Do you believe that computer, just as a human, can be taught to perform musical pieces of different styles right from the score?
Do you believe that you can recreate performing style of Pete Johnson, an outstanding boogie pianist of the thirties, with a help of a computer program?
Do you want to hear Pete Johnson play his famous Pete's Blues on an electric piano with modern funk background, as if he lived in our time?
Do you want to have famous musician's "phantoms" in your computer, who's ready to play your piece's scores day and night, and who can momentarily follow any of your musical instructions?
Do you want to hear famous jazz musicians' computer models play musical pieces, which the real musicians have never played themselves?
Are you really interested in any of these?
Read the description of our new musical technology, being developed in JIMM project, listen to the audio examples included, and you will find out that all of this is not somebody's fantasy, but reality.
"Expression in musical performance is that part of music which cannot be indicated by notes or, in highest manifestation, by any sign or symbol whatever. It includes all nuances of tempo, dynamics, phrasing, accent, touch, etc., by which the combination and succession of sounds is transformed into a vital communication." /The Harvard Dictionary of Music/
"Computers miss important aspects of music like expression and nuance, the things that make the same peace sound different with each performer. We have to figure out how to bring those things to computer music" /Daniel Oppenheim, a senior research scientist at the IBM Computer Music Center/
These quotes fully reflect general direction of our researches.
Every musician, who works with a sequencer, knows how long it takes and how difficult it is to create an interpretation of a musical piece. It's practically impossible to play many of the musical parts, and in step recording you will need to edit thousands of events.
Further more, even if you made hundred of the same style pieces, to make the 101st one you will begin everything from ZERO! A sequencer is a tool specially developed for musical piece's interpretation. However, you cannot teach it anything concerning musical performing, which you could use in your future work. Despite the computer progress, in all existing sequencers the same MIDI recorder principle and the same manual and partially automated (non-musical) editing abilities have been used through the years. A dream of any musician working with a sequencer is to get an ability to
a) give a part
of his musical interpretation skills to the sequencer for their further use
with different pieces,
b) control musical performing characteristics in real time, trying to achieve
the best sound of the piece.
The aim of our project is to create a computer model of a musician, which could be taught to identify the scores and to perform characteristic musical expression elements.
The JIMM Player program is a result of many-year research in the area of musical performance. The program is a synthesis of unique musical theory, professional musical performers' experience and modern programming methods.
In the base of the program there are theoretical elaboration on musical analysis and modeling of the jazz music expression elements such as swing, articulation, accent, phrasing, dynamics, rhythmical thinking, polymetric feel, etc. Serge Yegorov, the author of the theoretical part of the program, a professional jazz performer and a bachelor of music, has a 15 year experience of teaching on jazz department of the Rostov-on-Don State Conservatory.
Parametric modeling includes:
In developing the modeling principle we used the method similar to the real process of teaching a musician the art of musical performing, which includes:
Thus, to create a Style Model the following is necessary:
The process of music performance modeling includes:
Our sound examples except for the especially mentioned original audio recordings, have been performed by the Style Models created by the JIMM Player program. They demonstrate the possibilities of music performance parametric modeling.
The examples for the creation of the Style Models have been the famous musicians and ensembles, who represent various kinds of jazz music.
/All the modeling has been made by Serge Yegorov, the program's author./
Take a listen to the original Pete Johnson performance of his Pete's Blues, taken as an pattern for creation of the Style Model (The Boogie-woogie Boys LP, 1939): Example 1.
The score of this piece was loaded to the program, and with the parameter controls we achieved the performance, close to the original example, another words, we taught the program to play this piece the same way Pete Johnson did in the recording. Now let's listen to the same fragment of the piece, performed by the JIMM Player program: Example 2.
Now, taking out the initial score, and saving the parameter values, which made the performing close to the original, we got a Boogie Pianist Style Model. In the base of the model there are performing skills of a real musician, in this case Pete Johnson.
How can we use our program created Style Model? Let's try to play a different piece by our Boogie Pianist Style Model. To do this we took Boogie for Slim from the Blues & Boogie Piano Book by M. Schmitz. We have never heard it sound, and the program didn't know about its existence. Having gotten the piece's score the program momentarily(!) analyzed it and started to play. Listen to its recording: Example 3.
This example shows that after creating a Style Model, we in fact have gotten a virtual musician, able to play scores, having performing skills of a real musician, who was taken as a pattern for the model creation.
By the way, such an ability of the program will let you play a whole lot of musical material, original recordings of which either exist in bad quality, or have been lost.
Would it be interesting to hear Pete Johnson play a modern musical instrument (Electric piano), accompanied by a modern ensemble, for instance a funk group, of course, if he were alive? We can give you that chance with a help of JIMM Player program. To do this we did the following:
This example shows, that our technology makes it possible to transfer the performing skills and the abilities of the musicians of the past to modern time (of course, in case their original recordings exist) and use it for new pieces performing.
Take a listen to Lady, Be Good in original Oscar Peterson performance, accompanied by a rhythm group (taken from Zoot Sims & The Gershwin Brothers record), served as a pattern for creation of a Style Model: Example 5.
Ensemble performing is more complex for modeling. In this case the score consists of 4 separate musical parts: piano, guitar, bass, drums. Each part became a subject of a separate modeling, 4 separate Style Models united in ensemble performing were created. Listen to the same fragment played by the combined Jazz Combo Style Model: Example 6.
Now, having a virtual ensemble in the computer, we can make a unique musical experiment. Let's try to perform a classical composition, for instance, J.S. Bash's fugue, by our Jazz Combo Style Model. To do this we took the original piano part of the c-moll fugue by J.S. Bach and added bass and drum parts to the score. On loading all of this in the program we momentarily got the result: Example 7.
How do you like such an interpretation? Does it really sound like computer music? But the musical expression elements, which processed the score, were completely generated by the program on the base of score analysis and Style Model algorithm!
Take a listen to Night Train in original Oliver Nelson Big Band recording: Example 8.
The piece's score consists of 7 separate musical parts: 2 sax groups, trombone group, trumpet group, solo trumpet, bass, drums. Regarding to this 7 Style Models united in an orchestra performance were created.
Now listen to the same fragment performed by the program created combined Big Band Style Model: Example 9.
To realize what the program did now listen to the same fragment performed by the program with the main parameters of musical expression turned off: Example 10.
Such a performance lacks any style elements of musical expression and, though it gives you a basic picture of the composition, it cannot be called a musical interpretation at all (in fact only the unprocessed electronic score sounds, which is only balanced by volumes).
By the given musical examples we want to show you that the JIMM Player program lets you create computer Style Models of certain real musicians and use them for performing of different musical compositions' scores.
The program performing a musical piece from the score close to a real musician, understanding and executing musical instructions and cooperating with a human (controlled by him) in real time can be used in many areas of activities concerning music: in musical education, in recording studios, in computer games, in musical entertainment, in movie industry, etc.
Along with such traditional areas this program can create some unusual aspects of computer use for musical creativity, such as:
- creation of new effective testing methods and development of musical abilities (in education),
- creation of a new kind of compact musical information storage and transmitting (score apart from its performance data),
- creation of more sophisticated musical instruments, having in their memory not only musical sounds (programs), but also performing characteristics (style models) of certain musicians.
Everything you have just seen is not the only (and definitely not the most surprising!) development in our JIMM project.
The work on the project has been continued for 7 years by our group of enthusiasts, who left all their jobs and businesses for this unique idea realization, and who invested all their financial resources on it.
As we think further development in this direction can radically change the very principles of musical software creating and make absolutely new kinds of electronic musical instruments.
We are ready to take part in any most unbelievable project, concerning the use of JIMM Player program (for instance recreation of old Boogie-woogie pieces played by the most famous performers of the past, or creation of computer games in virtual reality, dealing with music performing and so on).
We will answer detailed questions from those of you, who are seriously interested in our idea, concerning the work of the program and its possible area of use.
Contact information
E-mail: info@keyguitar.com
