Musical pattern discovery: a dialogue between Music Information Retrieval, Musicology and Music Therapy

A large part of research in Music Information Retrieval (MIR) is dedicated to computational investigations of musical structures. In this talk, I present research on investigating musical patterns with computational means to enhance our understanding of structures in musical pieces and corpora, and on employing these patterns in interaction contexts such as for training purposes in the context of health and wellbeing. I will discuss how the process of computational modelling on the one hand uncovers layers of implicit musical knowledge applied by experts and ordinary listeners, and on the other hand enables new forms of interaction with music. I give examples on modelling rhythmic-metric and melodic patterns, on their importance for corpus studies of music, and on employing them for applied games for musical attention control training and games for rhythmic training of children with sensory processing difficulties. Moreover, I will reflect on the importance of the interdisciplinary dialogue between MIR, musicology, and music therapy.