Book explores connections between music , technology, and cognition.
Work by Unicamp Publishing House analyzes the intersection between different areas and the impacts of technological development on musical creation
The book Minds, Machines and Music , by José Eduardo Fornari Novo Junior, explores the fascinating connection between the human mind, music, and contemporary technology. It is an interdisciplinary work that delves deeply into the cognitive and emotional processes that arise at the intersection of these three areas.
With a didactic approach, the book presents aspects from both an artistic and technical perspective. The work not only illuminates the functioning of the human mind and its relationship with music, but also analyzes current technological development and its impact on musical creation. In addition, it provides an analysis of the emergence of musical instruments, highlighting how they evolved in parallel with the technological development of different societies, influenced by factors such as the availability of materials, rituals, cultural practices, harvests, battles and community ceremonies.
The author has a diverse background: he graduated in electrical engineering and popular music from Unicamp, where he also obtained his doctorate from the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (Feec). His international experience includes working as a visiting researcher at the Computational Research Center for Music and Acoustics at Stanford University (United States), as well as two postdoctoral studies in innovative areas – music computing and musical cognition –, carried out at the University of Jyväskylä (Finland).
In the following interview, the author talks about his formative trajectory and its influence on the creation of the book, as well as the writing process and the possible contributions of the work for scholars in the field.
Unicamp Journal – What inspired you to explore the relationship between the human mind, machines and music? How did the connection between these areas come about?
José Eduardo Fornari Novo Junior – The inspiration came directly from my personal and academic musical background. I have been a musician since childhood. I completed my undergraduate, master’s and doctorate degrees in electrical engineering at Unicamp. I also completed my undergraduate degree in popular music at Unicamp. I completed my second post-doctorate in Finland, in musical cognition. I then passed the public selection process for a researcher, career Pq, at Nics [Interdisciplinary Center for Sound Communication] at Unicamp, when I began to develop several research projects in the convergent areas between music, its machines (musical technology) and its cognition (the musical mind).
JU – How was the process of researching and writing the book?
José Eduardo Fornari Novo Junior – The research came naturally during the development of my academic activities as a researcher at Nics. Therefore, the book is organized into short but information-dense chapters. Each chapter deals with an aspect of the intersection between music, technology and cognition that I explored throughout my academic research.
JU – In your opinion, what is the future of the interaction between technology and music in society?
José Eduardo Fornari Novo Junior – We are in a time of great effervescence, with the advent of artificial intelligence with Transformer technology, such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Llama and many others, which are surprising due to their efficiency in various areas of communication, such as language, and, more recently, also in music, such as Udio and similar. For me, the future of this interaction will be a greater capacity to generate new and better music, but always maintaining the figure of the human composer as a source of inspiration and creative element in music making.
JU – What are the main benefits that music can provide to the human brain?
José Eduardo Fornari Novo Junior – Music is as essential to humanity as language, so much so that there is no record of any human group throughout history that did not have both. Broadly speaking, music is the expressive communication of emotion, in the same way that language is the logical communication of reason. Just as we need emotion and reason, we need music and language.
JU – What contribution does the book make to music students?
José Eduardo Fornari Novo Junior – Each chapter represents a question that I once had and that I have been clarifying over decades of study, research and musical performance. Music students are often limited to studying musical theory and technique, but few know about the mental processes of sound sensation or musical perception, cognition and affection. Despite being quite adapted as users of digital electronic music technology tools, younger students know little about the digital processing processes that enable the realization of sound in audio and how it is analyzed, transformed and synthesized. The mind and musical technology are thus universes little explored by the average musician. This book seeks to provide brief considerations on these areas, in order to foster the interest of these students in exploring new musical horizons.
Title: Minds, Machines and Music
Brands: José Eduardo Fornari Novo Junior
Edition: 1th
Vintage: 2024
Pages: 184
Dimensions: 14 x 21 cm
