{"id":218396,"date":"2016-05-27T18:07:55","date_gmt":"2016-05-27T21:07:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/?p=218396"},"modified":"2016-05-27T18:07:55","modified_gmt":"2016-05-27T21:07:55","slug":"the-mathematics-of-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/the-mathematics-of-music\/","title":{"rendered":"The mathematics of music"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"At

Public domain image<\/span>At the Barcelona laboratory, Manzolli takes command of the computer to create sounds and imagesPublic domain image<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Brazilian composer and mathematician J\u00f4natas Manzolli has spent much of his time immersed in activities at the Center for Autonomous Systems and Neuro-Robotics of Barcelona\u2019s Pompeu Fabra University. Through the manipulation of computer keyboards, he creates an integrated\u00a0 profusion of colors, shapes and sounds\u2014a spectacle for the senses that covers the walls in images and fills the room with eight channels of audio.\u00a0 But Manzolli is no neuroscientist or engineer; he does music and math. \u201cFor my students, I am someone who translates back-and-forth, like a pendulum,\u00a0 between two dimensions,\u201d explains Manzolli, a professor at the University of Campinas (Unicamp) Institute of the Arts, where he coordinated the Interdisciplinary Center for Sonic Communication (Nics).<\/p>\n

In Barcelona, Manzolli developed the CromaCronos system (from croma<\/em> for color and cronos<\/em><\/span> signifying time or music) through which his multisensory compositions are created. Having resolved the technical aspects of his work through precise mathematical representations and algorithmic systems, \u201cthe creative part\u201d has become Manzolli\u2019s main focus. \u201cI can program the computer and put together a sort of sound installation, or go up on the stage and interact with the machine in real time as a musical instrument,\u201d Manzolli explains. He will do just that this year in a performance entitled Descobertas <\/em>(Discoveries), \u201can interactive multimodal concert with the Unicamp Symphony Orchestra\u201d during ceremonies commemorating the university\u2019s 50th<\/sup> anniversary.<\/p>\n

In his role as musician, Manzolli\u2019s laboratory work encourages, in his words, \u201ca contemporary approach to complex systems\u201d (in this case, the mechanisms of the human brain). \u201cRather than doing graphic simulations through the computer, our actual surroundings become a simulator where we enter and appear,\u201d he explains. Neuroscientists working in the laboratory use this system to understand, through images and sound, not only the impulses that the computer operator creates, but also those that we produce unconsciously, by breathing or through our skin\u2019s electrical conductivity, for example.\u00a0 Manzolli avails himself of these resources as he explores artistic possibilities. \u201cThe system,\u201d he explains, \u201crests above an entire layer of mathematical representation which, when translated into images and the sounds that I play, responds to my stimuli, thereby initiating a dialogue.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Colors

Public domain image<\/span>Colors and shapes emerge from the musician\u2019s conscious and unconscious impulses…Public domain image<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Circuits of the brain<\/strong>
\nManzolli\u2019s research at the institute, in Spain, with support from FAPESP and the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), also involves collaboration on a project that uses games and virtual reality to help stroke victims and others who suffer from brain injuries. \u201cThe system produces visual and sound stimuli and encourages patients to interact in virtual reality through corporeal representation,\u201d explains Manzolli. \u201cIn this way, the patient\u2019s damaged brain circuitry can be reconnected or rechanneled,\u201d he adds. Among the project\u2019s successes is a book that Manzolli is co-writing with Spanish neurologist Anna Mura and Swiss neuroscientist Paul Verschure, with whom he has worked since 1998.<\/p>\n

Manzolli\u2019s taste for music and math has a long history, at least since he began playing piano at age seven. When the time came to sit for his university entrance examinations, he chose mathematics as his course of study. Halfway through his studies at Unicamp and feeling the boredom of tedious, theoretical calculations, he was introduced to the work of Greek musician and architect Lannis Xenakis (1922-2001), who developed a unique system for composing his instrumental and electronic works. \u201cFor Xenakis,\u201d says Manzolli, \u201cmusic was a cloud of complex notes and textures, and therefore must be created according to stochastic models\u201d (i.e., indeterminately, by means of random variables). With great enthusiasm, the young math student sat for the entrance examination and was admitted to the music program of the Institute of the Arts at Unicamp, which at the time allowed students to enroll simultaneously in two separate programs.<\/p>\n

Manzolli chose to study composition and conducting and associated himself with professors who specialized in experimental electroacoustics and contemporary music. At the time, during the mid-1980s, high-quality computers were hard to find in Brazil.\u00a0 Manzolli used an analogical synthesizer (\u201ca dream,\u201d he recalls) to create his works, and jokes that he produced \u201cneck compositions\u201d by attaching strips of 4-track magnetic recording tape to the nape of his neck and then edited and mixed the sounds.<\/p>\n

\"...such

Public domain image<\/span>…such as breathing and the electrical activity on the surface of his skinPublic domain image<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

After graduating with a master\u2019s degree in mathematics and a doctorate in musical composition, Manzolli returned to Unicamp as a professor in 1994 where he immediately joined Nics, which he sees as \u201cthe only reason everything I\u2019m doing now is working out.\u201d\u00a0 Manzolli attributes the group\u2019s creative ability to its interdisciplinary structure, which brings together students of various backgrounds, including music, engineering, mathematics, and dance (important to Manzolli\u2019s work, in which the interface of gestures is used to compose music).<\/p>\n

Contrary to what we might assume, the most conventional and popular use of the computer for music\u2014composing scores\u2014is just one of many sound-creating possibilities that the machine offers. The technology enables a musician to program at the very moment of execution. \u201cI often say that the process of composition is always an improvisation,\u201d Manzolli explains. \u201cSince music is a phenomenon that occurs in time, there is always the aspect of the \u2018here and now\u2019 at play,\u201d he adds. \u201cWith the computer, the musician can expand or contract this aspect as he wishes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Computer programming models produce a multisensory spectacle","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[154],"tags":[219,264,243],"coauthors":[137],"class_list":["post-218396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts","tag-computation","tag-information-technology","tag-innovation"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218396\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218396"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=218396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}