Music 364

Data-Driven Research in Music Cognition

CCRMA, Stanford University

Projects

NOTE: Project guidelines, timeline for deliverables, and details of deliverables are subject to minor changes.

Students will perform focused research on a topic of their choice over the course of the quarter. The project constitutes 50% of the final grade for the course. Evaluation of projects will include the following elements:

  • Final paper
  • Final presentation
  • In-class project update presentations
  • Project checkpoints included in weekly assignments

Overview

The goal of the project is for students to contribute new knowledge to music research while gaining experience with assessing and analyzing data. A complementary objective is the development of fundamental research skills including literature review, scholarly writing, and verbal communication.The scope of the final project is on par with what one would prepare for a conference paper.

Deliverables

Project checkpoints

Incremental project checkpoints will be detailed in weekly homework assignments. Note that project checkpoints are included in the project component of the final grade, and not the homework component.

Project updates

Each student will give two short project-related presentations during the quarter. The first presentation (Week 6, Feb. 17) is a review of bibliography and methods, and the second presentation (Weeks 8-9, Mar. 3, 10) presents analysis and preliminary results. Detailed guildelines for project update presentations will be posted soon.

Final presentation

Final presentations are scheduled for the last day of class, Friday, March 17 from 12:30-2:20pm in the CCRMA seminar room. The format will be conference-style presentations and will be open to the public.

Final paper

Deadlines

  • Paper draft 1: Due in Canvas by 9am, Friday March 3
  • Paper draft 2: Due in Canvas by 5pm, Thursday March 16
  • Final paper: Due in Canvas by 3:15pm Friday, March 24 (end of scheduled Final Exam time; no extensions)
    • Students are expected to incorporate instructor feedback on the drafts, as well as on the final presentation, into the final paper.

Guidelines

Final papers should follow the format and length of an ISMIR conference paper (6–7 pages, two-column format). Current ISMIR paper templates (LaTeX and Word) are provided in Coursework. You should be able to get started with a paper draft using components from homework assignments as well as content from your midterm presentation. Papers should be broadly organized as follows. You may reorder specific elements of sections as appropriate for your project.

  • Abstract Summary of the paper (200 words or less).
  • Introduction General statement of your topic; statement of research question and motivation for the research; statement of main contribution of paper; intended/interested audience(s); novelty of research; roadmap for remainder of paper.
  • Background Review of relevant literature; summary of main findings from existing research; statement of what is yet unanswered. For many papers, the background will be included in the Introduction section. Include a separate Background section, though, if your Introduction seems disproportionately long or if you have a lot of literature to cover.
  • Methods Source of data; use of data in previous research; size of data; appropriateness of data (strengths and noted shortcomings); data analysis procedure. Include any software tools used for analysis. Include footnotes listing URLs for any publicly available data used in the project. Include footnotes listing URLs for any published data or software tools stemming from this project.
  • Results Present results and tie it back to the larger story of the paper. While this section should be separate from the Discussion section, it should provide a stronger narrative than just running down the list of figures and describing what is presented in each one.
  • Discussion Summarize the main findings of the project. Tie the results back to the larger topic of the project. Discuss the implications of the project in terms of current findings and/or their relation to past findings on the topic. Consider what questions are still unanswered. Describe any future research that may arise from this project.
  • References Use a consistent formatting for your references (using a paper template will faciliate this).