Call for participation : Workshop on Sparse Methods for Music Audio

[Douglas Eck <eckdoug@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Call for participation
ICML 2009 Workshop on Sparse Methods for Music Audio
http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~gamme/icml2009_sparsemusic

In conjunction with the 26th International Conference on Machine Learning 
http://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~icml2009
Montreal, Quebec, June 14 - 18, 2009

Description
Sparse coding is gaining attention as alternative to traditional,
orthogonal-basis approaches, able to find more interesting or more
useful solutions to underconstrained, high-dimensional problems. Music
audio provides an excellent candidate for sparse coding, being very high
dimensional (e.g. over 80,000 values in one second of music from a CD),
yet usefully described as the combination of a small number of separate
signals -- such as individual instruments -- each subject to a large
number of mutual constraints. This description can be applied at
multiple levels, from the raw audio through to compositional structure.

There have been only a few publications on applying sparse techniques in
music. The goal of the workshop is to bring together researchers with an
interest in this topic, to focus, develop, and refine the various
perspectives and approaches possible. We hope to raise the profile of
these ideas, both to those already working with music audio, and to
machine learning researchers who may be curious about working with music
audio data.

Topics
Since this is an exploratory workshop, we solicit contributions that
relate to sparse methods in music audio, interpreted in the broadest
possible sense. Particular topics include:

    * audio classification
    * music recommendation
    * music structure discovery/recovery
    * polyphonic pitch extraction
    * scene analysis/source separation
    * measures of music similarity
    * auditory perception models
    * music audio representation and coding

The workshop will consist of several invited talks, a poster session,
and plenty of time for discussions. Speakers will include:

    * Patrick Wolfe, Harvard University
    * Andrew Nesbitt, Queen Mary University of London
    * Mikkel Schmidt, Technical University of Denmark

Submission Information
We invite prospective participants to submit a one or two page abstract
describing their research addressing the workshop theme. Abstracts
should be sent via email in PDF format to Philippe Hamel
(higgsbosonh@xxxxxxxxxxx). Submissions must be received by April 15th.

Each submissions will be reviewed by the organizing committee. A
notification of acceptance will be sent by April 30th. Authors will be
asked to submit a final version of their submission to be posted on the
workshop website.

Important Dates
    * April 15, 2009 Submission due date
    * April 30, 2009 Author notification date
    * June 1, 2009 Final version ready
    * June 14-18, 2009 ICML 2009 Conference
    * June 18, 2009 Workshop Date

Organizers
Douglas Eck http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~eckdoug
    Associate Professor, University of Montreal Computer Science
    LISA Machine Learning Lab / BRAMS International Laboratory for
    Research in Brain Music and Sound
Dan Ellis http://www.ee.columbia.edu/~dpwe
    Associate Professor, Electrical Engineering, Columbia University
    LabROSA Laboratory for the Recognition and Organization of Speech
    and Audio
Philippe Hamel
    PhD Candidate, University of Montreal Computer Science
    LISA Machine Learning Lab / BRAMS International Laboratory for
    Research in Brain Music and Sound