Musical Panorama of the late 60’s – Joel Smirnoff

Grammy-award winner Joel Smirnoff has been a member of the Juilliard String Quartet since 1986, and the ensemble’s leader since 1997. He also pursues and active career as a conductor, both in the U.S. and abroad. Join a truly distinguished alumnus for and exploration of the sounds and content of the music which provided the … Read more

Elephants dance to concert violinist performing for them

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10152421975553541   There have been instances where elephants have shown interest and even exhibited movements in response to music, including performances by concert violinists. While elephants are known for their keen sense of hearing and complex social behaviors, the extent to which they respond to music can vary among individuals and contexts. One notable example … Read more

Mozart Effect for Newborn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2xrl3dFft8 The “Mozart Effect” is a term popularized by a study published in 1993 by researchers Frances Rauscher, Gordon Shaw, and Katherine Ky in the journal Nature. The study suggested that listening to Mozart’s music could temporarily improve spatial reasoning skills in college students. However, the findings were limited to a specific task and did … Read more

Musical rhythm spectra from Bach to Joplin obey a 1/f power law

Much of our enjoyment of music comes from its balance of predictability and surprise. Musical pitch fluctuations follow a 1/f power law that precisely achieves this balance. Musical rhythms, especially those of Western classical music, are considered highly regular and predictable, and this predictability has been hypothesized to underlie rhythm’s contribution to our enjoyment of … Read more

Fractal geometry of music

Abstract   Music critics have compared Bach’s music to the precision of mathematics. What “mathematics” and what “precision” are the questions for a curious scientist. The purpose of this short note is to suggest that the mathematics is, at least in part, Mandelbrot’s fractal geometry and the precision is the deviation from a log-log linear … Read more

Bach’s Twenty Children

Content Of Johann Sebastian Bach’s twenty children, three were outstanding musicians in their own right. Of these three – Wilhelm Friedmann, Johann Christian and Carl Philipp Emanuel – the last was the most influential as a composer, creating a bridge between the exuberant Baroque style of his father and the Classical style of Haydn and … Read more

Music-color associations are mediated by emotion

Abstract   Experimental evidence demonstrates robust cross-modal matches between music and colors that are mediated by emotional associations. US and Mexican participants chose colors that were most/least consistent with 18 selections of classical orchestral music by Bach, Mozart, and Brahms. In both cultures, faster music in the major mode produced color choices that were more … Read more