(Describer) Streams of light collide to create a globe filled with water. Title: Science Nation. A man plays clarinet on the stage of a concert hall with two young men with laptops in front.
[soulful clarinet ballad]
(male narrator)
This is clarinet professor
Kenneth Grant
at the Eastman
School of Music.
But who are these guys?
Engineering students
from across campus
at the University
of Rochester,
using the other side
of their brains
to teach the computer
to play the clarinet too.
The computer learns
what the musician did
(Describer) Mark Bocko:
to make the sound
that the musician is making.
The computer learns
that they're blowing pressure
at every instant in time,
what their mouth-clamping
force was on the reed.
(Describer) Bocko plays a bassoon as another man plays a piano keyboard.
[jaunty bassoon melody]
(narrator)
While you might think
an electrical engineer
and a music theorist
would make a curious combo,
Marc Bocko and Dave Headlam
are pioneering
a fusion of art and science
that's music to the ears.
The idea is to combine
the precision of a computer
(Describer) Headlam:
with the aesthetic values
in music and combine those
in a way that's educationally
and musically sound.
(narrator)
With help from the
National Science Foundation,
Bocko and his colleagues have
also compressed audio files
nearly 1,000 times
smaller than an MP3 file.
But their aim is not
to build a better iPod.
Bocko says
this advancement
could revolutionize
video conferencing,
and someday musicians
in different cities
could perform together
without a noticeable time lag.
(Bocko)
So this a small echo-free
room where we can place
our instruments and do
the acoustic measurements
that we then turn
into a computer model.
(narrator)
This is where Bocko
does musical forensics,
using the tools of his trade
on musical instruments.
(Bocko)
We're trying to capture
the essential physics
of how the instrument works.
(narrator)
The computer can turn sound
into a visual display,
showing students
the subtle details
of their musical notes.
(Describer) Headlam:
The practicing students
can observe a display
that helps them
to train their ears.
(narrator)
Of course computers
will never replace
the skill and emotion
of musicians
like oboist
Richard Killmer.
But as it turns out, music
and electrical engineering
make for a sweet,
albeit unlikely, duet.
(Describer) The globe turns.
For Science Nation,
I'm Miles O' Brien.
