Thor Kell

MA Music Technology
Supervisor: Prof. Marcelo M. Wanderley

Email: thor[at]tide-pool[dot]ca
Web: http://tide-pool.ca
Fax: +1 (514) 398-2962
Phone: +1 (514) 398-4535 ext. 094846

Research Interests

  • Mapping
  • Human Computer Interaction
  • Music Information Retrieval
  • Algorithmic Composition

Academic Background

  • B.Sc. (Music / Computer Science) - University of Victoria (Canada) - 2012
  • MA Candidate (Music Technology)- McGill University (Canada) - 2014

Past Projects

  • Mistify: Dynamically Recreating Xenakis’ Mists. Paper at CIM 2014. (paper).
  • Musical Mapping of Two-Dimensional Touch-Based Interfaces. MA Thesis. Info is here.
  • A High-Level Review of Mappings in Musical iOS Applications. Poster at SMC/ICMC 2014. Raw data is here.
  • Empirical Analysis of Track Selection and Ordering in Electronic Dance Music Using Audio Feature Extraction - poster presented at ISMIR 2013. (proceedings, paper)
  • An Overview of Musical Mappings for iOS Applications - paper presented at SMC 2013. (proceedings, paper)
  • The Feminest: Inferring the gender of bands from text data. Made at Tufts Hack Day, 2013.
  • Elvis by Elvis - performance with Ryan Groves, at ISMIR 2013
  • Tetris-Remix: Generative music using Tetris Attack. Made at MIT Hacking Arts, 2013.
  • What We Talk About When We Talk About Beethoven: Algorithmic composition meets music criticism.
  • Leap Re Mi: Solfege sign synthesis. Made at McGill Music Hack Day, 2013
  • The Ultimate Machine: Self-referential, text-based algorithmic composition. Made at Boston Music Hack Day, 2012
  • The Tonnetz - Building a working, cylindrical tonnetz for MUMT 619.
  • TimbreSurf: Controlling concatenative synthesis with a Kinect, Echo Nest Remix, and ChucK. MUMT 620 class project, 2012
  • How To DJ Properly: Track ordering driven by heuristics from the BBC's Essential Mix. CSC 475 class project, 2011
  • Kinduct: 'Conducting' using a Kinect. UVic Music Hack Day, 2011
  • instantmusicvideo: Mash up SoundCloud audio and Vimeo / YouTube video. Summer hack, 2010.

Professional Experience

  • Junior Engineer / Remix API maintainer - The Echo Nest / Spotify
  • Research Assistant / Programmer - CHISEL Group, University of Victoria
  • Web Development Intern - SoundCloud

Volunteer Experience

Music Projects

Publications

In Proceedings

Master's Theses