Andrew Milne

Dr Andrew J. Milne is Associate Professor of Music Cognition & Computation, School of Humanities and Communication Arts and the MARCS Institute, Western Sydney University, Australia.

His research includes

• cross-cultural music cognition
• cognition of familiar and unfamiliar (microtonal) melody, harmony, and tonality
• cognitive mechanisms and mathematical models related to the perception, performance, and algorithmic generation of scales and rhythms
• developing new musical interfaces in creative, public art, therapeutic, and educational settings (see https://www.dynamictonality.com).

Some of his peer-reviewed articles where microtonality or pitch layouts are a significant component are listed below (articles on other topics such as cross-cultural music cognition, rhythmic structures and their perception, and music for well-being and education, can be accessed from GoogleScholar and ResearchGate):

• Milne, A. J. (2026). The Music Perception Toolbox: Analytical methods for pitch and rhythm similarity, consonance, complexity, and structure. Transactions of the International Society for Music Information Retrieval, 9(1):526–543.
• Hearne, L. M., Dean, R. T., and Milne, A. J. (2026). Acoustical and cultural explanations for contextual tonal stability. Music Perception, 43(5):448–470.
• Milne, A. J. (2024). Commentary on Buechele, Cooke, & Berezovsky (2024): Entropic models of scales and some extensions. Empirical Musicology Review, 19(2):144–153.
• Smit, E. A., Milne, A. J., Dean, R. T., and Weidemann, G. (2022). Evaluative conditioning of responses to unfamiliar chords by exposure to valenced images. Psychology of Music, 50(2):579–595.
• Smit, E. A., Milne, A. J., Dean, R. T., and Weidemann, G. (2022). Making the unfamiliar familiar: The effect of exposure on ratings of unfamiliar musical chords. Musicae Scientiae, 26(2):339–363.
• Smit, E. A., Milne, A. J., Dean, R. T., and Weidemann, G. (2019). Perception of affect in unfamiliar musical chords. PLOS One, 14(6):1–28.
• Hearne, G., Milne, A. J., and Dean, R. T. (2019). Distributional analysis of n-dimensional feature space for 7-note scales in 22-TET. In Montiel, M., Gómez-Martín, F., and Agustín-Aquino, O. A., editors, Mathematics and Computation in Music, 7th International Conference, MCM 2019, Madrid, Spain, June 18–21, 2019, pages 201–222, Cham, Switzerland. Springer.
• Stanford, S., Milne, A. J., and MacRitchie, J. (2018). The effect of isomorphic pitch layouts on the transfer of musical learning. Applied Sciences, 8(12):2514.
• Milne, A. J. (2018). Linking sonic aesthetics with mathematical theories. In McLean, A. and Dean, R. T., editors, The Oxford Handbook of Algorithmic Music, pages 155–180. Oxford University Press, New York, NY, US.
• Milne, A. J., Bulger, D., and Herff, S. A. (2017). Exploring the space of perfectly balanced rhythms and scales. Journal of Mathematics and Music, 11(2–3):101–133.
• MacRitchie, J. and Milne, A. J. (2017). Exploring the effects of pitch layout on learning a new musical instrument. Applied Sciences, 7(12):1218.
• Milne, A. J. and Holland, S. (2016). Empirically testing voice-leading, Tonnetz, and spectral models of perceived triadic distance. Journal of Mathematics and Music, 10(1):59–85.
• Milne, A. J., Laney, R., and Sharp, D. B. (2016). Testing a spectral model of tonal affinity with microtonal melodies and inharmonic spectra. Musicae Scientiae, 20(4):465–494.
• Milne, A. J., Bulger, D., Herff, S. A., and Sethares, W. A. (2015). Perfect balance: A novel principle for the construction of musical scales and meters. In Collins, T., Meredith, D., and Volk, A., editors, Mathematics and Computation in Music, volume 9110 of LNAI, pages 97–108, Berlin. Springer.
• Milne, A. J., Laney, R., and Sharp, D. B. (2015). A spectral pitch class model of the probe tone data and scalic tonality. Music Perception, 32(4):364–393.
• Prechtl, A., Milne, A. J., Holland, S., Laney, R., and Sharp, D. B. (2012). A MIDI sequencer that widens access to the compositional possibilities of novel tunings. Computer Music Journal, 36(1):42–54.
• Milne, A. J., Sethares, W. A., Laney, R., and Sharp, D. B. (2011). Modelling the similarity of pitch collections with expectation tensors. Journal of Mathematics and Music, 5(1):1–20.
• Milne, A. J., Carlé, M., Sethares, W. A., Noll, T., and Holland, S. (2011). Scratching the scale labyrinth. In Agon, C., Amiot, E., Andreatta, M., Assayag, G., Bresson, J., and Mandereau, J., editors, Mathematics and Computation in Music, volume 6726 of LNAI, pages 180–195, Berlin. Springer.
• Milne, A. J., Xambó, A., Laney, R., Sharp, D. B., Prechtl, A., and Holland, S. (2011). Hex player—a virtual musical controller. In Jensenius, A. R. and Godøy, R. I., editors, Proceedings of the 2011 International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME11), pages 244–247, Oslo, Norway.
• Sethares, W. A., Milne, A. J., Tiedje, S., Prechtl, A., and Plamondon, J. (2009). Spectral tools for Dynamic Tonality and audio morphing. Computer Music Journal, 33(2):71–84.
• Milne, A. J., Sethares, W. A., and Plamondon, J. (2008). Tuning continua and keyboard layouts. Journal of Mathematics and Music, 2(1):1–19.
• Milne, A. J., Sethares, W. A., and Plamondon, J. (2007). Isomorphic controllers and Dynamic Tuning: Invariant fingering over a tuning continuum. Computer Music Journal, 31(4):15–32.

External links

• Microtonal compositions on SoundCloud
• ‪Andrew J. Milne‬ - ‪Google Scholar‬
• ResearchGate Profile
• Western Sydney University Profile
• Dynamic Tonality