Want to know more about Technology and Music?

At MusicStats.org we follow and admire the work of some extraordinary researchers in the field of Technology and Music. Across the world, and with different research aims, they provide incredible contribution to the field.

Here is a list of 17 research centers across the world. The list  together with a descri

ption provided by each group on their official websites:

  1. Music and Audio Research Laboratory at New York University (USA) 

“MARL brings together scholars from music theory, technology and composition, computer and information science, interactive media and media studies, to explore the intersection between music, computation and science. The objective is to combine techniques and methodologies from the arts, the humanities and the sciences to (a) understand and model human cognitive abilities in music, and (b) innovate the analysis, organization and creation of music. The initiative aims to provide a forum that increases the visibility and contextualizes the work of NYU faculty, post-doctoral researchers, and doctoral, master and undergraduate students, interested in the intersection of music and science. By providing a space for discovery and discussion, MARL seeks to spark collaborations across departments and schools that have the potential to evolve into inter-disciplinary research, co-supervised student work, joint publications, grant writing, curricular development, event organization and artistic output”.

  1. MIR Group at the University of Coimbra (Portugal)

“Here at CISUC (Center for Informatics and Systems of the University of Coimbra) we have a small and enthusiastic group of people working on MIR / MDM research. In the past, we have conducted work on melody detection in polyphonic audio (see project “Mellodee”). Currently, we are working on a project on mood analysis in audio signals (see project “MOODetector”)”.

  1. Music Information Retrieval Lab at Vienna University of Technology (Austria)

“Our team has a strong background in Information Retrieval in general, but particularly also in Music Information Retrieval, since 1999. Facing larger and larger collections of audio, both in private and professional domains, we are researching for ways to make these massive volumes of content accessible to the users. Currently, the search in music repositories is mostly limited to textual queries on meta-data fields, which moreover require manual annotation effort beforehand. Our research focuses on various methods of indexing and structuring audio collections, as well as providing intuitive user interfaces to facilitate exploration of musical libraries. Machine learning techniques are used to e xtract semantic information, group audio by similarity, or classify it into various categories. We developed advanced visualization techniques to provide intuitive interfaces to audio collections on standard PC as well as mobile devices. Our solutions automatically organize music according to its sound characteristics such that we find similar pieces of music grouped together, enabling direct access to and intuitive instant playback according to one’s current mood”.

  1. Music Technology at Georgia Tech (USA)

“The Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology (GTCMT) is an international center for creative and technological research in music, focusing on the development and deployment of innovative musical technologies that transform the ways in which we create and experience music. Our mission is to provide a collaborative framework for committed students, faculty, and researchers to apply their musical, technological, and scientific creativity to the development of innovative artistic and technological artifacts. Our work aims at combining musical, technological, and cognitive research in an effort to create rich and expressive experiences for performers and audiences alike. Areas of interest include composition, performance, mobile music, machine listening, music information retrieval, digital signal processing, robotic musicianship,  interactive music manufacturing, networked music, music perception, music theory, multimedia development, and education. GTCMT is a research center that exists within the School of Music and College of Architecture”.

  1. Music Informatics Research Group at City University London (United Kingdom)

“The Music Informatics research group is a specialized research team within the Department of Computer Science. Music Informatics includes the study of computational models of music and sound analysis and generation, and music performance. Interests of the Music Informatics Research Group include music information retrieval and computational musicology, music signal analysis, music knowledge representation, and music applications, such as e-learning and games. The group is also interested in wider aspects of machine learning, sequential structure modelling and audio signal processing, and novel cross-domain application of techniques in these areas. For an overview presentation showcasing MIRG activities, click here”.

  1. Algomus (France)

“Is a computer able to understand music ? The Algomus group does research in digital humanities in Musical Information Retrieval (MIR), more precisely in Computational Music Analysis. Our goal is to design algorithms analyzing musical scores. We usually start from a musical score represented in a symbolic way (for example a MIDI, MusicXML or .krn file). We then compute several analytical elements, using and improving several MIR techniques (patterns, chords, sequences, cadences, texture…). We ultimately aim to study the high-level structure of music such as musical forms, combining musical expertise, text algorithms and machine learning. We also work on modeling and visualizing analyzed scores, for musicians, music lovers or everyone. Algomus collaborates with music theorists, music teachers and artists, and contribute to sciences and arts projects and popular science events. We are funded by the CRIStAL and MIS labs, by Sciences et Cultures du Visuel, located at Imaginarium on the Plaine Images cluster, as well as by Pictanovo”.

  1. Department of Computational Perception of the Johannes Kepler University Linz (Austria)

“The Department of Computational Perception of the Johannes Kepler University Linz started its operation in October 2004, with the appointment of Prof. Gerhard Widmer to the University of Linz. Its mission is to investigate and develop computational models and algorithms that permit computers to perceive and ‘understand’ aspects of the external world, where we interpret ‘perception’ in the widest sense of the word, as the extraction of useful high-level information and knowledge from complex, possibly low-level data (audio, video, images, sensor data, texts, databases, or even the Internet). Thus, our research and teaching focuses on problems like pattern recognition, knowledge extraction, and data and text mining, with methods from fields like signal processing, statistical pattern recognition and classification, machine learning, and generally Artificial and Computational Intelligence. Our current research has a particular focus on intelligent audio and music processing, computer vision, and biometrics. Our goal is to offer state-of-the-art research and teaching in this area, and to provide a teaching environment that permits students to get involved in real research projects as early as possible”.

  1. Centre for Digital Music (C4DM) at Queen Mary University of London (United Kingdom)

“The Centre for Digital Music is a world-leading multidisciplinary research group in the field of Music & Audio Technology. Since its founding members joined Queen Mary in 2001, the Centre has grown to become arguably the UK’s leading Digital Music research group”.

  1. Audio Analysis Lab at Aalborg University (Denmark)

“The lab was founded in 2012 and is located at the Dept. of Architecture, Design & Media Technology at Aalborg University in Denmark. The lab conducts basic and applied research in signal processing theory and methods aimed at or involving analysis of audio signals. The research focuses mainly on audio processing for communication systems (VoIP, cellphones, etc.), healthcare (e.g., hearing aids, telemedicine), music equipment, surveillance, and audio archives (e.g., compression and information retrieval). The lab is funded by grants from the Villum Foundation, the Danish Council for Strategic Research, the Danish Council for Independent Research, and Innovation Fund Denmark. The various research projects are carried out in close collaboration with leading industrial partners and universities around the world”.

  1. Special Interest Group on Music Analysis (Germany)

“The Special Interest Group on Music Data Analysis (SIGMA) was founded after an academic workshop hold at Nokia Research Center, Bochum on 25th January 2008. The initial purpose of this workshop was to provide a summary of the different existing research cooperation with regard to music analysis and classification. In the course of the subsequent quarterly meetings the members agreed upon the following aims: to strengthen the regional interdisciplinary research on music data analysis, to establish new methods organizing large music collections with the focus on the user preferences and to transfer actual research results into teaching activities”.

  1. Music Technology Group at UPF (Spain)

“The Music Technology Group (MTG) of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona is specialized in sound and music computing. With more than 50 researchers, the MTG carries out research on topics such as audio signal processing, sound and music description, musical interfaces, sound and music communities and performance modeling among others”.

  1. Intelligent Music Processing Group at the Austrian Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence (Austria)

“The Austrian Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence (OFAI) is one of Europe’s leading non-profit contract research institutions. It has been cooperating with international and national organizations, companies, universities and research institutes from 28 countries. More about our partners … In solving the problems of its partners, OFAI uses methods like machine learning and data mining, language and speech technology, neural networks, intelligent software agents and other software technologies, with many of the underlying methods developed in-house. More about our research … Services offered range from consultancy, basic and applied research on a contractual base, to working as partner or prime contractor in scientific projects on a national or European level, with a twenty year experience in a diversity of domains, from economic, engineering, administrative to social and cultural tasks. More about our services … Currently, 28 specialists, mainly computer scientists and linguists, all graduates from universities, work as employees at OFAI, plus 9 scientists, mainly professors at universities, on a contractual base. Our complete staff ..”.

  1. Music and Entertainment Technology Laboratory (MET-lab) at Drexel (USA)

“The Music and Entertainment Technology Laboratory (MET-lab) is devoted to research in digital media technologies that will shape the future of entertainment. MET-lab’s primary research focus encompasses several areas: music information retrieval, music production technology, new musical interfaces, and musical humanoid robotics. The lab also emphasizes K-12 outreach and hosts Summer Music Technology, a one-week experience based educational curriculum for high school students”.

  1. Music Engineering at the University of Miami (USA)

“Since 1975, the Music Engineering Technology program at the University of Miami Frost School of Music has pioneered education in music and technology, setting the standard by which the National Association of Schools of Music (NASM) accredits other such programs around the United States. Alumni of the program have contributed significantly to the music and audio industries and upon graduation pursue careers ranging from recording to software design. The Music Engineering Technology program provides multidisciplinary four-year Bachelor of Music and Bachelor of Science degrees within a music school setting. All students learn the art and science of recording, mixing, and signal processing while pursuing traditional music studies in performance, history, and theory. In addition, their studies in electrical engineering and computer science provide them with elite technical skills. The Music Engineering Technology program offers a two-year Master of Science graduate degree for students who have completed an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering or computer science. These students study the software and hardware design of audio systems and perform independent research that culminates in a thesis project. Top corporations that span the audio industry recruit graduating students directly from the program”.

  1. The Centre of Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (CIRMMT) at McGill (Canada)

“CIRMMT is a multi-disciplinary research group that seeks to develop innovative approaches to the scientific study of music media and technology, to promote the application of newer technologies in science and the creative arts, and to provide an advanced research training environment.  The CIRMMT community is interested in research that spans a wide range of topics from the creation of music in the composer’s or performer’s mind, the performance of music, its recording and/or transmission, and the reception of music by the listener. It is also interested in the ways in which vision, haptics and touch interact with music and sound. CIRMMT is centred at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University. It unites researchers and their students from several Quebec institutions – McGill University, l’Université de Montréal, l’Université de Sherbrooke, Concordia University, École de technologie supérieure, INRS and Marianopolis College. The CIRMMT community also includes administrative and technical staff, research associates, visiting scholars, musicians, and industrial associates.  CIRMMT occupies a unique position on the international stage having developed intense research partnerships with other academic and research institutions, as well as diverse industry partners throughout the world”.

  1. Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique / Musique (IRCAM) (France)

“IRCAM, the Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music, is one of the world’s largest public research centers dedicated to both musical expression and scientific research. A unique location where artistic sensibilities collide with scientific and technological innovation directed by Frank Madlener, bringing together over 160 people. IRCAM’s three principal activities – creation, research, transmission – are visible in IRCAM’s Parisian concert season, in productions throughout France and abroad, in a new rendezvous created in June 2012, ManiFeste, that combines an international festival with a multidisciplinary academy. Founded by Pierre Boulez, IRCAM, a non-profit making association with recognized public utility, is associated with the Centre Pompidou, under the aegis of the French Ministry of Culture and Communication. IRCAM and the CNRS are associated in the framework of the STMS Joint Research lab (Sciences et technologies de la musique et du son – UMR 9912) and were joined by the Pierre et Marie Curie University (UPMC) in 2010 and in the framework of the project team MuTant, INRIA”.

  1. International Audio Laboratories Erlangen (Germany)

“The International Audio Laboratories Erlangen (AudioLabs®) research center, founded in 2008, is unique worldwide in both its mission and international approach: A team of globally-renowned scientists is working to shape the future of audio and multimedia technologies in research areas such as audio coding, audio signal analysis and perceptual spatial audio signal processing. AudioLabs is a joint institution of Fraunhofer IIS and Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU). The University provides six professorship positions to the research center and guarantees the scientific integration into the academic environment. Fraunhofer IIS provided a budget to fund AudioLabs for an initial period of ten years. AudioLabs benefits from Fraunhofer IIS’ extensive history and expertise in the field of audio and multimedia technologies. The close cooperation of both partners allows for a unique organization with competencies ranging from basic research and teaching to technology implementation in innovative multimedia systems. AudioLabs is located on the premises of Fraunhofer IIS. Being in the vicinity of both the University and the Audio & Multimedia division of Fraunhofer IIS, this location enables close scientific collaboration in an ideal way. In addition, it allows for use of the modern infrastructure of Fraunhofer IIS including acoustics labs, recording studios or digital cinema labs”.