One of the exciting recent directions for music and technology is interactive music performance, which requires advanced systems for sensing, listening, and understanding creative new human-computer cooperative interfaces, advances in real-time systems, and new models of music performance and synthesis. This project introduces a new computer music application: a virtual Performer that can fill the role of an accomplished musician performing popular music. This work will establish a new framework for music making, essentially a new genre.
The intellectual merit of this work lies in the scientific study of music and related research including reliable gesture sensing, signal analysis, and the study of how computers can support cooperative tasks. Results will have additional implications for music information retrieval, human-computer interaction, and complex sensing and recognition tasks. The broader impacts of this work include new music technology useful to millions of musicians, amateur and professional alike, providing a stimulus to creative musical practice, culture, and the economy. This new creative practice will also promote computational literacy, and the research itself will motivate a broader interest in computer science and related fields among new students.
