Harmonygrams, a graphical notation system for three-part music, offers a powerful alternative to the western 5-line staff notation, both as a tool for analysis and for singing practice.

Within the GVM project [DFG MU 2686/13-1, SCHE 280/20-1], we apply computational methods from audio signal processing and music information retrieval (MIR) to study traditional Georgian vocal music.

In preparation for the GVM project, extensive fieldwork was conducted in Georgia (with focus on Svaneti) to collect a set of multi-media recordings of traditional Georgian vocal music for analysis.

During the summer of 2019, we conducted field work in Achara and Guria. In addition to lots of new recordings, we came back with unforgettable impressions, some of which we’d like to share here.

Together with the ensemble Khelkhvavi from Ozurgeti, we conducted an experiment to monitor the synchronization of the singers' heartbeat rates while they performed the Gurian song Chven Mshvidoba.

We explore new ways of engaging with traditional Georgian vocal music using computational approaches and web-based interfaces.

The Tbilisi State Conservatory recordings of Artem Erkomaishvili from 1966 are not only a cultural treasure but also an extremely valuable source of information regarding prior performance practice.

Because of their roots in very old, possibly pre-christian traditions, Svan funeral songs Zär, can possibly tell us something about the early layers of Georgian musical thinking.

Representing chords in a song as vertices in a directed graphs allows to illustrate songs as paths in a chordscape to analyse the structure of the music.

Pitch trajectories calculated from larynx microphone recordings pave the way for new representations of traditional Georgian songs.

Real time analysis and display of larynx microphone recordings helps to unravel the mysteries of the Quintina, when the four singers of the Sardinian group Concordu Lussurzesu produce five voices.

Recordings of body vibration during singing changes ethnomusicological field recording practice. Individual voices can be recorded jointly, but analysed separately.

The year 2019 is the 20th anniversary of the release of the award winning CD Inner Earth: a seismosonic symphony in which Wolfgang Loos and Frank Scherbaum captured the sound of our home planet.