\u201cYou create music with your brain. Now, create music with someone else\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n
These are the simple instructions for visitors to the new\u00a0Neural Symphony<\/a>\u00a0project, an endeavor out of the laboratory of Assistant Professor of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences Erika Skoe.<\/p>\n Drawing on her laboratory\u2019s expertise in the area of music and the brain, Skoe\u2019s group has created a new approach to what they call neuromusic.<\/p>\n Through the project, listeners can not only hear recordings of popular songs re-imagined with brains sounds \u2013 such as the\u00a0\u201cGame of Thrones\u201d theme song<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 but can also use these brain recordings as an instrument in their own recordings. The idea, says Skoe, is to \u201cexplore the creative space between neuroscience and the arts.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe want it to inspire people to use the timbre of the brain to create novel music,\u201d Skoe says.<\/p>\n Listening to data<\/strong><\/p>\n Scientists use a process called sonification to convert brain electric waves, recorded using electroencephalography (EEG) or other methods, into sounds. These sounds can reveal how different regions of the brain respond to input.<\/p>\n \u201cThe idea is that scientists can listen to their data,\u201d says Skoe. \u201cBy listening to data, and capitalizing on the fact that our ears are very keen at detecting subtleties, we can gain insight into the mechanics of the brain in a way that wouldn\u2019t have been possible if we put the same data on a graph.\u201d<\/p>\n For example, brains with broader sound experiences \u2013 say, a person who grew up bilingual, or played an instrument from a very early age, will respond differently to the sounds they hear than a monolingual person or a non-musician. When those responses are recorded using EEG, then sonified into musical notes, people who speak more than one language, or play a musical instrument, will have a clearer signal with less background noise.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a useful way to demonstrate that there are individual differences in the clarity of the brain\u2019s neural signal,\u201d says Skoe. \u201cAnd they\u2019re not the kind of differences that you need to be a skilled musician or a scientist to hear.\u201d<\/p>\n Skoe\u2019s team recently published a mathematical model that allows scientists to predict how loud or soft the sonified neural output will be for a particular frequency. This is useful, says Skoe, to help understand what features of the brain\u2019s auditory spectrum are common across different brains or distinctive to a specific brain.<\/p>\n For the Neural Symphony project, Skoe and her team recorded brain waves of one individual listening to each note of the piano hundreds of times. They, then, averaged the individual\u2019s brain response for each note, creating a series of brain responses that map onto the piano keyboard.<\/p>\n Creative space<\/strong><\/p>\n Using brain wave sonification to make music is not new, says Skoe. In 1965, composer and experimental musician Alvin Lucier used EEG recordings of his own brain to vibrate and play percussion instruments in his piece, \u201cMusic for Solo Performer<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Skoe and graduate student Parker Tichko recently attended a music and cognition conference at Wesleyan University, where Lucier was the keynote speaker. \u00a0Tichko, a graduate student in Psychological Sciences, studied music and psychology as an undergraduate, with a concentration in composition. \u00a0He and Skoe shared an interest recording the sounds of the brain, and the Neural Symphony project was born.<\/p>\n \u201cWith my background in digital music and Erika\u2019s neuroscience expertise, we knew we could make it happen,\u201d says Tichko.<\/p>\n Tichko has developed what Skoe calls the \u201cbrain piano\u201d: a keyboard programmed to play neural sonifications. It\u2019s a big hit at academic conferences, where Tichko has also demonstrated the Neural Symphony library. Undergraduates in Skoe\u2019s anatomy and physiology of the hearing class especially enjoy this demo, as they learn about the longstanding intersection between science and art.<\/p>\n Through the\u00a0Neural Symphony website<\/a>, anyone can download the library of \u201cbrain notes\u201d and compose their own piece of neuromusic. The\u00a0Neural Symphony Soundcloud<\/a>\u00a0page features various Neural Symphony tracks already produced by Tichko, ranging from an arrangement of J.S. Bach\u2019s \u201cJesu, Joy of Man\u2019s Desiring\u201d to a percussive, driving drum loop.<\/p>\n Skoe and Tichko purposefully kept their brain recordings in a raw state, which includes the background noise of the brain\u2019s inner workings: \u201cIn the\u00a0\u2018Game of Thrones\u2019 theme song<\/a>\u00a0demo, you can hear that \u2018static,\u2019\u201d says Skoe.<\/p>\n Tichko imagines creating an entire symphony using the sounds of biological processes, like the heartbeat and blood flow.<\/p>\n \u201cEspecially in science, which can sometimes be hard for the public to conceptualize, projects like the Neural Symphony can introduce people to difficult concepts, and might facilitate more cross-talk between the arts and science,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n He notes that the current popularity of electronic music is partly because of the ability to create new sounds with electronic instruments.<\/p>\n \u201cI like extending this thinking to the sounds that are\u00a0inside<\/em>\u00a0of us \u2013 how can we harness the sounds of our brain and body for music?\u201d he asks.<\/p>\n Skoe also hopes people are inspired to create new and different art.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to be surprised by what people do with our neural sonifications,\u201d says Skoe. \u201cThere are limitless possibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n