Publication details
Paměť zvuku (Smetana–Dvořák–Janáček : K metodě zpracování zvukových nahrávek pomocí nástroje MemoVision
| Title in English | Memories of Sound (Smetana–Dvořák–Janáček) : Towards the Analysis of Audio Recordings Using the MemoVision Software |
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| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2023 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Hudební věda |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Web | https://hudebniveda.cz/archiv.html |
| Doi | http://dx.doi.org/10.54759/MUSICOLOGY-2023-0403 |
| Keywords | Antonín Dvořák; Bedřich Smetana; Leoš Janáček; Czech music; music performance analysis; information retrieval; comparative analysis; software |
| Description | This study presents the results of the project “Memories of Sound: The Evolution of the Interpretative Tradition Based on the Works of Antonín Dvořák and Bedřich Smetana” (The Technology Agency of the Czech Republic). The project aims to create analytical tools for music performance practice. It explores the use of computational methods, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to capture the interpretative evolution of piano works by Bedřich Smetana and Antonín Dvořák. The authors prepared the open-source software “MemoVision” to address the musicological goals of the project. This software combines a user-friendly interface with a state-of-the-art methods. It aims to utilize the methods of music information retrieval for the goals of music performance analysis and focus primarily on a comparative analysis–computing and analyzing differ ences between multiple versions of the same musical piece. Users can upload audio recordings, metadata, ground-truth measure annotations, and binary labels. Then, the software extracts features and information from all recordings and provides useful cues based on selected features and labels. Users can play back a specific range of measures, create their own areas of interest, or visualize performance data and differences between individual recordings or groups of recordings. The MemoVision tool combines methods of synchronization and feature selection to provide insight into performance data together with further visualization options. The software’s potential is demonstrated on several interpretations of Antonín Dvořák’s String Quartet No. 13 in G major, Op. 106 and Leoš Janáček’s String Quartet No. 2 “Intimate Letters” in the section “The String Quartets: Dvořák–Janáček”. The following section, “Excursus: The Czech Dances of Bedřich Smetana”, utilizes an extensive musical database of Smetana’s Czech Dances. Although the number of international pianists (recordings) is lower, they do constitute a representative group allowing the authors to capture the differences between selected binary classes (in this case, Czech and interna tional performers). The aim of the analysis was to find the bars or sections in which the interpretation of the two defined groups differed the most. |
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