Publications


Issued US Patent

Marrin, T., et al (1999). Apparatus for Controlling Continuous Behavior Through Hand and Arm Gestures. United States Patent no. 5,875,257, issued February 23, 1999. Link in USPTO Patent Database, referenced by 170 US patents. [PDF]


Book Chapters

Johannsen, G. & T. M. Nakra (2010). Conductors’ Gestures and Their Mapping to Sound Synthesis. In R.I. Godøy & M. Leman (Eds.), Musical Gestures:  Sound, Movement, and Meaning, Routledge, 264-298.

Ault, C., Warner-Ault, A., Wolz, U. & T.M. Nakra (2010). Kinesthetic Communication for Learning in Immersive Worlds. In J. Cannon-Bowers & C. Bowers (Eds.), Serious Game Design and Development: Technologies for Training and Learning. IGI Global Press.

Nakra, T.M. (2000). Searching for Meaning in Gestural Data: Interpretive Feature Extraction and Signal Processing for Affective and Expressive Content. In M. Wanderley & B. Rovan (Eds.), Trends in Gestural Control of Music. Paris: IRCAM, Centre Pompidou. [PDF]


Peer-reviewed Journal Articles

Nakra, T.M. (2020). Maximizing Student Outcomes During a Period of Disruption: Insights from a Music Technologist. College Music Symposium, 60:2, pp. 1-4. [Link]

Nakra, T.M. & Busha, B.F. (2014). Synchronous Sympathy at the Symphony: Conductor and Audience Accord. Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Vol. 32, No. 2 (December 2014), pp. 109-124. [JSTOR link]

Nakra, T.M. (2014) Interactive Conducting Systems Overview and Assessment. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 135 (4), p. 2377. (invited paper; abstract only) [PDF]

Wolz, U., Ault, C., & T.M. Nakra (2007). Teaching Game Design through Cross-Disciplinary Content and Individualized Student Deliverables. Journal of Game Development, vol. 2 issue 1. [PDF]

Nakra, T.M. (2002). Synthesizing Expressive Music through the Language of Conducting. Journal of New Music Research, 31(1), 11-26. [PDF]

Nakra, T.M. (2001). The “Concerto for Conductor”: a new musical form. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 110 (5), p. 2691. (abstract only, no full paper) [PDF]

Nakra, T.M. & G. Hill. (2000). Quantitative Practice for Students at the Digital Conducting Laboratory. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 108 (5), p. 2538. (abstract only, no full paper) [PDF]

Nakra, T.M. (1999). Incorporating gestures into the musical control stream with the Conductor's Jacket. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 106 (4), p. 2161. (awarded Best Student Paper in Musical Acoustics; abstract only, no full paper)


Theses

Nakra, T.M. (2000). Inside the Conductor's Jacket: Analysis, Interpretation and Musical Synthesis of Expressive Gesture. Ph.D. Thesis, Media Laboratory. Cambridge, MA, MIT. [Link]

Marrin, T. (1996). Toward an Understanding of Musical Gesture: Mapping Expressive Intention with the Digital Baton. M.S. Thesis, Media Laboratory.  Cambridge, MA, MIT. [Link]


Peer-Reviewed Conference Papers

Nakra, T.M. (2020). Teaching Interactive Music Programming: easing into creative coding skills for music majors. Joint meeting, Association for Technology in Music Instruction and The College Music Society, Miami, FL (online presentation).

Nakra, T.M. (2019). Podcasting for Trenton: a template for student engagement with local musical histories. Joint meeting, Association for Technology in Music Instruction and The College Music Society, Louisville, KY.

Nakra, T.M. (2018). Immersive Pedagogy for Music Technology. Joint meeting, Assoc. for Technology in Music Instruction and The College Music Society, Vancouver, BC.

Nakra, T.M. (2015). Improved Methods for Measuring Synchronous Sympathy. 4th International Conference on Music and Emotion (ICME4), University of Geneva.

Kuiphoff, J. & Nakra, T.M. (2014). Promoting Digital Literacy & Cultural Diversity through Development of an Interactive Wall Mural. Creative Engagement: Thinking with Children, Prague.

Salgian, A., Nakra, T.M., Ault, C., & Wang, Y. (2013). Conducting Robots: Bridging the Gap between Science, Technology and the Arts in the Undergraduate Curriculum. IEEE Integrated STEM Education Conference, Princeton NJ. [PDF]

Salgian, A., Nakra, T.M., Ault, C., & Wang, Y. (2013). Teaching Creativity in Computer Science. ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE). [PDF]

Salgian, A., Nakra, T.M., Ault, C., Wang, Y., & Stone, M. (2012). A Theory of Multiple Creativities: Outcomes from an Undergraduate Seminar in Conducting Robots. Proceedings of the Music, Mind, and Invention Workshop, Ewing, NJ. [PDF]

Rahimi, N., Mastro, M., Nakra, T.M., & BuSha, B. (2012). Correlating Emotional Arousal to Musician Performance. Proceedings of the Music, Mind, and Invention Workshop, Ewing, NJ. [PDF]

Salgian, A., Ault, C., Nakra, T., Wang, J., & Stone, M. (2011). Multidisciplinary Computer Science through Conducting Robots. ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE), March 2011. [PDF]

Ault, C., Salgian, A., Nakra, T.M., & Wang, J. (2011).  The Mechanical Maestro with a Human Heart: Interdisciplinary Collaboration through Orchestra-Conducting Robots.  New Media Consortium Summer Conference.

Wang, J., Ault, C., Nakra, T.M., Salgian, A. & M. Stone (2011).  The Outcomes of an Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Course Involving Engineering, Science and Arts.  American Society for Engineering Education Conference. [PDF]

Nakra, T.M., Wang, Y., Salgian, A., & C. Ault (2010).  Orchestral Conducting for Non-Humans: its Impact in Interdisciplinary Education.  Proceedings of the IROS (International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems) Workshop on Robots and Musical Expression, Taiwan, 2010. [PDF]

Nakra, T.M., Tilden, D. & A. Salgian (2010).  Improving Upon Musical Analyses of Conducting Gestures Using Computer Vision.  Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference, SUNY Stony Brook.  ISBN:  0-9713192-8-6. [PDF]

Wang, J., Ault, C., Nakra, T.M., Salgian, A. & M. Stone (2010).  An Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Course Bridging the Gaps Between Engineering, Science and the Arts.  American Society for Engineering Education Conference. [PDF]

Nakra, T.M., Y. Ivanov, P. Smaragdis, & C. Ault (2009).  The UBS Virtual Maestro: an Interactive Conducting System.  NIME 2009 International Conference of New Interfaces for Musical Expression, Carnegie Mellon University. [PDF]

Nakra, T.M., A. Salgian, & M. Pfirrmann (2009).  Musical Analysis of Conducting Gestures Using Methods from Computer Vision.  International Computer Music Conference, McGill University, Montreal. [PDF]

Hashida, M., Nakra, T.M., Katayose, H., Murao, T. Hirata, K., Suzuki, K, & Kitahara, T. (2008).  Rencon:  Performance Rendering Contest for Automated Music Systems.  International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition, Sapporo Japan. [PDF]

Wolz, U., Ault, A.W., Ault, C., Nakra, T.M., & K. Pearson (2008).  Immersive Modern Language Learning with Principled Pedagogy.  Breakout session (75 minutes), New Media Consortium Summer Conference, Princeton University. [PDF]

Wolz, U., Ault, C., and Nakra, T.M. (2008). What WE can do with the Wii. ‘Five Minutes of Fame’ presentation, New Media Consortium Summer Conference, Princeton University.

Salgian, A., Pfirrmann, M. & T.M. Nakra (2007). Follow the Beat? Understanding Conducting Gestures from Video.  3rd International Symposium on Visual Computing, Lecture Notes in Computer Science Series, Springer. [PDF]

Wolz, U., C. Ault & T. M. Nakra (2007). Teaching Game Design through Cross-Disciplinary Content and Individualized Student Deliverables. 2nd Annual Microsoft Academic Days Conference on Game Development in Computer Science Education. [PDF]

Ault, C., T. Nakra, K. Pearson, P. Sanders, & U. Wolz (2006). Collaborative Learning via 3-D Game Development. Panel, SIGGRAPH, Boston MA. [PDF]

Ault, C., T. Nakra, K. Pearson, P. Sanders, & U. Wolz (2006). Video Game Design as a Vehicle for Multidisciplinary Collaboration. NMC Summer Conference, Cleveland, Ohio.

Lee, Eric, T.M. Nakra, & J. Borchers (2004). You’re the Conductor: A Realistic Interactive Conducting System for Children. NIME International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, Hamamatsu, Japan. [PDF]

Nakra, T.M. (2003). Immersion Music: A Progress Report. NIME International Conference on New Instruments for Musical Expression Conference, McGill University, Montreal. [PDF]

Nakra, T.M. (2002). Musical Performance Applications of Affective Computing. Invited paper, Physiological Computing Workshop, CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Milwaukee WI. [PDF]

Nakra, T.M. (2001). Translating Conductors’ Gestures to Sound. Invited paper, Human Supervision and Control in Engineering and Music, September 2001.

Nakra, T.M. (1999). Incorporating gestures into the musical control stream with the Conductor's Jacket. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, vol. 106, no. 4, part 2. Awarded Best Student Paper Award in Musical Acoustics at the meeting of the ASA in Columbus, Ohio, November 1-5 1999. [PDF]

Marrin, T. & R. Picard (1998). The Conductor's Jacket: a Device for Recording Expressive Musical Gestures. International Computer Music Conference, Ann Arbor, MI. (MIT Media Laboratory Perceptual Computing Section Technical Report no. 470) [PDF]

Marrin, T. & R. Picard (1998). Analysis of Affective Musical Expression with the Conductor's Jacket. XII Colloquium for Musical Informatics, Gorizia, Italy. (MIT Media Laboratory Perceptual Computing Section Technical Report no. 475) [PDF]

Marrin, T. & J. Paradiso (1997). The Digital Baton: a Versatile Performance Instrument. International Computer Music Conference, Thessaloniki, Greece. [PDF]

Marrin, T. (1997). Possibilities for the Digital Baton as a General-Purpose Gestural Interface. CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. [PDF]


Peer-Reviewed Posters

Nakra, T.M. (2021). Human-Centered Musical Design. Joint meeting, Association for Technology in Music Instruction and The College Music Society, Rochester, NY.

Nakra, T.M. & Pearson, K. (2017). Trenton Makes Music: the Sound of a City. Speech & Audio in the Northeast Workshop, Google NYC. [PDF]

Salgian, A., Agina, L., & T.M. Nakra (2014). Teaching Robots to Conduct: Automatic Extraction of Conducting Information from Sheet Music. International Computer Music Conference, Athens.

Rahimi, N., Mastro, M., Nakra, T. and B. BuSha (2011). A Low-cost and Unobtrusive System to Measure Emotional Arousal. Biomedical Engineering Society, Hartford, CT.

Warner-Ault, A., Ault, C., Wolz, U., and T. M. Nakra (2011). Language Learning through Kinesthetic Interfaces. Northeast Association for Language Learning Technology, UPenn.

Nakra, T.M. and C. Ault (2008). WiiConduct – Teaching Classical Music through Interface Design. NJEdge.Net Conference 5.0.

Nakra, T.M. & R. McMahan (2007). Student Composers & Sound Designers in the Context of a Game Design Course. Microsoft Academic Days, Game Development in CS Education. [PDF]