Catalog

Computational Music Theory and Analysis

Music and Theater Arts MIT CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 47 lectures

This course presents major approaches to computational music theory and musicology in the symbolic (score-based) domain. It covers algorithms for music theory, encoding, corpus studies, musical search and similarity, feature extraction and machine learning, music generation, and computational music perception. Other topics include repertory access and computational bias. Programming assignments are in {{% resource_link "df43b258-7896-415a-a0f3-2ee18c498fa8" "Python" %}} using the MIT-created {{% resource_link "078ed66c-bf67-4c1b-adcd-caf5cc0c4c0e" "music21 toolkit." %}}

Syllabus

  1. 1 Video 0: Overview of 21M.383 Computational Music Theory for OCW Learners
  2. 2 Class 1 Video: How Do Computers "Hear" Music?
  3. 3 Video 1a: music21 Coding Tutorial for OCW Learners
  4. 4 Class 2 Video: Representation of Notes, Pitches, and Durations
  5. 5 Video 3a: Introduction to Pitch Representation
  6. 6 Video 3b: Pitch Representation: Pros, Cons, and Stakeholders
  7. 7 Video 3c: How to Approach the Problem Sets
  8. 8 Class 4 Video: Intro to Scores and Music Representation
  9. 9 Video 4a: How to Read an Academic Article
  10. 10 Video 4b: Music Representation in General
  11. 11 Class 5 Video: Music Representation (II)
  12. 12 Video 6a: Music Representation (III): Unlocking Pitch in music21
  13. 13 Video 6b: Representations of Ontologies: Craig Sapp’s Rosetta Stone
  14. 14 Class 7 Video: Music Representation (IV) & Hierarchies (I)
  15. 15 Video 7a: Unlocking Duration and Note Objects in music21
  16. 16 Video 7b: Streams as Hierarchies: Types of Containers in music21
  17. 17 Video 7c: music21 Streams, Corpus, and Meter Features
  18. 18 Video 7d: Partwise vs. Timewise Polyphonic Representations
  19. 19 Class 8 Video: Hierarchies (II): Streams and Recursions
  20. 20 Video 9a: Music Information Retrieval (MIR): Sound to Score and Music Theory
  21. 21 Video 9b: Introduction to MusicXML
  22. 22 Video 9c: Interview with Michael Good on MusicXML
  23. 23 Class 10 Video: Equivalence and Intervals (I); Hierarchies (IV)
  24. 24 Video 10a: Review: Equivalence Classes and OPTIC
  25. 25 Class 11 Video: Equivalence and Intervals (II) and Filters  in music21
  26. 26 Video 12a: Painting Emotions in Music and Text
  27. 27 Video 12b: Chorales as a Corpus
  28. 28 Video 12c: Graphing and Plotting in music21
  29. 29 Video 12d: How to Work with Ties in music21
  30. 30 Class 13 Video: Corpus Studies and Statistics
  31. 31 Class 14 Video: Corpus Studies and Statistics (II)
  32. 32 Class 15 Video: Encoding Corpora and Voice Leading
  33. 33 Class 17 Video: Introduction to Music Cognition
  34. 34 Classes 18-21 Video: Brief Synopsis of Guest Sessions on Music Cognition
  35. 35 Video 22a: Chord Review and 13 Chords: Some Problems with Roots
  36. 36 Video 22b: Problem Sets 7-8: Working and Composing with Scales, Chords, and Roman Numerals
  37. 37 Video 22c: Algorithmic Improvisation: Intro to George Lewis
  38. 38 Class 23 Video: Algorithmic Composition
  39. 39 Class 24 Video: Algorithmic Composition (II)
  40. 40 Class 25 Video: Algorithmic Composition (III)
  41. 41 Video 26a: Vocabulary Reduction
  42. 42 Class 27 Video: Feature Extraction and Machine Learning
  43. 43 Class 28 Video: Feature Extraction and Machine Learning (II)
  44. 44 Video 29a: Feature Extraction and Machine Learning (III): Artificial Intelligence
  45. 45 Class 30 Video: Mathematical and Statistical Musicology
  46. 46 Class 31 Video: Music Visualization and Optical Music Recognition
  47. 47 Video 32a: Tipping the Iceberg

Course materials