Sound and Music Computing: Research Trends and Some Key Issues

Abstract

This contribution attempts to give an overview of current research trends and open research problems in the rich field of Sound and Music Computing (SMC). To that end, the field is roughly divided into three large areas related to Sound, Music, and Interaction, respectively, and within each of these, major research trends are briefly described. In addition, for each sub-field a small number of open research (or research strategy) issues are identified that should be addressed in order to further advance the SMC field.

Acknowledgments

The research that led to this document has been generously supported by the EU project (Coordination Action) Sound to Sense, Sense to Sound (S2S²). The authors would like to thank Claude Cadoz, Chris Chafe and Curtis Roads for many constructive comments on earlier versions of this text.

Notes

¹By “new electronic instrument”, we here mean instruments that not only produce sound in an electronic way, but also offer some new kind of interface or way of interacting with the sound. Of course, instruments like the Korg M1 synthesizer have been very successful. But in a way, they are traditional music interfaces, with a computer-based sound-producing mechanism behind the scenes.