"A Data-driven Bayesian Approach to Automatic Rhythm Analysis of Indian Art Music"

-Dr. Ajay Srinivasamurthy

Thesis supervisors: Dr. Xavier Serra

17/11/2016

 

 

 
 
 
Thesis brief description:
 
Large and growing collections of a wide variety of music are now available on demand to music listeners, necessitating novel ways of automatically structuring these collections using different dimensions of music. Rhythm is one of the basic music dimensions and its automatic analysis, which aims to extract musically meaningful rhythm related information from music, is a core task in Music Information Research (MIR). The thesis aims to build data-driven signal processing and machine learning approaches for automatic analysis, description and discovery of rhythmic structures and patterns in audio music collections of Indian art music. After identifying challenges and opportunities, we present several relevant research tasks that open up the field of automatic rhythm analysis of Indian art music. Data-driven approaches require well curated data corpora for research and efforts towards creating such corpora and datasets are documented in detail. We then focus on the topics of meter analysis and percussion pattern discovery in Indian art music. The data and tools should be relevant for data-driven musicological studies and other MIR tasks that can benefit from automatic rhythm analysis.
 
Experience as a PhD student: 
 
Four years of PhD went like a refreshing breeze, literally and figuratively, if we also consider the cool seaside breeze in Barcelona! The experience at MTG was greatly fulfilling both personally and professionally, learning from researchers working on many different areas across the Music Technology spectrum. It was an enriching experience learning from and contributing to the CompMusic project, working on several problems with research dissemination at several conferences, workshops and in house events. I benefited greatly from the research vision, initiative, perspective and far-sightedness of my advisor Prof. Xavier Serra. I received positive support from DTIC program coordinators and administrative staff. Some great initiatives at DTIC made me feel welcome and valued, with several opportunities to interact with others at the department and grow. Sunny and vibrant Barcelona is always a delight to live, study and work!