Engineering and Music "Human Supervision and Control in Engineering and Music"
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Version: 1.3
31. August 2001

 to the paper
Entropy Based Measures of Control, Coordination, and Improvisation
Alex Kirlik
Haskins Laboratories
New Haven, CT USA and
Center for the Ecological Study of Perceiving and Acting
University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT USA
email: kirlik@haskins.yale.edu
 
Introduction
Interesting and promising analogies can be drawn between the performance of musicians, guided by a written score and possibly under the direction of a conductor, and human-machine performance in complex engineering systems. Many of these connections have been ably outlined by Johannsen in his introductory notes for this workshop on Human Supervision and Control in Engineering and Music. My aim in this paper is to focus on how techniques from the engineering and psychological sciences might enrich our understanding of music theory and performance, and conversely, how studying musical performance might broaden the scientific understanding of control and coordination in complex, human-machine systems. More specifically, I will present a conceptual scheme for understanding control, coordination, and improvisational aspects of human performance in both music and engineering. The fundamental concepts at the heart of this scheme are order and disorder, along with their cognitive counterparts, expectation and uncertainty.
 
    Uncertainty and Order in Music Perception and Performance
Ecological Perception
Control and Coordination in Musical Performance
An Entropy Based Approach
Improvisation
to the paper