The IRiMaS software: Integrating interactive listening and play into musicological research

This paper introduces the IRiMaS software, developed within a European Research Council funded project based at the University of Huddersfield (2017-2022). The IRiMaS project (Interactive Research in Music as Sound) aims at developing new modes of musicology, by placing the aural, listening, and play at the forefront of the research into musical form, processes, and practices. The primarily considered repertoires are those in which traditional notation is fundamentally problematic for the analysis, such as ethnomusicology, improvised music, or branches of contemporary music like spectral music in which the gap between what is written on the score and what is heard is often considerable. For such musical domains, an interactive aural approach, relying on software and sound analysis, is potentially a useful alternative to notation, as it can lead to the scrutiny and analysis of music on the primary basis of listening. In this context, the IRiMaS software is a platform through which the musicologist can build her/his entire workflow, from the simple investigation of a sound file to the elaboration of advanced interactive analytical charts, by providing an important library of tools to support all the dimensions of the research itself and of the dissemination of its outcomes.