Music: a versatile interface for explorations in art & science

Abstract

The article traces the author's research into auditory and temporal perception to probe the strategies useful to a composer for portraying illusions of multiple layers in music, then to a secondary exploration of cross-disciplinary terminologies and strategies, and subsequently to a focus on variables in the listener profile as influencing the potential discernment of meaning in music. Further exploration, tracing the millennia of primitive sound-processing strategies as well as the many contexts which involve body movements and rhythms, leads to the realization that a composer who ventures outside traditional stylistic conventions of music-making will benefit from attention to these factors. In conclusion, the author points out that music is created not only for portraying emotions and moods, but, like all art forms, with an infinite variety of manifestations, subject matter, and research modes.