Dr.Vassilakis has a B.A. in Music Composition/Technology (Kingston University, 1993), M.A. & Ph.D. degrees in Ethnomusicology, specializing in Music Cognition, Acoustics, & Aesthetics (UCLA, 1997/2001), and a Postdoc in Auditory Science (UCLA, 2003). He has composed for the English National Ballet and the London Chinese Orchestra and, since 1997, has been presenting at US national and international conferences, publishing, and serving as reviewer for publications that include the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, the Journal of Comparative Physiology, the Computer Music Journal, and Oxford University Press. Dr. Vassilakis is currently the Music Technology Specialist, Acoustical & Instructional Design Consultant, and Library liaison for DePaul University’s School of Music and Department of Psychology, and teaches courses at DePaul University and Columbia College in Chicago, IL. His research interests include cross-cultural dissonance perception, digital signal analysis, otoacoustic emissions, sound localization, musical aesthetics, film music theory, and assessment driven collaborative learning.
Articles
Auditory roughness as means of musical expression, Selected Reports in Ethnomusicology (2005)
This study argues that auditory roughness (rattling sound associated with certain types of signals) is...
Distortion product otoacoustic emissions provide clues to hearing mechanisms in the frog ear (with Sebastiaan W. F. Meenderink and Peter M. Narins), Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (2004)
2f1-f2 and 2f2-f1 distortion product otoacoustic emissions (DPOAEs) were recorded from both ears of male...
Contributions to Books
Anatomy, physiology, and function of auditory end-organs in the frog inner ear (with Dwayne D. Simmons and Sebastiaan W. F. Meenderink), Hearing and Sound Communication in Amphibians (2006)
1. Overview
The vertebrate ear is a highly sensitive, frequency analyzer that receives sound through...
Active Listening Tools - Online Supplement (with William Alves), Music of the Peoples of the World (2006)
Popular Press
Organizing and recognizing musical tension/release patterns may be culture dependent, Acoustical Institute of Physics Press Room (2005)
Our ability to attach meaningful and emotional qualities to instrumental pieces of music relies, to...
Presentations
Online Research & Teaching Resources
SRA: A Web-based Research Tool for Spectral and Roughness Analysis of Sound Signals (Version 2.0) (with Kelly Fitz) (2008)
SRA is a web-based tool that performs Spectral and Roughness Analysis on user-submitted sound files...
Cyprus Music Network: Online digital music archive of Cypriot folk music (with Panikos Giorgoudes) (2004)
The Cyprus Music Network (CMN) research project received support from the Cyprus Research Promotion Foundation...
Music of the Near East: Online teaching and research tool showcasing UCLA’s Near East music ensemble (2002)
Introduction to the music of the Near East through images, video clips, sound examples, and...