NEMUS | Numerical Restoration of Historical Musical Instruments

Summary
The conservation, restoration and maintenance of rare and precious musical instruments is currently problematic, and will become increasingly so in the future: most instruments in museum collections are already out of playing condition, and deteriorating to the extent that their unique sounds will eventually be lost. Curators are well aware of the ethical problems associated with restoration and maintenance, and digital technology offers a solution to the problem of saving the sound of historical musical instruments. However, current digitisation practices are largely inadequate for a deeper understanding of musical instruments, as they have so far been limited to photogrammetric or sampling techniques. The applicant believes that museum collections would benefit from a new approach to digitising musical instruments. A comprehensive understanding of musical instruments can only be achieved by a focused acoustical and mathematical study, ultimately yielding a wealth of efficient and realistic simulation techniques which could be used for real-time emulation: this is the context in which NEMUS will operate. By developing the most advanced mathematical models yet describing sound propagation and transmission in musical instruments, NEMUS will create sustainable, durable and realistic digital emulations of historical musical instruments that are currently out of playing condition. NEMUS will also generate computer-aided simulation studies of a number of harpsichords of the Ruckers/Couchet tradition, to complement organological studies on Ioseph Ioannes Couchet craftmanship. For the first time, complex musical systems will be solved under real-time, on standard consumer hardware, using mainstream numerical methods such as finite difference schemes, including the player’s interaction with the instrument. Appropriate controllers with haptic feedback will be devised, so as to facilitate use in virtual and augmented reality environments.
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More information & hyperlinks
Web resources: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/950084
Start date: 01-07-2021
End date: 30-06-2026
Total budget - Public funding: 1 497 265,00 Euro - 1 497 265,00 Euro
Cordis data

Original description

The conservation, restoration and maintenance of rare and precious musical instruments is currently problematic, and will become increasingly so in the future: most instruments in museum collections are already out of playing condition, and deteriorating to the extent that their unique sounds will eventually be lost. Curators are well aware of the ethical problems associated with restoration and maintenance, and digital technology offers a solution to the problem of saving the sound of historical musical instruments. However, current digitisation practices are largely inadequate for a deeper understanding of musical instruments, as they have so far been limited to photogrammetric or sampling techniques. The applicant believes that museum collections would benefit from a new approach to digitising musical instruments. A comprehensive understanding of musical instruments can only be achieved by a focused acoustical and mathematical study, ultimately yielding a wealth of efficient and realistic simulation techniques which could be used for real-time emulation: this is the context in which NEMUS will operate. By developing the most advanced mathematical models yet describing sound propagation and transmission in musical instruments, NEMUS will create sustainable, durable and realistic digital emulations of historical musical instruments that are currently out of playing condition. NEMUS will also generate computer-aided simulation studies of a number of harpsichords of the Ruckers/Couchet tradition, to complement organological studies on Ioseph Ioannes Couchet craftmanship. For the first time, complex musical systems will be solved under real-time, on standard consumer hardware, using mainstream numerical methods such as finite difference schemes, including the player’s interaction with the instrument. Appropriate controllers with haptic feedback will be devised, so as to facilitate use in virtual and augmented reality environments.

Status

SIGNED

Call topic

ERC-2020-STG

Update Date

27-04-2024
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Horizon 2020
H2020-EU.1. EXCELLENT SCIENCE
H2020-EU.1.1. EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)
ERC-2020
ERC-2020-STG