Hear The Music

Aphasia is a word that is typically associated with a collection of symptoms that a person may experience after a blood clot or stroke has affected a certain part of the brain.  In general, aphasia can be divided into two main groups; an expressive form that limits the output of speech, and a receptive form that limits the understanding of speech. Of

For those who have ever been in a grotto or cave, on occasion, if you are very lucky, you may see paintings on the walls, or “rock art” made up of arranged stones; a miniature Stonehenge!  This is a very rare event and the reasons for seeing art (or not) may be related to simple acoustics.  Why is it that

Of the many journals I subscribe to, one is the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.   And of the articles that are the most well-read (at least so far in 2017) is “Enhancing monochromatic multipole emission by a subwavelength enclosure of degenerate Mie resonances” and “No correlation between headphone frequency response and retail price”.   Well, I don’t have to

In part one of this blog series, the characteristics, strengths, and limitations of MEMS microphones were discussed. These are excellent microphones to use in devices that are “forgotten” in cars on hot summer’s days because electrons can be pumped back onto the microphone diaphragm when needed.  However, issues such as dynamic range, frequency response, and “factory settings” such as directionality

There is a multitude of apps for Smartphones that can turn them into sound level meters, recording devices, playback devices, and even allow them to be coupled with external devices for hearing aids via Bluetooth or other wireless protocols. However, each step in the recording/playback/control pathways can add some error to the final measured result. Some of these errors are

In part 1 of this blog series, some characteristics of the occlusion effect were discussed.  This refers to low frequency voice or musical energy (below 500 Hz) that is transduced (typically through the boney portion of the ear canal) and unless the ear is blocked up, is not heard- the low frequency sound energy escapes out of the unoccluded ear

A significant proportion of my clientele at the Musicians’ Clinics of Canada are for “second opinions”.  Recently I had a referral where a trombone player was fit with ER-15 musicians’ earplugs but was complaining of the occlusion effect.  The ear impressions were remade with a much longer earmold bore but the occlusion complaints remained. Indeed when I saw this man,

We tend to be biased, both in our training and in our technologies that we use. We tend to look at things based on spectra or frequencies.  Phrases such as “bandwidth” and long term average speech spectrum show this bias. The long term average speech spectrum, with is averaged over time, is indeed a broad bandwidth spectrum made up of lower frequency

In part 1 of this blog series we had a discussion of the differences between major keys and minor keys and how this could be used to create a sense of happiness or sadness. A neurological and scientific description of emotion and creativity have long eluded researchers. What is it about a major scale that creates a positive and happy sensation, and

Happiness or sadness; joy or depression; creative or non-creative; good or bad- these are all emotions or states of mind that music can invoke.  But the study of emotional and music is far from simple.  And the study of emotion and music is more than a life’s worth of study.  Researchers such as Dr. Frank Russo, and Dr. Charles Lim