- Browse by Author
Browsing by Author "Hsu, Timothy"
Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item Automatic Piano Fingering Estimation Using Recurrent Neural Networks(2021-11) Guan, Hongzhao; Yan, Zhao; Hsu, Timothy; Music and Arts Technology, School of Engineering and TechnologyDeciding piano fingerings is an essential skill for all piano players regardless of their expertise. Traditionally, pianists and piano educators first need to analyze musical scores, then they manually label the fingerings on the scores; however, this process is time-consuming and inefficient. This paper proposes a novel automatic piano fingerings estimating method by utilizing Bidirectional Long Short-term Memory (BI-LSTM) networks — a special type of Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs). This is one of the first studies to explore the possibilities of applying deep learning to estimate piano fingerings. Together with the new method, a novel input representation is designed to capture the relations between surrounding notes. Furthermore, in addition to directly comparing the estimations with the ground-truth, this paper proposes a novel evaluation metric to assess the playability of the estimated fingerings. The results illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method that generates playable and accurate estimated fingerings.Item Defining the Hourglass Framework of Technical and Musical Concepts in Music Technology Education with Two Case Studies in Course Development(Association for Technology in Music Instruction, 2022) Hsu, Timothy; Music and Arts Technology, School of Engineering and TechnologyAs the field of music technology connects music with a vast array of technical fields, a mature music technology program ideally challenges and develops students that incorporate musical contexts of technical ideas and the technical concepts of musical ideas. The educational challenge of music technology programs lies in the balancing of technical and musical material in the curriculum. In structuring this balance, this paper proposes an hourglass framework, where music technology sits at the neck of two sides, where one side is built on the tradition of Western and non-Western music history, theory, and repertoire, and the other side is constructed based on the development of engineering, computer science, design, physics, and other technical fields. This paper defines and discusses this hourglass framework, shows the curricular need, and presents two case studies of an undergraduate and a graduate course that employ balance through the hourglass framework. Through audio circuits, physics of sound, and acoustics synthesized with musical contexts, students discover and learn how technical concepts directly impact musical decisions, and vice versa. This paper discusses not only the methods employed by both classes, but also possible growth areas for continual improvement in exploring the intersection of technical and musical concepts.Item A design framework for absorption and diffusion panels with sustainable materials(Institute of Noise Control Engineering, 2021) Dessi-Olive, Jonathan; Hsu, Timothy; Music and Arts Technology, School of Engineering and TechnologyArchitectural acoustics has not traditionally had unified design methods that specify acoustical performance, visual appearance, and sustainable material selection, leading to underperforming products that contribute to a waste stream of petro-chemical foam and fiberglass materials. The evolution of design, materials, and manufacturing techniques in recent years has created new opportunities to reimagine acoustic diffusers and absorbers. Previous work by the authors have demonstrated a unifying framework for design and collaboration in architectural acoustics. The framework uses visually-driven computational design method inspired by shape grammars that generate a wide range of acoustic phase grating diffuser arrays that display unique visual and performative qualities. Simulation and evaluation metrics to assess the complexity of each design are rated in terms of their diffusion and absorption coefficients and a visual aesthetic coefficient. This paper extends the framework to include digital fabrication protocols and sustainable material specifications - including the use of fungi-based materials. Built prototypes demonstrate an expanded acoustic design space that gives acousticians the potential to create custom diffuser shapes with precise acoustical response. The innovative combination of computational design methods and sustainable fabrication protocols will be discussed, and the acoustic properties of arrays will be evaluated and compared to simulations of corresponding designs.Item Generating Acoustic Diffuser Arrays with Shape Grammars(Georgia Tech, 2019-04) Dessi-Olive, Jonathan; Hsu, Timothy; Medicine, School of MedicineThis paper presents research on a rule-based approach to designing creative acoustic diffuser arrays. A shape grammar-influenced design method is specified that uses shape rules to recursively design arrays of quadratic residue diffusers (QRD) in ways that are neither mechanical nor deterministic.Item Great headphones blend physics, anatomy and psychology – but what you like to listen to is also important for choosing the right pair(The Conversation US, Inc., 2021-11-24) Hsu, Timothy; Music and Arts Technology, School of Engineering and TechnologyItem The Legacy of the “Cyprus Codex” (MS. Torino J.II.9): Creating New Technologies and Compositions through a Collaborative Process(2019) Sammoutis, Evis; Sheppard Skaerved, Peter; Hsu, Timothy; Music and Arts Technology, School of Engineering and TechnologyMS. J.II.9 (also known as the “Cyprus Codex”) is an anonymous Codex composed in the court of Nicosia in the first part of the 15th century during Cyprus’s Frankish period and the Lusignan Dynasty. It is the only known Codex of Western music in the region and one of the few exclusively French codices known from that time. Its style lies in the threshold between Ars Nova and Ars Subtilior with unique features. Composer Evis Sammoutis, violinist Peter Sheppard Skaerved and Music technology professor Timothy Hsu have built a collaboration inspired by the legacy of MS. J.II.9. This resulted in the creation of new bows and techniques of performing the violin and the creation of new compositions based both on the material from MS. J.II.9 and technological advancements.Item MuSciQ- A Musical Curriculum for Math(2022-12) Tyson, Alan Blain II; Burns, Debra S.; Hsu, Timothy; Walzer, Daniel; Morton, Crystal; Sorge, BrandonMusic and math are related in that 1) they both rely on the basic understanding of numbers, proportions, intervals, measurements, and operations and 2) both require levels of abstract thinking and symbolic notation. Studies link music and math by examining, for example, how music may play a role in math performance. There are, however, few studies that examine how a musical curriculum may impact not only math performance, but math related variables including math anxiety, math self-efficacy, and math motivation. This study sought to develop and assess the feasibility of MuSciQ, a music technology-based curriculum, and explore how it might impact math anxiety, math selfefficacy, math motivation, and math performance in twelve fourth-grade students. Additionally, acceptability of the MuSciQ curriculum was assessed by students, a teacher, and a school administrator by using the Technology Acceptance Model. Participants experienced large, significant improvements in math anxiety scores and significant improvement in math motivation. Math performance and self-efficacy showed small, non-significant improvements. When split by gender, only math anxiety scores showed statistically significant improvement in males. As expected, there was a significant positive correlation between motivation and self-efficacy before and after the curriculum was introduced. There was also a significant positive correlation between technology acceptance and motivation. Surprisingly, although there were significant positive correlations between the pre- anxiety and motivation measures, there were no significant correlations after the curriculum was introduced. There were no significant correlations found between anxiety and technology acceptance. There was, however, a significant correlation between technology acceptance and self-efficacy. Technology acceptance and additional qualitative comments provided by students and administrators suggest MuSciQ is an easy and useful platform to promote music and math learning. These findings point to a need for further investigation into the influence of MuSciQ on math related variables.