| Issue |
EPL
Volume 128, Number 1, October 2019
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Article Number | 10004 | |
| Number of page(s) | 6 | |
| Section | General | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/128/10004 | |
| Published online | 27 November 2019 | |
Musical tonality and synchronization
Andrew and Erna Viterbi Department of Electrical Engineering, Technion - Haifa 32000 Israel
Received: 9 July 2019
Accepted: 9 October 2019
The current study is motivated by some observations of highly nonlinear dynamical effects in biological auditory systems. We examine the hypothesis that one of the underlying mechanisms responsible for the observed nonlinearity is a self-excited oscillation (SEO). According to this hypothesis the detection and processing of input audio signals by biological auditory systems is performed by coupling the input signal with an internal element undergoing SEO. Under appropriate conditions such coupling may result in synchronization between the input signal and the SEO. In this paper we present some supporting evidence for this hypothesis by showing that some well-known phenomena in musical tonality can be explained by the Hopf model of SEO (see Hassard B. D. et al., Theory and Applications of Hopf Bifurcation, Vol. 41 (Cambridge University Press) 1981) and the Arnold model of synchronization. Moreover, some mathematical properties of these models are employed as guidelines for the construction of some modulations that can be applied to a given musical composition. The construction of some intriguing patterns of musical harmony is demonstrated by applying these modulations to known musical pieces.
PACS: 05.40.-a – Fluctuation phenomena, random processes, noise, and Brownian motion
© EPLA, 2019
Current usage metrics show cumulative count of Article Views (full-text article views including HTML views, PDF and ePub downloads, according to the available data) and Abstracts Views on Vision4Press platform.
Data correspond to usage on the plateform after 2015. The current usage metrics is available 48-96 hours after online publication and is updated daily on week days.
Initial download of the metrics may take a while.