Xavier Serra Home Page

Xavier Serra is Associate Professor of the Department of Information and Communication Technologies and Director of the Music Technology Group at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. After a multidisciplinary academic education he obtained a PhD in Computer Music from Stanford University in 1989 with a dissertation on the spectral processing of musical sounds that is considered a key reference in the field. His research interests cover the understanding, modelling and generation of musical signals by computational means, with a balance between basic and applied research and approaches from both scientific/technological and humanistic/artistic disciplines. Dr. Serra is very active in promoting initiatives in the field of Sound and Music Computing at the local and international levels, being involved in the editorial board of a number of journals and conferences and giving lectures on current and future challenges of the field. He has recently been awarded an Advanced Grant of the European Research Council to carry out the project CompMusic aimed at promoting multicultural approaches in music computing research.

Main research project

CompMusic, "Computational Models for the Discovery of the World's Music", is a research project funded by the European Research Council that runs from 2011 to 2016. Its main goal is to advance in the field of Music Computing by approaching a number of the current research challenges from a culture specifc perspective. It aims to advance in the automatic description of music through the development of information modeling techniques applicable to five non-Western music cultures: Hindustani (North India), Carnatic (South India), Turkish-makam (Turkey), Andalusian (North Africa), and Han (China).

Publications

List of publications

Teaching activities

PhD in Sound and Music Computing [UPF]
Master in Sound and Music Computing [UPF]: Audio and Music Processing
Polytechnic School [UPF]: Signals and Systems; Sound and Music Processing

Selected talks

"CompMusic: Computational models for the discovery of the world's music" [video, slides], FRSM-2012, Gurgaon (India), January 19th 2012
"Com serà la música de la web 3.0?" [video, transparències], Festa de la Ciència, Barcelona, 18 Juny 2011
"CompMusic: Computational models for the discovery of the world's music" [video, slides], Queen Mary, London (UK), April 7th 2011
"Tecnologias para la creación musical y su impacto en las redes sociales" [video, slides], TEDx Barcelona, December 14th 2009
"Technologies to support the collaborative production of sounds: the example of Freesound.org" [video, slides], Unlocking Audio 2 conference, London (UK), March 2009
"A Tutorial on Sound and Music Computing" [slides], tutorial at the Supercomputing Conference (SC08), Austin, Texas (USA), November 2008
"Research in Music Technology: Artistic and Scientific Challenges" [video, slides], Music, Science and the Brain workshop, Plymouth (UK), September 27th 2008
"Technological Innovation in the Current Social Context: Who is really in control?" [video, slides], keynote at NIME 2008, Genova (Italy), June 6th 2008
"De la Cultura Musical a la Cultura del So en la Societat Tecnològica" [transparències], 2on Congrés Internacional de Música, Barcelona, Maig 2008
"Recerca en Tecnologia Musical: Reptes Artístics i Científics" [video, slides], Cosmo Caixa, Barcelona, 16 Novembre 2007
"State of the Art and Future Directions in Musical Sound Synthesis" [slides], invited talk at IEEE-MMSP 2007, Chania, Crete (Greece), October 1st 2007
"The Origins of DAFx and its Future within the Sound and Music Computing Field" [slides], keynote at DAFx 2007, Bordeaux (France), September 14th 2007
"From Sound Synthesis to Sound Retrieval and Back" [video], Tech Talk at Google, Mountain View (USA), July 2007
"Reflexió sobre les noves tecnologies, la creació musical i Barcelona" [video], Fòrum d'Indigestió, Barcelona, Març 2007
"Bridging the Music Semantic Gap" [slides], IST Info-Day, Brussels (Belgium), December 2005
"Towards a Roadmap for the Research in Music Technology" [slides], ICMC 2005, Barcelona, September 2005