(Apologies for multiple posting)
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Eighteenth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-03)
C A L L F O R S U B M I S S I O N S
Workshop on
methods for automatic music performance and
their applications in a public rendering contest
August 11, 2003
Acapulco, Mexico
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The deadline is approaching. This is the second announcement.
** General Information **
Rencon (Performance rendering contest for piano) is a yearly
international event that just started in 2002. Its goal is to foster
research on computational models of and methods for the generation of
expressive musical performances. The workshop associated with a musical
contest provides a forum for presenting and discussing the latest
research in automatic performance rendering and, more generally,
computer-based music performance research.
Rendering expressive piano performance in itself involves complex
perceptual, cognitive, psychological, and aesthetic processes. It
therefore has a broad spectrum and constitutes a challenging research
theme for AI. Moreover, music performance is a promising field for
investigating basic principles of human emotion, intelligence,
creativity and individuality. Rencon is also considered a landmark
research project in the sense that its ultimate goal is the development
of a performance rendering machine that will win the Chopin concours by
2050, like RoboCup. The process of reaching that goal is expected to
spawn many related research fields and yield many interesting results.
The choice of piano puts strong constraints on performance rendering
systems. The choice means that the systems can control only three
parameters for each note, the onset timing, duration and intensity.
Other instruments, such as string instruments, allow players the control
of other parameters, such as vibrato and spectral envelope. This
limitation will possibly avoid divergence of research themes in the
early stages of our project, and research will thereby concentrate on
more general and basic principles of music performance.
The IJCAI-03 Rencon workshop builds upon the very successful ICAD 2002
Rencon <http://shouchan.ei.tuat.ac.jp/~rencon/ICAD2002/index.shtml>
(1st) and FIT 2002 Rencon
<http://shouchan.ei.tuat.ac.jp/~rencon/FIT2002/index.shtml> (2nd)
workshops, where we had musical contests as well as an invited talk and
technical presentations.
** Technical Presentations **
The IJCAI-03 Rencon workshop will contain several technical sessions on
general issues of music performance research, on AI-based music analysis
and processing methods relevant to music performance, and on questions
of evaluation. For this, technical papers are solicited for.
Specific topics to be discussed in the technical presentations of the
wroskhop include (but are not limited to) the following:
* Theoretical aspects
o understanding tacit musical knowledge
o analysis of emotional aspects of performance and listening
o creativity and individuality
* Methodology
o modeling performance rendering processes
o musical data mining/retrieval/pattern recognition
o reasoning on continuous and discrete information
o learning capability
* Systems and applications
o interactive real-time control and user interface
o collaborative, autonomous system
o control techniques for a computer-controlled piano
o evaluating performances
The musical genres treated by the technical presentations are open, not
limited to classical music.
** Musical Contest **
The workshop will include a musical contest with both compulsory and
open sections as well as several technical sessions. In the compulsory
section, set pieces will be limited to Chopin's short piano pieces. In
the open section, entrants will choose a piece so that the system
developed by each entrant can come into full play; any genre is welcome.
Basically, all performances will be rendered by a system automatically.
That is, we will not accept performances that were manually rendered or
fine-tuned (e.g., with a MIDI sequencer), and we trust the contest
participants to adhere to this principle. All performances will be
accompanied by technical notes specifying the performance rendering
techniques used.
For the musical contest, a dedicated jury of a few music experts will be
formed. Submitted performances will be performed one by one on the
blind-test basis. The winners will be determined by the jury, which may
also take into account the vote of the audience. Surprising awards for
excellent performances rendered by systems will be presented.
** Submission Instructions **
There are two submission categories: paper and musical contest.
Paper category: Papers should be formatted according to the template
provided by the IJCAI-03 web site <http://www.ijcai-03.org>. Papers
should not exceed 5000 words (approximately 10 pages); there is not a
lower limit fixed. Papers should be sent electronically in PDF to
[EMAIL PROTECTED] no later than March 1, 2003. All papers will be
peer-reviewed. The authors of accepted papers will present for 25
minutes (15 minutes for presentation, and 10 for Q&A). Presenters will
be able to demonstrate their systems with real sound, but the
demonstrations will not be considered music contest entries.
Musical contest category: The musical contest has two sections:
compulsory and open. The open section is optional. The compulsory piece
must be a short piano piece by Chopin (4 minutes at the longest). For
the open section, entrants can choose any piece in any genre they like
(4 minutes at the longest, too). Both performances should be generated
by computer programs. In addition, for comparison, entrants also should
generate a dead-pan (mechanical) version of the piece chosen for the
open section. Send three performances (a compulsory piece, an open piece
with expression, and a dead-pan open piece) or one performance (a
compulsory piece) in SMF to [EMAIL PROTECTED] in one email no later
than July 14, 2003.
The performances should be accompanied by technical notes in PDF.
Technical notes should specify the concept, method, and implementation
of the entries. Technical notes should be formatted using the same
template as papers and not exceed 2000 words (approximately 4 pages);
there is not a lower fixed limit. Technical notes should be sent
electronically in PDF to [EMAIL PROTECTED] no later than April 25,
2003. Technical notes will not be peer-reviewed; what is submitted will
be printed as is. Most likely, there will be no opportunity for the
contest participants to give a presentation on technical aspects of
their rendered piece. (It may happen that they will, depending on the
session structure, number of submissions, etc., but perhaps at most 5
minutes).
The submitted SMFs will be played back at the IJCAI-03 Rencon workshop
with Nemesys's GigaPiano
<http://www.nemesysmusic.com/sounds/gpiano.html> on Emagic
<http://www.emagic.de/>'s Logic on Mac OS.
After the workshop, all the submitted SMFs will be put on the IJCAI-03
Rencon workshop Web pages
<http://shouchan.ei.tuat.ac.jp/~rencon/IJCAI-03/> and thus must be free
from any copyright problems.
Note: Participants are expected to register for the main IJCAI
conference in addition to the workshop.
** Important Dates and Deadlines **
Paper submission deadline: March 1, 2003
Notification of acceptance: April 1, 2003
Camera-ready paper deadline: April 25, 2003
Technical notes submission deadline: April 25, 2003
Performances submission deadline: July 14, 2003
The day of the workshop: August 11, 2003
** Organizing and Program Committees **
Dr. Keiji Hirata (Chair)
NTT Communication Science Laboratories
3-1, Morinosato Wakamiya, Atsugi-shi, Kanagawa 243-0198, Japan
[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
http://www.brl.ntt.co.jp/people/hirata
Prof. Roberto Bresin
The Music Group at the Department of Speech, Music and Hearing, KTH
Drottning Kristinas v. 31 SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden
[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
http://www.speech.kth.se/~roberto/
Prof. Rumi Hiraga
Bunkyo University
Namegaya 1100, Chigasaki-shi, Kanagawa 253-8550, Japan
[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
http://www.bunkyo.ac.jp/~rhiraga/
Prof. Haruhiro Katayose
Kwansei Gakuin University/PRESTO, JST
2-1, Gakuen, Sanda-shi, Hyogo 669-1337, Japan
[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
http://www.wakayama-u.ac.jp/~katayose/
Prof. Ramon Lopez de Mantaras
Spanish Council for Scientific Research
Artificial Intelligence Research Institute
Campus UAB, 08193 Bellaterra, Spain
[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
http://www.iiia.csic.es/~mantaras/
Prof. Gerhard Widmer
Austrian Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence
Schottengasse 3, A-1010 Vienna, Austria
[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
http://www.ai.univie.ac.at/~gerhard/
The IJCAI-03 Rencon workshop Web pages
<http://shouchan.ei.tuat.ac.jp/~rencon/IJCAI-03/> will be regularly
updated to include program content, schedule and so forth.
Send questions to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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