Nick Collins
Biographic Data
| ID | 3684965 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Nick Collins |
| GIVEN NAMES | Nick |
| FAMILY NAME | Collins |
| SIGNATURE | COLLINS N |
| AFFILIATIONS | Durham University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 3 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 11 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2019 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Machine learning research that matters for music creation
Research applying machine learning to music modelling and generation typically proposes model architectures, training methods and datasets, and gauges system performance using quantitative measures like sequence likelihoods and/or qualitative listening tests. Rarely does such work explicitly question and analyse its usefulness for and impact on real-world practitioners, and then build on those outcomes to inform the development and application of…
Introduction to Algorithmic EDM
Corposing a History of Electronic Music
A current research project led by the author has collated nearly 2,000 historic electronic music works for the purposes of musicology; nonetheless, this collection is highly amenable to composition. New pieces can be realized by rendering a selected chronology of electronic music history. The context is a wider field of compositional endeavor in “corposition” over large audio databases especially opened up by new research in music information ret…
An Emotion-aware Interactive Concert System
An artistic concert system called BioCombat devised by the co-authors puts two performers’ physiological states head to head, making their attempt to feel particular emotions the object of a live competition. Each performer provides sonic materials for each of eight emotional states; generative visuals are projected in concert, reactive to audio and physiological features, alongside an emotional scoring system also visible to the audience. This a…
Composing Electronic Music
Curtis Roads is a natural person to attempt a compendium of electronic-music composition, as an established composer and author of the authoritative if bulky text The Computer Music Tutorial (Cambridge, Mass., 1996, to be revised 2017; the revision will no doubt remain just as hard to read on a bus). Rather than survey all of electronic music composition across popular and art music practice, Roads accepts a limit to his investigation early on, e…
Musical Goals, Graphical Lure and Narrative Drive
Musical computer games and their reward structures are transforming solitary and participative music making. Visuals in musical games tend to assume the role of music in video games as they become incidental to the gameplay or provide graphical aid for musical decision making. Constrained manifestations of musical skill in game software simulations point towards the development of real world musical skills. Yet, arguably, no video game so far dev…
Trading Faures
Increased maturity in modeling human musicianship leads to many interesting artistic achievements and challenges. This article takes the opportunity to reflect on future situations in which virtual musicians are traded like baseball cards, associated content-creator and autonomous musical agent rights, and the musical and moral conundrums that may result. Although many scenarios presented here may seem far-fetched with respect to the current leve…
Live Coding of Consequence
A live coding movement has arisen from everyday use of interpreted programming environments, where the results of new code can be immediately established. Running algorithms can be modified as they progress. In the context of arts computing, live coding has become an intriguing movement in the field of real-time performance. It directly confronts the role of computer programmers in new media work by placing their actions, and the consequences of …
Musical Form and Algorithmic Composition
The formalization of music has not always covered so readily the form of music, particularly from a psychological angle that takes the listener into account. Some novel forms have been organizational by-products of the top-down application of grammars or probability distributions. Many works have utilized bottom-up generation of material ready for human arrangement, or accepted existing stylistic templates from music theories. Whilst material mig…
An Algorithm for the Direct Generation of Set Class Representatives in Any Pitch Class Space
When spaces with greater than 20 pitch classes are considered, the problem of generating equivalence classes (set classes) with respect to operations like transposition and inversion becomes increasingly difficult. The brute force approach of enumerating all possible pitch class sets and ignoring those that fall into already selected set classes becomes computationally intractable. Some improvements can be made using Read’s Orderly Algorithm, and…
Recursive Audio Cutting
Algorithmic procedures for the cutting and splicing of audio can be iterated to explore the technique of recursive audio cutting. The author investigates both implicit (intuitive) and explicit (analytic) methodologies applicable either to prerecorded signals or to continuous streams in real time, with an emphasis upon practical implementation. The techniques can be of immediate use as special effects for audio processing, as well as in deeper exp…
Machine learning research that matters for music creation
Research applying machine learning to music modelling and generation typically proposes model architectures, training methods and datasets, and gauges system performance using quantitative measures like sequence likelihoods and/or qualitative listening tests. Rarely does such work explicitly question and analyse its usefulness for and impact on real-world practitioners, and then build on those outcomes to inform the development and application of…
Live Coding of Consequence
A live coding movement has arisen from everyday use of interpreted programming environments, where the results of new code can be immediately established. Running algorithms can be modified as they progress. In the context of arts computing, live coding has become an intriguing movement in the field of real-time performance. It directly confronts the role of computer programmers in new media work by placing their actions, and the consequences of …
Musical Form and Algorithmic Composition
The formalization of music has not always covered so readily the form of music, particularly from a psychological angle that takes the listener into account. Some novel forms have been organizational by-products of the top-down application of grammars or probability distributions. Many works have utilized bottom-up generation of material ready for human arrangement, or accepted existing stylistic templates from music theories. Whilst material mig…
Recursive Audio Cutting
Algorithmic procedures for the cutting and splicing of audio can be iterated to explore the technique of recursive audio cutting. The author investigates both implicit (intuitive) and explicit (analytic) methodologies applicable either to prerecorded signals or to continuous streams in real time, with an emphasis upon practical implementation. The techniques can be of immediate use as special effects for audio processing, as well as in deeper exp…
An Algorithm for the Direct Generation of Set Class Representatives in Any Pitch Class Space
When spaces with greater than 20 pitch classes are considered, the problem of generating equivalence classes (set classes) with respect to operations like transposition and inversion becomes increasingly difficult. The brute force approach of enumerating all possible pitch class sets and ignoring those that fall into already selected set classes becomes computationally intractable. Some improvements can be made using Read’s Orderly Algorithm, and…
Musical Form and Algorithmic Composition
The formalization of music has not always covered so readily the form of music, particularly from a psychological angle that takes the listener into account. Some novel forms have been organizational by-products of the top-down application of grammars or probability distributions. Many works have utilized bottom-up generation of material ready for human arrangement, or accepted existing stylistic templates from music theories. Whilst material mig…
Musical Goals, Graphical Lure and Narrative Drive
Musical computer games and their reward structures are transforming solitary and participative music making. Visuals in musical games tend to assume the role of music in video games as they become incidental to the gameplay or provide graphical aid for musical decision making. Constrained manifestations of musical skill in game software simulations point towards the development of real world musical skills. Yet, arguably, no video game so far dev…
Trading Faures
Increased maturity in modeling human musicianship leads to many interesting artistic achievements and challenges. This article takes the opportunity to reflect on future situations in which virtual musicians are traded like baseball cards, associated content-creator and autonomous musical agent rights, and the musical and moral conundrums that may result. Although many scenarios presented here may seem far-fetched with respect to the current leve…
Live Coding of Consequence
A live coding movement has arisen from everyday use of interpreted programming environments, where the results of new code can be immediately established. Running algorithms can be modified as they progress. In the context of arts computing, live coding has become an intriguing movement in the field of real-time performance. It directly confronts the role of computer programmers in new media work by placing their actions, and the consequences of …
Composing Electronic Music
Curtis Roads is a natural person to attempt a compendium of electronic-music composition, as an established composer and author of the authoritative if bulky text The Computer Music Tutorial (Cambridge, Mass., 1996, to be revised 2017; the revision will no doubt remain just as hard to read on a bus). Rather than survey all of electronic music composition across popular and art music practice, Roads accepts a limit to his investigation early on, e…
Corposing a History of Electronic Music
A current research project led by the author has collated nearly 2,000 historic electronic music works for the purposes of musicology; nonetheless, this collection is highly amenable to composition. New pieces can be realized by rendering a selected chronology of electronic music history. The context is a wider field of compositional endeavor in “corposition” over large audio databases especially opened up by new research in music information ret…
An Emotion-aware Interactive Concert System
An artistic concert system called BioCombat devised by the co-authors puts two performers’ physiological states head to head, making their attempt to feel particular emotions the object of a live competition. Each performer provides sonic materials for each of eight emotional states; generative visuals are projected in concert, reactive to audio and physiological features, alongside an emotional scoring system also visible to the audience. This a…
Introduction to Algorithmic EDM
Machine learning research that matters for music creation
Research applying machine learning to music modelling and generation typically proposes model architectures, training methods and datasets, and gauges system performance using quantitative measures like sequence likelihoods and/or qualitative listening tests. Rarely does such work explicitly question and analyse its usefulness for and impact on real-world practitioners, and then build on those outcomes to inform the development and application of…
Computer Science (10 works) · Music Technology and Sound Studies (9 works) · Art (7 works) · Visual arts (7 works) · Music and Audio Processing (6 works) · Musical (5 works) · Neuroscience and Music Perception (5 works) · Multimedia (4 works) · Psychology (4 works) · Artificial Intelligence (3 works)