Chapter on composer models in Springer book on Computer Music Analysis

My latest research on composer classification, "Composer Classification Models for Music-Theory Building", has been published in the Springer book "Computational Music Analysis", edited by David Meredith.

The task of recognizing a composer by listening to a musical piece used to be reserved for experts in music theory. The problems we address here are, first, that of constructing an automatic system that is able to distinguish between music written by different composers; and, second, identifying the musical properties that are important for this task. We take a data-driven approach by scanning a large database of existing music and develop five types of classification model that can accurately discriminate between three composers (Bach, Haydn and Beethoven). More comprehensible models, such as decision trees and rulesets, are built, as well as black-box models such as support vector machines. Models of the first type offer important insights into the differences between composer styles, while those of the second type provide a performance benchmark.

About the book:

This book provides an in-depth introduction and overview of current research in computational music analysis. Its seventeen chapters, written by leading researchers, collectively represent the diversity as well as the technical and philosophical sophistication of the work being done today in this intensely interdisciplinary field. A broad range of approaches are presented, employing techniques originating in disciplines such as linguistics, information theory, information retrieval, pattern recognition, machine learning, topology, algebra and signal processing. Many of the methods described draw on well-established theories in music theory and analysis, such as Forte's pitch-class set theory, Schenkerian analysis, the methods of semiotic analysis developed by Ruwet and Nattiez, and Lerdahl and Jackendoff's Generative Theory of Tonal Music.

The book is divided into six parts, covering methodological issues, harmonic and pitch-class set analysis, form and voice-separation, grammars and hierarchical reduction, motivic analysis and pattern discovery and, finally, classification and the discovery of distinctive patterns.

As a detailed and up-to-date picture of current research in computational music analysis, the book provides an invaluable resource for researchers, teachers and students in music theory and analysis, computer science, music information retrieval and related disciplines. It also provides a state-of-the-art reference for practitioners in the music technology industry.

The book will soon be available on amazon (.com, .uk and .de)