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The impact of the research by the Echochroma New Music Research Group at Leeds Metropolitan University relates to new approaches to interactivity in music performance and composition. The group has produced internationally recognised creative works as well as outputs that discuss and establish theoretical models and approaches within contemporary composition, new media and entertainment. These works have been presented internationally to both professionals and the wider public, gaining recognition for outstanding work through international prizes, and influencing practice in the areas of education, entertainment and composition at local, national and international level.
Fischman's work has an on-going worldwide impact on cultural life, creating, inspiring and supporting new forms of artistic expression through public performance and broadcast of his compositions. His search for new aesthetic approaches and the resulting software tools (e.g. AL and Erwin) have offered new ways of musical thinking to composers beyond the academy around the globe, contributing to their personal and professional development through further exploration of such tools and approaches. Together with his writings, these have informed the design and delivery of curriculum and syllabi in other institutions worldwide. The nature of the subjects tackled in some of his compositions has also contributed to new interpretations of cultural heritage.
Since 2006 Professor Christopher Fox has been engaged in a series of linked projects which explore ways in which the engagement of performers and listeners in texted music for vocal ensemble can be enhanced. The research was initially based on received understandings of the perceptible relationship between music and text but, as the project and its impact have developed, the research has extended into a collaborative scientific study of this relationship, funded by two successive awards from the Wellcome Trust. Each stage of the research has been extensively disseminated through public performance, broadcast, recording, print and on-line media and the impact of the research now reaches into a wide range of communities of interest and the general public.
This case study describes the impact of the on-going practice-based research undertaken by Matthew Fairclough, started in 2003, into new ways of working with percussion and electronics. It has resulted in wide ranging cultural and economic benefits, including impact on individuals and organisations in the private sector. More specifically, the research has resulted in:
A major output from the AHRC Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music, the CHARM website—conceived, created and supported at King's—reports research, and provides tools and materials both supporting new research and of value and interest to a wide community of music listeners. These are extensively used by professional and amateur researchers and enthusiasts. Contents include an online discography, a library of historic recordings, studies of the history of recording, an eBook introducing ways of studying recorded performances, papers from CHARM symposia, data derived from recordings, and performance analysis software that has become internationally standard.
Research (2003-12) by Osborne at the Reid School of Music (RSM) revealed a need for a new musical instrument for disabled users. Under the direction of Osborne, between 2006-8 an interdisciplinary team across Music, Psychology and Physics, including RSM-based Schögler, developed a new musical `object', the Skoog, which allowed people with a wide range of disabilities accessible expressive control of sound. A spin-off company, Skoog Music, was formed in 2010, which now employs six staff, and has sold more than 1,000 units in 16 countries, generating an income of around £600k. The Skoog is widely used by schools and education services and in clinical music therapy by institutions such as Drake Music. It featured in the Best of the Best 2010 in Able Magazine. It was one of three instruments to inspire the composition Technophonia by Oliver Searle, performed at the South Bank as part of the 2012 Cultural Olympiad and short-listed for a 2013 British Composer Award.
Integra was a €3.1M international research collaboration led by Birmingham Conservatoire and funded by the Culture programme of the European Union. It brought together fourteen new music ensembles and research centres across Europe and Canada between 2005 and 2012. Integra achieved impact along three axes:
Technology was transformed through Integra Live, a new application for live interactive music production and through the modernisation of electronic components for musical works from obsolete to sustainable technologies;
Culture was enriched through the commissioning of 16 new musical works with live electronics receiving over 50 international performances;
Education was enhanced through the Integra "curriculum pilot", a programme establishing a culture of live electronics pedagogy in music higher education institutions.
Research in robust speech enhancement and audio-visual processing has led to impact on a range of different fronts:
(i) Collaboration with CSR, a leading $1 billion consumer electronics company, has shaped its R&D research agenda in speech enhancement, has inspired ideas for new product improvements, and has helped establish Belfast as an audio research centre of excellence within the company.
(ii) Our technology has changed the strategic R&D direction of a company delivering healthcare monitoring systems, with potential for multi-million pound savings in NHS budgets.
(iii) Audio-visual speech processing research has led to a proof-of-concept biometric system, Liopa: a novel, robust and convenient person authentication and verification technology exploiting lip and facial movements (www.liopa.co.uk). A start-up company is in an advanced stage of being established to commercialise this product. The product and commercialisation strategy was awarded First Prize in the 2013 NISP Connect £25K entrepreneurship competition in the Digital Media and Software category. The first commercial partner for Liopa has been engaged.
(iv) A system-on-chip implementation of a version of our speech recognition engine, which was developed through an EPSRC project, was awarded first prize in the High Technology Award in the 2010 NISP £25K Awards competition, and contributed to the founding of a spin-out company, Analytics Engines (www.analyticsengines.com).
The development of a new compositional tool for electroacoustic music (using technology to explore, create and perform sounds not limited to traditional instrumental sources) based on visual shapes has generated new ways of thinking that influence creative practice, and has inspired and supported new forms of artistic expression. New musical outputs composed by Dr Manuella Blackburn, generated from using the tool, have enriched the lives, imaginations and sensibilities of individuals and groups, locally and internationally. Parallel to this, the tool has been implemented in a number of educational situations (including workshops and textbooks) ranging from school-aged learners (11-18) to university undergraduate students, beyond Liverpool Hope University as the submitting HEI.
Recent work carried out in Cambridge has brought academic research and performance practice into multiple relationships; the impact of this work has been far-reaching and various. On the one hand, research on the origins of polyphony and on nineteenth-century piano music has impacted performance practice and, through this, the experiences and thinking of a broad listening public. Some of this research has enabled performers to revive scores long thought unperformable, while other work has empowered interpreters in ways that would have been unimaginable before the digital age. On the other hand, research that links polyphonic composition and performance practice with scientific thinking has explored the potential of the concert hall as an arena for research, turning music into a vehicle for public engagement with science. In this way, academic research informs and transforms musical performance and listener experience, while the practice of performance informs and transforms the understanding of music.