Escola das Artes - Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Centro regional do Porto

DOUTRAMENTO EM CIÊNCIA E TECNOLOGIA DAS ARTES
Informática Musical (Computer Music)

A Escola das Artes da UCP oferece programas de Doutoramento (3 º Ciclo de estudos) no ramo do Conhecimento das Ciências e Tecnologias das Artes em articulação com o Centro I&D CITAR. No ano lectivo 2009/10 abre a 2ª edição do Programa de Doutoramento em Ciência e Tecnologia das Artes na área de Especialização de Informática Musical (Computer Music) - Folheto informativo (502 Kb)

Este 3º ciclo de estudos conducente ao grau de Doutor em Ciências e Tecnologias das Artes tem 180 unidades de crédito (ECTS) e uma duração de três anos curriculares, incluindo:

1º Ano (60 ECTS)
Aulas em regime pós-laboral (Sextas-feiras a partir das 19:00 e Sábados)

Anualmente a Fundação para Ciência e Tecnologia abre concursos para Bolsas de Doutoramento (BD) em duas épocas de candidatura (normalmente Junho e Setembro).

The most important musical trends in the second half of the XX century result from from the interaction between different forms of Artistic expression and from the metamorphosis that emerging technologies and new social-economic contexts imposed in creative practices. The notion of of interaction in music is strongly connected to the use of Electronic and Digital Technologies, not only in the context of creation and composition of music, but also in its interpretation. The generalization of electronic audio devices in household and office appliances (radio, television, tape-recorder, turntable, etc...) in the 60's an 70's was the starting point for the massive production of electronic music instruments. Departing from an approach in which these new instruments were used by composers and instrumental performers in an attempt to mimic the traditional music instruments, booth in its interface modalities as in its sonic outcome, digital technology and the advent of computers introduced a new mindset fostering emerging practices in music interpretation, instrumental techniques and new conceptions and content for music composition.

The exponential evolution of the computing power in the last 20 years together with the scientific progresses in the area of digital signal processing has opened a variety of new opportunities and challenges in the field of sound processing and synthesis.
Digital sound processing is the area of study related to the processing of audio signals in a digital representation. Methods for the recording, transmission, storage, synthesis and manipulation of digital sound signals are nowadays available to anyone with a common personal computer, and the development and availability of powerful and easy to use software tools for sound processing and creation democratized its widespread use by new and growing communities of multimedia artists, composers and musicians.
This course will provide an overview of the most important research topics on Sound Processing and Synthesis, as well as on the necessary basics from the related disciplines (e.g. Acoustics, Psychoacoustics).
In particular, the course will survey the state-of-the-art techniques for digital audio recording, processing, storage and synthesis.
The course will explore the implementation and diverse uses of these techniques in digital sound signals, with a special emphasis to artistic applications.

This module provides a forum within which students plan, execute and reflect upon a programme of skill acquisition tailored to their personal research needs. Students identify and propose a series of research activities that address gaps in their existing experience. It is expected that students conduct a literature review of a topic chosen in consultation with their supervisor and design an empirical study to advance knowledge in that area. Students will develop a set of research questions or hypotheses for investigation, and design a method for addressing them. Assessment is by means of a detailed dissertation proposal to be presented at the end of the semester.

Since its official birth in 1948, that electroacoustic music circumscribes a vast number of practices and artistic research whose complexity is in part due to the flexibility of its domain borders and its closeness to innovation and development both technological and artistic. This module provides the bases for a wide reflection on the different modalities of acusmatic music, understood here as erudite electroacoustic music written for support and subsequent diffusion.
Through the study of different musical currents and the realization of projects proposed in the scope of the module we intend that the students know and understand the principles of acusmatic music. Moreover, students are supposed to develop critical and analytical skills regarding the practices related with this sub-domain of electroacoustic music through the study of the theoretical and technical problems.

The amount of music information in different media formats (professionally produced or self-authored content) is continuously growing on the web. This, coupled with a number of recent technological progresses, is profoundly changing the ways we interact with music today, and how we expect to do it tomorrow. Music Information Retrieval (MIR) is a fast-paced multidisciplinary field of research where different long-tradition disciplines (such as Musicology, Signal Processing, Psychoacoustics, Information Science, Computer Science) meet to empower these changes.
This course will provide an overview of MIR research, necessary basics in diverse disciplines will be reviewed and we will look into ways to extract musical information from a number of media (music audio signals, symbolic representations, text, etc.). In particular, we will survey state-of-the-art algorithms for the automatic description of music audio signals, both from a low-level perspective (focusing on signal characteristics) and a more musical perspective (focusing on musically-meaningful dimensions, such as e.g. rhythm, harmony, timbre). We will explore diverse uses of this step of information extraction and description, such as music search and recommendation, music signal transformations or novel composition and synthesis tools.
A special emphasis will be given to artistic applications.

Compter Music III: Algorithmic Composition
by Carlos Caires

The relation between mathematics and music has long been the object of fascination for a large number of Music Composers and Philosophers. Most recently with the advent of computers we can find the first musical applications with algorithmic procedures created by Hiller, Xenakis and Barbaud.. The designation “Computer Aided Composition” (CAC), gained relevance since the late 80´s, focusing mostly in issues of form and structure of the musical composition (Data Structures, Rules, Algorithms, etc.) This module aims to provide the basis for a better understanding of musical practices trough the use of computer software designed for Music Composition (OpenMusic and PWGL). The students should come to effectively understand concepts related with CAC, in order to acquire the ability to create algorithmic procedures that support musical analysis and composition, simultaneously maintaining a critical and theoretical analysis attitude regarding the artistic implications of these practices.

Sound and Music Design for Moving Images
by Àlvaro Barbosa

Sound and Music represent an essential role in an immersive experience of cinema or any other sort of audiovisual narrative form. This course focuses on the fundamental theory, methods and techniques used in the film industry for sound design and music scoring. The basic theory of sound in cinema is covered by analyzing to reference examples in the history of cinema, aiming to establish a basic language and common ground that will allow the students acquire better understanding of the creative process in this area. The development of projects trough an experimental methodology is a crucial part of the course, which will be conducted and followed by the Professors. These projects consist of a number of technical exercises as well as proposals from the students that include: Sound Design planning, recording, editing and synchronization of sonic elements, Foleys, CAsting, Audio Dialog Replacement, music design, etc. All projects will be carried out at the School of Arts Studios equipped with last generation Digidesign Protolls Software and Hardware, Waves DSP Software and AKG, Audiotechnica, and Senheiser Microphones.
Concluding this course, students are able to: Create Sonic landscapes for different audiovisual genres; record and Edit Audio (voice and others) in a studio environment; use in an integrated form the main software for Sound Design in Audiovisual formats; create musical elements which articulate with the visuals and other audio material.

The aim of this module is to introduce students to (1) psychological processes underlying music perception (2) cognition, and (3) performance. The scope of the discipline ranges from understanding how music is picked up by sensory systems and understood (cognition and perception), through the acquisition of musical expertise (development and education), to uses of music in the world (social psychology). It is expected that students gain an overview of research in music psychology and then choose a particular topic, perhaps with a view to future doctoral research, to develop in their final essay. The course is built around a combination of lectures, providing the necessary background information, and student-led seminars, in which papers from the literature are discussed. Assessment consists of a presentation of one published research paper in the class and a coursework essay on a chosen topic from those presented in the lectures.