Computational Ethnomusicology for Exploring Trends in Trinidad Steelband Music Through History

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In this paper, we present an interdisciplinary case study combining traditional and computational methodologies to study a selection of Trinidad steelband musical trends over a period of 50 years. In particular, a number of facts and/or trends have been clearly identified in the ethnomusicology literature, while some other hypotheses have been regarded as not immediately addressable with traditional methodologies. Here, we employ Music Information Retrieval (MIR) methods to investigate some of these questions. Our results show that the tempo range measured on our corpus is consistent with values reported in ethnomusicological literature, but reveals no clear change trend over time. On the other hand, our results suggest a change of the use of dynamics in the winning performances of the national Panorama competition. Finally, a tendency for homogenization of the tuning frequency and sound of the steelpans also became apparent, most probably due to the standardization of the manufacture of the instruments.