Reviews
This website contains short reviews of researchers, teachers, and students. At this occasion, I would like to take the opportunity to express my gratitude to all the people, who have influenced and supported me in writing this textbook. Many of these people have also helped me with numerous discussions on the book's content, constructive suggestions for improvements, and various rounds of proofreading. Thank you!
Mark Sandler, Director of the Centre for Digital Music, Queen Mary University of London, UK
First edition (Springer 2015)
This is a massively impressive piece of work. Müller is meticulous in the way he has constructed this text book, and it is clear that it will serve both higher level taught students, like those on masters programmes, as well as researchers of all levels. In fact, I would say this will become a required bookshelf companion for every MIR researcher in the world. If I were to write a book, this would be it. Too late however, Müller just wrote it—and way better than I ever would have. Unusual aspects that really enhance the value of the book include: the navigation guides (which he calls views) in the preface, that help a reader or a teacher to create a personalised journey through the material; the organisation of the book as a sequence of research topics, each of which then brings out wider issues in music, signal processing and computer science (like harmony, dynamic time warping, or hidden Markov models); and the guided learning through exercises at the end of each chapter. Müller has thought deeply about a subject he clearly cares about greatly. The result is a carefully constructed text built on secure theoretical foundations. It's a must–have.
Second edition (Springer 2021)
The addition of free online Jupyter notebooks for the 2nd edition has made the best even better! Buying and using Meinard Müller's book is really more an investment than a purchase. It helps learners at all levels to deeply understand the theory and practice of Music Informatics research. Here at the Centre for Digital Music, we recommend it to our MIR PhD students and to our Masters students.
Gaël Richard, Head of the Signal and Image Processing Department, Télécom ParisTech, France
First edition (Springer 2015)
This is a superb textbook for students in music processing and music information retrieval (MIR). It is particularly remarkable in presenting and discussing how numerous concepts introduced in related disciplines ranging from signal processing to musicology are applied or further developed in a number of well-chosen challenges in today's MIR research. Very well written, with many illustrations, examples and exercises, this textbook is promised a huge success in the field and beyond.
Second edition (Springer 2021)
This is clearly a must-have textbook for any students in music processing and music information retrieval (MIR). The accompanying Jupyter/python notebooks allow students to bridge the gap between theory and practice and bring a considerable added value to the original textbook.
Masataka Goto, Prime Senior Researcher, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Japan
First edition (Springer 2015)
This book is a very informative introduction written by a world-class leading researcher, Meinard Müller, on the subject of music processing. I know that he has dedicated tremendous efforts and time to write this comprehensive book with consistent descriptions and many figures. I am especially impressed by the fact that this book is carefully designed so that it can be used from different views such as "A First Course in Music Processing", "Introduction to Fourier Analysis and Applications", and "Data Representations and Algorithms". I believe that this book will be one of the greatest contributions to promote our research field that has been called by various names such as music processing, music technologies, music information processing, music information retrieval, or music information research.
Second edition (Springer 2021)
This second edition extended the great first edition of "Fundamentals of Music Processing" to offer easy-to-use Python codes applied to concrete music examples. This book continues to be an invaluable source for education and research in music information retrieval (MIR).
Juan Pablo Bello, Full Professor, Music Technology, New York University, USA
First edition (Springer 2015)
Music information retrieval (MIR) is quickly morphing from an emerging field to a well-established area of scholarship in music, computer science and engineering. As a result, MIR education, and in particular training on the algorithmic methods needed to extract high-level information from music audio, is becoming more mainstream, both as part of dedicated courses and as specific applications of a variety of concepts and techniques in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). In this context, "Fundamentals of Music Processing" is not only timely but also a much-needed resource to support MIR and STEM education both on and off the classroom. That it is written by one of the leading scholars in the field is an added bonus that brings the depth, comprehensiveness and pedagogy necessary to make the book informative and engaging to a multi-disciplinary audience at different stages of their learning process. If your interests lie at the intersection of music, sound and computation, I recommend this book as essential reading.
Second edition (Springer 2021)
In the years since it was first published, Fundamentals of Music Processing has become required reading for those wishing to enter (or brush up on their knowledge of) the field of music information retrieval. This is even more true now with the timely addition of the FMP notebooks, a welcome addition that makes Müller's seminal textbook even more accessible and significant.
Timothy J. Tsai, Assistent Professor, Harvey Mudd College, USA
First edition (Springer 2015)
The textbook "Fundamentals of Music Processing" by Meinard Müller was a pleasure to read. I don't say that of many textbooks, since they can often be tedious or frustrating to read cover-to-cover. But this textbook does a great job of explaining concepts clearly and in a way that maintains interest throughout. In particular, the figures are very well done. The author put a lot of time and thought into designing the figures, and it really pays off—I often found that a concept that was difficult to understand looking at the equation immediately became clear when shown graphically in an example.
Preeti Rao, Professor, I.I.T. Bombay, India
Second edition (Springer 2021)
The book has served as an excellent resource in the workshops I have conducted on the topic of audio and music processing. The FMP notebooks bring in a whole new dimension enabling students to put the concepts into immediate practice for an enriched learning experience.
Brain McFee, Assistent Professor, New York University, USA
Second edition (Springer 2021)
The Fundamentals of Music Processing (FMP) textbook provides a distinctly comprehensive introduction to computational analysis of musical audio. The theoretical foundations are reinforced by accompanying code examples and interactive Jupyter notebooks, which support students in developing, mastering, and exploring this fascinating and exciting area of research.