Page 8 - Summer 2010

FROM THE EDITOR
Dick Stern
Applied Research Laboratory, The Pennsylvania State University PO Box 30, State College, Pennsylvania 16804
It was both an honor and privilege to work with Diana Deutsch, the guest editor for the editorial content of this issue of Acoustics Today—the Music Issue. In addition to writing an excellent article on pitch circularity, her ability to select the authors and the research material to be included made it easy for me to edit one of the largest issues of the magazine.
I invite others to think about becoming a guest editor for a theme issue of their choosing and to e-mail me at AcousticsToday@aip.org with their ideas.
(Note Editor at the Portland Jam Session.) I hope to see everyone in Cancun
Dick Stern
FROM THE GUEST EDITOR
Diana Deutsch
Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego La Jolla, California 92093
This special issue of Acoustics Today is devoted to music. It explores recent advances in the study of music from four perspectives, and illustrates the diversity of questions that are addressed in this area of research. The issue includes, among other things, an exploration of pitch circularity, discussions of the relationships between music and language, examination of the function of the auditory brainstem, music as a tool in promoting recovery from stroke, and physical modeling of instrument sounds.
In The Paradox of Pitch Circularity, I
explore illusions that involve a series of tones
that ascend or descend endlessly in pitch.
The paper focuses on a new algorithm for
producing pitch circularity with sequences of single tones each of which forms a full harmonic series. This algorithm can in principle be employed to transform banks of natural instrument tones so that they acquire circular properties. In addition to its implications for theories of pitch perception, this algorithm opens up new avenues for music composition and performance.
Nina Kraus and Trent Nicol, in Musicians’ Auditory World, discuss findings on musical training and its effects on other functions. The authors show that musical training strengthens auditory memory and attention, and they argue that this in turn leads to improvements in phonological processing, reading, and the extraction of speech from background noise. The article focuses on findings on the
non-invasive brainstem response, which can be remarkably stable and faithful to the signal sent to the ear.
Psyche Loui, Catherine Wan, and Gottfried Schlaug, in Neurological Bases of Musical Disorders and Their Implications for Stroke Recovery explore behavioral and neu- roscience studies on singing; these include the investigation of trained singers, as well as tone-deaf individuals who have difficulty singing. They examine the neuroanatomical bases of expert singing and tone deafness, in the latter case considering possible links with certain speech disorders. They also dis- cuss therapeutic effects of singing in facili- tating recovery of language functions in patients who have suffered brain damage.
Joe Dickey, in The Banjo: The ‘Model’ Instrument presents us with an article on analytical modeling of the behavior of the plucked banjo. This article is accompanied by numerous illus- trations, and three time-evolution movies, and it demonstrates engagingly why modeling the behavior of musical instruments can be so rewarding.
Finally, many members of the ASA play musical instru- ments, but until recently our meetings have only rarely afford- ed us the opportunity to participate actively in musical events. In The Society: In a Jam, and Loving It, Tony Hoover presents a brief history of the highly welcome new tradition of holding Jam sessions at our meetings. These began at the 2007 New Orleans meeting, and are well and enthusiastically attended— we look forward to many more.
From the Editor 7