SBIR Phase II: An Interactive Music Analysis, Re-synthesis and Distribution Engine

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase II project aims to extend work in developing computational music systems that will automatically analyze and re-synthesize digital music for the purpose of transforming a linear and passive music listening practice into an interactive, expressive and creative music experiences. Building on the work in phase I, which focused on segmentation and user interaction, the company propose to extend the work in the following areas: Utilizing machine-learning techniques to extract instrumental content of musical segments; Developing automatic compositional techniques that would sequence annotated musical segments to create musically meaningful compositions; Developing visualization techniques for representing musical compositions; Develop a set of applications utilizing our technology, and implement a Cloud based service that would support seamless interaction with these applications. The intellectual merit of the project lies in the fundamental contribution to human knowledge in the areas for music perception and analysis, machine learning, automatic composition, user interaction, and visualization. The project will advance current knowledge in areas such as music information retrieval, music perception, machine learning, automatic composition, signal processing, visualization and cloud computing. The proposed research would shed light on broader concepts such as human and artificial creativity and expression and the feasibility of utilizing artificial music intelligence as an enabler of novel forms of music creativity for children, novices and experts. The project will lead to broad impact in the public sphere by creating engaging and rewarding musical experience for users at all skill levels. Zooz?s music intelligence engine will allow even those who believe they are not musically inclined to become engaged in expressive and creative musical experiences. As part of the project, we will continue to conduct workshops with educational and musical institutions where children and novices will interact and create music using the Zooz engine. High visibility public concerts will be conducted to bring the technology to the public eye. From a business perspective, the broad impact of the project is in providing a novel solution to the significant problems faced by the music industry today. The industry, which has suffered from a significant annual drop in music sales, is looking for new ways to monetize their content by engaging fans with music games, personalization tools and cloud-based musical interaction. Zooz Mobile will address these needs by providing an intelligent system that will allow fans to interact, personalize and share their favorite music in the Cloud in novel and expressive manners.