Nat Condit-Schultz on Tempo, Tactus, Rhythm, Flow: Computational Hip Hop Musicology in Theory and Practice
Date:
Fri, 11/15/2024 - 10:30am - 12:00pm
Location:
CCRMA Seminar Room
Event Type:
Hearing Seminar 
Computational musicology is not just for classical music. In this talk, I will review a variety of computational investigations of hip hop based on my dataset, the Musical Corpus of Flow (MCFlow). Using MCFlow, we can characterize the "norms" of rap flow and investigate how they have changed historically, including changes in tempo and the density of rhyme over time. I will also discuss the methodological challenges of computational musicology in general, and hip-hop/pop musicology specifically, and demonstrate tools and methods I have developed. I will finish by sharing a brand-new project which I will be presenting for the first time at the International Society of Music Information Retrieval (ISMIR) conference earlier this same week: In this ISMIR paper, I used MCFlow as a test case to explore the relationship between statistical regularities in rhythm and the psychological phenomenon of the tactus, or "main beat." Specifically, I developed an unsupervised Bayesian statistical model that learns how to notate the appropriate tactus for each verse in MCFlow.
Who: Nat Condit-Schultz (Gatech)
What: Tempo, Tactus, Rhythm, Flow: Computational Hip Hop Musicology in Theory and Practice
When: Friday November 15th at 10:30AM
Where: CCRMA Seminar Room
Why: Math and Hiphop... sounds like fun.
This talk will be hosted by Takako Fujiioka and Craig Sapp
Bio:Who: Nat Condit-Schultz (Gatech)
What: Tempo, Tactus, Rhythm, Flow: Computational Hip Hop Musicology in Theory and Practice
When: Friday November 15th at 10:30AM
Where: CCRMA Seminar Room
Why: Math and Hiphop... sounds like fun.
This talk will be hosted by Takako Fujiioka and Craig Sapp
Nat Condit-Schultz is a musician, composer, and scientist, specializing in the statistical modeling of musical structure. Working at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Nat conducts research and advises students in the Cognitive and Computational Musicology Lab, serves as the Director of the Graduate Program for the School of Music, directs the rock and pop bands, and teaches courses in research methodology, music psychology, and music production. Nat completed his doctorate under renowned music scientist David Huron; his research interests include rhythm and tonality in popular music, the perceptual and structural roles of language and lyrics in music, and the music theory of hip-hop. Nat has presented at numerous national and international conferences, both in the humanities (Society of Music Theory) and the sciences (Society for Music Perception and Cognition, International Conference on Music Information Retrieval). Nat is a performer and composer, specializing in electric and classical guitar: as a composer, he specializes in imitative counterpoint and complex rhythmic/metric ideas like polyrhythm, “tempo spirals,” and irama, realized through classical guitar, rock instrumentation, and Indonesian Gamelan.
Hosted by Takako Fujioka and Craig Sapp.
FREE
Open to the Public
