ISMIR Eve

This first blog entry is being written while sitting in my hotel room on the eve of the International Conference of Music Information Retrieval (ISMIR 2007). It is my favorite conference because I'm surrounded by 'my people': everyone is part artist and part researcher, and everyone loves music.

I can honestly say that last year, I found just about every talk, poster, and demo to be relevant and interesting. Everyone is excited to share, discuss and debate the finer point of music analysis and information retrieval.

Dinner tonight is a chance to catch up with colleagues both old an new. I am most excited to see Masataka Goto and his merry bunch of Japanese grad students. Last summer, I got to work with Goto-san and Elias Pampalk in Japan at a government lab just north of Tokyo. The experience completely rejuvenated my research. Every grad student should have to work in a foreign lab. I guess this is why professors go on sabbaticals...

This is my second year at ISMIR, though I have been following the conference for years. This year, I am presenting three paper and a MIREX poster. It's my first multiple-event conference. Slides for multiple talks can be a drag, but it make me feel like a major contributor rather then an outsider peaking in.