Two new empirical studies address the relationship between music and language. The first focuses on melody and uses research in phonetics to investigate the long-held notion that instrumental music reflects speech patterns in a composer's native language. The second focuses on syntax and addresses the relationship between musical and linguistic syntactic processing via the study of aphasia, an ...

Orchestration of computer-aided music composition aims to approximate musical expression using vertical instrument sound combinations, i.e. through finding appropriate sets of instruments to replicate synthesized sound samples. In this work, we focus on horizontal orchestration replication, i.e. the potential of replicating the instantaneous intensity variation of a number of instruments that c...

The aim of the current study is to investigate the effect of music on recall ability of words and digits. A PowerPoint slideshow of sequences of words and digits was presented to a sample of 84 DBS Undergraduate students. Participants were allocated to one of three conditions; silent, vocal/pop or instrumental. In the two music conditions background music was played for the duration of the expe...

Popular music (characterized by improvised instrumental parts, beat and measure-level organization, and steady tempo) poses challenges for human-computer music performance (HCMP). Pieces of music are typically rearrangeable on-the-fly and involve a high degree of variation from ensemble to ensemble, and even between rehearsal and performance. Computer systems aiming to participate in such ensem...

MusicT~X is a set of TEX or LATEX macros initially posted three years ago and now used by dozens of music typesetters which are fit to typeset polyphonic, instrumental or orchestral music. It is able to handle an important number of instruments or voices (up to nine) and staffs (up to four for each instrument). Many of the usual ornaments have been provided, including several note sizes whch ca...

Previous studies testing the production and evaluation of musical scales revealed a preference for Pythagorean intonation among violinists whereas pianists preferred equal temperament, with non-musicians showing no clear preferences. This study investigates preferences for four musical tuning systems using chord sequences and excerpts from musical compositions performed in different instrumenta...

This paper describes a method which simulates the timbre of the human voice through the orchestration of instrumental ensembles for classical music. The spectral envelope of speech is used as a model for the orchestration. The idea of this method is to synthesise the spectral envelope of a phoneme using the spectral envelopes of different sounds of music instruments. Large instrumental database...

Research on everyday life information seeking has demonstrated that people often relied on other people to obtain the information they need. Weak ties (i.e., acquaintances) were found to be particularly instrumental to get new information. This study employed social network analysis to examine the characteristics of the ties through which late adolescents (15-17 years old) discover new music. I...

Previous studies have reported that music training not only improves children's musical skills, but also enhances their cognitive functions. However, there is a disagreement about what domain(s) might be affected. Moreover, effects of short-term (<several months) instrumental training have not been examined, although more basic studies have suggested neuroplasticity within several weeks. Conseq...

Résumé By examining abstract instrumental works, I wish to propose that an essential aspect of the new style known today as “Baroque” is the adoption of a different tonal language that can be found in English music of the early years of the century. This is, in itself, not a new idea, and that there is a move to a two-mode (major/ minor) system during the course of the seventeenth century is no...