Internship Project
Musicology

Kalash tribe vibes: Transcribing Non-western Vocal and Instrumental Music

Institution
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Department of Musicology an Media Science
Subject Area
Musicology (transcription) / Computational Musicology
Availability
 06 May – 26 July 
 20 May – 09 August 


Internship Modality:
On-site internship in Berlin
On-line Internship 

The application is closed, and all positions have been filled.
Applications for 2025 will open in October 2024.
Project Supervisor(s)
Dr. Mats Küssner and Dr. George Athanasopoulos (george.athanasopoulos@hu-berlin.de)
Academic Level
Advanced undergraduate students (from second year) 
Graduate Students

Language
English; Knowledge of Khow, Kalash, and Pashto languages will be considered a bonus.
Project Type
Academic Research
Project Content
In preparation for follow-up fieldwork and experiment design in Central Asia, there is a need for a music transcriber/transcriptionist with superb listening skills to catalogue an existing database of non-western music, and transcribe it into western standard notation. The database consists of field recordings of vocal and instrumental music originating from the Kalash, Khow and Pashtun tribes. 
Tasks for Interns
  • Transcription of vocal and instrumental non-western music
  • Cataloging recorded material. 
Academic Level
Advanced undergraduate students (from second year) 
Graduate Students

Requirements
The intern needs to have demonstrable proficiency in using Sibelius 8 notation software or above, have very good listening skills, and have some experience in working with non-western music. The approach to music transcription for this task is based on Abraham & Hornbostel’s method (1994). 
Should the intern have a computational musicology background, it is possible to use Sonic Visualizer (Cannam, Landone, & Sandler (2010) in order to establish accurate frequencies, or adopt a fully automated approach custom-tailored for non-western music, as outlined in Benetos et al. (2018) and Benetos & Holzapfel (2015). 
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For more information on the Humboldt Internship Program or the project, please contact the program coordinator.