Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Date of Degree
2-2026
Document Type
Master's Capstone Project
Degree Name
Master of Science
Program
Data Analysis & Visualization
Advisor
Johanna Devaney
Subject Categories
Digital Humanities | Ethnomusicology
Keywords
Georgian polyphony, Geospatial visualization, Musical tuning systems
Abstract
The project focuses on the traditional folk music of Georgia, mapping the geographical distribution of singing traditions across the country’s historical regions. Because vocal traditions and stylistic features of Georgian folk music vary significantly across historical regions, the project highlights these differences for the audience, which might be interested in learning Georgian folk music, seeking a basic understanding of its structure, or planning to visit the country for cultural or educational purposes related to folk music. In addition, this work examines the tonal organization of Georgian traditional music, drawing on recent ethnomusicological research. It engages with ongoing scholarly discussions regarding the existence of a distinct Georgian tuning system. A recently compiled corpus of high-quality multimedia field recordings compiled by Scherbaum et al. (2019) provides both auditory and visual evidence of tonal differences between Georgian musical practice and the other, globally dominant tuning systems.
The project is a digital interactive platform built as a single-page web application. It features an interactive choropleth map of Georgia’s historical regions, where each region is associated with an audio recording of a traditional folk song from that region. The design centers on sound-based interaction, enabling visitors to explore differences in vocal style and tonal characteristics across the country through the map. The interface also includes background information on each region’s singing tradition, so listeners can better connect the music to its regional context. Besides, the site also includes a separate interactive visualization that compares pitch deviations between Georgian tuning patterns - derived from computational analysis of laryngeal microphone recordings across multiple regions - and the twelve-tone equal temperament (12-TET) system, the most widely used tuning framework in global music practice. The visualization enables observation of cent-level differences between the two tuning systems. Interactive elements allow users to trigger either pitch sequences or individual notes, linking cent deviations to familiar note references and making audible the perceptual effects of small pitch differences.
The capstone project can be viewed at: https://akutubidze.github.io/Capstone/
The code repository is publicly available at: https://github.com/akutubidze/Capstone
Recommended Citation
Kutubidze, Alex, "Regional Geography and Tuning Systems of Traditional Georgian Folk Music" (2026). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/6583
Zip file of GitHub repository at time of submission
Comments
Online component: https://akutubidze.github.io/Capstone/