A few years from now, as you take your seat in a concert hall, you might open your program and find a puzzling announcement: Tonight we’ll be hearing works by André Previn, Henry Purcell, and Hewlett Packard. An annoying example of product placement? Actually, it could be an accurate, if incomplete, indicator of authorship. And without that notification, we might never know the difference. Most of us like to think we could easily differentiate between a piece of music written by a human being and one generated by a computer. But a paper just presented at the International ... Read More
The Perceived Delicacy of the Female Conductor
February 9, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Many factors influence the way classical music fans respond to a recording. The expressiveness of the composer. The virtuosity of the musicians. And, it seems, the sex of the conductor. Researchers Valerie Folkes of the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business and Shashi Matta of The Ohio State University provide evidence that gender stereotypes shape our reaction to orchestral performances. But they report these effects aren’t consistent, and for female conductors, they aren’t necessarily negative. “People have strong beliefs about how men and women differ, ... Read More
Triumph of the Cyborg Composer
February 22, 2010 • By • 136 Comments
The office looks like the aftermath of a surrealistic earthquake, as if David Cope’s brain has spewed out decades of memories all over the carpet, the door, the walls, even the ceiling. Books and papers, music scores and magazines are all strewn about in ragged piles. A semi-functional Apple Power Mac 7500 (discontinued April 1, 1996) sits in the corner, its lemon-lime monitor buzzing. Drawings filled with concepts for a never-constructed musical-radio-space telescope dominate half of one wall. Russian dolls and an exercise bike, not to mention random pieces from homemade board games, peek ... Read More
Sharing Intense Emotions Motivates Maestros
July 21, 2009 • By • 2 Comments
In movies, orchestra conductors tend to be portrayed as egomaniacs. But a new study of why certain musicians gravitate to the podium suggests a very different set of motivations are at play. In an article just published in the journal Psychology of Music, Ioannis Makris of the School of Higher Pedagogical and Technological Education in Greece reports on a survey of 101 orchestral conductors. They were presented with 92 possible motives for entering their profession and asked which of them reflected their own views. "The motives most strongly evoked were the ones linked with emotions and ... Read More
