Digital Music Research Network

Digital Music Research Network

EPSRC Network GR/R64810/01

Funded by
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

EPSRC Networks

The UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) provides funding opportunities to create Networks, such as DMRN. Networks are aimed at creating new interdisciplinary research communities and topics, by developing interaction between the research community and appropriate science, technology and industrial groups.

On this page we list below some EPSRC Networks relevant to the Digital Music Research area, including DMRN.

Contents of this page:

For more on EPSRC Networks, see: EPSRC: Networks.


Digital Music Research Network [website]

Recent years have seen sharp growth in interest in the use of information technology for music. A number of interdisciplinary collaborative groupings have bin formed within UK universities over the last couple of years to link together departments of Music, Electronic Engineering and Computer Science. We will establish a Network to enhance UK research in the Musical Signal Processing community. This Network will primarily be concerned with analysis, transmission, storage, generation and her processing of musical signals. The Network is expected to lead to increased collaborative activity in the field. The activities of the Network will include: workshops and meetings, visits to conferences and other laboratories (particularly for younger researchers), and electronic communication such as email and a web site. An important Network activity will be the production of a "Research Roadmap" to help future research planning and inform funding bodice on the state of the art and future opportunities. Dissemination of activities and information relevant to the Network will be an important aspect of its work, tiding to increased opportunities for exploitation and collaboration with UK industry and international researchers. The Network will consist of 6 partners in the first instance. Other relevant groups and researchers will be encouraged to join the Network during its operation.

NB: DMRN was originally called Music Processing Network (MuProNet)

EPSRC Funding: Jan 2003 - Jan 2006 [grant details]

Investigators (on funding application)


HearNet: Processing and Representation of Speech and Complex Sounds

This Network proposal aims to facilitate productive interactions between three groups of research workers, namely those involved in speech recognition, auditory perception and auditory physiology. Speech recognition, through commercially viable for speech produced under known, controlled circumstances, lacks robustness when additional sounds are present or when recording conditions change. This lack or robustness is mirrored in our lack of knowledge about how biological auditory systems solve two central problems in hearing: how to separate independent sound sources (the cocktail-party problem), and how to deconvolve the contribution of different transfer functions (eg a close versus a distant talker in a reverberant room). Novel signal processing approaches to these problems (eg Independent Components Analysis) could provide new insight for he biological investigation of how brains represent and process complex sounds. Conversely, results of psychological and neurophysiological investigations could inform engineering implementations. In addition, similar statistical methods are being brought to bear on the way that the auditory cortex represents complex sounds, an area of research which presently lags significantly behind similar work in vision. Insight into the types of representation used by the auditory cortex may also provide novel approaches to automatic recognition.

EPSRC Funding: Oct 1999 - Apr 2003

Investigators (on funding application)


Multimedia Knowledge Management Network [website]

The approach of the Network to improve communication within the UK Multimedia Knowledge Management area is primarily through meetings, workshops and visits communication via e-mail lists and web presence generation of joint resources on the web horizontal special interest groups Support will be given to young researchers to increase contact across the interdisciplinary field, by assisting funding of travel to conferences, meetings, or visits to other labs. Special interest groups addressing sub-themes, for example efficient multi-dimensional indexing or mufti-media summarisation, will be encouraged. Some groups working in the multimedia knowledge management area may only have one researcher working on such a particular sub-theme. By having "horizontal" interaction between groups there is the potential of mutual benefit to all. The special interest groups will be encouraged to share resources, create resources and make them available for the Network and are expected to identify collaborative funding opportunities.

EPSRC Funding: Aug 2004 - Aug 2007 [grant details]

Investigators (on funding application)


LiveAlgorithms for Music

The vision for this network is the development of an artificial music collaborator. This machine partner would take part in musical performance just as a human might; adapting sensitively to change, making creative contributions, and developing musical ideas suggested by others. Such a system would be running what we call a "live algorithm". This term reflects the idea that the target system would be capable of live interaction under the rigorous demands of a concert performance, and also would be system uninhibited by rules and conventions - a kind of musical artificial life. It is projected that this goal will be achieved by looking for novel patterning algorithms from apparently non-musical fields such as artificial life, evolutionary computation, neural computation, and swarm intelligence, and finding mappings from these patterns into musical structure. This quest would result in a machine with an unusual musical identity: in order to make this identity understandable to people it will be necessary to link the patterning algorithm to the outside world through a sensitive but human-understandable interface. The live algorithm differs radically from existing computer music paradigms in that it actively takes part in the ongoing musical dialogue, rather than just reacting to events.

EPSRC Funding: Jan 2005 - Dec 2006 [grant details]

Investigators (on funding application)


Musical Acoustics Network [website]

A musical acoustics research netwrok is proposed. The aim is to provide opportunities for meetings between scientists working in musical acoustics and musical technology, creative performers and composers, and manufacturers of musical instruments. The network will foster links between university work and the music industry. It will allow academics in the new universities, teaching vocationally-oriented courses in music technology, to exchange ideas with those working on related problems and courses in more traditional disciplines. it will allow performers on traditional acoustical instruments to meet those from the rapidly-developing electronic sector, and also the scientific community which lies behind both types of musical activity. It will promote collaborative projects between the key disciplines of physical science, electronic engineering and computer science, psycology, music theory and ethnomusicology, education and therapeutics.

EPSRC Funding: Feb 2005 - Jan 2007 [grant details]

Investigators (on funding application)


Netvotech- Network on Technology and Healthy Human Voice in Performance [website]

The network includes practising creative vocal artists, professional voice coaches, vocal health professionals as well as scientists and engineers. This team provides the range of disciplines and experience necessary to fulfil the aims of this Research Network in the area of technology and the healthy human voice in performance under the Culture and Creativity Programme. Experts are drawn mainly from the UK, but colleagues from the international voice research community have agreed to contribute to the network, mainly by electronic means. Many colleagues are drawn from the British Voice Association (http://www.british-voice-association.comn, an organisation to nurture an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the human voice from medical, performance, and scientific viewpoints The purpose of the network is to consider how technology might be employed to enhance professional vocal performances (spoken and singing), how it might be used to enhance the audience experience during live vocal presentations, and how technology might be used during vocal training. By its nature, the network will involve sharing of information between the scientific, artistic and health communities involved, brainstorming of these issues, and it will culminate in a live vocal performance in which technology is used in a novel manner. A website will be maintained throughout, and the vocal performance will be video recorded.

EPSRC Funding: Feb 2005 - Jan 2007 [grant details]

Investigators (on funding application)


SpACE-Net - The Spatial Audio Creative Engineering Network [website]

Spatial audio research is concerned with the presentation of music and audio material to an audience in a manner that is optimized according to the spatial properties of the human hearing system. Ultimately this work seeks to rise to the challenge of synthesizing a complex three-dimensional acoustic world that is indistinguishable from what we normally hear around us. Work in this area has reached a point where multichannel delivery systems are finally becoming accepted in the domestic environment, predominantly through applications in the entertainment industry such as DVD, home-theatre systems and multimedia computing technology. These recent developments therefore precipitate the need to identify future directions for research in this increasingly demanding area. UK spatial audio research is currently small although there are a number of unique areas that ensure visibility in the wider international community. The proposed network aims to build on this current work to create a community of researchers, practitioners and artists, drawn from the fields of science, audio engineering and the arts. It is anticipated that through this network and the interface between theoretical, experimental and creative approaches, the effective coordination of these researchers and practitioners will lead to the identification, articulation and development of important directions in future spatial audio work.

EPSRC Funding: Jan 2006 - Jan 2008 [grant details]

Investigators (on funding application)