Musical Consonance And Cochlear Mechanics

This monograph is focussed onto the sensory consonance of two simultaneous complex tones. Part One describes psycho-acoustic consonance experiments undertaken by the author and by several earlier researchers. Some of these experiments were informal one-man studies, while others involved fairly large groups of subjects and subsequent statistical analysis. Part Two contains selected chapters of cochlear mechanics. In Part Three, the consonance theory of Hermann von Helmholtz is briefly discussed, and an addition to that theory, first published by the author in 2001, is described. The present volume is intended to add weight to the hypothesis that our preference for certain two-tones (e.g., for major or minor thirds at female-singing pitch, or for perfect fifths at bass pitch) is not only due to education, but is based on the physiology of our hearing organs. The readers are expected to know biology, physics, and mathematics at high-school level. Exercises and their solutions are included at the end of most sections.

This book contains the proceedings of the Sixth National Conference of the Italian Systems Society. The title, Towards a post-Bertalanffy Systemics, aims to underline the need for Systemics and Systems Science to generalize theoretically concepts related to complexity (the great enemy of Bertalanffy Systemics). Hopefully this goal should be achieved by working in an inter-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary fashion, using systemic concepts arising from various disciplines and from the original, or Bertalanffy Systemics, as well. The interdisciplinary nature of the original Systemics and its power of generalization were given, overall, by the fact that the problems and solutions of one discipline become problems and solutions for another. Today, the modeling and interpretation of multidisciplinary approaches and representations makes easier to recognize these interconnections. The context, however, has changed dramatically. Of course, the challenge is still to find theoretical generalizations and applications, even where we have a lot of specificities, but we know very little on how to combine them. We cannot, however, simply replace the old with the new, but we must introduce strategies to recognize, represent, model and act on new levels, combining multiple representations, functions and emergence. In many disciplines this has been already done, and inevitably well, since targets and projects are well specified and oriented. The challenge is to do it for Systemics, with the vocations of cultural and theoretical generalization. Examples of new issues introduced by such theoretical disciplinary improvements, dealt with by many disciplines, include the study of mesoscopic or middle-way level, of multiple and dynamic coherence, of equivalence/non-equivalence, of fractality, of networks, of non-causality, of non-invasiveness, of non-prescribability, of non-separability, of quasi properties, of symmetry properties, of topological dynamics, as well as of quantum theories and concepts. The conference was devoted to identifying, discussing and understanding possible interrelationships of theoretical disciplinary improvements, recognized as having prospective fundamental roles for a new post-Bertalanffy Systemics. The latter should be able to deal with problems related to complexity in a generalized way. In this context the inter-disciplinarity should consists, for instance, in a disciplinary reformulation of problems, as from algebraic to geometrical, from military to political, from biological to chemical, while the trans-disciplinarity should be related to the study of such reformulations and their properties. The Italian Systems Society (AIRS) was founded in the 1996. The AIRS is a network of academicians, scientists, researchers and professionals involved in Systemics. A partial list of disciplines represented is: Architecture Biology Economics Education Engineering Mathematics Neurosciences Medicine Music Philosophy Psychology Physics. Previous conferences had as open lecturers professors Arecchi, Haken, Klir, and Kauffman. The proceedings have been published as: 1. Minati, G., (ed.), (1998), Proceedings of the first Italian Conference on Systemics, Apogeo Scientifica, Milan, Italy. 2. Minati, G., and Pessa, E., (eds.) (2002), Emergence in Complex Cognitive, Social and Biological Systems. Kluwer, New York. 3. Minati, G., Pessa, E., and Abram, M., (eds.), (2006), Systemics of Emergence: Research and Applications. Springer, New York. 4. Minati, G., Abram, M. and Pessa, E., (eds.), (2009), Processes of emergence of systems and systemic properties. Towards a general theory of emergence. World Scientific, Singapore. 5. Minati, G., Abram, M. and Pessa, E., (eds.), (2012), Methods, Models, simulations and approaches - towards a general theory of change. World Scientific, Singapore.

This book uses acoustics, psychophysics, and neurobiology to explore the physical systems and biological processes that intervene when we hear music. It incorporates the latest findings in brain science and tone generation in musical instruments.

What we call today "Western Music" has been turning over millennia into a gigantic accumulation of intellectual crap seasoned with religious necromancy without anyone stopping to try to put order in this mess. The abuse of so much rancid irrationality has made it a forbidden ground for reason and that it is only accessible through the abuse of memory and repetition; of suffering, in short. From Pythagoras, who wanted to reach twelve notes by combining seven different series of seven notes each, to the monk Guido of Arezzo who had the idea of ​​recording music with ink so that his melodies would not degenerate when going from one monastery to another. He designs the solfeggio with the obsessive idea of ​​avoiding playing the cursed tritone that would invoke Satan, dragging any good Christian into the most terrible hells, an idea that excited the Pope of the time and that ordered his learning. Another monk could not be missing, Miguel García alias "Padre Basilio" who at the end of the 18th century put so many strings on the guitar that he found himself with the problem that he did not have enough fingers to play three notes with six strings using only four fingers, so he dedicated himself to arranging orthopedic postures so that the new instrument would not sound horrendously bad. Most musicians are unaware that we are in the 21st century, that we know how to count to twelve, that we have devices for recording music that are better than India ink, and that we have five fingers on our right hand with which to select which strings to play and not just a deformed stump to tear them. We know that sound is produced in the auditory consciousness. We also know how we hear based on our anatomy and we have done neuroscientific studies with which we have defined harmony based on subjective relative dissonances and even that the most important thing, rhythm, is what music draws. Music differs from noise in its simplicity, and if there is anything a healthy brain hates more than complex sounds.

How did hearing select the pentatonic scale? This review seeks to throw doubt on the role normally attributed to harmonics in the nature of our hearing mechanism. It contains an account of how musical sounds are coded by the ear, coupled with an analysis of the processing units of the brain.

This book extends our understanding of the mechanics and biophysics of hearing by bringing together the latest research on the topic by experts in cell and molecular biology, physiology, physics, engineering and mathematics. It contains the proceedings of the 10th International Workshop on the Mechanics of Hearing that was held at Keele University in the United Kingdom at the end of July, 2008. Topics for discussion included theoretical and experimental research at the molecular, cellular and systems levels. Separate sections of the book deal with: the transmission of sound energy to and from the inner ear, and wave propagation within the inner ear; the enhancement of stimulus wave motion that occurs in the inner ear; new measurement techniques that will underpin future innovative studies; the micro-mechanics of the basilar and tectorial membranes and the organ of Corti; cochlear dynamics; sensory hair cells and electromechanical transduction; and sensory hair-bundles and mechano-electrical transduction. The book concludes with the transcript of an open discussion session between the participants of the workshop, highlighting areas of uncertainty and controversy in the field, and pointing the way to the solutions to be sought in future research. This book reviews and synthesizes current concepts and challenges in the biophysics of hearing, and will be an invaluable guide to researchers and students in all branches of auditory science.

The field of cochlear mechanics has received an increasing interest over the last few decades. In the majority of these studies the researchers use linear systems analysis or linear approximations of the nonlinear (NL) systems. Even though it has been clear that the intact cochlea operates nonlinearly, lack of tools for proper nonlinear analysis, and widely available tools for linear analysis still lead to inefficient and possibly incorrect interpretation of the biophysics of the cochlea. An example is the presumption that a change in cochlear stiffness at hair cell level must account for the observed change in tuning (or frequency mapping) due to prestin application. Hypotheses like this need to be addressed in a tutorial that is lucid enough to analyze and explain basic differences. Cochlear Mechanics presents a useful and mathematically justified/justifiable approach in the main part of the text, an approach that will be elucidated with clear examples. The book will be useful to scientists in auditory neuroscience, as well as graduate students in biophysics/biomedical engineering.