Copyright (c) 2009 All rights reserved. http://works.bepress.com/pantelis_vassilakis Recent documents in Pantelis N. Vassilakis, Ph.D. en-us Sun, 31 May 2009 10:14:51 PDT 3600 http://works.bepress.com/pantelis_vassilakis/9 http://works.bepress.com/pantelis_vassilakis/9 Wed, 02 Jul 2008 10:28:04 PDT Introduction to the music of the Near East through images, video clips, sound examples, and text providing historical, ethnographic, musicological, and organological information. The site showcases UCLA's Near East music ensemble and portions were licensed to: Alves, W. (2006). Music of the Peoples of the World. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth / Thomson Learning. Pantelis N. Vassilakis http://works.bepress.com/pantelis_vassilakis/8 http://works.bepress.com/pantelis_vassilakis/8 Wed, 02 Jul 2008 10:10:01 PDT Pantelis N. Vassilakis http://works.bepress.com/pantelis_vassilakis/7 http://works.bepress.com/pantelis_vassilakis/7 Wed, 02 Jul 2008 10:02:19 PDT The Cyprus Music Network (CMN) research project received support from the Cyprus Research Promotion Foundation (ΙΠΕ), File #: 87/5ο Π.Ε. - 2002. The first stage of the project documents the folk and popular musical traditions of the various Cypriot social groups, while the second stage proceeds with analysis, digitization, design, and publication of the musical and other material in an online archive, hosted by Intercollege. CMN's online archive is accessible for free to anyone interested but has been specifically designed for music researchers, educators, and students in Greece and across the international Greek community. All material are available for download and can be used by other music databases, in Cyprus or abroad, as well as for the production of radio or television music programming. Panikos Giorgoudes http://works.bepress.com/pantelis_vassilakis/6 http://works.bepress.com/pantelis_vassilakis/6 Wed, 02 Jul 2008 09:44:28 PDT Our ability to attach meaningful and emotional qualities to instrumental pieces of music relies, to a large extent, on our recognition of potential musical tension/release patterns within a piece. Such patterns can be set up using a variety of sonic and sonic-organization tools, whose significance and potential to communicate meaning and emotion appears to largely depend on previous small-scale (personal) and large-scale (cultural) learning. Within the Western musical tradition, studies have shown that musical tension/release judgments are linked to contrasts in terms of: i) tonal center (e.g. key), ii) sensory dissonance, iii) dynamics, iv) pitch, v) rhythm, vi) orchestration, vii) performance techniques, etc., with sensory dissonance correlating with the presence of auditory roughness. The term auditory roughness describes a rattling sound associated with certain types of signals such as those of narrow harmonic intervals. The potency of the suggested contrasts depends on familiarity with musical norms that are, largely, culturally defined. As the above list suggests, auditory roughness contrasts within a piece constitute just one of the sonic tools (cues) that help set-up (determine) musical tension/release patterns. In addition, the strong link, within Western tradition, between roughness and annoyance, and the assumption that rough sounds should be avoided, limit the range of roughness variations explored, further reducing the contribution of auditory roughness contrasts to the organization and recognition of musical tension and release. As we will see, the situation may be quite different when it comes to non-Western musical traditions. Pantelis N. Vassilakis http://works.bepress.com/pantelis_vassilakis/5 http://works.bepress.com/pantelis_vassilakis/5 Wed, 02 Jul 2008 09:26:10 PDT William Alves http://works.bepress.com/pantelis_vassilakis/4 http://works.bepress.com/pantelis_vassilakis/4 Wed, 02 Jul 2008 09:11:13 PDT 1. Overview The vertebrate ear is a highly sensitive, frequency analyzer that receives sound through a specialized accessory apparatus (the external and middle ears) prior to its transmission to discrete end organs containing sensory hair cells (the inner ear). Although there are significant differ-ences in the structures used to receive and analyze sound, amphibian and mammalian ears func-tion very similarly to one another. With few exceptions, the amphibian ear consists of a middle ear and an inner ear, but no external ear. As schematized in Figure 1, the amphibian middle ear has an exposed eardrum (tympanic membrane) overlying a funnel-shaped tympanic cavity that connects to the inner ear near the base of the skull (see Mason, chapter 6, for a review of the am-phibian middle ear). The amphibian inner ear or otic labyrinth is unique among vertebrate ani-mals in that it has two sensory organs specialized for the reception of airborne sound, the am-phibian papilla (AP) and the basilar papilla (BP). These sensory papillae reside within the poste-rior portion of the otic labyrinth and are contained in ventrally-located recesses of the large, fluid-filled saccular chamber shared with two vibration-sensitive macular organs, the sacculus and lagena (Fig. 1). Both the AP and BP chambers have a thin contact membrane that separates periotic perilymph from the endolymph fluid of the saccular chamber. Sound energy captured by the eardrum as well as other areas along the body of a frog is converted into fluid displacements and travels along pathways of the otic labyrinth that lead into the endolymphatic spaces of the inner ear (Hetherington et al. 1986; Lewis and Lombard 1988; Purgue and Narins 2000a). The sound path eventually leads into the AP and BP recesses before exiting into the caudal portion of the periotic canal and the round window (Purgue and Narins 2000a). Similar to the mammalian ear, the amphibian ear demonstrates exquisite intensity sensi-tivity and sharp frequency selectivity that are likely to arise from nonlinear, active amplification processes. How theories of mammalian auditory function apply to amphibian hearing is not known. Mechanisms of tuning and sensitivity have been extensively studied in the mammalian cochlea. It is generally agreed that the initial stage of inner ear frequency selectivity is achieved through the specialized mechanical properties of the basilar membrane, giving rise to a traveling wave (Von Békésy 1960; West 1985). Such traveling waves may be enhanced by electrically-driven somatic movements of specialized outer hair cells that provide the work required for the active process (Dallos 1992; Nobili et al. 1998; Ashmore et al. 2000). Although outer hair cell-like mo-tility has not been demonstrated in reptiles and birds, their papillae contain structures analogous to those in the mammalian cochlea such as a basilar membrane. However, one of the most strik-ing anomalies concerning the frog AP is that it lacks a basilar membrane, and yet it clearly dem-onstrates sharp frequency resolution and sensitivity as well as otoacoustic emissions (OAEs) that are comparable to those found in mammals. In amphibians, reptiles and birds, the best candidate for an active process may be the active motility of their mechanically-sensitive hair bundles (Hudspeth et al. 2000; Fettiplace et al. 2001; Bozovic and Hudspeth 2003). Although amphibian auditory organs may (Wever 1973) or may not (Will and Fritzsch 1988) have arisen independently and separately from those of other vertebrates, studies of these organs provide an opportunity to explore the details of what may be convergent design and func-tion. Do analogous physiological responses arise from similar or different anatomical features? Does the sensory end organs' fine structure and innervation follow common principles across species? Although there have been extensive investigations into the physiology of these organs, much less is known about the detailed structure of anatomical correlates of this physiology such as the relationship between conduction velocities and response latencies. Much of the physiology of hair cell and eighth nerve responses of the AP and BP has been reviewed previously (Lewis and Narins 1999; Smotherman and Narins 2000). Sections 2 and 3 focus on the basic structural correlates of physiological responses of ranid frogs within the auditory papillae and nerve, re-spectively, while section 4 focuses on what is known about amphibian OAEs, and discusses the relationship of their properties to the underlying hearing mechanisms as well as the differences between sensory organs. Dwayne D. Simmons http://works.bepress.com/pantelis_vassilakis/3 http://works.bepress.com/pantelis_vassilakis/3 Fri, 27 Jun 2008 12:04:15 PDT 2f1-f2 and 2f2-f1 distortion product otoacoustic emissions (DPOAEs) were recorded from both ears of male and female Rana pipiens pipiens and Rana catesbeiana. The input-output (I/O) curves obtained from the amphibian papilla (AP) of both frog species are analogous to I/O curves recorded from mammals suggesting that, similarly to the mammalian cochlea, there may be an amplification process present in the frog AP. DPOAE level dependence on L1-L2 is different from that in mammals and consistent with intermodulation distortion expectations. Therefore, if a mechanical structure in the frog inner ear is functioning analogously to the mammalian basilar membrane, it must be more broadly tuned. DPOAE audiograms were obtained for primary frequencies spanning the animals' hearing range and selected stimulus levels. The results confirm that DPOAEs are produced in both papillae, with R. catesbeiana producing stronger emissions than R. p. pipiens. Consistent with previously reported sexual dimorphism in the mammalian and anuran auditory systems, females of both species produce stronger emissions than males. Moreover, it appears that 2f1-f2 in the frog is generated primarily at the DPOAE frequency place, while 2f2-f1 is generated primarily at a frequency place around the primaries. Regardless of generation place, both emissions within the AP may be subject to the same filtering mechanism, possibly the tectorial membrane. Pantelis N. Vassilakis http://works.bepress.com/pantelis_vassilakis/2 http://works.bepress.com/pantelis_vassilakis/2 Fri, 27 Jun 2008 11:18:52 PDT This study argues that auditory roughness (rattling sound associated with certain types of signals) is an important sonic aspect of music, one that musical aesthetic judgments around the world are often based on. Within the Western tradition there is a strong link between roughness and annoyance, manifested in the assumption that rough sounds are inherently bad or unpleasant and are therefore to be avoided. Instrument construction and performance practices outside the Western art musical tradition, however, indicate that the sensation of roughness can be an important factor in the production of musical sound. Manipulating the roughness parameters helps create a buzzing or rattling sonic canvas that becomes the backdrop for further musical elaboration. It permits the creation of timbral or even rhythmic variations (through changes among roughness degrees), contributing to a musical tradition's menu of expressive tools. The potential usefulness of a proposed roughness estimation model to musicological research is discussed, drawing on previous and new empirical studies that link dissonance and roughness ratings of harmonic intervals within the Western chromatic scale. It is argued that, within the Western musical tradition, clear presence or absence of roughness dominates dissonance ratings. In most other cases, decisions on dissonance seem to ignore roughness and be culturally and historically mediated. Pantelis N. Vassilakis http://works.bepress.com/pantelis_vassilakis/1 http://works.bepress.com/pantelis_vassilakis/1 Fri, 27 Jun 2008 10:41:02 PDT SRA is a web-based tool that performs Spectral and Roughness Analysis on user-submitted sound files (.wav and .aif formats). Spectral analysis incorporates an improved Short-Time Fourier Transform (STFT) algorithm [Fulop, S.A. and Fitz, K. (2006). "Algorithms for computing the time corrected instantaneous frequency (reassigned) spectrogram, with applications," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 119(1): 360-371.] and automates spectral peak-picking using Loris open source C++ class library components [Fulop, S.A. and Fitz, K. (2007). "Separation of components from impulses in reassigned spectrograms," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 121(3): 1510-1518.]. Users can set three spectral analysis/peak-picking parameters: analysis bandwidth, spectral-amplitude normalization, and spectral amplitude threshold. These are described in detail within the tool, including suggestions on settings appropriate to the submitted files and research questions of interest. The spectral values obtained from the analysis enter a roughness calculation model [Vassilakis, P.N. (2005). "Auditory roughness as a means of musical expression," Selected Reports in Ethnomusicology 12: 119-144.], outputting roughness values at user specified points within a file or roughness profiles at user specified time intervals. The tool offers research background on spectral analysis, auditory roughness, and the algorithms used, including links to relevant publications. Spectral and roughness analysis of sound signals finds applications in music cognition, musical analysis, speech processing, and music teaching research, as well as in medicine and other areas.[Supported by a Northwest Academic Computing Consortium grant to J. Middleton, Eastern Washington University.] Pantelis N. Vassilakis