Remember Music Ideas

Basics of Composing in Live - 2 hour Seminar - by FroBot

2011-10-09T18:52:00.000-07:00

Here is a 2 hour seminar on the basics of Ableton Live. From the VERY first time opening. Covers how to compose in ableton live. Shot in Winter 2011 at Wormwood under Cafe Absinthe in Osaka, Japan.

I'm not dead...just in transition

2011-03-23T04:13:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone. I wanted to make a quick note that i'm not dead...just making some big changes in my life. As you may know from my past blogs... I prefer the studio over the club anyday...and, well...I gotta pay the bills. I have had one goal in my head since I turned 26...get my time back so I can make more damn music. I can never accomplish the things in life I want to accomplish (especially musicially) without my time. So my goal is to get it back. I will be moving to Hawaii in December to start a small videography company (thats right...I do video too)...so I can work 1 or 2 days a month on location, the rest out of my home CHILLIN! Takin my laptop to the beach with with fishin pole and writin tracks while I catch my dinner. So right now, I am busy building a portfolio here in Osaka before I get there. All my time is invested in video at the moment...not a spare second for anything else. I love music, but fuckin hate work even more than I love music. So...takin the year off of electronic music to get my shit straight...and get out of Japan. I love makin videos...and there is just more financial stability in video than audio...so...work a few days a month...then make tons of tunes...thats the goal. Plus, Hawaii kicks ass anyway. Everythings GREEN! (if you know what I mean!) Yea! Japans economy is taking a bit hit with the earthquake...and besides that fact that I am generally sick of Japan and sushi...i've decided to take the year off from electronic music makings...rake in the cash here in Japan...and drop about $20,000 on equiptment for the company. So...no tutorials for a while...but i'll be back...I promise.

Peace!

FroBot

MY DJ SPAM EMAIL BOX

2011-01-04T12:16:00.001-08:00

This is how much DJ spam I get in a week!

DJs' darkest hour: Indestructible eventually meant irrelevant for Technics turntable

2010-12-15T22:34:00.000-08:00

(Original Link - http://japantoday.com/category/entertainment-arts/view/djs-darkest-hour-indestructible-eventually-meant-irrelevant-for-technics-turntable)

TOKYO —

The Technics SL-1200 turntable is to dance music what the Fender Stratocaster is to rock: the key to a musical and cultural explosion. There’s even a pair of the iconic decks on display at the Science Museum in London, where they’re hailed as an invention that shaped the world.

It’s weird to think that hip-hop, house and techno wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for some Japanese engineers on a quest to build a hi-fi for the audiophile market. But the uncluttered Technics SL-1200, with its high-torque electromagnetic motor, pitch adjust, precision tone arm and ability to take whatever abuse was thrown at it, was form and function in harmony. From its 1972 debut on, the SL-1200—particularly in its MK2 incarnation—became the bedrock of sound systems at the world’s best clubs. It served as a platform for people like Grandmaster Flash to discover how to scratch records, and folks like Larry Levan to beat-match them.

When CDJs established themselves in clubland in the mid-’90s, rumors began to circulate about the imminent demise of Technics turntables. It would end up taking a lot longer than that, but after 38 years and 3.5 million units sold, the day that vinyl DJs and turntablists always feared has finally come: the SL-1200 range is going the way of the dodo.

In a sad irony, the sheer durability of the decks has meant that they’ve outlived the companies that manufacture their otherwise redundant parts. Manufacturer Panasonic cited the increasing difficulty of sourcing analog components—the same ones it had been using since the beginning, in order not to compromise on quality—and a 90% drop in sales over the last decade as reasons for discontinuing its iconic product.

If the Technics SL-1200s and their accompanying 10kg record bags are the Sony Walkman and cassette box, then the laptop and its Traktor DJ software is the iPod. The latter is smaller, lighter, more convenient… but does it really sound better? And more importantly, has it got soul?

That’s a question which will soon have to be answered. Jeff Mills will be deftly mixing three decks at once for a few years yet, but the next generation of DJs won’t be starting out on turntables. In the hyper-competitive world of DMC scratch contests, the DJ Kentaro-style champion of the future will be cutting up a selection of digital WAV files on a virtual “scratch pad.”

Ultimately, Technics turntables were a victim of two things: the digital revolution and their own success. They’re so good that if you buy a pair, you’ll never need to replace them—and therein lies the problem.

The ‘sound sculptor’ that could win the Turner Prize

2010-12-02T17:02:00.000-08:00

(Original Link - http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/leah-mclaren/the-sound-sculptor-that-could-win-the-turner-prize/article1815132/)

A famous sculptor is filling my living room with her priceless art. Only she’s not actually here. She’s on speakerphone from her home in Berlin, singing a dreamy 16th-century Scottish folk song in a fey, untrained voice. It’s the same voice, same song, that is commanding gallery space in the Tate Britain and become the toast of the international art world. Ah, the strange wonders of Skype and Susan Philipsz.

The 44-year-old Scottish “sound sculptor” is currently the odds-on favourite to win the 2010 Turner Prize, to be announced next week.

She was also the show’s most controversial nominee, given that her work – which consists of songs sung plainly by the artist, recorded and looped and played in carefully selected locations, from underpasses in Ljubljana, Slovenia, to the rotunda of the Guggenheim Museum in New York – is completely intangible.

But don’t mistake her for a musician, or even a “sound artist” in the tradition of John Cage. Philipsz is more interested in perceptions of architecture and space – both internal and external – than in key changes or composition. Her work is less musical than it is performative and experiential.

In that sense, it is not dissimilar to the works of Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, Canadian artists whose recent works include The Cabinet of Curiousness – which people can “play” by opening its drawers, releasing different sounds. Philipsz also calls to mind the ambient-noise projects of American artist Bill Fontana, who once outfitted Big Ben’s tower with microphones and sensors.
Philipsz’s work, however, is much simpler. “I’m obviously not a trained singer; and I don’t do anything to make my songs sound any better, as you normally would in a studio,” she says.

Sitting in a cavernous white space at the Tate this week, listening to the artist sing an old sailor’s lament, I was inexplicably moved. Experiencing her work is a bit like being on the street when someone drives by blaring a song you once loved – banal and yet magically familiar.

One of her earlier installations took place at a big-box outlet, Tesco, in Manchester. Philipsz sang songs live over the loudspeaker normally used to announce specials on frozen TV dinners. As shoppers shopped, she watched from a glassed-in upstairs office and, once in a while, pressed the intercom button and sang a rendition of Radiohead’s Airbag or the Rolling Stones’ As Tears Go By.

“Suddenly there would be this drop in the ambient noise – which is much louder than you think in a grocery store – and people would stop what they were doing and look around, bewildered,” she remembers. “Some would giggle and talk; others were silent and seemed quite moved.”

The Tate exhibit is a distillation of Philipsz’s work performed under a famous bridge in Glasgow (not far from her hometown of Dundee) and she is currently exhibiting at locations throughout London’s business district, including the Tower of London and the banks of the River Thames; and in a public garden in Lisbon. She has been commissioned to do an outdoor sound piece this winter for Colorado’s Aspen Museum of Art, which will feature one of her songs played on a mountain ridge over a valley (“They’re going to give me skiing lessons!”) and at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.

It’s an impressive schedule for an artist who has spent most of her professional life believing her work would never find a wider market. “I spent my whole life thinking I’ll always be poor, I’ll never sell a thing, and suddenly everything changed,” she says.

So what explains the widespread appeal of this ephemeral new art form? The answer might just be hardwired into our brains. As McGill University professor Daniel J. Levitin, author of This Is Your Brain on Music and the just-published The World in Six Songs, argues in his new book, “music is not simply a distraction or a pastime but a core element of our identity as a species, an activity that paved the way for far more complex behaviours.”

Perhaps in Philipsz’s ethereal a cappella melodies we recognize strains of our ancestors singing what Levitan defines as “knowledge songs” – the songs we use to teach our children, or outsiders, how our culture works. If you think this practice sounds outdated, just remember how you learned the alphabet.
Levitin also writes about how music changes the way we behave – witness the now-common police practice of playing classical music in seedy locales to drive away the riff-raff. Philipsz, who’s work has regularly been exhibited under bridges where the homeless sleep and junkies use, hopes her work makes these environments more – rather than less – welcoming for denizens of the street.

She remembers one of the most memorable moments of the exhibit under the bridge over the River Clyde in Glasgow. “An old man holding a bottle came up to me and said, ‘Can you hear those voices, or is it just me?’ ” A few feet away, one of his mates was crying.

The mind on music

2010-12-02T16:58:00.000-08:00

(Original Link - http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/sc-health-1201-music-20101201,0,3647950.story)

On her last night at the hospital after undergoing a series of spine surgeries, Susan Mandel lay in bed listening to Pachelbel's Canon in D.

For days, Mandel's positive attitude had kept any anxiety at bay, so she was surprised when she noticed her face was wet, and then her pillow, which slowly soaked through. She sobbed silently, listening to the familiar violins, until the tears stopped coming. Then she felt peace.
"It wasn't a cry of anguish, it was a cry of relief," Mandel said, recalling the night more than 20 years ago. "It's very tender, evocative music, and I think it gave me permission to release the pent-up emotions."

Philosophers for millenniums have marveled at the power of music to speak to our souls, to inspire joy, melancholy, aggression or calm with visceral insight beyond the grasp of our rational minds. Thanks to advances in neuroscience, researchers are beginning to understand what it is about music that touches us so deeply, and how to harness that power to soothe, uplift, comfort and heal — to use music as medicine for emotional and physical health.

Mandel, a music therapist and research consultant at Lake Health Wellness Institute in Cleveland, this month released "Manage Your Stress and Pain Through Music," (Berklee Press Publications, $29.99), with co-author Suzanne Hanser, chairwoman of the music therapy department at Berklee College of Music in Boston. The book explains how to choose and use music to cope with challenges in your life.

Not what you'd guess

It can seem obvious which songs would bring you up and which might bring you down. And indeed, there are structural components to songs that are meant to communicate joy, such as a fast tempo in major mode, or sadness, such as a slower tempo in minor mode. But there's a difference between the emotion communicated through music and the emotion actually induced in the listener. Our memories, personal preferences and mood at the time can have a heavier influence than the intent of the musical structure in how music makes us feel.

"You could have a really positive emotional experience with a song that structurally communicates sadness," said Meagan Curtis, assistant professor of psychology at State University of New York at Purchase, who does research in music psychology.

What matters most in reaping the health benefits of music, from pain reduction to stress relief, is that you listen to music you enjoy, research shows. In a study on cardiac rehabilitation patients, Mandel found that the patients who liked a therapeutic music CD she put together experienced a reduction in blood pressure and reported feeling calmer, while patients who didn't like the music actually felt worse.

While there are structural components that convey soothing, such as consonant harmonies and a narrow pitch range, whatever music has the most positive associations to the individual will have the most positive emotional and physiological response. It activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which calms heart rate, lowers blood pressure and relaxes muscles.

"I have found people who love punk rock and find that it helps them to sleep," Hanser said. "It's likely that they have learned it truly speaks to them and expresses a part of who they are."

Music and pain

Music also has been found to help people tolerate pain longer and make the pain less painful.
Studies using a cold pressor task, which simulates chronic pain by submerging subjects' hands in a bucket of freezing cold water, found that people were able to leave their hands in the water longer when they were listening to music they enjoyed, Curtis said.

That could be because people take comfort in the familiar, or because it distracts them. Between recalling memories, tapping our fingers, conjuring up images and other tasks, our brain releases so many chemicals to process music that they interfere with our perception of pain.

How the brain processes

There's some evidence that we feel music viscerally because it goes straight to the amygdala, the part of the limbic system that manages our emotions, and the hippocampus, where long-term memories are stored, Hanser said.

Music that gives people chills or shivers up the spine has been found to activate the same reward areas of the brain stimulated by food, sex and certain types of recreational drugs, Curtis said. While different people get chills from different songs, often those shiver-producing songs have an unexpected tonal structure, like a chord that isn't part of the harmonic progression, she said.

Impact of lyrics

While structure is less important than personal experience in a song's ability to induce emotion, lyrics may be even less important than structure, Curtis said. We don't need to consciously attend to structure to process its emotion, but we do have to pay attention to lyrics, making the impact of structure stronger and less difficult to process.

People are usually very intuitive about what songs are useful to them and often choose music appropriate for the state they're in, Curtis said. That explains one of the great ironies of human behavior: that many people like to listen to sad music when they're sad.

We might like the affirmation, as we create a bond with the singer or composer because they, too, have felt what we feel, Curtis said. Another theory is that wallowing is a kind of emotional catharsis, helping us fully experience the sadness so that we go through the stages of grief more quickly.
And it can be a healthy thing. A central tenet of music therapy is to meet people where they are, called the ISO principal. So if people are very depressed and lonely, you would start them with music that matches their mood before introducing something more uplifting.

"You first affirm and allow the person to reflect, and then move on to more positive things and hopeful outlooks," Hanser said.

Some researchers hope to nail down the precise combination of pitch, tone, tempo, rhythm, timbre, melody and lyrics that makes a piece of music ideal for regulating people's moods or helping to reduce pain. A study under way at Glasgow Caledonian University aims to develop a "comprehensive mathematic model" that identifies how music communicates emotions, which eventually could help doctors prescribe music.

Hanser is skeptical that a sweeping formula exists, and if it does, "I hope we don't find it," she said. "I don't know anyone who is the mean, the normal. If we can recognize our own unique characteristics and what makes us each respond so differently, that I think is really fascinating and what humanity is all about."

aelejalderuiz@tribune.com

Emotional impact
While a person's emotional reaction to a song is based largely on his or her history with the song, the song's structure also can communicate emotions, mostly through mode (major or minor chords) and tempo, said Meagan Curtis, assistant professor of psychology at State University of New York at Purchase.

A fast tempo (up to 120 beats per minute) tends to heighten physiological arousal, while slower tempos (down to 60 beats per minute) tend to reduce arousal. Major chords tend to evoke positive emotions, such as joy and contentment, and minor chords negative emotions, like fear, anger or sadness.
Curtis offered some examples:

•Major mode, fast tempo Example: "Shiny Happy People," by R.E.M. Emotion conveyed: happy.

•Major mode, slow tempo Example: "Sitting on the Dock of the Bay," by Otis Redding. Emotion conveyed: soothing, tenderness.

•Minor mode, fast tempo Example: "Smells Like Teen Spirit," by Nirvana. Emotion conveyed: angst, anger.

•Minor mode, slow tempo Example: "Eleanor Rigby," by the Beatles. Emotion conveyed: sadness.

Road Trip Through Florda....Anyone wanna party!?

2010-12-02T06:15:00.000-08:00

Whats up everyone. I am making my first trip back to the states in 4 years...and even then was just Hawaii. Sushi & JPop has been getting under my skin. I am road tripping from Dec 14-Dec 21 from Orlando to Miami. Anyone who is from that area...and wants to get a session on or knows a good party place...please hit me up! Ill have a car, and ready to get my dancin shoes on!!! After that, its off to North Carolina, Pittsburgh...back to Osaka...then to the Philippines a couple days later.

Peace!

FroBot

Ten Music Technologies to Be Thankful For Right Now

2010-11-25T16:11:00.000-08:00

(Original Link - http://createdigitalmusic.com/2010/11/ten-music-technologies-to-be-thankful-for-right-now/)

Happy Thanksgiving to our American readers. I was thinking about technologies for which I’m particularly thankful, some non-obvious, some perhaps so obvious they might be easily be taken for granted. Each I hope represents some opportunities for others. At the risk of starting a Thanksgiving roast, in no particular order, here are the ones foremost in my mind in the waning days of 2010.

1. MIDI: MIDI gets kicked around a bit – it’s not a perfect protocol, commonly-used messages are low resolution, and the parts most people use really haven’t changed since the mid-80s. But don’t discount why we use it so much: it’s ubiquitous, cheap, and lightweight. Want something simple that works over WiFi and Bluetooth? Want to connect something from 1986 you found on eBay to your iPad and then use on a DIY synth with a $3 microcontroller? Want to connect an Xbox keytar without any hacking? MIDI may not be the right tool for every job, but as a lingua franca, it sure is darned useful. midi.org

2. Linux: Linux can still sometimes exhibit a punishing learning curve, and proprietary drivers for devices like video cards can cause issues. But in a world of wildly diverse hardware and painfully-quick obsolescence, Linux is a lifesaver. It can resurrect old machines, make netbooks usable, and the Linux kernel is fast becoming the solution for embedded gear from Android-powered devices to DIY projects. For music, that means an OS that can run on anything, and quickly wind up making noise with tools from Pd and Csound to Renoise and DJ app Mixxx. Suddenly, anything that runs on electricity and has a processor looks like fair game. linuxaudio.org

3. Music notation: Fun toys aside, what’s the real killer app in 2010? It might be the score. It’s still the fastest way to communicate a musical idea to someone else, or quickly play the Billy Joel tune your cousin wanted to sing along with. (Best karaoke machine in the world: your brain.) And this year, we saw improved ways to enter those scores, from ever-more-mature commercial packages to free tools like Lilypad. An iPad can be a fake book full of lead sheets; a browser can turn some quickly-typed notes into notation. All this using something that wouldn’t look entirely unfamiliar to someone who stepped through a wormhole from a few centuries ago.

4. Reaper: We face a challenge in music technology: we’ve actually got too many great options. So it’s a good thing that there’s at least one DAW that’s easy to recommend that you know people can afford, with pricing ranging from $40-150. Reaper runs on Mac, Windows, and (with WINE) Linux. It’s not bloated with features, has no DRM, is heavily extensible (with both custom plug-ins and scriptable MIDI). And if you’re trying to get a friend to try a DAW without (cough) pirating it, you can point them to Reaper’s free trial version. Add to that the fact that you can author Rock Band songs for the game platform – including full keyboard and guitar transcriptions in the near future with Rock Band 3 – and Reaper is a DAW worth keeping around. reaper.fm

5. Four-lettered Synth Makers That Remember the Past: Not one but two famous names from synths yesteryear, MOOG and KORG, have been on fire in 2010. Moog celebrated its Minimoog anniversary with an enormous XL edition. Practical? Not terribly. Something boys and girls could pin up to their walls? Yes. And Moog also had a bigger-than-ever Moogfest, proving its synths and effects weren’t just the domain of electronic music geeks, plus an affordable iPhone/iPod touch app that turns those handhelds into portable machines capable of recording anything and adding far-out effects. KORG, for their part, proves a big music tech name can remember their past, too, with the soul of their MS-20 appearing in iPad apps, wonderful, stocking stuffer-friendly hardware (Monotron), new bundles of software emulation (for those who prefer “real computers” to iPads), and, heck, even retro t-shirts. What these two companies have in common: understanding that their legacy matters to people, and finding ways to get that legacy in front of as large an audience as possible. Those are both ideas I hope catch on. korg.com, moogmusic.com

6. Portable Recorders: Then: Marantz, Nagra, Tascam Portastudio. Today: go-anywhere field recorders from Tascam, Zoom, Roland, Korg, and many others. The ability to go out and actually record stuff remains one of the most essential needs in music tech. Today’s devices add nifty extras like pitch-independent tempo adjustment and built-in metronomes, making them as much a friend to musicians as they are sound designers. Odds are, if you’re reading this, some portable audio recorder is one of your most valuable possessions. Tascam DR-03 @ CDM

7. Pd: Pure Data, the open-source offspring of Max/MSP creator Miller Puckette and contributors around the world, is a free graphical patching tool that runs everywhere. You can use it on ancient iPods, or – via libpd – on bleeding-edge Android and iOS handhelds, in addition to (of course) desktop computers. It’s been incorporated in free and open source projects, and commercial and proprietary projects alike. Thanks to terrific free documentation and sample patches, you can also use it as a window into learning, with the aid of being able to see signal flow visually. (Even Max gurus can pick up tips for that environment with some of the online help.) The beauty of Pd – as with a number of tools – is that sometimes just making what you need is easier than making something someone else made do what you need. puredata.info, pd-everywhere @ noisepages

8. Bandcamp: The Web is littered with services catering to artists – not least being the chaotic mess that is the remains of MySpace. Bandcamp, in contrast, is simple, efficient, and functional, and for many of us has been a place to acquire music direct from artists as well as to publish it – no complicated jukebox/storefront middlemen needed. Some of my favorite listening this year came from Bandcamp. bandcamp.com

9. Contact mics: A few dollars in parts and a soldering iron will make you a perfectly-functional device you can use to explore sound. Or, you can splurge on high-end devices. Either way, the surest antidote to endless choice in software synthesis or enormous sample banks is to go out and get a little closer to sonic vibrations. brokenpants DIY contact mic tutorial

10. The Internet: Distraction. Time suck. Scourge to privacy. A funny thing happened on the way to the Internet: you may have found a group of people who inspired you to make more, and share more, helped you solve problems and get back to music. On Twitter, on Facebook, on forums, on, yes, our fledgling Noisepages, everywhere I go, I find people who help me get tech working for me and remind me why I love music. So… thanks. Maybe there’s hope for us after all. (see… The Internet)
That’s my list. What are you thankful for? Let us know in comments.

Both musicians and non-musicians can perceive bitonality

2010-11-25T16:07:00.000-08:00

(Original Link - http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2010/01/bitonality.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+scienceblogs%2Fcognitivedaily+%28Cognitive+Daily%29&utm_content=Google+Reader)

Take a listen to this brief audio clip of "Unforgettable." (original link)

Aside from the fact that it's a computer-generated MIDI performance, do you hear anything unusual?
If you're a non-musician like me, you might not have noticed anything. It sounds basically like the familiar song, even though the synthesized sax isn't nearly as pleasing as the familiar Nat King Cole version of the song. But most trained musicians can't listen to a song like this without cringing. Why? Because the music has been made "bitonal" by moving the accompanying piano part up two semitones (a semitone is the difference between a "natural" note and a sharp or flat). Here's the original, unaltered piece:

Can you tell the difference? A 2000 study led by R.S. Wolpert found that non-musicians couldn't distinguish between monotonal and bitonal music played side-by-side. Meanwhile musicians found artificially-created bitonal music to be almost unlistenable. For most non-musicians, if they heard anything wrong with the clips, they typically said they were being played too fast, or mentioned some other unrelated concept.

But Mayumi Hamamoto, Mauro Bothelo, and Margaret Munger (AKA Greta) wondered if years of musical training were really necessary for non-musicians to hear bitonal music. Bitonality is actually a bit controversial in the world of music, and it can be a little hard to define. In principle, there's a difference between bitonality and just playing or singing off-key, but in practice, the difference may not even exist. Advocates of bitonality like to point to the works of composers like Milhaud, Bartók, Prokofiev, and Strauss. These composers deliberately wrote in two different musical keys. But how is that different from occasionally or regularly writing dissonant chords? After all, all the same notes can be written using any musical key. To be truly bitonal, advocates say the two separate parts must unfold independently in different keys. This results in a distinctive "crunch" when the music is played. The separate question is, is this noticeable? Wolpert's work shows that it is, at least for trained musicians.
Hamamoto's team replicated Wolpert's study by playing altered and original clips of familiar songs like the above example to three groups of undergraduates: "Musicians" with more than 5 years of training, "Amateur Musicians" with 1 to 5 years of training, and "Non-Musicians" with less than a year of training. There were 14 students in each group. Musicians were significantly better at noticing that the modified clips were bitonal or "out of tune."

Next, everyone was given brief training session, where instead of modifying monotonal music to be bitonal, some of Milhaud's music originally intended to be bitonal was modified to be monotonal. Here's an example bitonal piece (Milhaud's "Botafogo"):

After hearing the clip and seeing it identified as bitonal, the students were told

Notice sometimes there is a "crunch" in the sound. This should sound somewhat unpleasant and feel like it shouldn't be that way.

Then they listened to a manipulated version of the same clip:

Again, they were told this clip was monotonal and directed to notice how the sound seems smoother and more pleasant (to my mind, it's not nearly as interesting as the original -- but that wasn't part of the study). Next they were trained with feedback, listening and identifying clips until they could accurately label four in a row. This took just a few minutes.

Finally, the respondents were tested on four new clips, all songs by Milhaud. This graph shows the results:

As you can see, for all the songs except "Ipanema," the students were quite accurate at identifying both bitonal and monotonal songs (error bars are 95 percent confidence intervals). More important, however, was that there was no significant difference in the results for Musicians, Amateur Musicians, and Non-Musicians. All three groups fared equally well.

The authors conclude the identifying bitonal music isn't a matter of years of musical instruction; it can be achieved with just a brief training session. In fact, the Non-Musicians took no longer than Musicians to complete the training session, so years of experience don't even help with learning about bitonality.

It also may suggest that the controversy about whether bitonality actually exists may not be warranted. If nearly everyone can hear the difference, then it's probably a genuine musical phenomenon.

Junee train becomes a sound lab

2010-11-22T07:05:00.000-08:00

(Original Link - http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/junee-train-becomes-a-sound-lab/story-e6frg8n6-1225958773146?from=public_rss)

MUSIC: Rolling Stock. Various sound artists and composer-performers. Wired Lab. In and around Junee, NSW, November 19.

IT was noon on Saturday. Just over 200 people, a motley crew of local families and sound art aficionados from the city, were gathered at the Junee railway station. This was the third event that the irrepressible Sarah Last and her Wired Lab team have organised with the people of Junee: the one-day public art event featured 15 artists on a train, the culmination of a series of creative residencies in regional NSW.

Trains and everything associated with them are a religion at Junee, a wheatbelt town of about 4000 people, 444km southwest of Sydney. Its temple is the Junee Roundhouse, a transport museum with 42 tracks and dozens of old trains and carriages.

At the epicentre of the museum, a 33m turntable cranked into life as Dave Noyze and Garry Bradbury captured its industrial clangour with 15 microphones. Young men from the Australian Parkour Association leapt around the roofs of carriages. Outside, Joel Stern and Andrew McClennan created a gamelan sound tapestry from the rusting detritus of trains.

Then we boarded the train, its eleven carriages containing various sound events and theatre. Experimental films played in the sleeper compartments. One darkened carriage was festooned with LED glowsticks, creating a flicker-homage to Brion Gysin.

It was a happy mix of sound artist chic and local jollity that carried the train to its destination in Cootamundra, three hours away. There was a 40-minute pit stop at Cootamundra Station, where a Kenny Rogers imposter conducted a cheesy quiz on the platform. Then it was back to the train for the return journey, and the most accomplished sounds of the day. British sound-gatherer Chris Watson, noted as sound recordist for David Attenborough's television documentaries, has recreated a train journey through northern Mexico, its running commentary and sound tapestry blending perfectly with the clatter of our own train.

A bus trip (sacrilege!) took us to the celebrated Junee Licorice and Chocolate Factory where a rockabilly band, the Pat Capocci Combo, played into the night. "Much more fun than the RSL," a local woman says. "I'll be back for more of this, anytime."

Start-Up Company Music Mastermind Introduces Unique Music Creation Technology 'SoundBetter'

2010-11-22T06:59:00.000-08:00

(Original Link - http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/113/1135917p1.html)

Calabasas, CA – November 18, 2010 – Music Mastermind, an independent music entertainment and technology company, revealed today details of SoundBetter, a cloud-based technology that lets anyone create studio-quality music. SoundBetter joins a robust, growing patent and trademark portfolio held by Music Mastermind (MMM).

The company's SoundBetter solution simplifies music making by automating typically complex digital audio workstation processes, thereby allowing anyone to instantly become a recording artist. SoundBetter provides a complete creative solution that lets users enhance their voices, transform their voices into instruments, create pro-sounding beats, add studio-quality backing tracks, and even generate and add adaptable licks to collaborate with friends and famous artists. The technology's entertaining, game-like elements utilize simple visual cues to make the creative process fun and accessible to all. SoundBetter produces truly individualized music that can be shared and discovered across a broad array of social networks.

"We're at the forefront of the next evolution of music entertainment, and it's time to break down the barriers that prevent people from expressing themselves musically," said Matt Serletic, CEO of Music Mastermind. "This company is all about fun and easy music creation for everyone. All people love music, and now absolutely anyone can produce great sounding songs to enjoy and share with the world."

Serletic, a multi-Grammy Award-winning producer and former Virgin Records Chairman and CEO, founded Music Mastermind in 2007 with his partner, Bo Bazylevsky, a veteran Wall Street bond trader, senior hedge fund portfolio manager, and former Global Head of Emerging Markets Corporate Trading at J.P. Morgan. Together, they compiled a world-class development team with a full-time staff of more than 30 professionals from multiple disciplines, including entertainment, sound engineering, music theory, technology, finance and gaming. Led by Chief Technology Officer Reza Rassool, whose work has garnered a Technical Oscar and Emmy, MMM's engineering and design teams have over 190 years of cumulative experience. Members of the team have advanced degrees in computer science and music, as well as 33 console game credits, including multiple Guitar Hero and Tony Hawk titles.

The company successfully raised its first round of funding in February 2010 with nearly $5 million from angel investors, and is currently in the process of closing its second investment round.

"Media creation and consumption are at an all-time high, and our technology will do for music what YouTube did for video," said Bo Bazylevsky, President and COO of Music Mastermind. "We want to put the power of real, true creation into everyone's hands, and we're confident that our products will do just that. The tech is wrapped in such a fun interface that you don't even realize that you're working to produce music!"

The company plans to implement this unique music creation technology across numerous mediums; the announcement for MMM's new creation platform will be revealed in the coming weeks.

Music Mastermind simplifies the traditionally complex world of professional-quality music creation, allowing anybody with a creative idea to be heard. For more information about the company and its patented music creation technologies, please visit www.musicmastermind.com, or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

About Music Mastermind, Inc.
Based in Calabasas, CA, Music Mastermind was founded by Grammy Award-winning producer/songwriter Matt Serletic and top Wall Street bond trader Bo Bazylevsky. Formed in 2007, the venture-backed start-up is dedicated to developing technologies that break down the barriers to music creation. For more information please visit www.musicmastermind.com.

Music turned into light, and fired at you

2010-11-22T06:52:00.000-08:00

(Original Link - http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/music/article/890275--music-turned-into-light-and-fired-at-you)

When Richie Hawtin wanted to create synesthetic visuals triggered by the music he’s playing live as Plastikman, he turned to his old pals at Toronto software house Derivative.

Derivative’s TouchDesigner helped propel this year’s Plastikman tour to that mythical “next level” by providing an interface with the performance-friendly electronic-music software Ableton Live that allowed the component parts of Hawtin’s skeletal techno tracks to produce images that moved and changed shape in direct response to the sounds he’s generating onstage. In 3-D, no less.
Heaven only knows how one actually brings something like that to fruition, but TouchDesigner — which will respond to pretty much any input you desire, from sound to light to touch and beyond — is the relatively young outgrowth of designer Greg Hermanovic’s longtime desire to use computers to produce “interactive, real-time art.” He’d been dreaming of it since he put his first pixel up on a computer screen while working on a U.N. research ship in Africa during the ‘70s, came a little closer to realizing his dream doing special-effects software with successful local CGI-enabler Side Effects — whose Houdini product has since been used in more than 400 feature films — and has gotten as close as he’s yet come to his perfect vision of a worldwide, collaborative art-sharing platform that’s “self-perpetuating and a bit out of control in its own way” and that could be used as a universal education and research tool since launching TouchDesigner eight years ago.

TouchDesigner has made stunning “live” artworks possible everywhere from M.I.T. to the world’s largest yacht, but Hermanovic — whose software’s patch-and-collage aesthetic is inspired in part by his love of old modular synthesizers and their many dangling cables — has also become something of a go-to guy for electronic musicians looking for a visual component to their shows. Swayzak enlisted Derivative, for instance, to jazz up its recent DJ gig at 99 Sudbury, while when the Star spoke to Hermanovic this past Friday he was just returning from a little last-minute tweaking with DJ Shadow’s crew at the Phoenix.

Q: So was Hawtin running some custom stuff for those Plastikman live gigs?

A: It was, but everything that Rich is doing you can do with the free version that’s on our Web site. It’s custom because we added more stuff to it, but anybody could have done it. That’s the nice thing about TouchDesigner is anybody can use TouchDesigner to make anything they see other people making.

Q: In this case, Ableton Live was being used to generate the visuals, right?

A: He’s sending this stream of data into TouchDesigner, which is running live on another computer. So we’re just taking all this looping data and this controller data, and every song we have mapped differently to a visual. So TouchDesigner takes his inputs and for every song we know what the visual is going to be so we display it out on the LED screens. He’s kind of building music tracks as he goes and we’re working with him and a visual designer going ‘Okay, part of that sound goes with this visual element and this knob goes with that thing, and then when the song progresses it will increase the brightness of this and the size of that.’ So it’s Rich and us working side-by-side so you end up with a look and a theme for a song.

Q: Why design a tool for making interactive art?

A: I’m a big fan of experimental films — I’m a huge fan of Norman Mclaren — and I wanted to reproduce some of these experimental-film effects using software, so that’s why I got into computer graphics: so I could do special effects. I wanted to do what a musician does — perform live, tweak things — and do that visually, but I couldn’t do that with special-effects software. In the ’90s, you couldn’t do real-time computer graphics. Well, you could, but it was on computers that cost $200,000.

Q: What’s your ultimate goal for TouchDesigner? Having it react directly to electronic signals from people’s brains?

A: When I see researchers who are doing high-end chemistry research or something using a component made by a 10-year-old in his basement, not knowing where it came from, that’s when I’ll be aware that we’ve kind of closed the loop: when kids are making parts of bigger systems for high-end researchers or professionals. It’s gonna happen.

Music student does gig hours after rescuing teen in Colchester

2010-11-22T06:48:00.000-08:00

(Original Link - http://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/8677399.Music_student_does_gig_hours_after_rescuing_teen/?ref=rss)

A MUSIC student who rescued a girl from a burning house returned to college hours later to play his first gig.

Jamie Cunliffe, 21, of Magnolia Drive, Colchester, came to the aid of Naomi Hare, who was trapped as fire ripped through her home in James Wick Court, Balkerne Hill.

Naomi, 17, a student at Colchester Institute, was asleep when the blaze started in her sister’s bedroom.
She was woken by a smoke alarm but was unable to get down the stairs due to the smoke.

Jamie, who is studying music at the same Sheepen Road college, said: “I was walking back to my mate’s house and saw a girl at the window screaming and screaming.

“I went to kick the door in, but it turned out it was open.

“I got to the top floor, where I could hear her screaming. It was really scary and the smoke was so black, and it was so hot.

“She was having a panic attack and wouldn’t move, so I picked her up and carried her out.
“We got outside, but then there were small explosions coming from the house, so I picked her up again and carried her around the corner.”

Neighbours came to the pair’s aid.

Jamie and Naomi were treated by paramedics for smoke inhalation, before being taken to Colchester General Hospital for further treatment.

Jamie added: “I was treated at hospital, but wanted to leave because I was desperate to get to a gig.
“I’m in a band called the Elements, and that night was our first gig.

“I'm the frontman in the band, and we have been practising really hard – I couldn’t not go to it.”

Naomi’s mum, Annette Kelly, phoned Jamie to thank him for saving her daughter’s life.

Fire crews, who are investigating the cause of the fire, which started on Tuesday at about 1.25pm, also praised Jamie for rescuing the girl.

He added: “People have been saying I’m a hero, but I’m not looking for praise. It was just a natural reaction. I couldn’t just stand there and watch.”

Fears for future of school music lessons

2010-11-22T06:45:00.000-08:00

(Original Link - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11796636)

School music lessons could be hit as local councils make savings and school budgets are redrawn, it is feared.

One in five music services, which support schools, expect councils will completely axe their grants and half fear cuts of up to 50%, a survey suggests.
The Federation of Music Services warned that some services which help provide subsidised lessons could collapse.

The government said all pupils should be able to learn an instrument or sing.
It has commissioned a review of music provision in schools, being carried out by Classic FM head Darren Henley, but this is not due to report until January.

However, local authorities in England which face cuts of about a third, get their funding allocations in early December.

It is clear from the federation's survey of 158 music services in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, that many are already planning cuts with some preparing to axe the funding completely.

Local authorities provide just one strand of funding for school music services, with the rest coming from central government grants and parental contributions.

But the expected cuts come as schools face a huge shake-up of their budgets. A number of schemes dedicated to supporting school music face cuts or being channelled into a general schools budget for redistribution.

The Department for Education later said it had not yet taken a decision on the main £82.5m Music Standards Grant and would not do so until the Henley review had reported.
But it would not guarantee that the money would be ring-fenced within schools.

'Steep decline'

Federation of Music Services (FMS) chief executive Virginia Haworth-Galt said: "We recognise the pressure many local authorities are under but would urge them to them to hold back their plans until we know the results of the Henley Review.

"Music and our children's education are too important to be jettisoned like this particularly when we know that 91% of the public back music education in schools."

She added that the FMS would be very disappointed if the music grant went directly into schools' budgets without any ring-fencing for music education.

"This situation occurred in the early 1990s with disastrous results; music went into a steep decline as the monies were spent elsewhere in schools. This is a music lesson that should not be repeated," she added.

Conductor of the Bedforshire Youth Orchestra Michael Rose says music services in his area, Central Bedfordshire, are set to have budgets and teaching staff cut to zero.

He said as music services were non-statutory they were particularly vulnerable in the present climate of cuts.

He said: "If funding is lost in this way music lessons will become the sole preserve of the middle classes."

He added: "Instrumental teaching in the county's schools is provided by a central staff of highly qualified instrumental teachers. It has resulted in literally many thousands of children having the experience of learning an instrument."

Schools minister Nick Gibb said too many children in state schools were denied the opportunity to learn to play a musical instrument.

This was why he had launched a major review of how music is taught and enjoyed in schools to help make sure all pupils get an opportunity to learn to play an instrument and to sing.

Its recommendations would determine how future funding could be best used in the future, he added.
'Shocking'

"Evidence tells us that learning an instrument can improve young people's numeracy and literacy skills and their behaviour.

"It is also simply unfair that the pleasure of musical discovery should be the preserve of those whose parents can afford it."

"As part of that review recommendations will be made to determine how future funding can best be used," he said.

He added that decisions on central funding for music would not be made until after the review had reported.

General secretary of the National Union of Teachers Christine Blower said the cuts to music in schools were even more shocking in light of Michael Gove's announcement that he would be holding a review into music education in schools, claiming that it was a "sad fact" that too few state school children learnt an instrument.

She added: "Music in schools makes a contribution way beyond the straightforward exercise of learning an instrument.

"Children and young people can experience coming together in a creative environment which benefits them in other aspects of their school life."

Recording Pioneers - Stories from History

2010-11-22T06:32:00.000-08:00

Knows your roots!? I came across a great website detailing a lot of the finest stories from the greatest pioneers in recording sound!

http://www.recordingpioneers.com/index.html

A good history lesson is due!!!

Peace!

FroBot

Ancient trumpets played eerie notes

2010-11-21T17:10:00.000-08:00

(Original Link - http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/65784/title/Ancient_trumpets_played_eerie_notes#sounds)

Scientists analyze tunes from 3,000-year-old conch-shell instruments for insight into pre-Inca civilization.

Listen to shell music.

Now you can hear a marine-inspired melody from before the time of the Little Mermaid’s hot crustacean band. Acoustic scientists put their lips to ancient conch shells to figure out how humans used these trumpets 3,000 years ago. The well-preserved, ornately decorated shells found at a pre-Inca religious site in Peru offered researchers a rare opportunity to jam on primeval instruments.

The music, powerfully haunting and droning, could have been used in religious ceremonies, the scientists say. The team reported their analysis November 17 at the Second Pan-American/Iberian Meeting on Acoustics in Cancun, Mexico.

“You can really feel it in your chest,” says Jonathan Abel, an acoustician at Stanford University’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics. “It has a rough texture like a tonal animal roar.”

Archaeologists had unearthed 20 complete Strombus galeatus marine shell trumpets in 2001 at Chavín de Huántar, an ancient ceremonial center in the Andes. Polished, painted and etched with symbols, the shells had well-formed mouthpieces and distinct V-shaped cuts. The cuts may have been used as a rest for the player’s thumb, says study coauthor Perry Cook, a computer scientist at Princeton University and avid shell musician, or to allow the player to see over the instrument while walking.
To record the tunes and understand the acoustic context in which the instruments, called pututus, were played, the researchers traveled to Chavín.

As an expert shell musician blew into the horn, researchers recorded the sound’s path via four tiny microphones placed inside the player’s mouth, the shell’s mouthpiece, the shell’s main body and at the shell’s large opening, or bell. Similar to a bugle, the instruments only sound one or two tones, but like a French horn, the pitch changes when the player plunges his hand into the bell.

The team used signal-processing software to characterize the acoustic properties of each trumpet. Following the sound’s path made it possible to reconstruct the ancient shell’s interior, a feat that normally involves sawing the shell apart or zapping it with X-rays.

The researchers also wanted to know how the site’s ceremonial chamber, a stone labyrinth with sharply twisting corridors and ventilation shafts, changed the trumpet’s sound. To find out, the team arranged six microphones around the musician and reconstructed the sound patterns on a computer.
If the trumpets were played inside the stone chamber in which they were found, the drone would have sounded like it was coming from several different directions at once. In the dimly lit religious center, that could have created a sense of confusion, Abel says.

“Were they used to scare people while they were there?” asks Abel. “There are still a lot of things left open.”

Turns out, such questions about how sounds affect people and their behavior, an area called psychoacoustics, can be tested. It's a field of active research, and not just for ancient civilizations: Another group at Stanford is now studying how a room’s acoustics affects human behavior. In one recent experiment, researchers separated test subjects into different acoustic environments to do a simple task — ladling water from one bucket to another in a dimly lit room.
“What your ear can actually hear plays into how you would behave, or the psychological experience in the situation,” says Abel.

SHELL CACOPHONY

A group of conch-shell instruments made by a pre-Inca civilization sound similar to a kid learning to play the trumpet.Click here to listen.

ANCIENT TONE
A musician plays the fundamental frequency and the first overtone of a 3,000-year-old shell trumpet unearthed in Peru.Click here to listen.

What is Talent?

2010-11-21T16:50:00.000-08:00

(Original Link - http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/11/what-is-talent/66684/)

Thanks to Edward Tenner for alerting us to a new WSJ piece by Terry Teachout that attacks Anders Ericsson's so-called "10,000-hour rule." Teachout summarizes the Ericsson rule in the following way:

"To become successful at anything, you must spend 10 years working at it for 20 hours each week. Do so, however, and success is all but inevitable."

A superb straw man. So simple to understand, so easy to knock down. But think about it for a moment: Would anyone with half a brain actually argue that a simple *amount* of practice time could *guarantee* success? Of course not, and that's not even remotely what Anders Ericsson does.

The real Anders Ericsson is one of the leaders of a fascinating new academic field called "expertise studies" which carefully deconstructs the longstanding notion of innate talent by looking for hidden components that might actually help to explain success.

This is what science does. It seeks to understand how things actually work rather than settle for mysterious formulations like "gifted," "natural-born," and "genius."

Teachout also writes that "The problem with the 10,000-hour rule is that many of its most ardent proponents are political ideologues who see the existence of genius as an affront to their vision of human equality, and will do anything to explain it away."

I honestly do not know which proponents Teachout is referring to. The writers that I'm most familiar with on the subject of understanding talent and success -- Malcolm Gladwell, Daniel Coyle, Mihaly Csikszentmihaly, Geoff Colvin, Carol Dweck -- are all actually trying to understand what goes into talent and success.

He might be referring to the title of my book, The Genius in All of Us, which some non-readers have misinterpreted as a blank-slate argument of pure egalitarianism. But, again, that's a straw man. No one here is arguing that we're all equal or equally capable of the exact same achievements. We all have differences, and are therefore assured of becoming different people.

When it comes to the question of individual potential, though, it's important to avoid what neuroscientist and musicologist Daniel J. Levitin calls "the circular logic of talent." "When we say that someone is talented," he says, "we think we mean that they have some innate predisposition to excel, but in the end, we only apply the term retrospectively, after they have made significant achievements."

So what is "talent"? Is it some magic or genetic stuff that gives some of us a springboard to success? The closer we look at the building blocks of success, the more we understand that talent is not a thing; rather, it is the process itself.

Part of this new understanding requires a new insight into genetics that helps us get past the myth of genetic-giftedness. Genes influence our traits, but in a dynamic way. They do not directly determine our traits. In fact, it turns out that while it is correct to say that "genes influence us," it's just as correct to say that "we influence our genes."

Everything about our lives is a process, and we are indebted to Anders Ericsson and others for helping us to obtain a richer understanding of that process.

It's interesting that Teachout pounds so hard on (nameless) obstinate ideologues who refuse to open their minds to evidence. Blind ideology is exactly what I'm seeing in his confident (and factless) assertion that Wolfgang Mozart's success as a composer (as opposed to his sister Nannerl's lack-of-success) is simply due to this: "He had something to say and she didn't. Or, to put it even more bluntly, he was a genius and she wasn't." Twenty minutes of reading about their early lives and the cultural context provides a much richer understanding than that. Why rush to enshrine a myth when we have so many rich facts and observations to help us come closer to a true understanding?

Teachout also writes that any suggestion of genius as a process "fails to account for the impenetrable mystery that enshrouds such birds of paradise as Bobby Fischer, who started playing chess at the age of 6. Nine years later, he became the U.S. chess champion." Again, why leap to "impenetrable mystery" when we can actually understand these things better? There are some terrific books out there now that help us closely examine talent and success. Why is Teachout trying to convince us not to examine the evidence and not to think about these things more deeply?

In his 1878 book Menschliches, Allzumenschliches (Human, All-Too-Human), Friedrich Nietzsche described greatness as being steeped in a process, and of great artists being tireless participants in that process:

"Artists have a vested interest in our believing in the flash of revelation, the so-called inspiration . . . [shining] down from heavens as a ray of grace. In reality, the imagination of the good artist or thinker produces continuously good, mediocre, and bad things, but his judgment, trained and sharpened to a fine point, rejects, selects, connects . . . All great artists and thinkers [are] great workers, indefatigable not only in inventing, but also in rejecting, sifting, transforming, ordering."

As a vivid illustration, Nietzsche cited Beethoven's sketchbooks, which reveal the composer's slow, painstaking process of testing and tinkering with melody fragments like a chemist constantly pouring different concoctions into an assortment of beakers. Beethoven would sometimes run through as many as sixty or seventy different drafts of a phrase before settling on the final one. "I make many changes, and reject and try again, until I am satisfied," the composer once remarked to a friend. "Only then do I begin the working-out in breadth, length, height and depth in my head."

Alas, neither Nietzsche's nuanced articulation nor Beethoven's candid admission caught on with the general public. Instead, the simpler and more alluring idea of "giftedness" and "genius" prevailed and has since been carelessly and breathlessly reinforced by ideologues. But we can do better. We have the tools and the evidence now to go beyond "genius," beyond "gifted," beyond "innate," and beyond "impenetrable."

Who knows, maybe someday we can even catch up to Nietzsche.

My 2010 Lessons for DJing - Less is More - by FroBot

2010-11-18T17:21:00.000-08:00

Well...2010 will be finished here in about a month or so...and I have stopped DJing for the rest of the year. I have many things going on in my life like a video / audio company I am starting in Hawaii, and a vacation back to America. So I wanted to write a small piece about my biggest lesson of 2010 when it comes to DJing.

Now, before I go too far, I know tons of you avid ableton DJs are gonna rip me apart for this blog. Remember, this is an opinion, and doesnt necessarily mean its the best opinion...but its MY opinion.

Ok...so my biggest lesson of 2010 is "LESS IS MORE". This can be applicable in many ways...lets start with the most simple way...and I will build up from least important to the most important.

5. Less is more when it comes to your tracks content. I have noticed this year, that the tracks (in house and tech house) that have nice simple bass lines, nice steady swinging beats, and profound but simple lyrics, are ALWAYS getting the BEST response on the dance floor. Maybe its because the normal dance goer is not as musically inclined as the artist performing it, maybe its because from a technical stand point there is more room for certain frequencies to stand out and punch. But, what I THINK it is, is that producers, now in the days of digital releases, are looking to gain smash, and make their track the LOUDEST they possibly can. By making more simple grooves, this creates more room for compression, and ultimately more room for the final output level...letting you make a LOUDER track. I have noticed that most people dont notice all the great effects and envelope automation that I do...but rather, HOW LOUD the track is. The producers that can make these SUPER LOUD tracks, always seem to sound better than the LESS LOUD track that was on right before it. When the track is more simple, you can raise the overall levels pretty high (above industry standards and distorting )...and that in turn makes the BASS sound more bassy, and the kicks thump your chest more. This ultimately has the greatest effect on the crowd, rather than complex rhythms and melodies that make controlling the distortion over 0db rather difficult. So, when I get a new track, and toss it into ableton, I always check how loud it is compared to the other tracks. Even though I could control how loud the track is using the tracks individual gain...this is not CONTROLLED distortion as producers have done. They have spent countless hours raising the gain, and using mastering techniques to clean up the distortion....using their ears to decide HOW distorted it is. When you can keep the track at is normally produced level...yet its LOUDER...that is when you get a thumping track in the club. Even when I listen to a track at home on professional studio monitors, and as a producer, can hear the compression and distortion (especially in the crash cymbals), it never seems to be noticeable in the club...and definitely not noticeable to the dancers. So....back to simple, thumping, loud tracks! I know a from a purist stand point, its WRONG...but in the club...all that matters is making the peoples feet and bodies groove harder.

4. Less is more in terms of the amount of remixing you do. Again, I know tons of you DJs will disagree...but this is what I think. There is a BIG DIFFERENCE between scratch DJs and House DJs. In house...people want to hear tracks for a little longer so they can really groove on a track. This is not hip-hop, where you are playing vocally charged tracks that people know because they are remixes of TOP40 tracks. These are groovy, rhythmic tracks that people move to because of their dynamics and flow. Funky to the core. Remixing is a nice technique to do as a DJ, but use it sparingly. One reason is, most of the time, if you are a thoughtful, "searching for tracks" kinds of DJ...chances are...99% of the people at the club have never HEARD the song you are playing in the first place. So remixing it doesnt do much good because they dont know what it sounded like originally. It kind of defeats the point of live remixing unless they can realize you are remixing it. And another thing... What makes you think you can remix it BETTER than the original artist anyway. That artist spent COUNTLESS hours making their track, thinking about every little detail of how they wanted the track to sound. If you are remixing it live, you are only changing it to sound the way YOU wanted it to sound...not how the artist originally intended. By adding an accapella or something over it...you are now making the track into what YOU think is good, and not what THEY thought was good....and to be quite frank....99% of the time, the artist had it RIGHT in the first place....the DJ only ruined it. From a production stand point (which I will get into in my most important lesson)...and from a TASTE stand point. Usually, the reason we DJs remix a track is because we have heard the original so many times, that remixing it makes it sound FRESH to us. But FRESH does not mean BETTER. As DJs, we listen to TONS of songs. This creates a vicious "ADD style" chain reaction. The more tracks we listen to, the more we want to hear fresh new tracks. This makes us get sick of certain tracks more quickly...the more and more we listen to music. So, what do we do when we really like a track, but have heard it too many times...remix it. But again, this doesnt make it BETTER...it only makes it DIFFERENT. In the future, I will only use remixing techniques if I absolutely feel it enhances the track, neurally connects to the audience, and is worth the effort. I wont do it for the mere fact of remixing it.

3. Less is more in terms of the amount of effects I use. To be quite frank...its OVERDONE. All these filters, delays, flangers...blah blah blah...its old! Some DJs do it ALL THE TIME. It sounds fucking horrible. First off, your ruining the dynamics of the track by doing it. Since music notes have fundamental frequencies and harmonics...removing certain ones with bandpass filters ruins other parts of spectrum that your arent filtering. Low pass and high pass are SIMPLY overdone. They can be used NICELY...HERE AND THERE...on build ups...or artistically where beats are becoming stagnant. But, in the future I will do less. If you are an ableton DJ...you have INFINITE amount of OTHER ideas you can do to make an interesting mix using clip envelopes, and more thought out mixes....rather than just turning some bullshit knob for the mere fact that you are BORED. As a house DJ...its OK to rock out a tune...and ENJOY IT...listen to it in the way it was intended.

2. Less is more! Im going back to the basics. To me, the art of mixing is just that - MIXING! Focusing on the seams between tracks and making them SEAMLESS! That is what I want to do in my next year, and what I have been focusing on. So many DJs are up there turning tons of knobs, doing all these crazy DJ effects...but when it comes time to switch between one track and the next...its a horrible...noticeable change! Instead of going nuts on your gear...how about using your time up there to more thoughtfully think about your next track...or even better yet...when you practice at home...remember what works and what doesnt. Its ok to pre-plan a little bit, as long as you are able to change depending on the crowd. But, DJing is about making nice seamless transitions between ONE track and the next! With ableton live, you have no EXCUSE for bad mix points besides your own negligence to prepare, or ability to hear what goes with what. With tools liked mixed in key (for only 40 dollars), and abletons ability to warp and match timing of tracks...there is really NO EXCUSE. Sometimes, DJs seem to feel like if they are standing up there not doing anything...they are doing something wrong. But, your HANDS dont have to be doing anything...how about instead...your BRAIN! Ultimately, its what makes the people enjoy the music and dance...that is what matters. And for the most part...they dont know what your are doing anyway...but they WILL notice when you change between 2 tracks drastically. So, make those mix points seamless, and spend more time thinking about HOW to make them seamless using envelope automation or skills. And dont worry about those people looking your screen...or that club owner who knows a thing or 2 from past DJs to judge whether you are doing A LOT or too little. THEY DONT MATTER. What matters, is good, thumping beats coming out of the speakers...and not what that 1% of other DJs that happen to be in the club THINK about the complexity of mixing. They are most likely just jealous anyway thinking "why is it that this DJing is doing so much less than I do...is so much less talented than I am, but the people are grooving like its no tomorrow". Fuck em, because ultimetely...you are the smarter DJ...and not the one just showing off the capabilities of your computer and software.

1. Ok...now the the most important reason why LESS is MORE! Ok...start the hate speech..."FroBot...your an idiot...you are wrong...etc etc). Alright...here it is. Ok...so since the release to the APC40 and novation launchpad...I have seen a drastic excess of ableton DJs. I, just like them, when I got my launchpad and VCM-600, loved the fact that I could download shitloads of loop samples...play them all together....improv a set...and make a NEW track that no one has ever heard on the fly. It is cool, and really works neurally with the need to HEAR new sounds constantly. Its almost like a disease we computer DJs have. After realizing the capabilities of your software...you seem to want to exploit them by running 12 tracks at the same time...individual HH and kick samples...etc etc. It is really cool...and for a LIVE style performance...where you are playing with BANDS and improv musicians...it is truly great. I definitely enjoy it more than DJing, because I have more control over unique sounds, and it really fuels my creativity. But...DJing is not about this. Its about providing a thumping beat that is rhythmically stable and full of nice changes, build ups, and thought out construction. The Key here is - IMPROV ABLETON AUDIO IS NOT MASTERED AUDIO!!!!!!
This is key to remember here. There is a HUGE DIFFERENCE between a song made by a producer that has been compressed, balanced, and made to perfection - and running multiple audio tracks together, improv style. Mastering is a KEY element of making a dance track...and real producers know this. There are so many important elements that go into getting the THUMP out of your kick, the WARMTH out of our bass, and the frequency separation of all your elements. Steps involving compression, harmonic balancing, EQing, overall reverb, harmonic exciters...all very precise configurations depending on the frequencies being used. When you are playing with multiple samples, especially in improv style...you are taking this element out of the track making process...leaving...what producers consider...a track before the the mastering stage...or even worse...the mixing stage. Each sample that you play, is using certain frequencies in the spectrum. In order for things to sound right and powerful, is important to make way for each sound to stand out clearly...which means TIGHT EQing. Using notch filters to remove certain elements is CRUCIAL in making a thumping dance track. Especially in your kick and bass...most producers use sidechaining when producing to make sure that the kick and bass have nice equal room to stand out and shine...and that their high hats have nice placement, ALONE...to stand out. In an even more juvenile concept...how about even the KEY of the god damn sample. Tons of people arent even checking the keys of their samples...having a kick at say D, and bass at C. It just sounds terrible!!!! Without an understanding of your parametric EQ, spectrum analyzer, and the concept of detuning your samples...your cant even start to improv using your launchpad other midi controller. The overall result is a LESS powerful sounding set...and obviously sounds different to the DJs before and after you who are using vinyl, CDJs, or even a computer doing less complex mixing. I didnt even get into how HARD it is to do all this mixing correctly in the first place...and many of the people I see doing this style of DJing are NEW to DJing...and they can run 6-12 tracks at the same time without fucking up? That is a whole other point in itself. NOW I understand why many producers still DJ on CDJs...but are really good at understanding ableton. Because in the end...all that shit doesnt matter...its about a good, rocking beat. Even if you are just adding a few samples on top of an already mastered track... doing that...you are RUINING the final mastered sound of the track. When you add frequencies to a mix...it not only puts new frequencies in...but can change correlating harmonics of other sounds. Just look at your spectrum EQ...sit down with a professional...and prepare to cover yourself from the vomit that is certain to be in your lap.

Now, some of you proficient with ableton live know some workarounds for this. Some I have heard is using Ozone, and analog warmers...etc etc. Yes, these are all good ideas, and can help to clean up your sound...but none of them can even compare the the results of a nicely mastered track. There is a video where deadmau5 showed how he gets the final sound from his improv style sets. Here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTCqeWu094I It takes TONS of processing, and extreme knowledge of digital music before you can actually produce a live set in improv form that stands up to real mastered tracks. The fact that he already has a good background in music and digital production, also helps with this. He really isnt improvising...he knows what his sounds are doing, and mixes them QUICKLY....but is still thinking about the placement of certain frequencies. This is not the same as loading up a bunch of samples and playing them all at the same time. Save that for JAM SESSIONS, or LIVE EVENT gigs, where other artists at the event are ALSO using un-mastered audio samples...or live instruments. When playing these kinds of events, your final output sound is not intended to be CLUB THUMPING, but rather an artistic musical creation where value is placed on the art and not the power of the sound. I have YET to see a local ableton DJ that plays in this improv style in the clubs...even come close to getting the sounds of a mastered track. In the end, you are left with weaker dynamics, lower volume, and ultimately have to push the gain on the clubs mixer. That is the only option you are left with...but still will not compete.

1.2 - Oh...and less is more for one other very important reason! You can get DRUNK! When you are at the club...you wanna have a good time too! Dont forget to enjoy yourself...but sometimes, you dont have much of a choice. By keeping your setup simple...all the tequila shots and free beer wont affect your perfomance much even if you have a 4am set. Since its less complex, you should be able to it, blurry eyed and all!

Well, that concludes my "Lessons for DJing in 2010" rant. Please take it with a grain of salt. I am in no way condoning a lazy set...but I AM saying to THINK more than you DO. Use your brain a little more, hit the audio books and learn a little more, and watch your crowd carefully. Give them something to groove on, and realize you dont have to USE everything JUST because you have it. Do what sounds right, and not what sounds complex. The girls will thank you with a few extra hip swings and the guys with a few more "heads down" "in the groove" dance moves.

Peace!

FroBot

The Science Of Djing- Music Chills and Pop Cycles

2010-11-18T15:34:00.000-08:00

(Original Link - http://www.theblastbydigiwaxx.com/2010/11/16/the-science-of-djing-music-chills-and-pop-cycles/)

Ever wondered why you get chills when listening to music? Perhaps you might have suspected cycles of pop music seem to follow economic cycles. Well, writer Yale Fox has an entire blog dedicated to studying the “science of nightlife culture” called Darwin Vs The Machine that has looked at both subjects. In today’s article he goes into the chill theory and why popular music may pick up in pace as the economy slows down.

Have you ever listened to a song that’s given you shivers? The pleasant feeling of chills running up your spine are actually called Frissons. What is it about music that induces this feeling? I listened to this lecture by Dr. David Huron that discussed his theory behind it.

Biologically, chills are called piloerection. They are characterized by a pleasurable, cold sensation which sometimes produces a shudder. Chills are something we can normally experience based on certain stimuli. At the core, these chills exhibit themselves as a result of surprise. It is the failure for the organism to predict their environment and what is going to happen next. The neurotransmitters released during this type of response are catecholamines; epinephrine (adrenaline) and dopamine. This brief and pleasurable scare is equivalent to the reason we enjoy rollercoasters and watch horror films.
Here are some other examples of when we experience these frissons.

Stepping in to a warm bathtub

This is a classic example of the organism not being able to predict their environment. The body feels a sudden change in temperature and reacts by eliciting the fight or flight response.

Nails on a chalkboard, or a loud scream

It comes as a surprise again, and is usually a sign of warning or help from another member of our species. Whether running to help, or running for safety it’s an indication that something unexpected is occurring in the environment.

HOW CAN I WORK THAT INTO A SET?

A large part of music that we enjoy is the balance between predictability and unpredictability. This is probably a good way to think about track selection for your DJ sets, trying to put yourself somewhere in between predictable and unpredictable place. Perhaps adding an interesting effect or unique twist on a familiar track would be enough to induce that wonderful chill we associate with a great musical moment.

Personally, the only music that really gives me chills is lyrically based. More specifically, Punchlines and complex verses. This still fits the theory, as usually these lines are totally witty and unexpected. There’s no way of really predicting the verse before you hear it. The fact that it is a heightened emotional response means it likely becomes imprinted for future reference. Additionally, if I know the words to the song- I find I don’t get chills when I hear it again.

Virtually impossible to conduct a lab, different people are surprised at different times. I think the best thing to do is put this up to open debate. If readers could post their comments and suggestions- or specific songs and points in the song where they experienced chills.

DOW VS BPM- ARE THEY RELATED?

I took a database of every song that has ever touched ground on the billboard top 100 charts since 1955-2009. Songs were analyzed and sorted in terms of two important characteristics; (i) tempo and (ii) modality. Tempo is measured in beats-per-minute, and is the general speed of the song. Modality or mode refers to whether or not the song is in a Major or Minor key. Major keys sound happy, and Minor keys sound sad- even an untrained ear is able to easily detect this.

Making beautiful music can strike a sour note

2010-11-18T15:31:00.000-08:00

(Original Link - http://news.health.ufl.edu/2010/14721/multimedia/health-in-a-heartbeat/making-beautiful-music-can-strike-a-sour-note/)

Professional musicians are accomplished artists at the top of their field. And although their job is glamorous, health practitioners are tuning in to the fact that it can be stressful, too.
Consider the orchestra. It’s not unusual for members to sometimes be gripped by stage fright, or worry about becoming disabled and unable to perform. Their work can be physically demanding, and requires high levels of stamina.

Job frustration, a workplace hazard shared by many of less lofty vocation, is another source of a veritable symphony of stress. One reason? Musicians must deal with the frustrating combination of being highly skilled and accomplished while often having little authority about what and how to play. This can take its toll in various ways, but musicians must find ways to cope so they can keep making beautiful music.

A pain in the neck… or the back or the shoulders… is one way stress can strike. But in a new Norwegian study, orchestral musicians did not have higher levels of those complaints than others. That might be because people whose pain is debilitating would resign from the orchestra.
Members were more likely to complain about gastrointestinal problems, mood changes and fatigue. And those complaints were linked to higher stress, as evidenced by high saliva levels of the hormone cortisol.

It turns out that even coping mechanisms are linked with stress levels. Musicians who dealt with work-related problems by seeking social support or distractions had higher stress levels than those who tackled problems directly and tried to look for solutions.

Tuning in to maintaining good mental and physical health is important for handling daily stresses. And it certainly is key for musicians and music students who want to keep the music playing.

The Science of Music - From Rock to Bach

2010-11-18T15:27:00.000-08:00

(Original Link - http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/11/15/803788/the-science-of-music-from-rock.html)

What is a musical note? This is one of the deceptively simple questions asked and answered by John Powell in his fascinating book, "How Music Works."

It's an easy question, you might think. A musical note, as created by a musical instrument or a voice, is determined by the frequency of the sound waves produced. Wrong, that would be the note's pitch. Well, one can surely form a note by simultaneously depressing several related piano keys. Nope, that's not a note; that's a chord. A note, the basic building block of all music, is a repeating pattern of sound waves (which distinguishes it from the chaotic sound waves of nonmusical noises). It "consists," Powell says, "of four things: a loudness, a duration, a timbre and a pitch."

Starting with the four properties of a note, the author, who is both physicist and musician, uses easy-to-follow, conversational language to lead the reader into the science of music. He explains every common musical term, from "key" to "bar" to "scale." He differentiates a concerto from a sonata and shows how composers use chords to create harmonies. He brings his explanations to life with a wide range of examples. For instance, a certain type of chord called an arpeggio is found in "Hotel California," by the Eagles, while a complex harmony called counterpoint was used by Bach in his concertos.

After explaining the meaning of musical terms, Powell interprets those strange-looking symbols found in a piece of sheet music. It is amazing that after a few hours of Powell's explanations, a musical novice like me can begin to read music. And for those who would like to use their newly acquired musical education to make their own music, Powell offers advice on how to choose an appropriate first instrument. Violins are too hard; pianos are easier.

For those who approach music more passively, Powell provides a chapter on how and where to listen to music. Instead of spending $75,000 on "a special listening room," he advises us to install our equipment in a normal room, then move the speakers around to get the best sound. He also answers a question that is being passionately debated by audiophiles all over the world: "Are vinyl records better than CDs?" The answer, he says, is no. Those favoring vinyl are victims of "technology nostalgia."

The Most From Your Workspace: The 5 Best Trash Audio Music Making Environments

2010-11-18T15:21:00.000-08:00

(Original Link - http://createdigitalmusic.com/2010/08/the-most-from-your-workspace-the-5-best-trash-audio-music-making-environments/)

Operating systems aside, the most important “platform” for your music may be the work environment you create for yourself to produce. Seeing that physical environment for someone else can be an inspiration, and certainly a window into their personality. So, as I look through the workspaces submitted by readers, I asked the terrific blog TRASH_AUDIO to select a few of the favorites from their series, “Workspace and Environment.” Rather than ask the usual, bland music journalistic questions of artists, they explore those artists’ creation spaces, and discuss process through that context. (Eat your heart out, MTV Cribs.)

TRASH_AUDIO also has a new site address, so go enjoy:
http://trashaudio.com/

It’s worth checking out the whole site, but here are their top five favorite workspaces and environments, in no particular order. Some are the tangles of wires you might expect, others more unusual, clean digital environments like the images I chose here (if only because I’m more used to seeing the tangles of wires).

1. Finnish-born Sasu Ripatti of Vladislav Delay and Luomo has found an acoustically-wonderful, isolated environment on an island, an environment surrounded by trees and far from people. On the road, it’s just one laptop, one Korg nanoKEY, and an audio interface, to which he adds Faderfox MIDI controllers, small KAOSS pads, and effects pedals for live gigs.

2. Alec Empire stays true to his Berlin roots with an all-white minimal studio. It’s distraction-free – and having a big, dedicated studio space means no neighbors. Think loud. “Actually you wouldn’t really find much colour in there,” he tells TRASH-AUDIO. “And what surprises visitors is that we have no paintings or posters or anything visual up on the walls. I really find this distracting. Somehow my mind would get off path. The great thing is that we can record whenever we want.” On the road, it’s a Mac and Digidesign gear, but most importantly, a big mobile hard drive, so sounds can come along with him for constant revision. Add to that an iPhone as a musical notebook for sketching ideas.

3. Alessandro Cortini, an Italian-born artist living in the US, focuses on Buchla modular gear as the center of his workspace, with the monome and MLR as the software accompaniment. Corners of the space, he says, are dedicated to different working styles – modular, drum machine, computer – but everything is within reach, which to me is also the epitome of the brilliant Buchla design itself. If you can’t afford a modular (and certainly most of us can’t afford a Buchla 200), perhaps the ergonomics is the single most important lesson to learn here.

4. Mavis Concave, Robert Inhuman and Vankmen of Realicide adapt to a variety of environments – the corner of someone’s room, different homes. As Mavis says, the people in your surroundings often matter more than the architecture: “I need to have enough physical space for my gear and be surrounded by people who encourage the work that I am doing. I can’t be surrounded by people who write off my music production as a nuisance to have in the household. That is probably the biggest creativity/productivity block there is for me.” And for fans of hardware (you’re heard in the poll, don’t worry), that means favorite gear that can go in a car trunk, like the Korg ElecTribe ES-1 (called out by both Mavis and Robert).

5. Atom TM. I just love this, because seeing look-alike studios is boring, because I feel strongly that aesthetics around you can provide visual stimulation for your sonic creativity centers, and because it defies conventional wisdom. So I have to just run the whole quote – decoration instead of gear. (Next – perhaps decorated gear?) Take that, blank white walls of Berlin!

“Decoration instead of gear” became the motto. All my workspaces had to have big windows and if possible a nice view (even though I tend to close the curtains in summer during daytime). I don’t like “studio” atmosphere. I don’t like cables, gear and the entire tech-look. Environments that make me feel well and relaxed are usually of a different type. I like old furniture, warm colours, ornaments and in general everything that does not look contemporary. The contemporary look usually is contaminated with bad taste and pretentious design. Further, the decoration itself helps to absorb reflections and creates a dryer sound. I can say that the decoration itself, that is, obtaining/installing as well as creating amongst it, gives me more satisfaction than obtaining/installing equipment. I can see why “studios” have to look “tech”, that is because the studio owner needs to impress the entirely clueless cast of customers. There is no reason whatever to follow that look, just because it is somewhat implied in the equipment itself. In general I’m very sensible when it comes to “making music”. I find it hard to focus in other studios that don’t fit my aesthetics and sound. I think that my workspace is a perfect combination of the technical-, creative- and aethetic aspects of my work and it has become what it is through a long development of those three components.

Editorial note: In a blinding error of reading on my part, I read the words “Analog Live” as a misprint of “Ableton Live,” as referenced in the original draft of this story. I’ve been looking at software too long. To be clear, this was my inability to read, not a typo on the part of TRASH_AUDIO. I still like the idea of a parody of Ableton’s site redone in analog gear. I will from now on keep that fantasy to myself and stop applying it to the rest of the world.
Whether or not any of these approaches is meaningful to you may vary. But to me, just hearing people make decisions to reorganize their space is refreshing. I find sometimes even an arbitrary change of scenery can help unstop creative juices. Let us know if the same is true for you.

A Game of Checkers Becomes a Step Sequencer, Ableton Live Controller

2010-11-18T15:14:00.000-08:00

Checkerboard Step Sequencer V2 from Josh Silverman on Vimeo.

(Original Link - http://createdigitalmusic.com/2010/11/a-game-of-checkers-becomes-a-step-sequencer-ableton-live-controller/)

This is a demo video to demonstrate the use of a checker board as a step sequencer. This video should make obvious the relationship between the position of the checkers pieces and the noises they represent and trigger. It's still a work in progress, but for now I won't subject you to the cacophony that is the sound of an actual game of checkers.

Aside from the kick drum, which just keeps pace on every beat, all other drum samples are triggered off the board.

In this version, I've implemented a Mute Region that surrounds the board. When the application sees activity in the mute region, it disables the updating of the sequencer. This way, my hand doesn't trigger a cacophony when I move the pieces.

More details at prettyextreme.com/?p=124

Built with openFrameworks and Ableton Live.

Bat Brains Offer Clues as to How We Focus on Some Sounds and Not Others

2010-11-14T20:59:00.000-08:00

(Original Link - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101114190817.htm)

How do you know what to listen to? In the middle of a noisy party, how does a mother suddenly focus on a child's cry, even if it isn't her own?

Bridget Queenan, a doctoral candidate in neuroscience at Georgetown University Medical Center is turning to mustached bats to help her solve this puzzle.

At the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in San Diego, Queenan reports that she has found neurons in the brains of bats that seem to "shush" other neurons when relevant communications sounds come in -- a process she suggests may be working in humans as well.

In her investigations, she has also found that "some neurons seemed to know to yell louder to report communication sounds over the presence of background noise."

"So we can now start to piece together how the cells in your brain are able to deal with the complex sensory environment we live in," Queenan added.

To understand auditory brain function, bats are especially interesting animals to study because they process sound through echolocation, which is a kind of biological sonar. Bats call out and then listen to their own echoes produced when those calls bounce off nearby objects. Bats use these echoes to navigate and to hunt.

Not only do the brains of bats have to process a constant stream of pulses and echoes, they have to simultaneously process the bats' social communication, Queenan says.

"What we are trying to figure out is how a bat can fly around echolocating -- screeching and listening to its own individual sounds bouncing back -- amidst a whole colony of hundreds of other echolocating bats -- and possibly hear another bat saying 'watch out! Bats actually do make these cautious calls quite a bit," she says. "In fact, bats have a whole host of communication sounds: angry sounds, warning sounds, and sounds that says 'please don't hurt me."

The auditory processing area in bats' brains is larger than other centers, just like the visual processing center in humans is large. "Humans operate predominantly by sight so a huge portion of our brain is devoted to vision processing. Bats, however, operate by sound," Queenan says.

In this study, Queenan and her colleagues presented different combinations of echolocation sounds with various communication sounds to awake bats to see how neurons in the bat brains were dealing with this incredible cacophony. The researchers found that some bats' neurons control the activity of other neurons when important sounds are perceived. These GUMC scientists also found other neurons that amp up perception of bat communication in the face of background noise. Working together, these clumps of neurons allow the bats to hear what is needed.

"All organisms are constantly assaulted by incoming stimuli such as sounds, light, vibrations, and so on, and our sensory systems have to triage the most relevant stimuli to help us survive," Queenan says. "As humans we are not only sensitive to a child's cry, but we notice flashing ambulance lights even though we are engrossed in something else. We want to know how that happens."

Queenan says her next task is to record brain neurons in bats that are not only awake, but flying.

The sound (and sight and feel) of music for the deaf

2010-11-14T20:51:00.000-08:00

(Original Link - http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/science/the-sound-and-sight-and-feel-of-music-for-the-deaf/article1792763/)

Frank Russo helps make music for the deaf.

Working with a team of researchers, the Ryerson psychology professor invented a chair that allows deaf people to feel music through vibrations. He also works with both deaf and hearing musicians to compose music that focuses on vibrations and vision rather than sound.

Prof. Russo, a music cognition expert who also sings and plays guitar, will discuss music without sound at the TEDx Talks in Toronto Thursday. The conference’s tagline is “ideas worth spreading.”

Your talk will be on experiencing music without sound. Tell me more.

I plan to talk about the other modalities – or the other senses – and whether or not we can experience music through these other senses. This is interesting from a scientific perspective. It also has some interesting practical and artistic implications when we’re considering music experienced by the deaf.
Performers do things when they’re performing that convey emotion and these things can be seen. So, for example, when a performer is performing something that is melancholy, their movements are melancholy. By movements, I mean their facial expressions, the way that their body moves, the way that their hands move. There’s really a lot that can be seen that conveys important structural and emotional information about music. There’s [also] a long history of the deaf experiencing music through vibration.

Legend has it that in his later years, a deafened Beethoven cut the legs off his piano to feel the vibrations through the floorboards. How do deaf people experience music and how does this inform your work?

Deaf culture is extremely visual and it also involves the body, more prominently I would say than oral cultures. So their experience of music, maybe not surprisingly, is informed by what they see and what they feel. There’s this long history of feeling music. For example, there’s a famous percussionist, Evelyn Glennie. She’s deaf and she talks about experiencing music through her body. So she’ll perform without shoes so that she can feel the vibration through her body.

You and a team of researchers at Ryerson developed the emoti-chair. What is it and how does it work?

The emoti-chair is a sensory substitution technology that’s designed to take sound and present it to the body as vibration. You can put your hand on a speaker and you can feel the vibration because all sound emanates from some form of vibration. The challenge, though, with touching a speaker or even touching a musical instrument is what we call perceptual masking. Perceptual masking occurs in vibration when the lower frequency vibrations dominate the higher frequency vibrations. So all we feel is the thump, thump, thump. So what we’ve done in the emoti-chair is separate out the frequencies and present them to different parts of the body. We’ll take the high frequencies and we’ll present them to the upper part of the back. We’ll take the lower frequencies in the music signal and we’ll present them to the lower part of your back.

You’ve held a couple dozen concerts for deaf and hard-of-hearing people with the emoti-chair. What are the concerts like?

It’s really evolved. We’ve gone from taking prefabricated music that’s been constructed for hearing ears and have translated it into deaf music. We are now doing something entirely different, where from the conceptualization of the music we’re thinking about this as a vibe track or a piece of music that’s primarily for vibration and vision, not sound. So that opens up all sorts of interesting artistic possibilities for the deaf and hearing community.

It sounds like you’re almost creating a new art form of music without sound.

That’s what we like to think, yeah. And we actually are putting on a series of workshops across the country where we’re exploring this. We did one in Vancouver last June. We’re going to do the next one at the Banff Centre for the Arts next spring. At these workshops, we’re trying to bring together music performers or composers that want to work on this new art form, on developing something that’s music-like but has this reallocation of the sensory priorities so that vibration and vision are in the foreground.

Do people who experience music without sound also experience the emotion that is so much a part of music?

Absolutely. We have been doing some research in the lab along those lines. And yes, there’s a great deal of agreement between the emotion experienced by a deaf individual and a hearing individual.

Ringing in your ears

2010-11-14T20:49:00.000-08:00

(Original Link - http://www.thespec.com/news/local/article/275472--ringing-in-your-ears)

Tinnitus, that phantom ringing in the ears that affects thousands in Canada, is generated not by the ear, but by neurons firing in the brain, according to a North American research team that includes a McMaster University scientist.

“The tinnitus is not generated by processes in the ear, but changes in the brain when hearing loss occurs,” said McMaster professor emeritus Larry Roberts, with the department of psychology, neuroscience, and behaviour.

Neurons, he said, are meant to talk to each other. When the ear stops talking to them, usually because of hearing loss, they start talking to themselves and this in turn, generates the ringing. “The sound is generated by neuron activity.”

Roberts said the conclusion is the result of collaborative work in the past decade, but said many people are not aware it’s the neurons, or changes in the brain producing tinnitus. Now the question is: how is the noise generated in the brain? “What are the neurons doing, and where are they doing it?” he said. “Our work will assist.”

Understanding how it happens might lead to finding a treatment. The findings also help scientists understand why tinnitus is such a difficult problem to treat, he added.

They also point to the importance of prevention.

About 300,000 to 350,000 people in Canada, or about one to two per cent of the population, suffer from severe tinnitus. About 10 to 12 per cent of all Canadians have some form of tinnitus, he said.

Peter Austen, acting president of the Tinnitus Association of Canada, has suffered from a severe form for five years and says he’s researched everything and tried everything. He says it’s long been known that tinnitus is a phantom noise generated in the auditory cortex in the brain.

The main problem with tinnitus, he believes, is that people are trying to find cures but none of what is out there will help.

“There’s no cure. Only management,” he said.

“You never want to get it. Don’t ever go to a concert without wearing earplugs,” he warns. “Teenagers don’t realize what they’re doing to themselves.”

Roberts said although tinnitus is most common after age 60, chronic tinnitus can happen at any age and it is a major cause of disability in soldiers returning from Afghanistan and Iraq.

Studies show hearing loss among young people is increasing and this may also lead to an increase in tinnitus, he said.

“If there’s a price to be paid for listening to loud music, it’ll be later in life,” Roberts said Thursday before leaving for the annual Society for Neuroscience meetings in San Diego where he and the other researchers will present a symposium on their findings.

Roberts said U.S. data shows 12 to 13 per cent of adolescents have hearing impairments. With iPods so common and the use of ear buds almost universal, this is quite alarming because more children will be more susceptible to tinnitus as they grow older, he said.

Holograph Sells Out Concert In Japan!

2010-11-14T20:44:00.000-08:00

FroBot now on Beatport!!!!!!!!!

2010-10-31T06:57:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!!! I got great news today. Its Halloween here in Japan...just finished up 3 parties...and then came home to find out that my track "Stuff You Don't Hear in the Club" is out on Beatport. It is released on DJ VIVID'S label "Turned On Trax". Along with my track is his remix of my track!!! Both tracks can be found here - https://www.beatport.com/en-US/html/content/release/detail/295418/stuff-you-dont-hear-in-the-club#app=a40&a486-index=0

I want send out a HUGE thank you to all my friends, supporters, teachers, and blog writers who helped me learn everything I have learned to get this far! A very BIG special thanks to DJ VIVID for helping me and releasing this track on his label!!!!!! Keep sharing music with the world everyone!!!! And share the knowledge!!!

Peace & Love!

FroBot

Scientists Show How Tiny Cells Deliver Big Sound In Cochlea

2010-10-28T17:29:00.000-07:00

(Original Link - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091022114319.htm)

Deep in the ear, 95 percent of the cells that shuttle sound to the brain are big, boisterous neurons that, to date, have explained most of what scientists know about how hearing works. Whether a rare, whisper-small second set of cells also carry signals from the inner ear to the brain and have a real role in processing sound has been a matter of debate.

Now, reporting on rat experiments in the October 22 issue of Nature, a Johns Hopkins team says it has for what is believed to be the first time managed to measure and record the elusive electrical activity of the type II neurons in the snail-shell-like structure called the cochlea. And it turns out the cells do indeed carry signals from the ear to the brain, and the sounds they likely respond to would need to be loud, such as sirens or alarms that might be even be described as painful or traumatic.

The researchers say they've also discovered that these sensory cells get the job done by responding to glutamate released from sensory hair cells of the inner ear. Glutamate is a workhorse neurotransmitter throughout the nervous system and it excites the cochlear neurons to carry acoustic information to the brain.

"No one thought recording them was even possible," says Paul A. Fuchs, Ph.D., the John E. Bordley Professor of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery and co-director of the Center for Sensory Biology in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and a co-author of the report. "We knew the type II neurons were there and now at last we know something about what they do and how they do it."

Working with week-old rats, neuroscience graduate student Catherine Weisz removed live, soft tissue from the fragile cochlea and, guided by a powerful microscope, touched electrodes to the tiny type II nerve endings beneath the sensory hair cells. Different types of stimuli were used to activate sensory hair cells, allowing Weisz to record and analyze the resulting signals in type II fibers.
Results showed that, unlike type I neurons which are electrically activated by the quietest sounds we hear, and which saturate as sounds get louder, each type II neuron would need to be hit hard by a very loud sound to produce excitation, Fuchs says.

The cell bodies of both type I and type II neurons sprout long filaments, or axons that head to the brain, and some others that connect to sensory hair cells. Unlike the big type I neurons, each of which make one little sprout that touches one sensory hair cell in one spot, the type II cells have projections that contact dozens of hair cells over a relatively great distance.

"Somewhat counter-intuitively, the type II cell that contacts many hair cells receives surprisingly little synaptic input," Fuchs says. "In fact, all of its many contacts put together yield less input than that provided by the one single hair cell touching a type I neuron."

Fuchs and his team postulate that the two systems may serve different functional roles. "There's a distinct difference between analyzing sound to extract meaning -- Is that a cat meowing, a baby crying or a man singing? -- versus the startle reflex triggered by a thunderclap or other sudden loud sound." Type II afferents may play a role in such reflexive withdrawals from potential trauma."
This study was supported by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, and a grant from the Blaustein Pain Foundation of Johns Hopkins.

Authors on the paper are Fuchs, Weisz and Elisabeth Glowatzki, all of the Center for Hearing and Balance and the Center for Sensory Biology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Built-in Amps: How Subtle Head Motions, Quiet Sounds Are Reported to the Brain

2010-10-28T17:27:00.000-07:00

(Original Link - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100209091842.htm)

The phrase "perk up your ears" made more sense last year after scientists discovered how the quietest sounds are amplified in the cochlea before being transmitted to the brain.

When a sound is barely audible, extremely sensitive inner-ear "hair cells" -- which are neurons equipped with tiny, sensory hairs on their surface -- pump up the sound by their very motion and mechanically amplify it. Richard Rabbitt of the University of Utah, a faculty member in the MBL's Biology of the Inner Ear course, reported last spring on the magnification powers of the hair cell's hairs.

Now, Rabbitt and MBL senior scientist Stephen Highstein have evidence that hair cells perform similarly in another context -- in the vestibular system, which sends information about balance and spatial orientation to the brain.

"The bottom line is we have 'accelerometers' in the head that report on the direction of gravity and the motion of the head to the brain," says Highstein. "What we found is they respond with a greater magnitude than expected for very small motions of the head. This brought to mind a similar amplification of very small signals by the human inner-ear cochlea. And, in fact, the vestibular system and the cochlea have a sensory element in common: the hair cells." Rabbitt and Highstein found that, in both the auditory and the vestibular systems, the hair cell response exhibits "compressional nonlinearity": The lower the strength of the stimulus, the more the hair cells "tune themselves up to amplify the stimulus," Highstein says.

The toadfish was used for this study. "What's interesting is the boney fishes evolved some 3 to 4 million years ago; subsequently this feature of its hair cells was apparently co-opted by the mammalian cochlea. Evolution conserved this feature, and the mammal later used it to improve hearing sensitivity," Highstein says.

Sony ends sales of cassette-tape Walkman players in Japan

2010-10-28T17:24:00.000-07:00

(Original Link - http://www.japantoday.com/category/business/view/sony-ends-sales-of-cassette-tape-walkman-players-in-japan)

TOKYO —

Sony Corp has ended domestic sales of its Walkman music players for cassette tapes due to flagging demand amid the spread of portable digital devices that play music downloaded online or from CDs via computer, company officials said Friday. Sony had already finished shipments of cassette Walkmans this spring, meaning the iconic product will disappear from the Japanese market after stock runs out.

Sony’s cassette Walkman player became a global hit on its launch in 1979, selling about 220 million units by the end of March this year. But its sales slumped in recent years in parallel with the company’s intense competition with Apple Inc of the United States over digital music players.
To counter Apple’s popular iPod series, Sony launched digital Walkman players that became the mainstay product in its Walkman lineup.

The company officials said Sony will continue the production of cassette Walkmans, undertaken by a Chinese manufacturer on consignment, for overseas markets.

There are no plans at present to halt the production of Walkmans for CDs or MDs although their demand is also on a downturn, according to the officials.

Where is the Underground?

2010-10-28T17:20:00.000-07:00

(Original Link - http://journalofmusic.com/article/1187)

In an age when music is available anywhere, anytime, where do you find the underground, and what defines it?

At festivals around the world guitars are being played with handheld fans, contact microphones are exposing the hidden sounds of the most basic acts of friction, and turntables are being played without any records on them. I have even seen amplified glass being eaten as if it were as delicious as chocolate.

For the critic Simon Reynolds, ‘the web has extinguished the idea of a true underground; it’s too easy for anybody to find out anything now.’ But the underground is not simply about access, nor is it a mere description of the physical context of the music. The underground is essentially a practice, a cultural philosophy of music that exists outside of the mainstream. This philosophy, rather than being extinguished, has actually been invigorated through new innovations in social media, digital technology and audio culture.

What do I mean when I say ‘underground’? Historically, the underground could include 1960s psychedelic music of the US hippie counterculture, the DIY anti-corporatism of 1970s-era punk rock, the early 1990s-era of grunge rock, or 1970s and 2000s-era hip hop. Running through these styles is an emphasis on authenticity and a comparative lack of commercial appeal, but the underground I’m talking about is distinct from these. Though underground music sometimes crosses paths with popular music, its ambitions lie elsewhere. My own view is that contemporary improvisers, noise musicians and drone artists, broadly, make up the underground of today, and though the field is large and the styles broad, these musicians’ general aesthetic ambitions, combined with their comparative lack of public exposure, means that it still makes sense to consider them together as a discernible international scene.

Key to the underground philosophy is that it represents an aesthetic third space, one which eludes conventional boundaries. The ancestry of both this idea and today’s underground musical style can be traced to the eclectic activities of such sixties musicians as the Nihilist Spasm Band, Henry Flynt and Captain Beefheart (and further back again, to Dadaism). The American music journalist Ellen Willis called the Velvet Underground ‘anti-elite elitists’, expressing something of the underground’s peculiar mix of high and low cultural practices.

The underground is a guerrilla philosophy that is mostly defined in relation to the mainstream, and so could be anything at any time. Defining it in concrete, practical terms is therefore a tricky business. Frank Zappa tried: ‘The mainstream comes to you, but you have to go to the underground’. In the sixties, seventies and eighties, the fact of having to go to the underground was more clear cut, but since the advent of digital technology and the web, such a relation has become confused. MP3 blogs and file sharing websites, in addition to social networking platforms such as MySpace, have all facilitated the spread of underground music in a way that was inconceivable in the pre-internet age, when small fanzines and bootlegged tapes dominated. Everything has become available, everywhere, all of the time: culture has become flat.

Audiences no longer have to go to the underground in the same way that was required of them in the seventies, for example. As Martin Raymond, co-founder of trend forecasting company The Future Laboratory, says: ‘Trends aren’t transmitted hierarchically, as they used to be. They’re now transmitted laterally and collaboratively via the internet. You once had a series of gatekeepers in the adoption of a trend … but now it goes straight from the innovator to the mainstream.’

But the idea of the underground lives on, despite the possibility of general access. The word ‘underground’ connotes a sense of concealment, even of contraband, and this is at the heart of what still defines it as a musical philosophy. The music’s general abrasiveness repels the mainstream; the distinct willingness of the general public to either turn away or ignore its existence in the first place is what gives underground its identity, not some farcical public inability to locate it.

Cities with a rich cultural history and with firmly established public arts institutions lead the field in terms of underground scenes. Berlin, for so long cleft in two in every way imaginable, has hosted a thriving underground for decades, and particularly since reunification in 1990. Orientating around totemic minimal techno producers such as the duo behind Basic Channel, Mark Ernestus and Moritz von Oswald, and Robert Henke from Monolake, and also noise and experimental pop musicians such as Felix Kubin and Gudrun Gut, the Berlin underground scene connects back within the country’s own history to the fertile days of the Weimar Republic. But it also connects outward to other underground scenes through digital means, through festivals such as Transmediale and MaerzMusik, through venues such as Berghain, and through record shops such as Hard Wax in Kreuzberg, to name only a few of the conduits to other scenes.

London can boast a similar vitality, despite Mayor Boris Johnson’s reliably baffling recent comments lamenting the lack of a ‘counterculture’ in the city. In contrast to the largely dance-orientated music of Berlin, it is networks of improvisers and noise musicians that dominate the London underground. Building on a politically engaged tradition of underground music-making that originally developed in the sixties, musicians such as John Butcher, Sebastian Lexer, Kaffe Matthews and Eddie Prevost, among many others, deepen the cultural discourse through regular live activity at venues such as the Vortex, Boat-ting and Café OTO. Shops such as Sound 323 formerly provided the physical core for London underground musicians, but that function has largely been usurped by the aforementioned venues, in addition to the important web presence that London labels and promoters such as the leading black metal, black ambient and noise organisation Cold Spring, and disparate webzines and blogs, maintain.

In both London and Berlin, and in other important cities for underground music around the world (Tokyo comes immediately to mind), comparative economic wellbeing has made it easier to nurture underground scenes. The example of the USA, a country with perhaps the leading DIY tape and noise scene in the world, is a case in point. That DIY scene derives a kind of implicit practical support from the USA’s economic security that would be impossible in countries with less stable economies.
The institutional aspect of underground culture – its relation to the mainstream – has remained relatively unchanged over the past few decades. The impact of the web, however, has led to a fundamental shift in recent years in the nature of the underground’s very existence. The underground has largely shifted from physical meeting places such as record shops to virtual networks organised through and on the web. Underground musicians themselves are keenly aware of this, promoting their activity through their own websites, or through independent, web-focused labels, and transmitting much of their music through social media such as Soundcloud.

The web has been pivotal for the underground scene in Ireland, a country in which the institutional frameworks that buttress activity in London and Berlin simply do not exist. The country nonetheless boasts a small but fervent underground scene. An array of leading figures constitute the artistic and promotional firmament of Irish underground music. Gavin Prior, improvising noise musician, head of the Deserted Village label, and member of such bands as Wyntr Ravn and United Bible Studies, and Andrew Fogarty of weird-synth outfit Boys of Summer, of Toymonger, and head of Munitions Family label, both in Dublin; and Vicky Langan, who runs the Black Sun weirdo/outer limits music and film nights, and Paul Hegarty, of the extreme noise-group Safe and head of Dot Dot Music, both in Cork, are just some of those involved with developing a cultural alternative to the mainstream. A particularly healthy scene has developed in the past ten years or so in Cork, but Dublin, with almost ten times the population, still has the edge: artists like the Jimmy Cake and the Redneck Manifesto leading an avant-rock centred field, and Children Under Hoof, Patrick Kelleher and His Cold Dead Hands (who is notably on the Skinny Wolves label, another player in all of this) and others gigging in venues such as Anseo, Whelan’s, The Shed and the contemporary art space The Joinery, and organising the (echt-underground) ‘box socials’ on South Circular Road.

It is difficult for underground scenes to reach a degree of maturity without economic and institutional stability, but the relative health of the Irish underground scene testifies to the ability of underground cultures to flower in adverse economic or cultural circumstances, often thanks largely to the collective enthusiasm of a relatively small group of people. Similar processes can be identified in other burgeoning scenes around the world, such as that in Buenos Aires, where local musical traditions combine fruitfully with experimental dance styles and contexts, or in Beijing, where recent economic accomplishment, amongst other cultural factors, has allowed a diversity of underground musical activity to flourish. This is the case particularly with regards to the scene that has developed around the improviser and promoter Yan Jun and artists such as FM3, the former of who runs an annual underground music festival called Mini Midi, and also a famous series of improvised music weeklies, ‘Waterland Kwanyin’.

The guerrilla nature of the underground, then, persists in the digital context, and has even been invigorated by its new possibilities for international communication. The institutional and cultural richness of larger metropolitan centres such as Berlin and London has led to the development of a strong backbone of underground musicians, many of whom have been able to, by virtue of the platform given to them in their own country and through the web, connect across local boundaries with musicians and promoters from across the world. Gavin Prior’s wonderful coinage, ‘To hell or to internet’, sums up the situation for underground musicians from smaller musical centres. Economic stability can facilitate the spread of underground musical cultures, but it is not required, with the many and varied promotional and communicative possibilities of the internet proving a decisive recent factor in the nurturing of small, interpenetrating international underground scenes. The very existence of an underground culture – antagonising the mainstream, redreaming its resources for obscure ends, opening up a crucial space for experimentation and for critiquing the mainstream – in fact exemplifies the type of positive, web-mediated collective space that our new digital age has promised for so long.

Hearing the Music, Honing the Mind

2010-10-28T17:18:00.000-07:00

(Original Link - http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=hearing-the-music-honing)

Music produces profound and lasting changes in the brain. Schools should add classes, not cut them.

Nearly 20 years ago a small study advanced the notion that listening to Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major could boost mental functioning. It was not long before trademarked “Mozart effect” products appealed to neurotic parents aiming to put toddlers on the fast track to the Ivy League. Georgia’s governor even proposed giving every newborn there a classical CD or cassette.

The evidence for Mozart therapy turned out to be flimsy, perhaps nonexistent, although the original study never claimed anything more than a temporary and limited effect. In recent years, however, neuroscientists have examined the benefits of a concerted effort to study and practice music, as opposed to playing a Mozart CD or a computer-based “brain fitness” game once in a while. Advanced monitoring techniques have enabled scientists to see what happens inside your head when you listen to your mother and actually practice the violin for an hour every afternoon. And they have found that music lessons can produce profound and lasting changes that enhance the general ability to learn. These results should disabuse public officials of the idea that music classes are a mere frill, ripe for discarding in the budget crises that constantly beset public schools.

Studies have shown that assiduous instrument training from an early age can help the brain to process sounds better, making it easier to stay focused when absorbing other subjects, from literature to tensor calculus. The musically adept are better able to concentrate on a biology lesson despite the racket in the classroom or, a few years later, to finish a call with a client when a colleague in the next cubicle starts screaming at an underling. They can attend to several things at once in the mental scratch pad called working memory, an essential skill in this era of multitasking.

Discerning subtleties in pitch and timing can also help children or adults in learning a new language. The current craze for high school Mandarin classes furnishes an ideal example. The difference between m¯a (a high, level tone) and mà (falling tone) represents the difference between “mother” and “scold.” Musicians, studies show, are better than nonmusicians at picking out easily when your m¯a is màing you to practice. These skills may also help the learning disabled improve speech comprehension.
Sadly, fewer schools are giving students an opportunity to learn an instrument.

In Nature Reviews Neuroscience this summer, Nina Kraus of Northwestern University and Bharath Chandrasekaran of the University of Texas at Austin, who research how music affects the brain, point to a disturbing trend of a decline of music education as part of the standard curriculum. A report by the advocacy organization Music for All Foundation found that from 1999 to 2004 the number of students taking music programs in California public schools dropped by 50 percent.

Research of our brains on music leads to the conclusion that music education needs to be preserved—and revamped, as needed, when further insights demonstrate, say, how the concentration mustered to play the clarinet or the oboe can help a problem student focus better in math class. The main reason for playing an instrument, of course, will always be the sheer joy of blowing a horn or banging out chords. But we should also be working to incorporate into the curriculum our new knowledge of music’s beneficial effect on the developing brain. Sustained involvement with an instrument from an early age is an achievable goal even with tight budgets. Music is not just an “extra.”

LimeWire file-sharing service shut down in US

2010-10-28T17:14:00.000-07:00

(Original Link - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11635320)

An injunction issued by the US district court in New York has effectively shut down LimeWire, one of the internet's biggest file-sharing sites.

It ends four years of wrangling between the privately-owned Lime Group and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

The injunction compels Lime Group to disable its searching, downloading, uploading and file trading features.

The firm plans to launch new services that adhere to copyright laws soon.
Visitors to the LimeWire website are confronted with a legal notice that reads: "This is an offical notice that LimeWire is under a court ordered injunction to stop distributing and supporting its file-sharing software."

It adds that "downloading or sharing copyrighted content without authorisation is illegal".
The RIAA told the AP news agency that it was pleased by the judge's decision.

"It will start to unwind the massive piracy machine that LimeWire... used to enrich themselves immensely," said RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy.

LimeGroup appeared to acknowledge defeat.

"We are out of the file-sharing business, but you can make it known that other aspects of our business remain ongoing," Lime Group spokeswoman Tiffany Guarnaccia told AP.

The firm is working on developing new software that will adhere to copyright laws.

You, The DJ. The Future of Music.

2010-10-21T20:59:00.000-07:00

(Original Link - http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/musical/2010/06/14/100614crmu_music_frerejones?currentPage=all#ixzz12orO3q7x)

No one knows what the future of the music business will look like, but the near future of listening to music looks a lot like 1960. People will listen, for free, to music that comes out of a stationary box that sits indoors. They’ll listen to music that comes from an object that fits in the hand, and they’ll listen to music in the car. That box was once a radio or a stereo; now it’s a computer. The handheld device that was once a plastic AM radio is now likely to be a smart phone. The car is still a car, though its stereo now plays satellite radio and MP3s. But behind the similarities is a series of subtle shifts in software and portability that may relocate the experience of listening—even if nobody has come close to replacing the concept of the radio d.j., whose job lingers as a template for much software.

“Of the twenty hours a week that an average American spends listening to music, only three of it is stuff you own. The rest is radio,” Tim Westergren told me. Westergren is the founder of Pandora, one of several firms that have brought the radio model to the Internet. Pandora offers free, streaming music, not so different from the radio stations that many people grew up with, except that the d.j. is you, more or less. The company does not sell music—like normal radio, Internet radio is considered a promotional tool for recordings, even though the fees that it pays to labels are currently higher than those paid by terrestrial stations.

If you go to Pandora, on the Web or on a phone, you begin by picking a song or an artist, which then establishes a “station.” Pandora’s proprietary algorithm, in which a panel of musicians assesses about four hundred variables, like “bravado level in vocals” and “piano style,” for each song, leads you from what you chose to a song that seems to fit with it, musically. You also have the option to teach the algorithm, by giving a song a thumbs up or a thumbs down. The company has captured a very large chunk of the Internet-radio audience—the service now has fifty million users, who listen an average of more than eleven hours a month.

The Pandora experience isn’t much like being guided by a d.j. on a radio station—at least, not yet. (That delicious unpredictability is now approximated by the thousands of mixtapes and podcasts that are released by individuals on the Web, free of charge, every day.) I started my station with Public Image Ltd’s “Poptones,” a 1979 song that is loaded with bass, dissonant guitar, and the sinus bray of John Lydon, once known as Johnny Rotten. The band’s sound is deeply indebted to reggae—the original bassist was named Jah Wobble—but I couldn’t make a reggae song appear on my Poptones station. I did get lots of bands I like: the Minutemen, the Birthday Party, and Fugazi, who all make aggressive music that, like Public Image’s, is heavy on articulate rhythm and acidic guitar.

After skipping six songs, I received this message on my iPhone app: “Sorry, our music licenses force us to limit the number of songs you may skip.” Pandora is acting like a radio station, not like a replacement for a potential sale—you can’t keep skipping until it plays what you want.

On a recent car trip I took through Florida, Pandora was perfect: I plugged in my phone, hit a couple of buttons, and was rewarded with ninety minutes of instrumental hip-hop.

The most popular alternative to the broadcast model is “on demand,” which usually charges a subscription fee in return for the ability to choose exactly which song you’d like to hear. In Europe, the most prominent such service is Spotify, a Swedish company that has grown rapidly in the past year. In America, where Spotify has yet to début, one of the biggest on-demand players is MOG, a new service that offers a wide array of listening options, the least expensive of which costs five dollars a month. MOG offers the option of streaming 320-kilobyte-per-second files, the highest available digital quality, though customers have been reluctant to pay extra for greater audio fidelity.

With MOG, you can play entire albums, create playlists, or let the service perform the same kind of algorithmic radio function that Pandora provides. (While listening to a song, you pull a slider all the way to the right; the software suggests related artists and tracks.) You can also share playlists with other users. I looked up the German rock band Can, and saw, on the right side of my Web browser, a small box called “Popular Playlists Featuring Can.” I clicked on one playlist called “Irritation Mix,” created by a user named Scotfree, whose avatar picture looks like Iron Man. The Can track included was the spacey instrumental “Spray,” from the 1973 album “Future Days.” The rest of the playlist leaned on seventies rock—the Faces, Mott the Hoople, Iggy & the Stooges—but used recent tracks to keep things pleasantly unpredictable: Lady Sovereign’s bubbly dance track “Blah Blah” and a track called “Johnny Depp,” by the sixties revivalists Chocolat, from Montreal.

I didn’t care for a few of the songs, but the experience was much more like grappling with a d.j. than like watching a piece of software operate. I learned about two bands I didn’t know, was reminded of beloved tracks I had forgotten, and didn’t listen to anything I already had in mind. Scotfree’s playlist didn’t last as long as a good d.j.’s shift; the burden is on the user to find other appealing users and more lists, and to build the experience. In some ways, it’s an improvement on the radio model: the number of potentially appealing d.j.s here dwarfs what you might have once found on radio.

The broadcast and on-demand models are governed by different rules, but they share one important feature: neither depends on downloading files or finding storage space on a personal computer. Lurking behind these models are two enormous companies that will likely change the landscape of online audio in a matter of months: Google and Apple. Google will soon offer a streaming music service for its Android phone that, like all of these services, uses the increasingly vital concept of the cloud—your music is all on a server, which you can access from any computer or smart phone, with little trouble and no wires. Apple, whose iTunes store is the biggest music retailer in America, bought the online streaming service Lala last year and then promptly shut it down. This suggests that there may soon be an iTunes.com, a Web-based streaming system that will leave behind the model of buying discrete tracks. In music’s new model, fees are charged not necessarily so that you can physically possess a file but so that you can have that song whenever you want it.

An album “collection” is no longer relevant for many listeners. Limited only by the number of songs offered by any service—MOG offers nearly eight million—they can create as many playlists as they like, and access them from almost any device. Whoever comes up with the most powerful and elegant version of the streaming model will have a very big portal. If iTunes becomes a dominant radio force, it could control an overwhelming portion of the music business. Google owns YouTube, which already serves as a sort of ad-hoc radio station for many young people. If Google’s streaming service works well with its Android applications and creates a music-bundling system, it, too, could take over a large share of the market.

While using these services, I kept thinking about an early-eighties drum machine called the Roland TR-808, which has seduced generations of musicians with its heavy kick-drum sound and the oddly human swing of its clock. Whoever programmed this box had more impact on dance music than the hundreds of better-known musicians who used the device. Similarly, the anonymous programmers who write the algorithms that control the series of songs in these streaming services may end up having a huge effect on the way that people think of musical narrative—what follows what, and who sounds best with whom. Sometimes we will be the d.j.s, and sometimes the machines will be, and we may be surprised by which we prefer. ♦

Why Some Brand Names Are Music to Our Ears

2010-10-21T20:49:00.000-07:00

(Original Link - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101018092237.htm)

If you're having a bad day, you may want to stay away from listening to commercials for Lululemon or Coca Cola. Or from any retailer or merchandise whose name bears a similarly repetitive phonetic sound.

University of Alberta marketing professor Jennifer Argo recently published a study in the Journal of Marketing indicating that hearing the names of brands containing these types of repetitive sounds can influence our mood and thus our decision-making ability when it comes to choosing whether or not we frequent that establishment or buy those items.

Argo, along with her colleagues, conducted a number of studies testing brand names, including identical samples of ice cream that were given two different names: one for which the name contained a repetitive sound and one where there was none. The researchers introduced the identical products to test subjects one at a time, citing the name for each sample aloud during the product description. Despite the same ice cream being used, the majority of respondents chose the brand with the repetitive-sounding name.

In other studies, giving people choices over everything from types of desserts in one or cell phone options in another, the researchers found similar results from the respondents' selections. In these cases, they chose based on an affective (emotional) response. Argo says that an audible repetition needs to be present -- findings that are key for marketers, advertisers and store managers.

"Based on the results, it would say that tv and radio advertisements are critical to this strategy," Argo said. "But the employees are also critical. Before customers order, a server can remind the name of the restaurant they're at. Sales people can talk with customers and mention the brand name."
In all of the six trials Argo's group conducted, each invented brand name underwent only minute changes in variations, such as "zanozan" versus "zanovum." Argo noted that, in all cases, such small variations, even as much as a single letter, had a huge impact as to the person's choice and how they responded.

Alas, too much sound repetition can also be a bad thing, as can developing a name that does not follow a natural linguistic sound, for example, "ranthfanth." In these cases, she says, respondents displayed negative affect when these conditions were present.

"You can't deviate too much from our language, otherwise it will backfire on you," said Argo.
Argo, whose studies often deal with subjects related to consumer awareness, notes that there is one loophole to the brand/sound strategy: the device is less effective if the person is already positively affected. Argo's advice for someone practising retail therapy would be to "plug your ears; don't let anyone talk to you." Overall, Argo notes that people need to be aware of the influence that a brand name may have on mood and choice and that marketing strategists have gone to great lengths in choosing the moniker for their product.

"The companies have spent millions of dollars choosing their brands and their brand names and they've been picked explicitly to have an influence on consumers," she said. "We show that it can get you at the affective level."

Scientists Closer to Grasping How the Brain's 'Hearing Center' Spurs Responses to Sound

2010-10-21T20:47:00.000-07:00

(Original Link - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101018121404.htm)

Just as we visually map a room by spatially identifying the objects in it, we map our aural world based on the frequencies of sounds. The neurons within the brain's "hearing center" -- the auditory cortex -- are organized into modules that each respond to sounds within a specific frequency band. But how responses actually emanate from this complex network of neurons is still a mystery.

A team of scientists led by Anthony Zador, M.D., Ph.D., Professor and Chair of the Neuroscience program at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) has come a step closer to unraveling this puzzle. The scientists probed how the functional connectivity among neurons within the auditory cortex gives rise to a "map" of acoustic space.

"What we learned from this approach has put us in a position to investigate and understand how sound responsiveness arises from the underlying circuitry of the auditory cortex," says Zador. His team's findings appear online, ahead of print, on October 17th in Nature Neuroscience.

Neuronal organization within the auditory cortex fundamentally differs from the organization within brain regions that process sensory inputs such as sight and sensation. For instance, the relative spatial arrangement of sight receptors in the retina (the eyes' light-sensitive inner surface) is directly represented as a two-dimensional "retinotopic" map in the brain's visual cortex.

In the auditory system, however, the organization of sound receptors in the cochlea -- the snail-like structure in the ear -- is one-dimensional. Cochlear receptors near the outer edge recognize low-frequency sounds whereas those whereas those near the inside of the cochlea are tuned to higher frequencies. This low-to-high distribution, called 'tonotopy,' is preserved along one dimension in the auditory cortex, with neurons tuned to high and low frequencies arranged in a head-to-tail gradient.
"Because sound is intrinsically a one-dimensional signal, unlike signals for other senses such as sight and sensation which are intrinsically two-dimensional, the map of sound in the auditory cortex is also intrinsically one-dimensional," explains Zador. "This means that there is a functional difference in the cortical map between the low-to-high direction and the direction perpendicular to it. However, no one has been able understand how that difference arises from the underlying neuronal circuitry."

To address this question, Zador and postdoctoral fellow Hysell Oviedo compared neuronal activity in mouse brain slices that were cut to preserve the connectivity along the tonotopic axis vs. activity in slices that were cut perpendicular to it.

To precisely stimulate a single neuron within a slice and record from it, Oviedo and Zador, working in collaboration with former CSHL scientists Karel Svoboda and Ingrid Bureau, used a powerful tool called laser-scanning photostimulation. This method allows the construction of a detailed, high-resolution picture that reveals the position, strength and the number of inputs converging on a single neuron within a slice.

"If you did this experiment in the visual cortex, you would see that the connectivity is the same regardless of which way you cut the slice," explains Oviedo. "But in our experiments in the auditory cortex slices, we found that there was a qualitative difference in the connectivity between slices cut along the tonotopic axis vs. those cut perpendicular to it."

There was an even more striking divergence from the visual cortex -- and presumably the other cortical regions. As demonstrated by a Nobel Prize-winning discovery in 1962, in the visual cortex, the neurons that share the same input source (or respond to the same signal) are organized into columns. As Oviedo puts it, "all neurons within a column in the vertical cortex are tuned to the same position in space and are more likely to communicate with other neurons from within the same column."
Analogously, in the auditory cortex, neurons within a column are expected to be tuned to the same frequency. So the scientists were especially surprised to find that for a given neuron in this region, the dominant input signal didn't come from within its column but from outside it.

"It comes from neurons that we think are tuned to higher frequencies," elaborates Zador. "This is the first example of the neuronal organizing principle not following the columnar pattern, but rather an out-of-column pattern." Discovering this unexpected, out-of-column source of information for a neuron in the auditory complex adds a new twist to their research, which is focused on understanding auditory function in terms of the underlying circuitry and how this is altered in disorders such as autism.

"With this study, we've moved beyond having only a conceptual notion of the functional difference between the two axes by actually finding correlates for this difference at the level of the neuronal microcircuits in this region," he explains.

This work was supported by grants from the US National Institutes of Health, the Patterson Foundation, the Swartz Foundation and Autism Speaks.

World's Smallest on-Chip Low-Pass Filter Developed

2010-10-21T20:44:00.000-07:00

(Original Link - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101020091853.htm)

A research team from Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore has successfully designed the world's smallest on-chip low-pass filter which is 1,000 times smaller than existing off-chip filters.

A low-pass filter is a circuit that allows low-frequency signals to pass through while reducing unwanted high-frequency signals from passing through. Compared to existing off-chip filters, which are discrete and bulky components, on-chip filters occupy a small area on integrated circuit chips, which can be found in portable devices such as mobile phones, laptops, vehicle-mounted radars, as well as speed guns used in traffic monitoring.

The successful completion of this research project was announced at the official opening of VIRTUS, the new Integrated Circuit Design Centre of Excellence, which was launched by NTU and the Economic Development Board just 10 months ago.

The man behind this invention is Professor Yeo Kiat Seng, Head of Circuits and Systems at NTU's School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. The breakthrough in design for this filter is set to revolutionise wireless communication.

"This new low-pass filter can lead to a significant improvement in signal quality as it removes nearly all unwanted interferences and noise in the environment," said Professor Yeo.

"This results in clearer reception and enhanced clarity for mobile phone users and users of wireless applications such as Bluetooth and other mobile devices. For example, if you are speaking to your friend on your mobile phone in a noisy food centre or in a train, you would still be able to hear him clearly."

"The filter also consumes less power and can be easily incorporated into existing integrated circuit chips at almost no cost. This means that in addition to better signal quality, consumers enjoy lower power consumption without any additional cost," he added.

The new filter will pave the way for further research and development of high-performance integrated circuits and wireless communication products. Integrated circuit chips incorporating the filter can result in new applications for transmitting uncompressed digital audio/video data, and high-speed wireless local area networks for instantaneous wireless file transfer.

Beethoven and Your Brain’: a synaptic symphony

2010-10-21T20:39:00.000-07:00

(Original Link - http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/music/article/878228--beethoven-and-your-brain-a-synaptic-symphony?sms_ss=twitter&at_xt=4cbfbc74a4bd6c6b,0)

Think of a new piece of music you heard recently. Chances are you knew right away if you liked it, hated it, or didn’t care.

Now try to describe what caused that instant reaction. If you’re like most people, it isn’t easy translating a visceral impulse into words.

That made conductor Edwin Outwater think. “Everyone always talks or writes about music in terms of structure; no one ever describes it in terms of effect,” he says.

To help him make the point, the dynamic and inventive music director of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony has teamed up with McGill University neuroscientist Daniel Levitin — author of This is Your Brain on Music and The World in Six Songs — to present a very different kind of concert at Koerner Hall next Wednesday night.

In “Beethoven and Your Brain,” Outwater, his orchestra and Levitin are going to take the audience through the infamous Symphony No. 5, focusing on what has kept this music so fresh and compelling over the two centuries since its premiere.

Rather than an old-fashioned show-and-tell, this concert is about an involved audience. Outwater says as many patrons as possible will be given electronic “clickers” to measure reactions throughout the symphony.

“We’re going to show the results of each poll on a big screen,” Outwater explains. “It’ll be a way for audience members to feel a sense of community with each other.”

Much of the focus will be on showing how “predictive” our brains are — that we expect the music we hear to do certain things. If those expectations are met, we are likely to enjoy the music; if the music keeps crashing into our expectations, we get upset.

Outwater, palpably energized by this project, talks about how Beethoven plays with expectations in his symphony, beginning with the strange pause at the end of the famous “ba-ba-ba-bam” opening.
“And how does that relate to the world around us?” Outwater asks. “Could it be like suddenly hearing a car alarm go off?”

The conductor and Levitin hit it off after an initial meeting two years ago, and co-wrote a big chunk of the evening’s script by trading emails during their busy schedules.

Toronto gets the premiere performance. They repeat their experiment on Oct. 28 and 29 at the Conrad Centre in Kitchener, and hope that there will be interest farther afield in the future.
“I’m really nervous about it,” Outwater admits, smiling. Conductors are expected to make music, not talk about it.

But the native Californian isn’t going in cold.

“I sang in an a cappella chorus in college,” Outwater recalls. The group linked its musical numbers with jokey introductions. “We learned timing really fast.”

The conductor admits he didn’t come to classical music until he was 14. “I had an epiphany,” he adds, wishing that more people would let go their inhibitions and give the genre a try.

“So many people are afraid of asking questions,” he says. “They’re afraid that they might not like it.”

Outwater says that finding out what he does for a living causes many people to wonder what that means. “Well, the music’s all there on paper, right?” is a common reaction.

The maestro has his answer ready: “How many ways are there to say, ‘To be, or not to be?’” he asks, launching into several very different versions. He’ll then tell that person that it’s the conductor’s job to choose which version is going to get heard from the stage.

“As soon as I’ve done that, people understand what interpretation means, right away,” Outwater says with a smile.

He hopes “Beethoven and Your Brain” will offer up more of those “aha” moments — along with some fine musicmaking.

MediaCollege.com for Great Audio Tutorials

2010-10-20T16:46:00.000-07:00

I came across a decent website for audio tutorials! Check out http://www.mediacollege.com/audio/

Covers some of the basics of sound!

Peace!

FroBot

Hip Hop Girl in a Techno Club

2010-10-16T06:39:00.000-07:00

Copyright Law is Killing Audio Preservation

2010-10-13T19:22:00.000-07:00

(Original Link - http://lubbockonline.com/interact/blog-post/bert-knabe/2010-10-13/copyright-law-killing-audio-preservation)

In 2000 the Library of Congress was tasked with preserving the audio portion of our cultural heritage by The National Recording Preservation Act of 2000 (P.L. 106-474). A study was initiated to determine the best way to preserve audio, identify problems and examine possible solutions. That study was released a few weeks ago, and you can find the 181 page pdf here. It identified several difficulties in preserving audio recordings, including the many different digital formats that have come and gone in the recent past, leaving some audio in formats that are difficult to read. In fact, it is actually harder to access some recent digital recordings than to access recordings that are around a hundred years old.

But the greatest threat to preserving our audio heritage isn't technological, it's legal. According to the study there is no legal way to adequately archive audio. Copyright law is written in such a way that it is next to impossible for libraries to archive - and grant access to - many, if not most, audio files. In fact, the study says that,

Privileges extended by copyright law to libraries and archives to copy sound recordings are restrictive and anachronistic in the face of current technologies, and create only the narrowest of circumstances in which making copies is fully permissible.

It makes me wonder: It is actually legal for libraries to loan out books on tape or CD? They suffer from many of the same copyright issues as audio recordings. I find it refreshing that a government institution is beginning to realize that, while there is a legitimate purpose for copyright, when it gets too restrictive it becomes more harmful than helpful. One of the greatest results of any creative work is actually the effect it has on those who experience it - and on works they produce.

It's interesting, although not surprising when you think about it, the parallels between intellectual property rights and privacy rights. Both are important for society to function, and both are a balancing act. In the case of copyright, many of the changes in the past 50 or so years have been at the urging of large corporations such as Disney, Sony, and RCA to protect their financial interests. Now we're beginning to see that the tight control they sought is actually detrimental to society as a whole. I wonder how long it will take to show the same is true of personal freedom?

Japanese infants hear sounds based on native language by 14 months

2010-10-12T21:22:00.000-07:00

(Original Link - http://japantoday.com/category/lifestyle/view/japanese-infants-hear-sounds-based-on-native-language-by-14-months)

TOKYO —

Japanese infants, by the time they are 14 months old, are believed to have tuned their perception to how sounds are sequenced in their native language even before learning its words and grammar, the Riken Brain Science Institute said Tuesday in a report on its joint studies with a French laboratory.
Involving 24 8-month-old Japanese and French infants each and as many 14 months old, the joint study found that only 14-month-old Japanese infants were unable to distinguish words with sound sequences foreign to the Japanese ear, Riken said.

The question of how infants learn to perceive and segment speech is central to the understanding of the origins and development of language, according to Riken.

Studies have shown that young infants can already distinguish patterns common to their language from those that are not, but it is not clear how the capacity relates to the highly tuned perception of speech known to occur in adults.

One way to explore the connection is through the phenomenon of ‘‘phonological illusions,’’ in which adults hear sound sequences from a foreign language as if they were ‘‘repaired’’ to fit their native tongue, Riken said.
To determine at what age such illusions first develop, the joint study tested the ability of Japanese and French infants at 8 and 14 months of age to distinguish series of utterance pairs such as ‘‘abna’’ and ‘‘abuna,’’ only the latter of which is pronounceable in Japanese.

Earlier research by the team had shown that adult Japanese perceive such utterances as the same, inserting an illusory vowel ‘‘u’’ between the cluster of consonants, Riken said. The current experiments show that while at 8 months of age, the phenomenon does not yet occur in either group, by 14 months a clear difference emerges—Japanese infants, unlike French infants, no longer perceive the distinction between these utterances unless they are presented to them in isolation.

In the Japanese language, all words are composed of either vowels only or combinations of consonants and vowels. Words that have a succession of consonants exist in the French language, but not in Japanese.

‘‘It has been thought that this repairing ability is acquired by adults after they learn many words. It is amazing that infants already hear sounds in a similar way to how adults do,’’ said Reiko Mazuka, who led Riken’s team in the study.

How Loud is Too Loud for your iPod? - Video

2010-10-12T17:55:00.000-07:00

(Original Link (with VIDEO)- http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2007/0610-mp3_players_how_loud_is_too_loud.htm)

Loud, sustained sound can damage tiny hairs in the cochlea, and yet 80 percent of people listen to personal music devices at dangerous levels above background noise, a study by acousticians shows. Certain models of earphones are safer for the ear, the study also concluded.

Can you hear me now? Not if you've pumped up the volume on your MP3 player. In noisy places, everyone is turning up the tunes, and they could be drowning out their own hearing. A new study tells how loud is too loud.

Audiologists Brian Fligor, Sc.D., and Terri Ives have identified safe volume levels for you to use in noisy places. Dr. Fligor, an audiologist and Director of Diagnostic Audiology at Children's Hospital Boston says, "Your typical listener is not at risk if they are listening in a quiet situation, but if they are in a noisier situation, such as commuting, they very easily are going to be at risk." Their study concludes that 80 percent of people listen at dangerous levels when background noise comes into play.
As sound travels through the ear canal, it ends up in the inner ear, or cochlea. When it's too loud, tiny hair cells, which send sound information to the brain, are damaged or destroyed. "They're not meant to be hit with noise for long periods of time," Dr. Fligor says. Over time, this can lead to permanent damage of the hair cells and your hearing.

The study concludes the average person listens to music at the same noise level as we hear a gas lawnmower. So what can you do? Dr. Fligor says, "Something that people can do is set their music to a comfortable level when they are in a quiet situation." Dr. Fligor recommends leaving it at that safe level, 75 decibels or below, and investing in earphones that block out background noise.

During the study, only twenty percent of patients who used "in-the-ear" earphones, designed to block out background noise, exceeded sound levels considered to be risky, compared to 80 percent who listen dangerously with other types of earphones. Proof that your choice of earphone combined with smart volume control settings can help save your hearing. Turning down the music will ensure you will be able to hear music in the future.

BACKGROUND: As portable digital music players -- iPods and other MP3 players -- become more and more popular, people are becoming concerned about whether they are dangerous to our hearing. Now hearing researchers have measured specific sound levels in a variety of players using several different types of earphones. They used this information to develop the first detailed guidelines with safe volume levels for listening to the iPod with earphones. They also evaluated the output levels of several other popular players to determine any risks to hearing from using these devices.

ABOUT HEARING LOSS: Loud sounds stress and could damage the delicate hair cells in the inner ear that convert mechanical vibrations in the air (sound) into the electrical signals that the brain interprets as sound. If exposed to loud noises for a long time, the hair cells can become permanently damaged and no longer work, producing hearing loss. Noise-induced hearing loss can be caused by two types of noise: sudden bursts, such as firearms or fireworks; or continuous exposure to loud noise, such as motorized recreational vehicles, loud sporting events, power tools, farming equipment, or amplified music. For a person to lose their hearing because of continuous exposure, it would depend on how loud the sound was and how often and for how long they heard it. It takes repeated exposures over many years to cause a noise-induced hearing loss in both children and adults.

WHAT THEY FOUND: The researchers conducted a study observing the listening habits of 100 graduate students listening to iPods through earphones. They found that all the players had very similar sound output levels. Also, in-ear earphones, which broadcast sound directly into the ears, are no more dangerous than headphones placed over the ears. However, if the user listens to music in noisy surroundings, they are much more likely to raise the volume to risky levels, suggesting that people should seek quieter listening areas when possible, and use earphones that block out background noise.

RECOMMENDED LEVELS: The more often and the louder you player your player, the more likely you'll experience some hearing loss. To come up with recommended listening times and sound levels, the researchers compared the players' volume levels to the minimum sound level for the risk of hearing damage: 85 dBA. Typically, a person can tolerate about two hours of 91 dBA per day before risking hearing loss. The researchers recommend listening to iPods for -- hours a day with earphones if the volume is at 80% of maximum levels. Listening at full volume is not recommended for more than 5 minutes per day using the earphones that come with the player.

Hooked on Headphones? Personal Listening Devices Can Harm Hearing, Study Finds

2010-10-12T17:49:00.000-07:00

(Original Link - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100831221525.htm)

ScienceDaily (Sep. 1, 2010) — Personal listening devices like iPods have become increasingly popular among young -- and not-so-young -- people in recent years. But music played through headphones too loud or too long might pose a significant risk to hearing, according to a 24-year study of adolescent girls.

The study, which appears online in the Journal of Adolescent Health, involved 8,710 girls of lower socioeconomic status, whose average age was about 16. Their hearing was tested when they entered a residential facility in the U.S Northeast.

"I had the rare opportunity, as an audiologist, to see how this population changed over the years," said Abbey Berg, Ph.D., lead study author and a professor in the Department of Biology & Health Sciences at Pace University in New York.

In this period, high-frequency hearing loss -- a common casualty of excessive noise exposure -- nearly doubled, from 10.1 percent in 1985 to 19.2 percent, she found.

Between 2001, when testers first asked about it, and 2008, personal music player use rose fourfold, from 18.3 percent to 76.4 percent. High-frequency hearing loss increased from 12.4 percent to 19.2 percent during these years, while the proportion of girls reporting tinnitus -- ringing, buzzing or hissing in the ears -- nearly tripled, from 4.6 percent to 12.5 percent.

Overall, girls using the devices were 80 percent more likely to have impaired hearing than those who did not; of the teens reporting tinnitus, all but one (99.7 percent) were users.

However, "just because there's an association, it doesn't mean cause and effect," Berg said. For the girls who took part in the study, other aspects of their lives -- poverty, poor air quality, substance abuse, risk-taking behavior -- might Sadd to the effects of noise exposure.

"This paper offers compelling evidence that the inappropriate use of headphones is indeed affecting some people's hearing, and the number of 'some people' is not small," said Brian Fligor, director of diagnostic audiology at Children's Hospital Boston.

The level of impairment detected in this study might have been relatively subtle "but the point is that it is completely avoidable," said Fligor, who has no affiliation with the study.

"The ear is going to be damaged throughout your lifetime; what we're seeing here resembles early onset age-related hearing loss -- you might think of it as prematurely aging the ear," he said.
"I don't demonize headphones," said Fligor, who encourages moderation, not prohibition. At a reasonable volume -- conversational or slightly louder -- there's little risk, he said: "It's when you start overworking the ear that you get problems."

Berg said her findings suggest the need for more effective educational efforts to reduce unsafe listening behavior, particularly among disadvantaged youth. "You have to target them at a much younger age, when they are liable be more receptive," she said.

New Norwegian Earplug Solution to a Deafening Problem

2010-10-12T17:45:00.000-07:00

(Original Link - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100820072151.htm)

ScienceDaily — Some 600 cases of noise-induced hearing impairment are reported by the Norwegian petroleum industry every year. A new, intelligent earplug is now set to alleviate the problem.

Norway's largest company, Statoil ASA, is taking the problems associated with noise exposure seriously. Over the course of four years the international energy company has led efforts to further develop an existing combined hearing protection and communication product for use on offshore platforms.

World's most advanced hearing protection device

A microphone on the outside of the new "offshore" version of the QUIETPRO earplug picks up ambient sounds. The sound is digitally processed, and unwanted loud noises are filtered out before the sound is sent to a speaker inside the earplug. Users can adjust the level of ambient sound, as desired.
A microphone on the inside of the earplug picks up speech signals through the skull. This means that users do not have to have a microphone in front of their mouth, as is the case with the ear protection devices currently used on most offshore platforms. Another advantage is that the microphone inside the ear does not pick up background noise in the way that a microphone in front of the mouth does.
The QUIETPRO hearing protection and communication device was originally developed for military use by the Trondheim-based company Nacre AS, which has its origins in Scandinavia's largest independent research organisation, SINTEF. The company's customers include the United States Army, which uses QUIETPRO devices in armoured vehicles, among other applications.

More energy and increased safety

"The new hearing protection device enables employees to preserve a lot of energy," explains Asle Melvær, noise specialist at Statoil, who initiated and is responsible for the R&D project Offshore Safety for Hearing and Verbal Communication (SoHot). The project receives funding under the Research Council of Norway's Large-scale Programme for Optimal Management of Petroleum Resources (PETROMAKS).

"Users of the new device do not have to strain to hear what is being said over the radio, and the noise reduction system in the earplug means that the level of sound is adapted to the surrounding environment. On board an oil platform understanding messages transmitted by radio can be a matter of life and death," states Mr Melvær.
The earplug also alerts the user if it is not inserted into the ear correctly, providing additional safety.

New generation soon to be tested

The hearing protection device was tested in 2009 on the helicopter landing pad at the Oseberg Field Centre outside Bergen. Starting in December 2010 the next generation of devices will be tested both there and at the Snorre oilfield a little further north.

"One important feature of the new version is a built-in noise dose meter that emits a warning signal before any damage to hearing has occurred -- which is quite unique," explains an enthusiastic Asle Melvær. "This function will make it possible for us to withdraw personnel from hazardous noise areas before they have been exposed to noise levels that can damage their hearing."
The new earplug is explosion-proof and can be used anywhere on the platform.

Important initiative

"It is wonderful to be able to play a role in the development of new technology that will undoubtedly reduce the number of cases of hearing damage among employees in the petroleum industry," says Mr Melvær. "Nevertheless, it is important to emphasise that the development of better hearing protection must not become an excuse for failing to implement measures to reduce noise levels. This should still be given first priority," he states.

Research Council supports HSE projects

The PETROMAKS programme is responsible for the Research Council's health, safety and environment-related (HSE) activities within the petroleum sector. "Efforts to develop a new version of the QUIETPRO earplug provide a good example of the type of creative projects that exist in this field that make use of technology and system solutions across sectors," explains Tor-Petter Johnsen, Adviser for the PETROMAKS programme.

"Close cooperation between advanced Norwegian technology groups and highly skilled customers in the petroleum industry has not only led to the development of a new product but has also provided better insight into the serious health risks to which employees in the industry are exposed," Mr Johnsen concludes.

Scientist Compares Classical Singing to Traditional Indian Singing to Find Speech Disorder Treatment

2010-10-12T17:40:00.000-07:00

(Original Link - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101004211742.htm)

ScienceDaily (Oct. 5, 2010) — Hindustani singing, a North Indian traditional style of singing, and classical singing, such as the music of Puccini, Mozart and Wagner, vary greatly in technique and sound. Now, speech-language pathology researchers at the University of Missouri are comparing the two styles in hopes of finding a treatment for laryngeal tremors, a vocal disorder associated with many neurological disorders that can result in severe communication difficulties.

Sound is developed in the larynx, an organ located in the neck. A laryngeal or vocal tremor occurs when the larynx spasms during speech, creating a breathy voice featuring a constantly shifting pitch. People with Parkinson's disease and other similar disorders often display vocal tremors. Currently, speech-language pathologists are only able to help patients manage tremors. By understanding the physiology behind voluntary and involuntary pitch fluctuation, an MU researcher hopes to find a treatment.

"Hindustani and classical singing styles are very different," said Nandhu Radhakrishnan, professor of communication science and disorders in the School of Health Professions. "In Hindustani singing, performers use 'Taan' to modulate pitch voluntarily, while classical singers use vibrato to vary pitch involuntarily. With this knowledge, we may be able to develop a specific therapy to cure laryngeal tremors."

Radhakrishnan is the first researcher to study the physiology of Hindustani singing. He worked with Ronald Scherer of Bowling Green State University in Ohio, and Santanu Bandyopadhyay, a vocal teacher in West Bengal, India. In his study, he discovered several differences between Hindustani and classical singing. Primarily, Hindustani singing features a voluntary, rapid dip in pitch, which Radhakrishnan refers to as a "Taan gesture." In contrast, classical singers use a vocal modulation like vibrato to make a smooth transition between pitches.

Classical singers use what is known as a singer's formant to enhance a specific range of frequency that will be pleasing to the ear by lowering their larynx and widening the vocal tract. However, Hindustani singers do not use a singer's formant. Without this, Hindustani singers perform at a much lower volume than classical singers, and their singing voice sounds very similar to their speaking voice. Radhakrishnan also observed that Hindustani singing requires precise pronunciation of lyrics, whereas notes guide pronunciation in classical music.

To uncover the secrets of Hindustani singing, Radhakrishnan recorded a traditional Indian singing teacher repeatedly performing a single Taan gesture. Although singers usually perform several of these pitch fluctuations in succession, Radhakrishnan recorded just one gesture to isolate the technique for scientific study. Radhadrishnan used equipment that measures variables like lung pressure, the duration that vocal folds are open and closed, and the rate at which air is flowing out of the larynx.

The study was published recently in the Journal of Voice. In the coming months, Radhakrishnan will publish another study on Taan gestures that focuses on performance aspects of the technique.

Measurement Scientists Set a New Standard in 3-D Ears

2010-10-12T17:35:00.000-07:00

(Original Link - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101012101251.htm)

ScienceDaily (Oct. 12, 2010) — Scientists at the UK's National Physical Laboratory (NPL) have developed a means of representing a 3D model ear, to help redefine the standard for a pinna simulator (the pinna is the outer part of the ear) -- used to measure sound in the way we perceive it.

The nature of human hearing is heavily dependent on the shape of the head and torso, and their interaction with sound reaching the ears allows for the perception of location within a 3D sound field.
Head and Torso Simulators (HATS) are designed to model this behaviour, enabling measurements and recordings to be made taking account of the Head Related Transfer Function (HRTF) -- the difference between a sound in free air and the sound as it arrives at the eardrum.

HATS are mannequins with built-in calibrated ear simulators (and sometimes mouth simulators), that provide realistic reproduction of the acoustic properties of an average adult human head and torso. They are ideal for performing in-situ electro-acoustic tests on, telephone handsets (including mobile and cordless), headsets, audio conference devices, microphones, headphones, hearing aids and hearing protectors.

Critically the shape of the pinna has a large effect on the behaviour, and as a result it is defined for HATS by its own standard (IEC TR 60959:1990) to provide consistency across measurements. However, this standard defines the shape of the pinna through a series of 2D cross-sectional profiles. This form of specification and definition has on occasion proven to be an inadequate guide for manufacturing processes.

As part of a revision of this standard, the Acoustics Team at NPL teamed up with the National Freeform Centre in a novel move to redefine the standard through an on-line 3D CAD specification. A model ear was measured using a coordinate-measuring machine with laser scanner to produce a 3D scan of the ear, which can then be used to provide manufacturers with a more practical specification for reproduction and a standard that is easily comparable with similar non-contact freeform measurement techniques.

Ian Butterworth from NPL, said: "Having a 2D pinna in an artificial ear has some inherent frequency limitations. For example, when sound spreads through structures like narrow tubes, annular slits or over sharp corners, noticeable thermal and viscous effects take place causing further departure from the lumped parameter model. The new standard for the 3D model has been developed to give proper consideration to these effects. We worked with the National Freeform Centre, experts in measuring items that are unconventional in shape or design, to develop the new standard -- which will now help manufacturers develop better products."

Making Microscopic Music

2010-10-12T17:32:00.000-07:00

(Original Link - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100928083836.htm)

ScienceDaily (Sep. 29, 2010) — Strings a fraction of the thickness of a human hair, with microscopic weights to pluck them: Researchers and students from the MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology of the University of Twente in The Netherlands have succeeded in constructing the first musical instrument with dimensions measured in mere micrometres -- a 'micronium' -- that produces audible tones. A composition has been specially written for the instrument.

Earlier musical instruments with these minimal dimensions only produced tones that are inaudible to humans. But thanks to ingenious construction techniques, students from the University of Twente have succeeded in producing scales that are audible when amplified. To do so, they made use of the possibilities offered by micromechanics: the construction of moving structures with dimensions measured in micrometres (a micrometre is a thousandth of a millimetre). These miniscule devices can be built thanks to the ultra-clean conditions in a 'clean room', and the advanced etching techniques that are possible there.

"You can see comparable technology used in the Wii games computer for detecting movement, or in sensors for airbags," says PhD student Johan Engelen, who devised and led the student project.

Tuning

The tiny musical instrument is made up of springs that are only a tenth of the thickness of a human hair, and vary in length from a half to a whole millimetre. A mass of a few dozen micrograms is hung from these springs. The mass is set in motion by so-called 'comb drives': miniature combs that fit together precisely and shift in relation to each other, so 'plucking' the springs and creating sounds. The mass vibrates with a maximum deflection of just a few micrometres. This minimal movement can be accurately measured, and produces a tone. Each tone has its own mass spring system, and six tones fit on a microchip. By combining a number of chips, a wider range of tones can be achieved. "The tuning process turned out to be the greatest challenge," says Engelen. "We can learn a lot from this project for the construction of other moving structures. Above all, this is a great project for introducing students to micromechanics and clean room techniques."

The micronium played a leading role at the opening of a two-day scientific conference on micromechanics in the Atak music venue in Enschede on September 27 and 28. A composition has been specially written for the instrument: 'Impromptu No. 1 for Micronium' by Arvid Jense, who is studying MediaMusic at the conservatorium in Enschede.

A scientific paper -- 'A musical instrument in MEMS' -- has also been devoted to the instrument, and this will be presented to the conference by Johan Engelen. The project was carried out by the Transducers Science and Technology group led by Professor Miko Elwenspoek. The group forms a part of the MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology of the University of Twente.

FroBot's Youtube Playlist

2010-10-12T05:01:00.000-07:00

Never really shared this on here. Played some shows over summer...thought you guys might like it!

Peace!

FroBot

10 Things You Didn't Know About Sound

2010-10-11T08:00:00.000-07:00

(Original Link - http://edition.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/10/10/treasure.sound/index.html?hpt=C2)

(CNN) -- Most of us have become so used to suppressing noise that we don't think much about what we're hearing, or about how we listen. Yet our well-being is now being seriously damaged by modern sound. Here are 10 things about sound and health that you may not know:

1.) You are a chord. This is obvious from physics, though it's admittedly somewhat metaphorical to call the combined rhythms and vibrations within a human being a chord, which we usually understand to be an aesthetically pleasant audible collection of tones. But "the fundamental characteristic of nature is periodic functioning in frequency, or musical pitch," according to C.T. Eagle. Matter is vibrating energy; therefore, we are a collection of vibrations of many kinds, which can be considered a chord.

2.) One definition of health may be that that chord is in complete harmony. The World Health Organization defines health as "a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity" which opens at least three dimensions to the concept. On a philosophical level, Plato, Socrates, Pythagoras and Confucius all wrote at length about the relationship between harmony, music and health (both social and physical). Here's Socrates: "Rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful, or of him who is ill-educated ungraceful."

Watch an interview with Julian Treasure

3.) We see one octave; we hear ten. An octave is a doubling in frequency. The visual spectrum in frequency terms is 400-790 THz, so it's just under one octave. Humans with great hearing can hear from 20 Hz to 20 KHz, which is ten octaves.

4.) We adopt listening positions. Listening positions are a useful set of perspectives that can help people to be more conscious and effective in communication -- because expert listening can be just as powerful as speaking. For example, men typically adopt a reductive listening position, listening for something, often a point or solution.

Women, by contrast, typically adopt an expansive listening position, enjoying the journey, going with the flow. When unconscious, this mismatch causes a lot of arguments.
Other listening positions include judgmental (or critical), active (or reflective), passive (or meditative) and so on. Some are well known and widely used; for example, active listening is trained into many therapists, counselors and educators.

5.) Noise harms and even kills. There is now wealth of evidence about the harmful effect of noise, and yet most people still consider noise a local matter, not the major global issue it has become.
According to a 1999 U.S. Census report, Americans named noise as the number one problem in neighborhoods. Of the households surveyed, 11.3 percent stated that street or traffic noise was bothersome, and 4.4 percent said it was so bad that they wanted to move. More Americans are bothered by noise than by crime, odors and other problems listed under "other bothersome conditions."

The European Union says: "Around 20% of the Union's population or close on 80 million people suffer from noise levels that scientists and health experts consider to be unacceptable, where most people become annoyed, where sleep is disturbed and where adverse health effects are to be feared. An additional 170 million citizens are living in so-called 'grey areas' where the noise levels are such to cause serious annoyance during the daytime."

The World Health Organization says: "Traffic noise alone is harming the health of almost every third person in the WHO European Region. One in five Europeans is regularly exposed to sound levels at night that could significantly damage health."

The WHO is also the source for the startling statistic about noise killing 200,000 people a year. Its findings (LARES report) estimate that 3 percent of deaths from ischemic heart disease result from long-term exposure to noise. With 7 million deaths a year globally, that means 210,000 people are dying of noise every year.

TED.com: Jose Abreu on kids transformed by music

The cost of noise to society is astronomical. The EU again: "Present economic estimates of the annual damage in the EU due to environmental noise range from EUR 13 billion to 38 billion. Elements that contribute are a reduction of housing prices, medical costs, reduced possibilities of land use and cost of lost labour days." (Future Noise Policy European Commission Green Paper 1996).

Then there is the effect of noise on social behavior. The U.S. report "Noise and its effects" (Administrative Conference of the United States, Alice Suter, 1991) says: "Even moderate noise levels can increase anxiety, decrease the incidence of helping behavior, and increase the risk of hostile behavior in experimental subjects. These effects may, to some extent, help explain the "dehumanization" of today's urban environment."

Perhaps Confucius and Socrates have a point.

6.) Schizophonia is unhealthy. "Schizophonia" describes a state where what you hear and what you see are unrelated. The word was coined by the great Canadian audiologist Murray Schafer and was intended to communicate unhealthiness. Schafer explains: "I coined the term schizophonia intending it to be a nervous word. Related to schizophrenia, I wanted it to convey the same sense of aberration and drama."

My assertion that continual schizophonia is unhealthy is a hypothesis that science could and should test, both at personal and also a social level. You have only to consider the bizarre jollity of train carriages now -- full of lively conversation but none of it with anyone else in the carriage -- to entertain the possibility that this is somehow unnatural. Old-style silence at least had the virtue of being an honest lack of connection with those around us. Now we ignore our neighbors, merrily discussing intimate details of our lives as if the people around us simply don't exist. Surely this is not a positive social phenomenon.

7. Compressed music makes you tired. However clever the technology and the psychoacoustic algorithms applied, there are many issues with data compression of music, as discussed in this excellent article by Robert Harley back in 1991. My assertion that listening to highly compressed music makes people tired and irritable is based on personal and anecdotal experience - again it's one that I hope will be tested by researchers.

8. Headphone abuse is creating deaf kids. Over 19 percent of American 12 to 19 years old exhibited some hearing loss in 2005-2006, an increase of almost 5 percent since 1988-94 (according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association by Josef Shargorodsky et al, reported with comments from the researchers here). One university study found that 61 percent of freshmen showed hearing loss (Leeds 2001).

Many audiologists use the rule of thumb that your headphones are too loud if you can't hear someone talking loudly to you. For example, Robert Fifer, an associate professor of audiology and speech pathology at the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine, says: "If you can still hear what people are saying around you, you are at a safe level. If the volume is turned so loudly that you can no longer hear conversation around you, or if someone has to shout at you at a distance of about 2 or 3 feet to get your attention, then you are up in the hazardous noise range."

TED.com: Evelyn Glennie shows how to listen

9. Natural sound and silence are good for you. These assertions seem to be uncontroversial. Perhaps they resonate with everyone's experience or instinct.

10. Sound can heal. Both music therapy and sound therapy can be categorized as "sound healing." Music therapy (the use of music to improve health) is a well-established form of treatment in the context of mainstream medicine for many conditions, including dementia and autism.

Less mainstream, though intellectually no more difficult to accept, is sound therapy: the use of tones or sounds to improve health through entrainment (affecting one oscillator with a stronger one). This is long-established: shamanic and community chant and the use of various resonators like bells and gongs, date back thousands of years and are still in use in many cultures around the world.
Just because something is pre-Enlightenment and not done in hospitals doesn't mean that it's new-age BS. Doubtless there are charlatans offering snake oil (as in many fields), but I suspect there is also much to learn, and just as herbal medicine gave rise to many of the drugs we use today, I suspect there are rich resources and fascinating insights to be gleaned when science starts to unpack the traditions of sound healing.

I hope these thoughts make a contribution to raising awareness of sound and its effects on health. I welcome your reaction, and I will check this forum and respond.

Nazi Sniper & the Trumpet Story

2010-10-11T07:26:00.000-07:00

Link - http://www.maniacworld.com/taming-a-nazi-sniper-with-a-trumpet.html

Another great and powerful story about the power of music! Only 2 mins long.

Music and the Mind - Aniruddh Patel Ph.D. - VIDEO

2010-10-11T06:40:00.000-07:00

Zoom for audio enables you to hear a single conversation in huge crowd

2010-10-07T23:25:00.000-07:00

Video Link - http://brightcove.newscientist.com/services/player/bcpid2227271001?bctid=624358466001

Two physicists developed a new technology called AudioScope that apparently enables you to zoom in on sounds in huge, loud places like sports arenas or lecture halls. Physicists Morgan Kjølerbakken and Vibeke Jahr, formerly of the University of Oslo, were were experimenting with sonar when they hit upon the idea for the AudioScope, which is based on a circular array of 300 microphones and a video camera. They've now launched a company, Squarehead, to commercialize the system. From New Scientist:

The AudioScope software then calculates the time it would take for sound emanating from that point to reach each microphone in the circular array, and digitally corrects each audio feed to synchronise them with that spot. "If we correct the audio arriving at three microphones then we have a signal that is three times as strong," says Kjølerbakken. Doing the same thing with 300 microphones can make a single conversation audible even in a stadium full of sports fans.

New Track Posted - "Stuff You Don't Hear in the Clubs"

2010-10-07T07:19:00.000-07:00

FroBot - Stuff You Don't Hear In The Club (Original Mix) by FroBot

I released a new track today!!!

This is dubstep sounding house track with some funky wobbly basslines, and and spashy hits. With the classic line "Stuff you dont hear in the club". There's tons of stuff you dont hear in the clubs, and this a track dedicated to all those tracks! Look out for this track & remixes of this by DJ Vivid and others coming out on Beatport soon!

Released by: AfroBotic
Release date: Oct 7, 2010

SOUND CAN BE MADE IN SPACE AFTER ALL!!!!

2010-10-06T04:40:00.000-07:00

(Original Link - http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20827804.600-sound-can-leap-across-a-vacuum-after-all.html)

IN SPACE, no one can hear you scream. That's according to physics textbooks and the tagline of the movie Alien. But it seems that in some circumstances, sound can jump between objects in a vacuum after all.

Sound waves are travelling vibrations of particles in media such as air, water or metal. So it stands to reason that they cannot travel through empty space, where there are no atoms or molecules to vibrate.

Now a theoretical analysis by Mika Prunnila and Johanna Meltaus, both of the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland in Espoo, suggests that sound may be able to leap across a vacuum separating two objects made of piezoelectric crystals. These crystals generate an electric field when squeezed or stretched by sound waves or other forces, and deform in an electric field.

When a sound wave reaches the edge of one crystal, the electric field associated with it can stretch across the gap and deform the crystal on the other side, creating sound waves in that second crystal (Physical Review Letters, vol 105, p 125501). "It is as if the sound waves don't even recognise the vacuum - they just go through," says Prunnila.

The researchers say the gap need not be particularly small, and that the efficiency of transmission should vary with sound frequency and the angle at which the sound hits the first crystal's edge. For some combinations the waves hardly lose any energy when they jump the gap.

The team hopes to show the effect experimentally soon. "Such work is interesting from a fundamental point of view," says Gang Chen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

War Dance - Children of Uganda...War & Music

2010-10-03T06:26:00.000-07:00

Ok guys! I dont say this much, but this tops the best documentary i've ever seen. Its about a war zone in Northern Uganda, and the children are entering a music competition. There is no purer music than this. It made me realize so many things....most importantly...that music is deeper than anyone of us lucky people could ever imagine....

Take time to watch this! Its worth it!!!!!

Ultimate Ableton Live Guide Available NOW

2010-09-29T19:18:00.000-07:00

(Original Link - http://www.musicradar.com/computermusic/ableton-live-the-ultimate-guide-available-now-279329)

Ableton Live: The Ultimate Guide brings you 132 pages of lavishly produced tutorials on Ableton's amazing music production/performance package, taken from the archives of Computer Music magazine and Computer Music Specials.

Divided into four main sections – 'Live Essentials', 'Live Masterclasses', 'Get Creative' and 'Quick Guides' – The Ultimate Guide covers a hugely diverse range of subjects, including using Live's built-in effects and instruments, getting started with Max For Live, meta-recording, live performance, sound design, arrangement, mixing and much, much more.

Also included is a DVD-ROM packed with exclusive royalty-free samples from some of the biggest names in the soundware industry, free plug-ins, tutorial files and audio examples.

Ableton Live: The Ultimate Guide is available in UK newsagents now, and can be ordered online at MyFavouriteMagazines. Overseas dates are roughly: USA + 4 weeks after UK / Australia +8 weeks / Europe +2 weeks / South Africa +6 weeks / Canada +4 weeks. Alternatively, order online at www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk

Babies Are Born to Dance, New Research Shows

2010-09-29T19:08:00.000-07:00

(Original Link - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100315161925.htm)

Researchers have discovered that infants respond to the rhythm and tempo of music and find it more engaging than speech.

The findings, based on the study of infants aged between five months and two years old, suggest that babies may be born with a predisposition to move rhythmically in response to music.

The research was conducted by Dr Marcel Zentner, from the University of York's Department of Psychology, and Dr Tuomas Eerola, from the Finnish Centre of Excellence in Interdisciplinary Music Research at the University of Jyvaskyla.

Dr Zentner said: "Our research suggests that it is the beat rather than other features of the music, such as the melody, that produces the response in infants.

"We also found that the better the children were able to synchronize their movements with the music the more they smiled.

"It remains to be understood why humans have developed this particular predisposition. One possibility is that it was a target of natural selection for music or that it has evolved for some other function that just happens to be relevant for music processing."

Infants listened to a variety of audio stimuli including classical music, rhythmic beats and speech. Their spontaneous movements were recorded by video and 3D motion-capture technology and compared across the different stimuli.

Professional ballet dancers were also used to analyse the extent to which the babies matched their movement to the music.

The findings are published March 15 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Online Early Edition.

The research was part-funded by a grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation.

For Your Brain to Work, it Helps to Have a Beat

2010-09-29T07:04:00.000-07:00

This is an illustration of how brain rhythms organize distributed groups of neurons into functional cell assemblies. The colors represent different cell assemblies. Neurons in widely separated brain areas often need to work together without interfering with other, spatially overlapping groups. Each assembly is sensitive to different frequencies, producing independent patterns of coordinated neural activity, depicted as color traces to the right of each network. (Credit: Ryan Canolty, UC Berkeley)

(Original Link - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100920151806.htm)

When it comes to conducting complex tasks, it turns out that the brain needs rhythm, according to researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.

Specifically, cortical rhythms, or oscillations, can effectively rally groups of neurons in widely dispersed regions of the brain to engage in coordinated activity, much like a conductor will summon up various sections of an orchestra in a symphony.

Even the simple act of catching a ball necessitates an impressive coordination of multiple groups of neurons to perceive the object, judge its speed and trajectory, decide when it's time to catch it and then direct the muscles in the body to grasp it before it whizzes by or drops to the ground.

Until now, neuroscientists had not fully understood how these neuron groups in widely dispersed regions of the brain first get linked together so they can work in concert for such complex tasks.
The UC Berkeley findings are being published in the online early edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"One of the key problems in neuroscience right now is how you go from billions of diverse and independent neurons, on the one hand, to a unified brain able to act and survive in a complex world, on the other," said principal investigator Jose Carmena, UC Berkeley assistant professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, the Program in Cognitive Science, and the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute. "Evidence from this study supports the idea that neuronal oscillations are a critical mechanism for organizing the activity of individual neurons into larger functional groups."

The idea behind anatomically dispersed but functionally related groups of neurons is credited to neuroscientist Donald Hebb, who put forward the concept in his 1949 book "The Organization of Behavior."

"Hebb basically said that single neurons weren't the most important unit of brain operation, and that it's really the cell assembly that matters," said study lead author Ryan Canolty, a UC Berkeley postdoctoral fellow in the Carmena lab.

It took decades after Hebb's book for scientists to start unraveling how groups of neurons dynamically assemble. Not only do neuron groups need to work together for the task of perception -- such as following the course of a baseball as it makes its way through the air -- but they then need to join forces with groups of neurons in other parts of the brain, such as in regions responsible for cognition and body control.

At UC Berkeley, neuroscientists examined existing data recorded over the past four years from four macaque monkeys. Half of the subjects were engaged in brain-machine interface tasks, and the other half were participating in working memory tasks. The researchers looked at how the timing of electrical spikes -- or action potentials -- emitted by nerve cells was related to rhythms occurring in multiple areas across the brain.

Among the squiggly lines, patterns emerged that give literal meaning to the phrase "tuned in." The timing of when individual neurons spiked was synchronized with brain rhythms occurring in distinct frequency bands in other regions of the brain. For example, the high-beta band -- 25 to 40 hertz (cycles per second) -- was especially important for brain areas involved in motor control and planning.

"Many neurons are thought to respond to a receptive field, so that if I look at one motor neuron as I move my hand to the left, I'll see it fire more often, but if I move my hand to the right, the neuron fires less often," said Carmena. "What we've shown here is that, in addition to these traditional 'external' receptive fields, many neurons also respond to 'internal' receptive fields. Those internal fields focus on large-scale patterns of synchronization involving distinct cortical areas within a larger functional network."

The researchers expressed surprise that this spike dependence was not restricted to the neuron's local environment. It turns out that this local-to-global connection is vital for organizing spatially distributed neuronal groups.

"If neurons only cared about what was happening in their local environment, then it would be difficult to get neurons to work together if they happened to be in different cortical areas," said Canolty. "But when multiple neurons spread all over the brain are tuned in to a specific pattern of electrical activity at a specific frequency, then whenever that global activity pattern occurs, those neurons can act as a coordinated assembly."

The researchers pointed out that this mechanism of cell assembly formation via oscillatory phase coupling is selective. Two neurons that are sensitive to different frequencies or to different spatial coupling patterns will exhibit independent activity, no matter how close they are spatially, and will not be part of the same assembly. Conversely, two neurons that prefer a similar pattern of coupling will exhibit similar spiking activity over time, even if they are widely separated or in different brain areas.
"It is like the radio communication between emergency first responders at an earthquake," Canolty said. "You have many people spread out over a large area, and the police need to be able to talk to each other on the radio to coordinate their action without interfering with the firefighters, and the firefighters need to be able to communicate without disrupting the EMTs. So each group tunes into and uses a different radio frequency, providing each group with an independent channel of communication despite the fact that they are spatially spread out and overlapping."

The authors noted that this local-to-global relationship in brain activity may prove useful for improving the performance of brain-machine interfaces, or lead to novel strategies for regulating dysfunctional brain networks through electrical stimulation. Treatment of movement disorders through deep brain stimulation, for example, usually targets a single area. This study suggests that gentler rhythmic stimulation in several areas at once may also prove effective, the authors said.

Other co-authors of the study are Jonathan Wallis, UC Berkeley associate professor of psychology; Dr. Karunesh Ganguly, UC Berkeley post-doctoral fellow in the Carmena lab and staff scientist at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center; Steven Kennerley, now a senior lecturer at University College London's Institute of Neurology; Charles Cadieu, UC Berkeley post-doctoral researcher in neuroscience; and Kilian Koepsell, UC Berkeley assistant researcher in neuroscience.

The National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, American Heart Association, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Multiscale System Center helped support this research.

What part of the brain interprets music?

2010-09-20T07:28:00.000-07:00

Music lights up almost every area of the brain, which shouldn’t be a surprise since it makes people tap their feet, encourages the recollection of vivid memories and has the potential to lighten the mood.

Around the outside

1. Prefrontal cortex: This brain region plays a role in the creation, satisfaction and violation of expectations. It may react, for instance, when a beat goes missing. Recent work has shown that during improvisation a part of the prefrontal cortex involved in monitoring performance shuts down, while parts involved in self-initiated thoughts ramp up.

2. Motor cortex: Music is not independent of motion. Foot-tapping and dancing often accompany a good beat, meaning the motor cortex gets involved. And playing an instrument requires carefully timed physical movements. In some cases, this area of the brain is engaged when a person simply hears notes, suggesting a strong link to the auditory cortex.

3. Sensory cortex: Playing an instrument sends tactile messages to the sensory cortex, as keys are hit, for example.

4. Auditory cortex: Hearing any sound, including music, involves this region, which contains a map of pitches for the perception and analysis of tones.

5. Visual cortex: Reading music or watching a performer’s movements activates the visual cortex.

The inside track

6. Cerebellum: Movements such as foot-tapping and dancing activate this part of the brain. This could be because of the cerebellum’s role in timing and synchrony; it helps people track the beat. The cerebellum is also involved in the emotional side of music, lighting up with likable or familiar music, and appears to sense the difference between major and minor chords.

7. Hippocampus: Known to play a role in long-term memory, the hippocampus (part of which is shown) may help the brain retrieve memories that give a sound meaning or context. It also helps people link music they have heard before to an experience and to a given context, possibly explaining why it is activated during pleasant or emotionally charged music.

8. Amygdala: The amygdala seems to be involved in musical memories. It reacts differently to major and minor chords, and music that leads to chills tends to affect it. Studies suggest the skillful repetition heard in music is emotionally satisfying.

9. Nucleus accumbens: This brain structure is thought to be the center of the reward system. It reacts to emotional music, perhaps through the release of dopamine.

(Original Link - http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/61593/title/Your_brain_on_music )

Whatever music is, it’s a basic part of being human

2010-09-20T07:22:00.000-07:00

(Original Link - http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/61610/title/Comment__Whatever_music_is%2C_it%E2%80%99s_a_basic_part_of_being_human)

Scientists are increasingly interested in the nature and origins of music, as this special edition on music illustrates (see Page 17). As director of the Centre for Music and Science at the University of Cambridge in England, Ian Cross studies music perception and culture’s role in musical experience. A former professional classical guitarist who still performs occasionally, Cross is the only Cambridge music faculty member to have declined a chance to join iconic ’70s pop band the Bay City Rollers. He recently discussed music’s scientific standing with Science News writer Bruce Bower.

What is music?

I can’t give a good definition for music. The contemporary Western view of music is that it consists of complex, patterned sounds with a structure that we find pleasurable to listen to. But music is much more than that. All cultures have music, but many cultures don’t have a word for music. In traditional societies, there are musical performers, but music is primarily interactive, so everybody participates and it’s embedded in daily experience.

Music brings people together by having flexible meanings. Two people are unlikely to agree on precisely what a piece of music means because it triggers different sets of associations for each person. That makes music well-suited to uncertain social situations, such as funerary rites, circumcision rites and ceremonies for greetings and departures of visitors and group members.

How did music evolve?

People made sophisticated kinds of music long ago, as shown by 40,000-year-old flutes recently found in Germany (SN: 7/18/09, p. 13). Musical practices must have come out of Africa and predated humanity’s emergence around 200,000 years ago. I suspect music evolved along with speech, probably by the time of Homo heidelbergensis [around 600,000 years ago]. So Neandertals and the first humans would have had music.

Modern cultures separate music from language, but music and speech are probably the same thing. Speech can be very music-like. Think of a Southern Baptist preacher acting out his message in a musical way. And musical interactions typically involve vocal sounds, words and gestures. There is a rhythmic and emotional complexity to both music and speech. But language by itself is not as flexible in its meanings to different people as music is.

Musical behaviors of nonhuman animals may have contributed to musical evolution. Primates and other animals use musical sounds to communicate about whether to approach or avoid certain areas. They use tempos and pitch ranges for danger and safety that are associated with people’s emotional responses to music. In the famous shower scene from the movie Psycho, the soundtrack uses carefully fashioned violin phrases that viewers experience as screams, a clear danger sign for many animals.

What are the biggest public and scientific misconceptions about music?

People think that there are musicians and nonmusicians. Yet nearly everyone can finely distinguish between various musical genres and styles. Musical performers just engage with music in a more direct way.

No, wait. An even bigger misunderstanding is the assumption that music doesn’t matter. Music programs in schools are often the first casualties of economic recessions. Without these programs, we’re not enabling the expression of a deep, biologically grounded communication system.
I started playing the piano at age 6 and decided I didn’t like it. Then I tried the violin and didn’t like it. Then I took up the clarinet and hated it. I started with the guitar at age 9 and still play today. Kids need to be given the chance to try different instruments and find one that feels right.
Too many scientists think that Mozart is music but two kids singing a street chant is not music. In our culture, music has become a commodity that’s divorced from action. It’s thought of as entertainment, not as a fundamental communication system.

What are the prospects for a better scientific understanding of music?

Although there have been some fabulous experimental studies of music perception, music is a bit too wild to be trapped in the lab. I’ve worked with ethnomusicologists who play recorded music to members of non-Western groups and try to measure how they perceive and react to it. But these people don’t think of a recording as music. They’re bored by it. It makes no sense to them because it’s not interactive. Researchers need to devise better ways to study music across cultures and in real-life situations.

Summer Love II on Tango Hanto - The Story

2010-09-13T20:23:00.000-07:00

The weekend started for Jamie, Natsuko & I early Friday morning. I think Jamie awoke to his cat licking his face before 6am...and he was up early...and we were on our way to Tango. We kind of knew the amount of work that was ahead of us...and we knew that it was going to take 2 days of full-on work to get everything set up in time for Saturday evening. Anyway, we cruised our way North...and stopped to get tons of food and beer.

When we finally reached Tango Hanto, it was about 12:30...and we immediately got to work. Our idea was to set up Jamie's stage creation in a different location than last time because the typhoon kicked up tons of sticks and garbage on the other site. First, we put together the DJ table and the VJ table. Then, Natsuko immediately got to work on making signs for the party, I started carrying old bamboo poles, about 4 meters in length, across the beach to the other site, while Jamie jumped on his laptop and started to use MAYA to draw up the design.

Jame is a genius, and through this idea came together in about an HOUR while sitting in the car (and ridiculously exhausted no less). We finally decided how much bamboo we needed, and went up to the old temple to get all the final pieces that we needed. After enduring countless mosquito bites from where the bamboo was, we brought it all down to the party site, and decided to celebrate our hard work with our FIRST meal of the day and a some chu-hais...while watching the "Dragon Sunset" (as Natsuko liked to call it).

Around this time, Matt showed up and started to set up the food stalls. Jamie and I realized that we still had a lot of work to do, and that we needed to set up lights and try to get the stage frame built by the end of the night or else we simply would not be finished in time for the party. So...thats what we did. We were really on our last bit of energy...but...with the alcohol flowing...we got to work and started to construct the frame. After setting it up (and then putting it back down to get the flags on), it was finally looking like a stage. At the end of the night (around 11pm), it looked something like this.

That was about it for the first day. We enjoyed some relaxation with some friends, and quickly passed out...until the morning.

The sun came up, and we were back at it around 8 or 9 in the morning. We still had tons of work to do...and really wanted to have the party place looking like a party by the time people started showing up. So, we started to get the final bamboo poles set up on the stage, and started to place the white cloth on the back for the projection. We also got all the sound set up, and tested. It was so nice to have tunes to listen to while working, and we listened to tons of OASIS DJ sets throughout the day. That really made it easier to work!

Everything was ready to go, and DJ Kamon started to spin some really old-school reggae tracks while we finished up. The sun was starting to set, another yet amazing sunset blessed us all.

One thing I forgot to mention was that one of our KEY team members was not there. The last "Summer Love" party we did...Jamie, Natsuko, myself, & RICK were dubbed "Team Hurry the Fuck Up". Well, Rick wasnt able to make it until later...so we decided, for him to hold his place in "Team Hurry the Fuck Up"...he would have to redeem himself. I think it was Natsuko and Jamie's idea...but we had decided to BURY Rick in the sand. But, to add insult to injury, we were going to make him dig his own hole, and tell him that it was for part of the stage.

Whats even funnier, is I clearly remember Rick saying at this point "Do you guys really need this hole". We were laughing harder than ever. Anyway, he dug a HUGE hole, big enough for him to sit in...and we buried him....all the while laughing our asses off! He became the Mer-man!

We also got this beautiful sunset shot.

So, the sun was going down...and Dan Kane, Darren, Tender, Dan Hart, & all their friends played an AMAZING acoustic set while the sun went down.

The sun went down on the acoustic set, and it was time for the DJs to start the night. I was the first DJ...and it was the first time the visuals were able to be seem in full force. The set up looked AMAZING!

The party was pumping...and people were dancing. FroBot (myself), Joey, and Nori all were lucky enough to lay down sets before the "RAIN MONSTER" came. It was crazy!!! It went a little sumthin like this.

Around 9:30pm, someone comes running into the party yelling "WERE ABOUT TO GET NAILED BY A RAIN STORM!!!!". The tone of voice is what got me....it was DEAD SERIOUS. I looked at Jamie and we both knew exactly what had to be done. Luckily, I had set up a tent for equipment, and immediately started getting out tarps and whatnot. Literally 1 minute after this, the sky lit up...and rain came down like jungle rain. There was no indication of this storm...and if it wasnt for someone using an iphone and looking at the local radar...we would have been up shit creek. We got the gear out of the rain JUST in time...and...of course...have no pictures to show for this. The last thing on our minds was "taking pictures". The rain didnt last long, but the radar showed a bunch more rain coming throughout the night....so we were hesitant to put up the expensive sound system again. After a little bit of drizzle...and some brainstorming between Jamie and I....we set up the tarps over the stage, put the speakers within them...and set up the ipod for about a half hour. This at least kept the music going, and people were ready for a party again.

However, Jamie and I made a BONEHEAD move. Remember, that if you STAPLE a tarp to bamboo poles, it NO LONGER works as a tarp is intended to! HAHAHA. Needless to say, water was kind of dripping into the stage...and we were worried about gear. Never-the-less, DOM PANG said he would risk his own gear....so we left the mixer only...and he set up. He started to pound an AWESOME techno set...and people were again, dancing and partying it up!

The party was supposed to end around 2am...but...well...it didnt. It went all night. Dom rocked out for a while, Asogi too, Alex aka Freebass, then Karla jumped behind to the wheel for the sunrise set (she had eagerly wanted!!!).

I fell asleep for like an hour around this point...and Tim spun for a while, then Karla again...and they made sure that this party wasnt gonna stop!!!

The weather was looking promising, so we set the gear back up...and the DJs who use CDJ's were able to get on. Hiran played a nice chill morning set...and kept it moving through morning.

At some point...Hiran looked me straight in the eyes and said "Tsukarata!" (im tired). I couldnt agree with him more. I was running on 1 hour of sleep, and most other people were at about the same point. I needed to find a DJ or SOMEONE to go on to make sure that this party didnt stop....and then, one of the locals showed up with his FLUTE and did a small performance for us. It was FUNNY to say the least.

When he finished up, I was unable to find any DJs that were still awake who hadent played already...so I jumped back on for a long 2 hour set. It was at this point people started to take pictures again...(sorry to the DJs who there are no pictures for...it seems everyone dropped out of picture mode from like 12pm-9am).

I was dead tired...so Masamune jumped behind the decks for the final set of the party. People were still dancing away until about noon.

When Masamune finished... Jamie, Natsuko, and I were feeling pooped...but knew there was still a ton of work ahead. We decided to tear down everything while we still had help from everyone else. We started to tear down...and it happened in a fraction of the time it took to put up.

We packed it all up...enjoyed some swimming for a bit...and then got on the road. I passed out within a few seconds of leaving...only to awake to some ice cream (yea, team hurry the fuck up LOVES ice cream).

With everything finished, Summer Love II was a major success. The energy was great, the people were so friendly, and Love & Peace was in the air. This party would not have been possible without everyones help. Matt, Jamie, Natsuko, Joey, & all the artists, performers, & food stall friends....thank you so much for all your hard work. I hope we can continue to do parties like this in the future....where LOVE & PEACE are the only things that matter!

Why do DJ's with No Music Skills Understand Music?

2010-09-13T08:03:00.000-07:00

(Original Link - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080813110453.htm)

Simply Listening To Music Affects One’s Musicality

Researchers at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) have demonstrated how much the brain can learn simply through active exposure to many different kinds of music. “More and more labs are showing that people have the sensitivity for skills that we thought were only expert skills,” Henkjan Honing (UvA) explains.

“It turns out that mere exposure makes an enormous contribution to how musical competence develops.”* The results were recently presented at the Music & Language conference, organized by Tufts University in Boston, and will be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Performance and Perception.
The common view among music scientists is that musical abilities are shaped mostly by intense musical training, and that they remain rather rough in untrained listeners, the so-called Expertise hypothesis.

However, the UvA-study shows that listeners without formal musical training, but with sufficient exposure to a certain musical idiom (the Exposure hypothesis), perform similarly in a musical task when compared to formally trained listeners.
Furthermore, the results show that listeners generally do better in their preferred musical genre. As such the study provides evidence for the idea that some musical capabilities are acquired through mere exposure to music. Just listen and learn!

In addition, the study is one of the first that takes advance of the possibilities of online listening experiments comparing musicians and non-musicians of all ages.

Exploring The Sounds Of Silence

2010-09-13T07:56:00.000-07:00

(Original Link - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070622180242.htm)

Silence in music is not really silent. Research by a University of Arkansas music theorist, Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis, reveals how context affects listeners’ experience of silence in music.

“The same acoustic silence, embedded in two different excerpts, can be perceived dramatically differently,” Margulis wrote in an article in Music Perception that explores the transformation from acoustic silence to perceived silence.

Silence offers “an opportunity to study the active participatory nature of musical engagement,” Margulis wrote. There has been little experimental study of musical silence up to now.

“Silent periods could provide a unique chance to study the way that past musical events shape expectations about future ones, and the way that underacknowledged, often taken for granted musical elements (such as rests) are actually suffused with the full extent of ‘musical’ listening,” she wrote.

Silence in music communicates in a similar manner to silence in speaking, Margulis said. Sometimes the duration of the pause indicates the importance of the segment. In written language, a pause at the end of a paragraph is longer than the pause at the end of a sentence. Pauses in language are also used for expressive effect, Margulis explained:

“For example, I could say ‘You know what happened?’ Pause. ‘He called her.’ And that pause in the right context is really tense, and you get everyone leaning forward. Music can do something similar.”
When a listener encounters silence in a musical work, Margulis wrote, “Impressions of the music that preceded the silence seep into the gap, as do expectations about what may follow.”

Listeners’ impressions and expectations can have a powerful effect on how they hear a silence, to the extent that identical acoustical silences may come to “sound” quite different. For example, Margulis found that musical context can cause two silences of the same duration “to seem like they occupy different lengths of time or carry different amounts of musical tension.”

Margulis’ research involved two experiments, one using musical excerpts from commercially available recordings. The second experiment used simpler musical excerpts produced specifically for the study with carefully measured and controlled silences.

Participants without musical training were selected for both experiments, so that their responses would reflect reactions to the music they were hearing rather than assessments based on formal musical training. They proved to be “highly sensitive” to the subtleties of silence in its musical context.
“I’m interested in showing how listeners without any special training know more than they think they know,” Margulis said, “You don’t need courses and lectures to understand music; it’s meant to naturally speak to you.”

Margulis is an assistant professor of music in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Arkansas. Her article “Silences in Music Are Musical Not Silent: An Exploratory Study of Context Effects on the Experience of Musical Pauses” appears in the June 2007 issue of Music Perception.

How Music 'Moves' Us: Listeners' Brains Second-Guess the Composer

2010-09-13T07:53:00.000-07:00

(Original Link - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100115204704.htm)

Have you ever accidentally pulled your headphone socket out while listening to music? What happens when the music stops? Psychologists believe that our brains continuously predict what is going to happen next in a piece of music. So, when the music stops, your brain may still have expectations about what should happen next.

A new paper published in NeuroImage predicts that these expectations should be different for people with different musical experience and sheds light on the brain mechanisms involved.

Research by Marcus Pearce Geraint Wiggins, Joydeep Bhattacharya and their colleagues at Goldsmiths, University of London has shown that expectations are likely to be based on learning through experience with music. Music has a grammar, which, like language, consists of rules that specify which notes can follow which other notes in a piece of music. According to Pearce: "the question is whether the rules are hard-wired into the auditory system or learned through experience of listening to music and recording, unconsciously, which notes tend to follow others."

The researchers asked 40 people to listen to hymn melodies (without lyrics) and state how expected or unexpected they found particular notes. They simulated a human mind listening to music with two computational models. The first model uses hard-wired rules to predict the next note in a melody. The second model learns through experience of real music which notes tend to follow others, statistically speaking, and uses this knowledge to predict the next note.
The results showed that the statistical model predicts the listeners' expectations better than the rule-based model. It also turned out that expectations were higher for musicians than for non-musicians and for familiar melodies -- which also suggests that experience has a strong effect on musical predictions.

In a second experiment, the researchers examined the brain waves of a further 20 people while they listened to the same hymn melodies. Although in this experiment the participants were not explicitly informed about the locations of the expected and unexpected notes, their brain waves in responses to these notes differed markedly. Typically, the timing and location of the brain wave patterns in response to unexpected notes suggested that they stimulate responses that synchronise different brain areas associated with processing emotion and movement. On these results, Bhattacharya commented, "… as if music indeed 'moves' us!"

These findings may help scientists to understand why we listen to music. "It is thought that composers deliberately confirm and violate listeners' expectations in order to communicate emotion and aesthetic meaning," said Pearce. Understanding how the brain generates expectations could illuminate our experience of emotion and meaning when we listen to music.

The Metaphor of "High and "Low" in Pitch

2010-09-13T07:41:00.000-07:00

The Metaphor of "High and "Low" in Pitch

Notes by David Huron

Why are the terms "high" and "low" used to describe pitch?
"There is ample evidence that our characterization of musical pitches in terms of "high" and "low" is basically metaphorical. Consider "high" and "low" on the piano: how can D4 be "above" C4 on the piano when they are both on the same horizontal plane? Think of playing the two notes on the 'cello -- to play the "higher" D4, we have to move our left hand down, so that it is closer to the ground. Behind these linguistic expressions in the conceptual metaphor PITCH RELATIONSHIPS ARE RELATIONSHIPS IN VERTICAL SPACE, which maps spatial orientations such as up-down onto the pitch continuum.

"Although Scruton argued that it was virtually inconceivable to construe pitch in any way other than an up-down spatial relationship, evidence to the contrary comes from a variety of sources. Greek music theorists of antiquity spoke not of "high" and "low" but of "sharpness" and "heaviness"; in Bali and Java pitches are not "high" and "low" but "small" and "large"; and among the Suyá of the Amazon basin, pitches are not "high" and "low" but "young" and "old."[Cites as follows: On the matter of the characterization of pitch by Greek music theorists of antiquity see Andrew Barker (ed.), Greek Musical Writings, Volume II: Harmonic and Acoustic Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), n. 43, p. 134. For information about the characterization of pitch in Bali and Java I am indebted to Benjamin Brinner, personal communication. Regarding the characterization of musical pitch by the Suyá, see Anthony Seeger, Why Suyá Sing; A Musical Anthropology of an Amazonian People (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).

Although Scruton's (and, by extension, Cook's) assertion about the metaphoricity of musical understanding occurs as part of a larger rationalistic argument about musical ontology, there is a body of recent empirical work by cognitive scientists that supports this assertion. This research suggests that metaphor is not simply an anomalous use of language or a mark of the way we conceive intentional objects but is in fact central to human understanding as a whole. This research is also distinct from other discussions of the importance of metaphor to musical understanding, whether from a philosophical or music-analytical perspective, in that it offers a way to explain why correlations of the sort noted by Scruton -- between musical pitch and physical space, or between successions of pitches and motion through physical space -- are possible in the first place, and how such correlations are constrained."

Cultured Brain Cells Taught to Keep Time

2010-09-13T07:31:00.000-07:00

(Original Link - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100615093246.htm)

The ability to tell time is fundamental to how humans interact with each other and the world. Timing plays an important role, for example, in our ability to recognize speech patterns and to create music.

Patterns are an essential part of timing. The human brain easily learns patterns, allowing us to recognize familiar patterns of shapes, like faces, and timed patterns, like the rhythm of a song. But exactly how the brain keeps time and learns patterns remains a mystery.
In this three-year study, UCLA scientists attempted to unravel the mystery by testing whether networks of brain cells kept alive in culture could be "trained" to keep time. The team stimulated the cells with simple patterns -- two stimuli separated by different intervals lasting from a twentieth of a second up to half a second.

After two hours of training, the team observed a measurable change in the cellular networks' response to a single input. In the networks trained with a short interval, the network's activity lasted for a short period of time. Conversely, in the networks trained with a long interval, network activity lasted for a longer amount of time.

The UCLA findings are the first to suggest that networks of brain cells in a petri dish can learn to generate simple timed intervals. The research sheds light on how the brain tells time and will enhance scientists' understanding of how the brain works.
The study was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health.

How Music Training Primes Nervous System and Boosts Learning

2010-09-13T07:27:00.000-07:00

(Original Link - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100720152252.htm)

Those ubiquitous wires connecting listeners to you-name-the-sounds from invisible MP3 players -- whether of Bach, Miles Davis or, more likely today, Lady Gaga -- only hint at music's effect on the soul throughout the ages.

Now a data-driven review by Northwestern University researchers that will be published July 20 in Nature Reviews Neuroscience pulls together converging research from the scientific literature linking musical training to learning that spills over to skills including language, speech, memory, attention and even vocal emotion. The science covered comes from labs all over the world, from scientists of varying scientific philosophies, using a wide range of research methods.

The explosion of research in recent years focusing on the effects of music training on the nervous system, including the studies in the review, have strong implications for education, said Nina Kraus, lead author of the Nature perspective, the Hugh Knowles Professor of Communication Sciences and Neurobiology and director of Northwestern's Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory.
Scientists use the term neuroplasticity to describe the brain's ability to adapt and change as a result of training and experience over the course of a person's life. The studies covered in the Northwestern review offer a model of neuroplasticity, Kraus said. The research strongly suggests that the neural connections made during musical training also prime the brain for other aspects of human communication.

An active engagement with musical sounds not only enhances neuroplasticity, she said, but also enables the nervous system to provide the stable scaffolding of meaningful patterns so important to learning.

"The brain is unable to process all of the available sensory information from second to second, and thus must selectively enhance what is relevant," Kraus said. Playing an instrument primes the brain to choose what is relevant in a complex process that may involve reading or remembering a score, timing issues and coordination with other musicians.

"A musician's brain selectively enhances information-bearing elements in sound," Kraus said. "In a beautiful interrelationship between sensory and cognitive processes, the nervous system makes associations between complex sounds and what they mean." The efficient sound-to-meaning connections are important not only for music but for other aspects of communication, she said.
The Nature article reviews literature showing, for example, that musicians are more successful than non-musicians in learning to incorporate sound patterns for a new language into words. Children who are musically trained show stronger neural activation to pitch changes in speech and have a better vocabulary and reading ability than children who did not receive music training.

And musicians trained to hear sounds embedded in a rich network of melodies and harmonies are primed to understand speech in a noisy background. They exhibit both enhanced cognitive and sensory abilities that give them a distinct advantage for processing speech in challenging listening environments compared with non-musicians.

Children with learning disorders are particularly vulnerable to the deleterious effects of background noise, according to the article. "Music training seems to strengthen the same neural processes that often are deficient in individuals with developmental dyslexia or who have difficulty hearing speech in noise."

Currently what is known about the benefits of music training on sensory processing beyond that involved in musical performance is largely derived from studying those who are fortunate enough to afford such training, Kraus said.

The research review, the Northwestern researchers conclude, argues for serious investing of resources in music training in schools accompanied with rigorous examinations of the effects of such instruction on listening, learning, memory, attention and literacy skills.
"The effect of music training suggests that, akin to physical exercise and its impact on body fitness, music is a resource that tones the brain for auditory fitness and thus requires society to re-examine the role of music in shaping individual development, " the researchers conclude.

Musical Prescriptions...Music as Medicine

2010-09-13T07:07:00.000-07:00

(Original Link - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-11233452)

Patients could be prescribed music tailored to their needs as a result of new research.

Scientists at Glasgow Caledonian University are using a mixture of psychology and audio engineering to see how music can prompt certain responses.

They will analyse a composition's lyrics, tone or even the thoughts associated with it.
Those behind the study say it could be used to help those suffering physical pain or conditions like depression.

By considering elements of a song's rhythm patterns, melodic range, lyrics or pitch, the team believe music could one day be used to help regulate a patient's mood.

Audio engineer Dr Don Knox, who is leading the study, said the impact of music on an individual could be significant.

He said: "Music expresses emotion as a result of many factors. These include the tone, structure and other technical characteristics of a piece.

"Lyrics can have a big impact too.
"But so can purely subjective factors: where or when you first heard it, whether you associate it with happy or sad events and so on."

So far the team has carried out detailed audio analysis of certain music, identified as expressing a range of emotions by a panel of volunteers.
'Emotional content'

Their ultimate aim is to develop a mathematical model that explains music's ability to communicate different emotions.

This could, they say, eventually make it possible to develop computer programs that identify music capable of influencing mood.

"By making it possible to search for music and organise collections according to emotional content, such programs could fundamentally change the way we interact with music", said Dr Knox.
"Some online music stores already tag music according to whether a piece is "happy" or "sad".
"Our project is refining this approach and giving it a firm scientific foundation, unlocking all kinds of possibilities and opportunities as a result."

How to Fix a Broken Midi Controller! Sliders!

2010-09-07T06:47:00.000-07:00

(Original Link - http://www.djtechtools.com/2010/08/10/vci-100-how-to-fix-faders-jog-wheel/#more-7393)

A pretty common question I see on the DJ TechTools forum is about channel faders that are acting up, jumping around and not responding like they should. The normal answer is to clean and lubricate your cross-faders – that will usually fix the problem. However, when my cross-faders started to act up, I couldn’t find any good info on what exactly needed to be done. So as I was doing my maintenance, I shot some video and did a little walkthrough to make it a little easier for people who might be having the same problem. As a bonus, while I was inside the VCI I went ahead and lubricated my jog wheels as one of them felt like it was grinding a little when I spun it.

BILL OF MATERIALS

What you’ll need to complete this little bit of maintenance is a phillips screwdriver, canned air, isopropyl alcohol, fader lubricant and jog wheel grease. The Caig line of lubricants and cleaners seems to be highly regarded throughout the DJ community so I went with their DeoxIT G5 lubricant. Whatever you decide to use make sure it’s safe for electrical connections with plastic. For lubricating the jog wheels I used a very small amount of carbon-enriched conductive silicon grease.

GETTING TO IT

First you’ll need to remove the fader knobs and the bottom faceplate, then remove the six screws for the faders. The faders will fall through the slots as the knobs aren’t on them, but that’s fine.
Then turn over the VCI and remove the one screw towards the bottom rear of the unit and the four screws on the sides. Slide the baseplate forward a little, lift up and set it to the side.

FADER CLEAN AND LUBE

Your faders will be loose inside, so all you have to do now is unplug them one at a time (see photo for where to grab the plug), blow a few short bursts of canned air inside the fader slot to get out large pieces of dust and contaminants.

Set your fader in a small container and pour just enough alcohol in to cover the top of the fader. Move the fader back and forth while the whole piece is submerged in the alcohol to clean out any contaminants that may have built up over time.
Remove the fader from the bath and gently tap out the bulk of the alcohol that remains inside. Next you’ll take your canned air and gently blow off any remaining alcohol. Eye protection is a good idea here as alcohol that might blow into your face probably wouldn’t feel too good.
Next spray just a quick, short burst of lubricant inside the fader and slide it back and forth to distribute the lubricant evenly inside, plug it back in and repeat the procedure for the remaining faders. You can also put in a drop or two of a more heavy type of fader lubricant, although I chose not to because I have a dog and a cat and I live in an old dusty house. My thought was that with all of these things combined a heavier lubricant might attract some pet hair and dust, which would just cause me more problems later on.

JOG WHEEL LUBRICATION

If you’re going to lubricate your jog wheels, remove the three screws holding the white plastic piece on. If you look inside you’ll see a thin plate that contacts the rotary post acting as a ground finger. You want to get your conductive lubricant between the plate and the rotary post. A very small amount of conductive lubricant should do the job fine. In case you missed it, I said conductive. If it’s not conductive you’ll lose your touch sensitivity on the jog wheels!

You don’t need to take the jog wheel apart. This photo is just to illustrate what it looks like inside and give you a better idea of where you’re trying to put your conductive grease.
It’s important to make sure the bushing is in alignment when you put it back on. Follow the steps outlined in the video to make sure it’s put on securely and centered just right.

REASSEMBLY

One final thing you can do before putting everything back together is to check the cardboard piece and make sure it’s secure. A once over of all the plugs is also a good idea while you have the VCI open.
You’ll want to screw the faders back in while the back is off so you have access to them from the other side. Make sure you don’t have any wires between the faders and the faceplate as they’ll get pinched, and that could potentially cause problems. Another thing I want to point out is that it’s possible to screw the fader screws into the slot the fader slides in, so make sure you’ve got all the holes lined up just right.
So that’s it. A good detailed walkthrough of how to do a relative simple procedure that will keep your VCI running smoothly and letting you bust out more super-awesome mixes.
Song credit in the video goes to DJ TechTools forum member, Lambox. Check out his Soundcloud page here http://soundcloud.com/lambox

Sounds like art fraud: Acoustic waves give clues to paintings' provenance

2010-09-06T08:48:00.000-07:00

(Original Link Here - http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=sounds-like-art-fraud-acoustic-wave-2010-09-04)

Theft, imitation and outright deception can make a painting's history even murkier than centuries of accumulated grime. But getting to the bottom of a piece of art's origins can be crucial for restoration—and forensics.

In recent decades, art scholars, restorers and forensic specialists have relied increasingly on scientific techniques to determine the chemical composition of a work's pigments to try to ascertain when, where and by whom it was likely made. One ostensibly ancient Virgin with Child painting was revealed to be a 1920s fake after testing revealed that it contained Prussian Blue, a pigment that was invented in the 1700s—long after the painting would have been made if it were original.

Chemical processing of paint samples can provide useful molecular profiles, but it also means physically damaging a chip. Other methods using x-ray fluorescence, scanning electron microscopy and infrared spectroscopy have helped scholars and technicians peer into ancient paint, but they can be time- and labor-intensive.

A new study shows how sound waves can detect a dozen different inorganic pigments using Fourier-transform photoacoustic infrared (PAIR) spectroscopy (which makes use of signal processing functions developed by French physicist Joseph Fourier). The process is based in part on an 1880 discovery by Alexander Graham Bell, who demonstrated that shining a modulated beam of light onto an object could create a subtle acoustic wave.

The researchers were able to use PAIR's argon-ion laser to detect a range of common inorganic hues, including: four blues (cobalt, ultramarine, Prussian and azurite), three greens (malachite, chromium oxide and viridian), two yellows (cadmium and chrome) and three browns (iron oxide, ochre and Mars). A description of the work will be published in the October issue of Spectrochimica Acta Part A: Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy.

Tiny samples, which could later be restored to their paintings, were heated with the laser beam. This heat produced a change in pressure, making small acoustic waves, which were picked up by a super sensitive microphone. Each compound had a different sound profile that distinguished it from the rest. And because the samples are not damaged during the process, the researchers noted, they can be tested multiple times—a bonus not every analysis method can boast.

"The behavior of paints, pigments, glazes, etc. depends critically on the conditions associated with their production, storage and long-term display," the researchers noted in their paper. "Without a full comprehension of the reactivity of the chemicals involved, the attempted preservation of artworks can sometimes lead to more damage than would occur by just simply leaving the works untreated."

The researchers proposed that these simple readings could be included in a database for quick reference in the future. "Once such a database has been established, the technique may become routine in the arsenal of art forensic laboratories," Ian Butler, a chemistry professor at McGill University and coauthor of the new study, said in a prepared statement.

Image of Virgin with Child, painted by an unknown Italian forger in the 1920s who used Prussian Blue, which was not invented until the 1700s, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Daniel Levitin on The Newshour with Jim Lehrer

2010-09-05T18:36:00.001-07:00

Japan Media Arts Festival in Kyoto ---Alvaro CASSINELLI

2010-09-01T21:24:00.000-07:00

The Science of How Music is Made

2010-09-01T19:32:00.000-07:00

Sorry...no embed code for this....BUT THIS IS DEFINITELY worth a watch!!!!!!!

http://www.livescience.com/common/media/video/player.php?videoRef=LS_100813_music-man

Modified Classical Music on iPods Helps Toilet Train Liverpool Children

2010-09-01T19:21:00.000-07:00

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CLASSICAL music helped children toilet train in Liverpool after a world first scheme.
The Listening Program saw youngsters listen to the works of famous composers for 30 minutes a day on iPods.

Parents said the scheme worked wonders and their little ones’ potty habits have improved dramatically.
Specialist nurse June Rogers led the pilot project, which examined the link between childhood continence and classical music.

The scheme was tried out at Matthew Arnold School in Toxteth, and was funded by Liverpool PCT.
It examined how modified classical music can help children with autism and other learning difficulties to be toilet trained.

Ms Rogers is the head of NHS Liverpool Community Health’s Integrated Paediatric Continence Service, and has already been awarded an MBE for her work in the field.

She said: “There is often a presumption that children with special needs cannot be toilet trained – yet we know from experience that many such children have the ability to become continent if we could only find a way to unlock their potential.

“This project showed that by taking a different approach we have hopefully been able to find the key to help children reach their full potential and remove the stigma of incontinence. “However as this was only a pilot a larger study is planned to confirm the findings.”
Angela Measley says The Listening Program has “worked wonders” with her five-year-old son Jacob.
The youngster was three when he was diagnosed as having Fragile X Syndrome, and he developed severe learning difficulties.

She said: “It wasn’t easy at first, Jacob doesn’t usually like anything touching his ears, so he didn’t like putting the headphones on, but once he got used to wearing them, he really started to calm down. After eight weeks there were big improvements, which have continued to last.The Listening Program really has worked wonders.”