[ONLINE] Doctoral Colloquium (Music): Messelink, Madahi & López

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Doctoral Colloquium: Messelink, Madahi & López

Join URL: https://mcgill.zoom.us/j/82439650053

Jennifer Messelink

Title: Music for Dreaming: The Emergence of Background and Mood Albums

Abstract: With the rollout of the commercial LP in 1948, record labels sought ideas to build up their popular music catalogues by recording mood albums, or background music, for specific activities or states of mind. Music designed for workspaces and businesses had become more common following World War II, and record companies began marketing background music that consumers could now purchase for the home. By 1954, the majority of non-classical LP sales were mood albums intended for social gatherings, housework, study, cooking, romance, and relaxation. Even with the number of mood artists and variety of arrangements, over time mood music has become interchangeable with easy listening, Muzak, and elevator music. This type of music can often signify bland white middle class conformity devoid of any ethnic, racial, or sexual difference. In this presentation—a case study from my dissertation—I contextualize background music’s hypothetical foreground in relation to the social conditions of the period including racially segregated spaces and the increase of sexual imagery on album art. My study is informed by primary sources and recent literature that theorizes genre as a type of knowledge system that enables us to form and organize our sense of the world.

Bio: Jennifer Messelink is a PhD Candidate in Musicology at McGill University. Her dissertation “Strange Echoes: A Genre Study of Exotica” examines generic formations, stylistic differences, and the historical significance of 1950s instrumental pop music, with special attention to issues of race and gender. She has published in the Journal of Popular Music Studies and has a forthcoming article in Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture. Her research is supported by the Social Sciences and Research Council of Canada.

Behrad Madahi

Title: How does timbre stick? Timbre encoding in memory.

Abstract: Timbre is a perceptually multidimensional aspect of sound that is comprised of many auditory features which play a significant role in sound source identification and recognition. Retention of timbral information in a short period of time enables us to follow sound events both in musical and natural contexts. To better understand the interaction of the auditory features involved in the timbre perception and retention, we synthesized tones with controlled spectral and temporal envelopes and examined the perceptual dimensions that correlate with these features. Furthermore, experiments are designed to analyze the extent to which each dimension can be recalled from short-term memory and the role the binding of these features can play in retention of timbre. The results show the significance of temporal features in timbre perception and auditory short-term memory compared to the spectral content of timbres. The binding of these auditory features is discussed in terms of shared resource allocation memory models and compared to that of visual short-term memory.
 

Bio: Behrad Madahi started his research in music psychology and neuroscience during his master’s degree at Institute for Cognitive Science Studies. His thesis examined how brain processes musically induced emotions using electroencephalography, incorporating a novel 3D emotional model. During his studies he co-instructed auditory neuroscience at graduate level. He joined the Music Perception and Cognition lab for his PhD and under the supervision of Prof. Stephen McAdams studied timbre perception. His dissertation examines the encoding of timbre into memory and how auditory features binding affect timbre memory.

Néstor Nápoles López

Title: Automatic Roman Numeral Analysis from Symbolic Music Representations

Abstract: One of the most common ways to analyze tonal harmony is through Roman numeral analysis. In this presentation, Néstor will introduce his doctoral research on artificial intelligence models to automatically annotate musical scores with Roman numeral labels. Among other applications, these models could enable advanced searching in music collections. For instance, searching by chord progressions (e.g., featuring a Neapolitan chord in root position) or by modulation trajectories.

Bio: Néstor Nápoles López is a Ph.D. candidate in Music Technology at McGill University, working under the supervision of Prof. Ichiro Fujinaga. His research focuses on artificial intelligence models for tonal music theory. Other topics of his interest, beyond Roman numeral analysis, include musical keys (e.g., retrieving musical keys from an audio signal or exploring the differences between tonicizations and modulations), music encoding, and educational video games for musicianship training.