Skip to main content
Home
plus.maths.org

Secondary menu

  • My list
  • About Plus
  • Sponsors
  • Subscribe
  • Contact Us
  • Log in
  • Main navigation

  • Home
  • Articles
  • Collections
  • Podcasts
  • Maths in a minute
  • Puzzles
  • Videos
  • Topics and tags
  • For

    • cat icon
      Curiosity
    • newspaper icon
      Media
    • graduation icon
      Education
    • briefcase icon
      Policy

      Popular topics and tags

      Shapes

      • Geometry
      • Vectors and matrices
      • Topology
      • Networks and graph theory
      • Fractals

      Numbers

      • Number theory
      • Arithmetic
      • Prime numbers
      • Fermat's last theorem
      • Cryptography

      Computing and information

      • Quantum computing
      • Complexity
      • Information theory
      • Artificial intelligence and machine learning
      • Algorithm

      Data and probability

      • Statistics
      • Probability and uncertainty
      • Randomness

      Abstract structures

      • Symmetry
      • Algebra and group theory
      • Vectors and matrices

      Physics

      • Fluid dynamics
      • Quantum physics
      • General relativity, gravity and black holes
      • Entropy and thermodynamics
      • String theory and quantum gravity

      Arts, humanities and sport

      • History and philosophy of mathematics
      • Art and Music
      • Language
      • Sport

      Logic, proof and strategy

      • Logic
      • Proof
      • Game theory

      Calculus and analysis

      • Differential equations
      • Calculus

      Towards applications

      • Mathematical modelling
      • Dynamical systems and Chaos

      Applications

      • Medicine and health
      • Epidemiology
      • Biology
      • Economics and finance
      • Engineering and architecture
      • Weather forecasting
      • Climate change

      Understanding of mathematics

      • Public understanding of mathematics
      • Education

      Get your maths quickly

      • Maths in a minute

      Main menu

    • Home
    • Articles
    • Collections
    • Podcasts
    • Maths in a minute
    • Puzzles
    • Videos
    • Topics and tags
    • Audiences

      • cat icon
        Curiosity
      • newspaper icon
        Media
      • graduation icon
        Education
      • briefcase icon
        Policy

      Secondary menu

    • My list
    • About Plus
    • Sponsors
    • Subscribe
    • Contact Us
    • Log in
    • News from the world of maths: Maths maps musical emotion

      17 May, 2006
      Wednesday, May 17, 2006

      Maths maps musical emotion

      Music makes emotion and maths underpins music. But can the emotional part of music be captured by maths? To find the answer to this question Elaine Chew, assistant professor of industrial and systems engineering at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, set up a graduate course called "Computational Modelling of Expressive Performance" to look for answers. The aim of the course is to teach students how to use tools from engineering and computation to understand our emotional responses to music.

      Chew pursues a successful career as a pianist along side her research, and so is perfectly qualified. But as she admits, teaching the course is a challenge, as students need expertise from a huge range of different disciplines. They need to use tools from music theory, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, experimental psychology, signal processing and neuroscience, to name but a few. Not many students have the necessary pre-requisites, but some of those that do have now put an exhibition of their projects online.

      One pair of students have created "emotiongrams" that map musical characteristics to colour patterns to capture their emotional impact. Another project involves analysing scores of silent movies that have been specifically created to evoke certain emotions, and yet another one involves a system that allows you to add extra rules to a musical score and observe whether this changes the impact on your feelings.

      You can read about all the projects on the course website. Plus has a number of articles on the mathematics of music, which you can find in our archive under keyword or topic "maths and music".

      posted by Plus @ 1:19 PM

      0 Comments:

      • Log in or register to post comments
      University of Cambridge logo

      Plus Magazine is part of the family of activities in the Millennium Mathematics Project.
      Copyright © 1997 - 2025. University of Cambridge. All rights reserved.

      Terms