The midway assessment is organised in two parts, and starts with a two-hour public seminar, followed by a closed meeting.
The purpose of the midway assessment is to evaluate the progress of the PhD project at a point when it is still possible to make small or more substantial changes.
Programme:
10:15 - 10:40 Welcome, and Presentation by Candidate Fadi Al-Ghawanmeh
10:45 - 11:45 Comments by, and discussion with Edith Van Dyck
11:45 - 12:00 Plenary discussion with the public
Following the public event, there will be a closed meeting between the candidate, invited opponent, and supervisors (12:00 - 12:30).
Summary:
The individual listener is the new center of interest for computer music generation and streaming services. Instead of designing for populations or segments of users, tools for customization aim to serve each individual and to fulfill their specific needs and desires. We take musical improvisation in the Arab maqam as a context for exploring listener perception, expectations, and the influence of their cultural background.
This study examines the relationship between music-related motion and listener perspectives. We ask: what can motion capture data tell us about listener perceptions of and expectations for improvised maqam music? More broadly, this question asks about how and to what extent mocap technology can be used to enrich users’ listening experiences, particularly through its real-time evaluation of listener engagement. Indeed, mocap technology seems to offer new ways to enhance the personalization of music technology tools.
We chose a passive standstill paradigm to measure music-related motion. This began with a lab-based pilot study that aimed to estimate the ability of two ultra-light and ecological mocap technologies for detecting music-relation motion, particularly when a user listens to maqam improvisation in passive standstill settings. This was then followed by the main experiment, which we conducted in ecological settings in two culturally distinct cities: Amman and Oslo. We recruited 30 participants in each city.
This work is one of two parts of my Ph.D. dissertation, carried out through a cotutelle program between the University of Oslo and the University of Lorraine. The dissertation project is entitled: “NLP Based Automatic Instrumental Improvisation with Control Allowing a Real-Time and Customized Influence on Individuals.”