Overview¶
Content¶
Latest Update (November 7, 2019)
We are happy to announce a new release of the “Dig That Lick” Pattern Similarity Search. It allows for similarity search in four melodic databases: (1) the new DTL1000 database, produced within our project using automated melody extraction methods on over 1,700 jazz solos from all of jazz history, (2) the Weimar Jazz Database, (3) the Parker Omnibook, and (4) the well-known Essen Folk Song Collection. All pattern instances can be listened to and result sets can be visualized on a timeline and with various types of pattern networks. See the documentation for more information or just start digging for jazz patterns on your own right now or check some previous searches.
Still cool: Our book Inside the Jazzomat – New Perspectives for Jazz Research, the Pattern History Explorer, the Feature History Explorer, the Parker Pattern Explorer, and, of course, the awesome JazzTube.
Introduction¶
Welcome to the Jazzomat Research Project hosted at the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt Weimar (University of Music Franz Liszt Weimar). The main aim of the project is to investigate the creative processes underlying jazz solo improvisations with the help of statistical and computational methods. The overarching goal is to explore the cognitive and cultural foundations of jazz solo improvisation. To this end, the Weimar Jazz Database, a comprehensive and representative database of jazz solo transcription is being built up, and an open-source Python Library, the MeloSpyLib is developed for analysis purposes. The project has a strong interdisciplinary approach situated at the intersection of jazz research, cognitive psychology of musical creativity, and computational and statistical musicology, exploring research issues and methods of all these disciplines. Furthermore, the project has intersections with and implications for music information retrieval (MIR).
Our main research goals are:
to describe and discriminate different jazz improvisation styles by various features, e.g., with regard to the relations of pitch to metre, tonality and the underlying chords;
to compare features of jazz improvisation with features in other styles and areas of music;
to explore the cognitive foundations of improvisation while testing theories about the cognition of creative processes, e.g., by determining recurring melodic and rhythmic patterns and their underlying melodic-rhythmic prototypes;
the dependence of improvisational material on external parameters like instrument, tempo, key and their interrelationship;
to evaluate and enhance pedagogical approaches towards jazz improvisation;
to test and enhance statistical methods of music analysis, e.g., measures of complexity and coherence.
Facts¶
Principal Investigator:
Researchers:
Research Assistants:
Student Assistants:
Transcription: Martin Breternitz, Peter Heppner, Yvette Kneisel, Benedikt Koch, Simon Meininger, Benjamin Napravnik, Albrecht Probst, Franziska Risch, Lydia Schulz, Amelie Zimmermann, Alaa Zouiten
Logo design: Sabrina Kim
Funding:
Oct 2012 - March 2017: DFG (German Research Foundation), “Melodisch-rhythmische Gestaltung von Jazzimprovisationen. Rechnerbasierte Musikanalyse einstimmiger Jazzsoli” (DFG-PF 669/7-1).