India Night’08 @ Milwaukee-UWM

India Night at UWM, India’s Cultural Extravaganza organized by Students of India Association was lots of fun and a grand hit, having an audience of over 500 students, over 22 performances and great dinner for the night, the show was simply mindblowing .. Few Pics of the evening are here

Music Information Retrieval

I have recently come across this field ( about a month ago ) and it doesn’t stop to interest me.. The Beat Count Estimator is also a part of Music Information Retrieval, but unfortunately i haven’t found much text on it over the net..

This is what Wikipedia says :

Music information retrieval or MIR is the interdisciplinary science of retrieving information from music.

This includes:

• Computational methods for classification, clustering, and modelling — Musical feature extraction for mono- and polyphonic music, similarity and pattern matching, retrieval
• Formal methods and databases — Applications of automated music identification and recognition, such as score following, automatic accompaniment, Routing and filtering for music and music queries, Query languages, Standards and other metadata or protocols for music information handling and retrieval, Multi-agent systems, distributed search)
• Software for music information retrieval — Semantic Web and musical digital objects, Intelligent agents, Collaborative software, Web-based search and semantic retrieval, query by humming, acoustic fingerprinting
• Human-computer interaction and interfaces — Multi-modal interfaces, User interfaces and usability, Mobile applications, User behaviour
• Music perception, cognition, affect, and emotions — Music similarity metrics, Syntactical parameters, Semantic parameters, Musical forms, structures, styles and genres, Music annotation methodologies
• Music analysis and knowledge representation — Automatic summarization, citing, excerpting, downgrading, transformation, Formal models of music, digital scores and representations, Music indexing and metadata
• Music archives, libraries, and digital collections — Music digital libraries, Public access to musical archives, Benchmarks and research databases
• Intellectual property rights and music — National and international intellectual property right issues, Digital rights management, Identification and traceability
• Sociology and Economy of music — Music industry and use of MIR in the production, distribution, consumption chain, User profiling, Validation, User needs and expectations, evaluation of music IR systems, building test collections, experimental design and metrics

Apart from the above information, it is exciting to know that there is a annual event called ISMIR (International Symposium on Music Information Retrieval) held in various parts of the world where several papers and presented on this field. ISMIR 2008 is going to be held in Philadelphia ,U.S.A. somewhere around September.

I have come to note that there is negligible participation of India in MIR when Indian Music Industry is so popular. I have several ideas where MIR can be used with Indian Music to give phenomenal results. Anyone working on this field or interested to share ideas, can drop in a mail as learning from each other would be mutually beneficial.

Following Your Dream… Eye of the Tiger

                                                                                                                                               

 If you have not yet heard the soundtrack ‘The Eye of the Tiger’ of the ROCKY series, I recommend you download it right now. A line in it goes … ‘Don’t lose a grip on the dreams of your past; you must fight just to keep them alive’. This is so true, so often we digress from our hearts desire, our dream due to circumstances, laziness, family pressure etc and finally after many years, call it destiny. Da Vinci once said ‘Oh wretched mortals, Open your eyes’. Many of us have forgotten the importance of following our dreams, we adjust to circumstances and are finally inured to the way life leads us, rather than we leading our lives. Come out of it people, live life to the fullest, follow your dream, don’t limit yourself by prejudices; it’s never too late to start. You are the master of your own Destiny, Arise Awake and stop not till the Goal is Reached… thus spoke Swami Vivekananda.

 

Soul Music

Doesn’t everybody feel sometimes, the need to forget what’s happening around them, the need to be lost in oblivion, where you can relax and ponder over more beautiful things in life, in olden days people used do meditation or enjoy nature, which is technically out of norm nowadays… So the substitute is Soul Music.. Music that can touch your soul..

Wikipedia says ” Soul music is a music genre that combines rhythm and blues and gospel music, originating in the United States. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is “music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of funky, secular testifying.”

The artists which hold me in soul music are

• Enigma
• Karunesh
• Loreena Mckennit
• Kenny G

You can Find out more on Soul Music here and a list of Soul Musicians here.