Do you like music? Well, it depends. Do you think the music is well matched? No, I think the music is too fast. How about the words of the song? Sounds nice. I like it. Naturally they can arouse your feelings. Yes, I think so. It's very emotional. Of course, and I also like the rhythms. Full of energy and hope. Really? It's worth listening and enjoying. Certainly it is. It's worth an academy award.
颜色感知觉中的一个未解之谜 An Unsolved Puzzle in Color Perception 吴全丰 (Charles Q. Wu) In my previous blog “ An Unsolved Puzzle in Sound/Music Perception ”, we have encountered the issue of pitch circularity. In color perception, as a matter of fact, we have a similar, if not completely identical, puzzle -- that is, the issue of hue circularity. Physically, the “visible” (to the human eye) electromagnetic spectrum is a linear dimension, approximately ranging from 390 to 750 nm, as illustrated in Figure 1. Perceptually, however, the hues experienced by humans can be arranged in a circular manner, as illustrated in Figure 2. Doubtlessly, the transformation from a physical linear dimension to a perceptual circular variable is accomplished in the human brain. What is the brain or neural mechanism responsible for this transformation? -- This is still an unsolved puzzle in color science and neuroscience! Believe it or not, Sir Isaac Newton is the first to notice the parallel between pitch circularity in sound perception and hue circularity in color perception. Figure 3 is taken from his book “Optics” -- as you can see, he arranged seven sounds (do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti) and his seven primary colors on the same circle. Figure 4 is a modern, colored version of Newton's color circle. Figure 1: Physical Spectrum Figure 2. CIE color map (colors are arranged in a semi-circular manner) Figure 3: Newton's original color circle Figure 4: A modern, colored version of Newton's color circle
Note: These rankings are based on estimates, the values of which are always hard to provide because of piracy in the music industry, inaccuracy of figures and values reported by recording companies, the fact that a sale in the store or a music download over the internet always happen every minute and every second all over the world, and other factors. Top 1 - 10 Most Popular Music Genres 1. Pop 2. Rock 3. Hard Rock 4. Rhythm Blues (RB) 5. Country 6. Rock Roll 7. Soul 8. Country Pop 9. Latin 10. Disco Top 11 - 20 Most Popular Music Genres 11. Pop Rock 12. Heavy Metal 13. Progressive Rock 14. Alternative Rock 15. Dance 16. Jazz 17. New Wave 18. Synthpop 19. Hip Hop 20. Adult Contemporary Top 21 - 30 Most Popular Music Genres 21. Dance Pop 22. Folk 23. Swing 24. Arena Rock 25. New Age 26. Blues Rock 27. Reggae 28. Grunge 29. Glam Metal 30. Easy Listening
Creating simplicity: How music fools the ear January 20th, 2011 in Other Sciences / Mathematics What makes music beautiful? The best compositions transcend culture and time – but what is the commonality which underscores their appeal? New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Research Notes suggests that the brain simplifies complex patterns , much in the same way that 'lossless' music compression formats reduce audio files, by removing redundant data and identifying patterns. There is a long held theory that the subconscious mind can recognise patterns within complex data and that we are hardwired to find simple patterns pleasurable . Dr Nicholas Hudson used 'lossless' music compression programs to mimic the brain's ability to condense audio information. He compared the amount of compressibility of random noise to a wide range of music including classical, techno, rock, and pop, and found that, while random noise could only be compressed to 86% of its original file size, and techno, rock, and pop to about 60%, the apparently complex Beethoven's 3rd Symphony compressed to 40%. Dr Nicholas Hudson says "Enduring musical masterpieces, despite apparent complexity, possess high compressibility" and that it is this compressibility that we respond to. So whether you are a die hard classicist or a pop diva it seems that we chose the music we prefer, not by simply listening to it, but by calculating its compressibility . For a composer – if you want immortality write music which sounds complex but that, in terms of its data, is reducible to simple patterns. More information: Musical beauty and information compression: complex to the ear but simple to the mind? Nicholas J Hudson, BMC Research Notes (in press). Provided by BioMed Central "Creating simplicity: How music fools the ear." January 20th, 2011. http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-01-simplicity-music-ear.html
Research reveals the biochemical connection between music and emotion January 19th, 2011 in Medicine Health / Neuroscience Enlarge The universal structures of music can produce dopamine-induced anticipation and release even if the music is unfamiliar. Credit: ISNS You are in a concert hall, listening to music you love, Ludwig von Beethoven's Ninth Symphony交响曲. You are happily awaiting the glorious climax in the fourth movement乐章 -- you know it's coming -- when the full orchestra and chorus erupt with the "Ode to Joy."欢乐颂 The moment is here and you are exhilarated, awash in a sudden wave of pleasure. When music sounds this good, there's a reason: dopamine. In research published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, scientists at McGill University in Montreal have established the direct link between the elation stimulated by music and the neurotransmitter dopamine. Dopamine is the same substance that puts the joy in sex, the thrill in certain illegal drugs, and the warm feeling within a woman breast-feeding her child . The substance also may explain why the power of music crosses human cultures, the scientists said. Valorie N. Salimpoor and other researchers in the lab of Robert J. Zatorre took eight subjects and asked them to bring in music they loved. They chose a broad range of instrumental music, from Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings (the most popular) to jazz and punk. The test used only familiar music, Zatorre said, because he wanted to make sure he was getting a " maximal response ." What the subjects had in common was that the music they brought in gave them the " chills ," which is actually a technical term for a kind of emotional response. A positron emission tomography, or PET scan , measured dopamine release . Dopamine is synthesized in the brain out of amino acids and transmits signals from one neuron to another through the circuits of the brain. The structure in the brain Zatorre's team looked at is the striatum , deep inside the forebrain. The striatum has two subparts: the upper, or dorsal, and the ventral below. Zatorre said the dorsal part of the striatum is connected to the regions of the brain involved in prediction and action, while the ventral is connected to the limbic system, the most primitive and ancient part of the brain, where emotions come from . "When you are anticipating, you are engaging the prediction part of the brain; when you feel the chills, that's emotion," Zatorre said, whose team found that the dopamine triggered both parts. According to the McGill research, during the anticipation phase dopamine pours into the dorsal striatum when the climax occurs, triggering a reaction in the ventral striatum that results in a release of pure emotion. The idea that there was some biochemical reaction involved goes back to the work of the late Leonard B. Meyer in the 1950s. Meyer was a musicologist not a scientist, but he connected music theory with psychology and neuroscience, emotional response to music patterns. He did not know the biochemical mechanism. Great composers don't know it either but play on this process. German composer Gustav Mahler is famous for creating tension that needs resolution, building intensity until the orchestra explodes in a wave of sound. The listener knows there is going to be an emotional resolution和音 even if the piece is unfamiliar. And, if the listener knows it is coming, the reaction can be even more intense. It turns out, said Zatorre, that Mahler -- and conductors performing his music -- play with the emotions of the audience by manipulating dopamine. "What we're finding is that this is the brain mechanism that underlies this phenomenon," Zatorre said. Zatorre hypothesizes that something similar happens when you hear music for the first time, and preliminary results from recent testing show a similar result. The universal structures of music can produce dopamine-induced anticipation and release even if the music is unfamiliar. According to Sharon Levy, who teaches music theory and piano literature at the Juilliard School in New York and the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, sometimes the emotional release comes from simply relieving harmonic tension -- the use of relatively dissonant chords begging to be resolved -- as Mahler does. On occasion the composer deliberately changes expectation in happy, surprising ways, a device Meyer wrote that Mozart had mastered. Either way, it's dopamine affecting the striatum. Zatorre said he does not know what is happening in the brain of the composer who is writing the music. "My guess is that composing is such a complex act that you may not get that emotional touch until later when you are actually experiencing it for the first time," Zatorre said. The question is will knowing the role of dopamine change the way musicians approach their art? "Not much," said Levy. "It just reminds me of something I knew all the time, that music can change moods ." Zatorre used orchestral music to avoid having emotions linked to words affect the results. He is planning another study using vocal music, perhaps to see whether Lady Gaga or Frank Sinatra can turn on the dopamine. More information: Paper online: http://www.nature . … nn.2726.html Provided by Inside Science News Service "Research reveals the biochemical connection between music and emotion." January 19th, 2011. http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-01-reveals-biochemical-music-emotion.html
Very interesting.作者是双簧管的演奏家，也是一位统计学的学者，现在是MIT数学统计系的教授。 他研究的工作非常有意思，大概过程是这样： 在演奏时，通常会有独奏者和伴奏者，他所作的工作是先将伴奏者的音乐录音，通过学习得到一个伴奏模型，使得模型可以随着独奏者的音乐节奏变化做出实时的伴奏变化，非常有趣，但是这可不是一般人可以做的工作，我为作者的创意欢呼。
如题 忽然发现以前在本暂住地上收藏的歌曲居然没了，点击管理音频，居然如下图所示的界面，莫不是网络整风一并将音频都咔嚓了？不知其他看官是否出现同样情形？ 让我想起一件事情，是去年11月，我通过KC发短信，英文的，只因为其中有一句making the progress，然后死活发布出去，电话咨询，回复曰：包含敏感词，我问之哪个是敏感词，曰：making，我辩之，make the progress是个词组，不包含任何敏感词，回复曰：他们不懂英文，反正making是个敏感词，然后把我的帐号封之。很是恼火，怎么连making 都要管制？我又没有发什么fucking或者making love之类的很色情的词，只是非常健康绿色加养眼顺带鼓励的的making the progress而已，可怜这个making,哎～，感觉这网络管制实在有觉得洗脚水脏连脚盆里的孩子一并倒了之嫌啊，好不容易从良了，却发现音乐没了，失败～
标签: Music
