The Science of Music
Music and Neuroscience
Interdisciplinary Educational Curricula Songs about Science and Math and much more
"MP3Gain" and its competitors allows the user to pre-process the audio gain of mp3 files so that even when played back on "dumb" mp3 devices, the sound volume will be within the range selected by the user. I have used these types of programs for years to enable me to be able to hear mp3's on airplanes where the ambient noise is simply too high. If you are utilizing the outstanding "VLC" media player on your laptop computer, you have even greater control. For example, the VLC player can play back at speeds significantly greater than normal, but _without changing the pitch_, so that you can zoom through boring podcasts & videos at 1.5x or greater speeds. The VLC player also has a "Volume Normalizer", which provides "dynamic volume compression" for noisy environments. See below. It is essential that digital media consumers be allowed to digitally remaster their content to tailor it for their own consumption. In some cases, this can be an advantage for the content creators: e.g., when I set VLC playback to 1.5x, I can consume 50% more content! http://www.ab9il.net/digital-audio/vlc-audio-dynamics.html "Effective Audio compression for Loud or Sensitive Environments.
Study Shows iPods Help Doctors Hear the Beat
Hearing the Steady Beat and sample Heart Sounds Physicians who listen at least 400 times to common heart murmurs via their iPods or other MP3 devices are much more likely to identify the murmurs in patients, according to a study presented Sunday at the American College of Cardiology's annual meeting. The study's lead investigator, Dr. Michael Barrett, last year demonstrated the benefit of repeat listening with medical students at Temple University School of Medicine and Hospital.
The university now offers a four-year curriculum on the topic and posts heart lessons online to teach students how to differentiate between a normal heartbeat and a murmur.
Milton Babbitt - American. Born Philadelphia, 1916. Composer of Electronic music known as combinatoriality, "where segments of twelve-tone rows interact with segments of other rows with identical pitch classes." A nice biography of Babbitt appears on the The Computer-Assisted Music Instruction Lab webpage of University of Illinois, School of Music.
Peter Neumann's musical endeavors included, among other things, (1) joint work in 1954-55 with Fred Brooks, Bill Wright, and Al Hopkins for Tony Oettinger's seminars on computational linguistics, in which Al and I used Fred and Bill's Markov analysis of common-meter hymn tunes to compose ``new'' music on the Harvard Mark IV.
Date: Mon, 29 Dec 1997
The Science of Music
Welcome to The Musical Scientist!
Have you ever wondered how the strings of a guitar work?
You use stings to make sounds too. They're called vocal cords. Learn about how sounds are made and how we hear them. Then, start your own band with some home-made musical instruments. http://members.aol.com/Alsabbeth/Music.html
Hi! My name is Alex Sabbeth, and my interest is science and music. Worried about music being cut in the public schools? Here's a way to combine them, in a 2nd - 7th grade lesson plan. I've put together a curriculum which teaches the physics of sound, and the history of musical instruments. Kids build toy instruments, and prepare demonstrations which explain sound waves, sound transmission, and other principles relevant to music. Attention is given to how we hear, and how animals use sound.I teach through in-service sessions, and published a book based on these projects, called Rubber Band Banjos.
Two general suggestions are
1) Be sure that teachers understand the scientific explanations about sound waves, how animals use sound, and how we hear. Children will ask questions, and the book does explain the basics. Take your time and e-mail me if something doesn't sound OK.
2) It's fun to learn how to read music. Don't be surprised if kids grasp rhythmic patterns easier than melodic ones. I've found that it's hard for students to repeat a melodic pattern.