Neural Advantages of Older Musicians Involve the Cerebellum: Implications for Healthy Aging Through Lifelong Musical Instrument Training

This study compared 30 older musicians and 30 age-matched non-musicians to investigate the association between lifelong musical instrument training and age-related cognitive decline and brain atrophy (musicians: mean age 70.8 years, musical experience 52.7 years; non-musicians: mean age 71.4 years, no or less than 3 years of musical experience). Although previous research has demonstrated that young musicians have larger gray matter volume (GMV) in the auditory-motor cortices and cerebellum than non-musicians, little is known about older musicians. Music imagery in young musicians is also known to share a neural underpinning [the supramarginal gyrus (SMG) and cerebellum] with music performance. Thus, we hypothesized that older musicians would show superiority to non-musicians in some of the abovementioned brain regions. Behavioral performance, GMV, and brain activity, including functional connectivity (FC) during melodic working memory (MWM) tasks, were evaluated in both groups. Behaviorally, musicians exhibited a much higher tapping speed than non-musicians, and tapping speed was correlated with executive function in musicians. Structural analyses revealed larger GMVs in both sides of the cerebellum of musicians, and importantly, this was maintained until very old age. Task-related FC analyses revealed that musicians possessed greater cerebellar-hippocampal FC, which was correlated with tapping speed. Furthermore, musicians showed higher activation in the SMG during MWM tasks; this was correlated with earlier commencement of instrumental training. These results indicate advantages or heightened coupling in brain regions associated with music performance and imagery in musicians. We suggest that lifelong instrumental training highly predicts the structural maintenance of the cerebellum and related cognitive maintenance in old age.

Vocabulary to speak about touch: analysis of the discourse of electric guitar players

This work presents a multidisciplinary approach to vibrotactile perception, applying linguistic methods to musical acoustics. We are interested more particularly in the sense of touch as a part of the multisensory experience of playing a musical instrument. Six words and their inflections are chosen from the literature in musical acoustics dealing with vibrotactile perception: “comfort”, “dynamics”, “response”, “feeling”, “touch” and “vibration”. Their use by musicians in playing situation is analyzed. The data used in this article comes from transcripts of two previous studies, conducted in French with professional guitarists natively speaking French. The linguistic analysis of the corpus is based on different features which help to categorize the utterances according to each observed parameter, namely the relationship with the sense of touch, the object that is qualified by the words under study and the implication in discourse of the interviewee. The results permit to understand the use of the six categories of words in relationship with the sense of touch, and provide perspectives to use some of these words to focus the discourse on the sense of touch in future studies.

Evolution of the Kandyan Vina of Sri Lanka with Special Reference to the Contemporary Usage

The string instrument, the Kandyan vina (Uḍaraṭa Vīṇā), once portrayed in the book by John Davy as “Venah”, shares close resemblance with the Coconut shell fiddle instruments in India, in terms of their inherent form, structure, cultural peculiarities and playing posture. Such similarities serve to confirm that the prototypic musical instrument – the Kandyan vina, originated from the Coconut shell fiddle instruments of India. According to sources, the prototype instrument of the Kandyan vina arrived with the gypsy groups who migrated to Sri Lanka from Andhra Pradesh or Tamil Nadu during the Kandy period of 1600-1750 AD. Since then, until 1980-1990 AD, the prototype instrument was developed by the influence of the Western musical instruments and musical intelligence, available material, creative methods inherent in the aristocratic, villagers, beggars, Veddas, and gypsy communities. Therefore, the rise of the Kandyan vina is proven to have originated within Sri Lanka as a unique native string instrument. Research objectives of this study are: firstly, to re-introduce a native string instrument according to its true historic trails; secondly, a modern Kandyan vina is constructed using the modified knowledge discovered through exploring the ancient Kandyan vina instruments; and thirdly, to assimilate knowledge of a musical instrument based on its historical literature and archaeological data from an Archaeomusicological perspective. With this in mind, Frescoes/murals, artefacts, legal documents and primary books were used as the primary sources, while journal articles and secondary books were used as secondary sources.

Moisture- and mould-proof characteristics of surface modified wood for musical instrument soundboards

Wood is the main material used for musical instrument soundboard fabrication, for practical and cultural reasons. As a natural material, however, wood is easily degraded due to moisture or fungal corrosion. Most traditional wood protection methods were devised for structural materials, and may thus not be suitable for application in musical instrument soundboard materials. In the current study, a novel nanomaterial-based modification method was applied to wood. The surface of wood was coated with polyurethane and MgAl-layered double hydroxide nanosheets after a convenient impregnation process. The modified wood exhibited improved hydrophobicity and mould-resistance, while maintaining its acoustic properties. This modified wood may facilitate the construction of soundboards with longer lifespans.

Incorporating Affective Computing Into an Interactive System With MakeyMakey

People's motions or behaviors often ensue from these positive or negative emotions. Set off either subconsciously or intentionally, these fragmentary responses also represent people's emotional vacillations at different times, albeit rarely noted or discovered. This system incorporates affective computing into an interactive installation: While a user is performing an operation, the system instantaneously and randomly generates corresponding musical instrument sound effects and special effects. The system is intended to enable users to interact with emotions through the interactive installation to yield a personalized digital artwork as well learning about how emotions affect the causative factors of consciousness and personal behaviors. At the end of the process, this project design renders three questionnaires for users to fill in as a means to enhance the integrity and richness of the system with a survey and to further increase the stability and precision of the system through progressive modifications aligned with user suggestions.

Study on the Behavior of Helmholtz Resonance in Different Size Bottles

The resonance is the specific response of system which is capable to vibrate with certain frequency to an external force acting with the same frequency. When air is blown across the open mouth of different bottles then air vibrate in a neck at resonant frequency. In this study we consider 5-5 bottles of different five types bottles having different of length of neck, radius of port, cross-sectional area of port and same volume (250ml). Resonance in different bottles was studied to determine how the volume of air cavity of different bottle affects the resonance. From calculated and experimental data, we found that the Helmholtz resonance frequency decreases with increase in volume and vice versa in each case of different bottles. From graph we also found that the calculated and experimental model are about 100% and 99% variability of the response data around its mean. The practical range for these different bottles is from about 256 to 512 Hz. This is about an octave plus a musical fifth near the middle of the musical instrument, so most simple musical tunes can be produced with such bottles.

Analisis Bahan Ajar Pembelajaran Kacapi Bani Ambara Pada Mata Pelajaran Seni Budaya Di Sma Negeri 1 Ciamis

In SMAN 1 Ciamis there is learning Art and Culture in which learning the art of traditional music. Where every student must learn to play a typical musical instrument of West Java, Kacapi. SMAN 1 Ciamis is the only high school in ciamis area that learns traditional musical instruments in learning Art and Culture in the classroom, especially in the practice of playing harp instruments using kacapi kawih. Related to Kacapi's learning in Art and Culture subjects at SMAN 1 Ciamis, researchers are interested in researching how materials and teaching materials are arranged by Art and Culture teachers in order to achieve learning objectives. Because Kacapi learning is rarely taught in other public schools. With the hope that the results of this research can motivate other schools to continue to develop learning in arts and culture subjects and can increase knowledge for the field of art education, especially music arts. This research uses descriptor method with qualitative approach. This research was conducted at SMAN 1 Ciamis located at Jalan Gunung Galuh No. 37, Ciamis District, Ciamis Regency, West Java. The data source used is by conducting observations, interviews, documentation studies and literature studies. Then the data will be analyzed using research deepening analysis techniques with steps to reduce data, present data and draw conclusions. Based on the data analysis conducted, it was concluded that the teaching materials in kacapi kawih learning at SMAN 1 Ciamis are in accordance with the curriculum of high school level. And the teaching material of kacapi kawih learning is a learning module with etude kacapi teaching materials made by art and culture teachers with an adaptation of the simplified Etude kacapi Mang Koko.

The missing fundamentals of harmonic theory: Chord roots and their ambiguity in arrangements of jazz standards

Since Lippius and Rameau, chords have roots that are often voiced in the bass, doubled, and used as labels. Psychological experiments and analyses of databases of Western classical music have not produced clear evidence for the psychological reality of chord roots. We analyzed a symbolic database of 100 arrangements of jazz standards (musical instrument digital interface [MIDI] files from midkar.com and thejazzpage.de ). Selection criteria were representativeness and quality.The original songs had been composed in the 1930s and 1950s, and each file had a beat track. Files were converted to chord progressions by identifying tone onsets near beat locations (±10% of beat duration). Chords were classified as triads (major, minor, diminished, suspended) or seventh chords (major–minor, minor, major, half-diminished, diminished, and suspended) plus extra tones. Roots that were theoretically less ambiguous were more often in the bass or (to a lesser extent) doubled. The root of the minor triad was ambiguous, as predicted (conventional root or third). Of the sevenths, the major–minor had the clearest root. The diminished triad was often part of a major–minor seventh chord; the half-diminished seventh, of a dominant ninth. Added notes (“tensions”) tended to minimize dissonance (roughness or inharmonicity). In arrangements of songs from the 1950s, diminished triads and sevenths were less common, and suspended triads more common, relative to the 1930s. Results confirm the psychological reality of chord roots and their specific ambiguities. Results are consistent with Terhardt’s virtual pitch theory and the idea that musical chords emerge gradually from cultural and historic processes. The approach can enrich music theory (including pitch-class set analysis) and jazz pedagogy.