Music Theory Colloquium: Alexander Cooke, theory faculty

Crystals of Sound

The beauty of music arises out of a balance between consonance and dissonance, regular order and variety, predictability and surprise. In nature, similar competitions cause beauty to spontaneously emerge out of randomness when, for example, symmetric snowflakes assemble from randomly colliding water molecules. To understand how these processes occur, we can apply the ideas and mathematical tools of statistical mechanics. In a collaboration between CWRU and the Cleveland Institute of Music, we have explored how the balance between order and compositional variety can open a new view onto the structures of music though a series of projects ranging from fundamental physics, to development of technology and computer algorithms for music composition, to new forms of music performance.

Ticket Information

Admission is free and open to the public.