Transforming Music Through Interactive Technologies
Recent developments in interactive multimedia music technologies have drastically changed and continue reshaping how music is performed, published, distributed, taught, and rendered.
Editors Kia Ng from the University of Leeds and Paolo Nesi from the University of Florence have gathered fourteen chapters based on findings from MUSICNETWORK. This international association brings together research institutions, music content providers, cultural heritage organizations, and other music industry players. Co-funded by the European Commission, the group aims to unite industry and related research to develop and apply cutting-edge technologies that meet the demands of the shifting interactive multimedia music landscape.
After the editors offer a short overview of MUSICNETWORK's activities, services, and working groups, chapters two and three examine a new emerging standard for modeling music notation within the MPEG multimedia framework, known as MPEG-SMR (Symbolic Music Representation). The next portion of the text is devoted to optical music imaging, exploring music digitization and recognition alongside both current and developing architectures and algorithms.
Chapters six and seven tackle issues and propose solutions for designing XML-based markup languages for music. The authors contend that an XML application for music ought to enable nonprofessionals to create, distribute, perform, and organize music with the same ease that once allowed users with minimal computer experience to build web pages using HTML.
Chapters eight and nine explore live music settings and the creation of multimedia systems that integrate with live opera performances, as well as experiments in sound synthesis that incorporate real-time audio signals.
The next set of chapters focuses on technology-driven learning within a cultural framework and also examines specific music tutoring systems. Chapters twelve and thirteen address digital rights management technologies, weighing their advantages and disadvantages for both industry and consumers, and speculating on what lies ahead. The book's final chapter investigates online music distribution, analyzing major challenges, various solutions, and the diverse business models that have emerged.
This 394-page volume includes a compilation of references, notes on the contributors, and an index. Though the index is relatively short and useful, it would have benefited from being more comprehensive. The book will appeal strongly to academic and research libraries as well as individuals working in the music technology and music networking industries. Music students, educators, and audio-visual artists interested in new multimedia music technologies will also find value, although much of the content is highly technical and requires advanced computer science knowledge. Some chapters, however, remain quite accessible to readers with less technical backgrounds.