional musical harmony using Genetic Algorithms. We discuss some problems which are specific to the musical domain, and conclude that a GA with no notion of meta-level control of the reasoning process is unlikely to solve the harmonisation problem well.
NeuroImage, 2010
The ability to anticipate forthcoming events has clear evolutionary advantages, and predictive su... more The ability to anticipate forthcoming events has clear evolutionary advantages, and predictive successes or failures often entail significant psychological and physiological consequences. In music perception, the confirmation and violation of expectations are critical to the communication of emotion and aesthetic effects of a composition. Neuroscientific research on musical expectations has focused on harmony. Although harmony is important in Western tonal styles, other musical traditions, emphasizing pitch and melody, have been rather neglected. In this study, we investigated melodic pitch expectations elicited by ecologically valid musical stimuli by drawing together computational, behavioural, and electrophysiological evidence. Unlike rule-based models, our computational model acquires knowledge through unsupervised statistical learning of sequential structure in music and uses this knowledge to estimate the conditional probability (and information content) of musical notes. Unlike previous behavioural paradigms that interrupt a stimulus, we devised a new paradigm for studying auditory expectation without compromising ecological validity. A strong negative correlation was found between the probability of notes predicted by our model and the subjectively perceived degree of expectedness. Our electrophysiological results showed that low-probability notes, as compared to high-probability notes, elicited a larger (i) negative ERP component at a late time period (400-450 ms), (ii) beta band (14-30 Hz) oscillation over the parietal lobe, and (iii) long-range phase synchronization between multiple brain regions. Altogether, the study demonstrated that statistical learning produces information-theoretic descriptions of musical notes that are proportional to their perceived expectedness and are associated with characteristic patterns of neural activity.
Journal of New Music Research, 2004
N-Gram based models have been used for a variety of musical tasks including computer-assisted com... more N-Gram based models have been used for a variety of musical tasks including computer-assisted composition, machine improvisation, music information retrieval, stylistic analysis and cognitive modelling. We present an applicationindependent evaluation of some recent techniques for improving the performance of a subclass of n-gram models on a range of monophonic music data. We have applied these techniques incrementally to eight melodic datasets using cross entropy computed by 10-fold cross-validation on each dataset as our performance metric. The results demonstrate that significant and consistent improvements in performance are afforded by several of the evaluated techniques. We discuss the results in terms of previous research carried out in the field of data compression and with natural language and music corpora and conclude by presenting some important directions for future research.
Journal of New Music Research, 2013
We discuss the problem of automatic four-part harmonisation: given a soprano part, add alto, teno... more We discuss the problem of automatic four-part harmonisation: given a soprano part, add alto, tenor and bass in accordance with the compositional practices of a particular musical era. In particular, we focus on the development of representational and modelling techniques, within the framework of multiple viewpoint systems and Prediction by Partial Match (PPM), for the creation of statistical models of four-part harmony by machine learning. Our ultimate goal is to create better models, according to the information theoretic measure cross-entropy, than have yet been produced. We use multiple viewpoint systems because of their ability to represent both surface and underlying musical structure, and because they have already been successfully applied to melodic modelling. To allow for the complexities of harmony, however, the framework must be extended; for example, we begin by predicting complete chords, and then extend the framework to allow part by part prediction. As the framework is extended and generalised, the viewpoints become more complex. This article discusses matters related to viewpoint domains (alphabets), such as their size and consequent effect on run time; and presents methods for their reliable construction. We also present an empirical analysis of the time complexity of our computer implementation.
Computer Music Journal, 1993
In this article, we provide a framework for the description and evaluation of music representatio... more In this article, we provide a framework for the description and evaluation of music representation systems suitable for implementation on computers. Our main concern is with representational aspects, rather than with implementation; however, if a system is to be useful, a good implementation is required. A representation system may be suited to many different purposes, and its usefulness is relative to the task at hand. It is not possible to cover all such purposes, but we can distinguish three general sorts of tasks: recording, analysis, and generation/composition. In recording tasks, the user wants a record of some musical object, to be retrieved at a later date. Accuracy is the prime concern. The analytical user wants to retrieve not the "raw" musical object, but some analyzed version of it, revealing some salient feature. The ability to find or exploit structure within the object is important. For tasks in music generation and composition, the user wants to build a new musical object, either from scratch or by transformation of an existing object. Manipulability and flexibility of the representation are needed. The classification we present below is oriented toward these three situations. The structure of the article is as follows. After an outline of the concepts we propose for consideration and of the background ideas involved, we will discuss the possibility of using a general-purpose representation language developed in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), not specifically targeted at musical applications. We then consider a representative selection of music representation systems with respect to the concepts we consider relevant. We restrict our attention to systems that work on the level of notes and more abstract structures, rather than systems for
A Portfolio of Musical Compositions
Programme Committee and Reviewers, 2007
Artificial life (alife) is of interest to computer musicians due to its generative potential and ... more Artificial life (alife) is of interest to computer musicians due to its generative potential and the potential for producing lifelike behaviours for musical interaction. In this paper we consider how future developments in alife music could have equal bearing on the major themes in alife as on the music it produced. We focus on a discussion of the socio-cultural dimensions of making music with technology and argue that modern popular music making practice outside of individualist academic research projects is an important context for the ...