Researcher sets up computer project to study Beijing Opera

Xavier Serra sets up computer project to study Beijing Opera with other researchers.[Photo from the Internet]

In recent years, Xavier Serra, associate professor of the Department of Information and Communication Technologies at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, set up a research project to analyze five typical non-Western music traditions by computer.

The project, Computational Models for the Discovery of the World’s Music, is funded by the European Research Council that runs from 2011 to 2016. Its main goal is to advance the field of Music Information Research by approaching a number of the current challenges from a culture specific perspective.

It aims to advance in the automatic description and formalization of music through the development of information modeling techniques applicable to Beijing Opera from China, Hindustani from Northern India, Carnatic from Southern India, Turkish-makam from Turkey, as well as Andalusian from Maghreb.

On May 18, Xavier Serra went to Shanghai Conservatory of Music with other two researchers in his project. Xavier told the teachers and students that they collected 113 Beijing Opera CDs containing 653 arias as well as 317 music scores, and subdivided them into melody, rhythm and singing in order to study in detail.

After a mass calculation of quantitative analysis, they find that the expression and rhythm of the aria depends on opera librettos; the melody depends on singing; the rhythm depends on the type of meter for music in the operas; while the vocal range, timbre as well as character of singing depends on type of roles in the operas.

According to Xavier, their project wants to challenge the current western centered information paradigms, and contribute to the multicultural society. Meanwhile, it may reduce the gap between audio signal descriptions and semantically meaningful music concepts.

Zhang Shuo, a researcher in Xavier’s team, said that the project will be helpful to popularize Beijing Opera in foreign countries.

“There are similar systems on Western music analysis and research. However, for non-Western music, European music public does not pay much attention. We think that our project will be very deserving for resisting the strong culture in the globalized information era,” said Zhang Shuo.