stanford-mir

Instructional material for the Music Information Retrieval Workshop at CCRMA, Stanford University, 2014.

To register for the 2015 workshop, please click here.

How to Use This Repo

This repo contains a bunch of IPython notebooks related to music information retrieval.

If you're a visitor, browse this repo at nbviewer.ipython.org which renders the notebooks in this repo so they can be viewed in a web browser.

If you're a workshop participant, follow the steps below to get started with Git, Vagrant, and IPython.

Install Git

Git is a version control system. You will use Git to retrieve the latest version of our IPython notebooks and to track changes that you make to these notebooks.

1. Download Git, and install it on your local machine.

2. Clone this repo onto your local machine:

   macbook:~$ git clone https://github.com/stevetjoa/stanford-mir
   

3. Create a branch called develop. You will make changes to this branch.

   macbook:~$ cd stanford-mir
   macbook:~/stanford-mir$ git branch develop
   macbook:~/stanford-mir$ git checkout develop
   Switched to branch 'develop'
   

Install Vagrant

We use Vagrant to create a local virtual machine running Ubuntu 12.04. Vagrant ensures that every person has exactly the same development environment with the same installed packages.

Vagrant is available for all major operating systems, including Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. It's a breeze to install.

1. Install VirtualBox and Vagrant.

2. Create a new virtual machine using our customized Vagrant box built upon Ubuntu 12.04 64-bit.

   macbook:~/stanford-mir$ vagrant up
   

   If this is your first time running vagrant up, this step may take five minutes to download the Vagrant box.

3. Finally, login to the new virtual machine:

   macbook:~/stanford-mir$ vagrant ssh
   

   This step logs you in to Ubuntu locally as user vagrant with default password vagrant.

   Note: do not upgrade the virtual machine to Ubuntu 14.04 when prompted.

   Note: outdated versions of Mac OS X may yield problems with vagrant ssh. To avoid such problems, please upgrade (for free) to the latest version of Mac OS X.

Troubleshooting Vagrant

• Problem: When on a Windows host machine, vagrant ssh results in a timeout error: ssh_exchange_identification: read: Connection reset by peer.

  Solution: Go into the BIOS, and make sure that Hardware Virtualization is enabled. For details, see this answer on Stack Overflow.

• Problem: The folder stanford-mir on the guest machine is empty.

  Solution: Vagrant probably failed to sync folders between the host and the guest machines. Try vagrant provision or vagrant reload from the host machine.

Start IPython

A majority of our instruction and laboratory work will occur inside the IPython notebook. You can think of the IPython notebook like the Mathematica or Matlab desktop, except it's in Python and it runs inside your web browser.

1. In your Vagrant box, start the IPython notebook server:

   vagrant@stanford-mir:~$ ipython notebook
   

2. On your host machine, visit http://localhost:8888.

3. Open the notebook stanford-mir/Table_of_Contents.ipynb.

Congratulations, you are now running an IPython notebook, and you can get started with the workshop material.

Contributions

Your contributions are very welcome! You can contribute in two ways:

1. Submit an issue. Click on "Issues" in the right navigation bar, then "New Issue". Issues can include Python bugs, spelling mistakes, broken links, requests for new content, and more. For a prioritized list of open issues awaiting contribution, click on the blue "Ready" button above.

2. Submit changes to source code or documentation. Fork this repo, make edits, then submit a pull request.