i-Maestro - Interactive Multimedia Environment for Technology Enhanced Music Education and Creative Collaborative Composition and Performance
i-Maestro is exploring new pedagogical paradigms and advanced technology with the objective to develop interactive multimedia environments for technology-enhanced music education. Both music theory and performance training are supported, particularly on string instruments.
- Strategic objective: Technology-enhanced Learning
- Project type: Specific targeted research project (STREP)
- Start date: 1 October 2005
- Duration: 36 months
- EU funding: € 2 350 000
- Number of partners: 10
- Project coordinator: University of Leeds, UK
- Contact: Dr. Kia Ng
Music performance is more than playing the right note at the right time. Among the many challenging aspects of music education, the i-Maestro research team is particularly interested in linking music practice and theory training, looking at interactivity, expressivity and accessibility.
Starting from an analysis of pedagogical needs and building on recent developments of computer and information technologies, the project is developing enabling technologies to support music performance and theory training, including tools based on augmented instruments, gesture analysis, audio analysis and processing, score following, symbolic music representation, cooperative support and exercise generation. Particular focus is put on string instruments.
Gesture analysis tools are being developed to provide feedback about the performance. For example, the '3D Augmented Mirror' utilises motion-capture technology to explore interactive feedbacks with visualisation and sonification to support the learning and teaching of bowing technique and body posture. The 'Gesture Follower' can compare a performed gesture with a set of pre-recorded gestures for a variety of pedagogical applications, and the 'Score Follower' listens to the player and tracks his/her location within the score in order to support automated 'page turning' and accompaniment.
Music notation is one of the fundamentals in music education. i-Maestro is promoting MPEG Symbolic Music Representation (SMR), an ISO standard for the representation of music notation with enhanced multimedia features. Cooperative work is another key area of music education. It allows different components of the i-Maestro framework to be used across a network. Other tools include the 'Exercise Generator', which supports (semi-)automated creation of exercises, while the 'School Server' offers online access to stored lesson material for sharing learning material at home and in the classroom.
The project includes demonstration and validation activities, which will be conducted by major European institutions such as Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia (Rome), Fundación Albéniz (Madrid) and IRCAM (Paris). The project consortium involves leading research and education institutions, organisations and SMEs in the domains of IT and music across Europe.
The final results of i-Maestro will be incorporated in various products and services that will be made available to the public and to educational establishments.