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Symbolic Sound Kyma

@symbolicsound.com
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Symbolic Sound makes Kyma — a hardware & software environment for creative sound design, live performance, and scientific exploration. kyma.symbolicsound.com

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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 14/09/2026
Study finds that while rats are consuming chocolate, they emit a distinct—40 kHz inverted-U type—ultrasound vocalization (USV). When consuming standard food pellets, they emit only flat USVs. www.eneuro.org/content/13/8...
eneuro.org
A Subtype of Ultrasonic Vocalizations during Palatable Food Consumption in Rats Identified by Machine Learning-Assisted Classification
Identifying behavioral and physiological responses to rewarding stimuli is essential for understanding positive emotional states in animals and for investigating their neural basis. Ultrasonic vocaliz...
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 29/08/2026
Researchers find that Heavy Metal music festival attendees' pain tolerance increased over the course of the festival. Results may be a proxy of increased resilience due to the stimulation of oxytocin release during an intense social music event. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Increased pain resilience among heavy metal music festival attendees - Scientific Reports
Scientific Reports - Increased pain resilience among heavy metal music festival attendees
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 13/05/2026
When Max Schich @schichmax & Mikhail Tamm invited Carla Scaletti to @cudanlab on Morse Code Day, their discussion took an unexpected turn along the path to 'Ensoniment'. Check out the lecture/discussion on data sonification & analytical listening youtu.be/hQXgs2os4vc?...
youtu.be
Carla Scaletti: Auditory Analytics.
YouTube video by CUDANLab
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 11/05/2026
Benjamin Van Doren is making Chicago safer for millions of birds by installing acoustic monitors on the tops of skyscrapers. Most birds fly at night so the best way to track & identify them is by sound which is processed in near real time & shared on a public dashboard. news.wttw.com/2026/05/05/i...
news.wttw.com
It’s Open Mic Night on Chicago Rooftops, Where Acoustic Devices Will Listen for Migrating Birds
Most birds migrate over Chicago at night. A new network of acoustic monitors is tracking their movements by listening for what can't be seen.
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 27/04/2026
Thanks Max! Looking forward to meeting with the CUDAN Open Lab!
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 15/04/2026
A new kind of bass trap! Low-frequency sound absorption achieved by replacing the high-stiffness neck of a Helmholtz resonator w/ a soft, viscoelastic cylindrical shell for tunable viscoelastic damping. Greater than 97% absorption of 227 to 329 Hz with deep-subwavelength thickness (λ/15 at 227 Hz).
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 15/04/2026
Bumble bees learned to discriminate rhythmic patterns; generalized those patterns to slower & faster rates; and transferred learning of 2 vibrational patterns to their equivalent flashing light patterns. Suggests that bumble bees have truly flexible rhythm perception. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
Flexible, abstract rhythm perception in bumble bees
Flexible, abstract rhythm perception underpins human music, dance, and speech, but thus far, it has only been demonstrated in a few birds and mammals. In this work, we show that bumble bees also form ...
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 17/02/2026
Researchers design a passive acoustic scattering structure that converts broadband white-noise into an acoustic rainbow — passively decomposing a radiated sound into its spatio-spectral components with “above unity” efficiency. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... @science.org
science.org
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 10/02/2026
"La sonificazione qui non sostituisce le misurazioni, non sostituisce l'analisi quantitativa e non è marketing. Serve a rivelare pattern in serie temporali molto dense.Il passaggio dall'intuizione percettiva alla misurazione è ciò che rende il metodo interessante" sbircialanotizia.it/articoli/202...
sbircialanotizia.it
PNIPAM e collasso in acqua: cosa raccontano i ponti d’idrogeno mediati dal solvente
Uno studio su PNAS (febbraio 2026) mostra che, durante il collasso del polimero PNIPAM, l’acqua forma “ponti” tra segmenti della catena e stabilizza il globulo. Meccanismo, metodo e implicazioni per m...
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 07/02/2026
Thanks for an enjoyable collaboration across borders & disciplines with co-authors: Wanlin CHEN (Université Paris-Cité, CNRS), Martina Havenith (Ruhr University Bochum), Martin Gruebele (University of Illinois), and Kurt J. Hebel (Symbolic Sound). @PNASNews @WileyAnalytical
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 07/02/2026
PNAS paper: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... Auditory analytics paper: doi.org/10.1002/cem....
doi.org
Auditory Analytics for Pattern Discovery in Protein Folding Dynamics
We introduce Auditory Analytics, a methodological framework that utilizes data sonification for scientific discovery. Auditory Analytics describes a cycle of collecting and deriving datasets, mapping...
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 07/02/2026
We heard that "water bridges"—where a single water molecule connects two parts of the polymer chain—were the primary drivers and organizers of the collapse. The “Auditory Analytics” methodology used to obtain these results was published this week in the Journal of Chemometrics. youtu.be/q5EkwfGUcvc
youtu.be
Auditory Analytics (3 minute introduction)
YouTube video by Biophysics Sonification Group
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 07/02/2026
To study how PNIPAM collapses, we didn't just look at the data—we listened to it. We mapped hydrogen bonds to sound events, expecting to hear an increase in direct amide-amide bonds (N-H···O) during the collapse. Instead, the data told a different story. youtu.be/tnQVaFgKprw
youtu.be
Listening to Polymer Collapse: water bridges pull the strings
YouTube video by Biophysics Sonification Group
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 07/02/2026
Excited to share results from our new PNAS paper. We studied PNIPAM—a shape-shifting polymer that collapses from an extended coil to a compact globule near body temperature — making it a prime candidate for drug delivery systems and soft robotics.
pnas.org
Water-mediated hydrogen bonds and local side-chain interactions in the cooperative collapse and expansion of PNIPAM oligomers | PNAS
Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM), a thermoresponsive homopolymer, is a well-established model for investigating coil-to-globule transitions. He...
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 06/02/2026
For anyone interested in the "Auditory Analytics" method used to analyze this data, the full methodology was just published yesterday in the Journal of Chemometrics: doi.org/10.1002/cem....
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 06/02/2026
For those interested in the "Auditory Analytics" method used to analyze this data, the full methodology was just published yesterday in the Journal of Chemometrics: doi.org/10.1002/cem....
The Auditory Analytics cycle: collecting raw data, deriving datasets, mapping data to sound (sonification), analytical listening, hypothesis formulation, tool building, deriving new models and new datasets.
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 29/01/2026
Hearing relies on the ear actively enhancing its responsiveness. New research shows mammalian cochlea performs amplification, frequency tuning, compressive nonlinearity & generation of distortion products locally & near criticality at a Hopf bifurcation. doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
doi.org
PNAS
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 28/01/2026
Isn’t it time we added "Analytical Listening" to the scientific method? In our talk @FlatironInst, we make the case for #AuditoryAnalytics — sonification as part of the research cycle. Watch the 15' talk by M. Gruebele, K Hebel, C. Scaletti: www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJOV... #sonification #DataScience
youtube.com
Scaletti, Gruebele, Hebel: Auditory Analytics for Scientific Exploration & Disco (October 22, 2025)
YouTube video by Flatiron Institute
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 08/01/2026
"[E]very design is a decision, and every decision shapes the future of musical thinking." Andrew Telichan-Phillips interviews the developers of SuperCollider, ChucK, Max, and Kyma, concluding that "symbolic systems do not merely describe the world; they organize it." direct.mit.edu/comj/article...
direct.mit.edu
Encoding Sound: Perspectives on Cultural Bias in Music Software Design
Abstract. This article investigates questions and concerns about the embedding of cultural and individual programmer biases into music programming languages (MPLs) and music software. A key contention...
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 14/12/2025
Synchronizing movement to music is a hallmark of human culture. New study demonstrates that macaques can spontaneously synchronize to a beat, contradicting the “vocal-learning hypothesis” that only species with learned complex vocalizations can synchronize. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
Monkeys have rhythm
Synchronizing movements to music is a hallmark of human culture, but its evolutionary and neurobiological origins remain unknown. This ability requires (i) extracting a steady rhythmic pulse, or beat,...
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 08/10/2025
And this vocoder! mixwiththemasters.com/videos/rich-...
mixwiththemasters.com
Supermassive Black Hole Muse Deconstructing a Mix #60 - Videos - Mix With The Masters
Learn the entire process of music production, mixing and mastering from the world’s top engineers and producers through seminars and online videos.
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 08/10/2025
Otophysans, known for their enhanced hearing comprise 2/3 of freshwater fish. Recent discovery of a fossil places their origin ~154 million years ago. Their distinctive hearing abilities evolved in conjunction with fusion of hearing ossicles & freshwater adaptations. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
Marine origins and freshwater radiations of the otophysan fishes
Otophysans, known for their enhanced hearing enabled by the complex Weberian apparatus, comprise two-thirds of extant freshwater fish species. Previously, they were thought to have originated in fresh...
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 19/07/2025
The Science is Sound! From acoustic analogs of electron entanglement, to positioning heart cells, to hydrogen bond sonification & more, check out the July Shaastra cover story by Pallab Roygupta on some unexpected ways sound is being used to probe nature. shaastramag.iitm.ac.in/lead-story/s...
shaastramag.iitm.ac.in
The science is sound | Indian Institute of Technology Madras - IITM Shaastra
Sound waves are being increasingly channelled to probe nature, with significant potential applications.
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 28/06/2025
SonicBoom, an autonomous robot that uses sound to sense objects in visually cluttered environments. Small differences in signal intensity & phase across an array of contact mics can localize the sound source & thus the point of contact with accuracy of ~0.4 to 2 cm spectrum.ieee.org/farm-robots-...
spectrum.ieee.org
This Robotic Arm Senses Branches With Sound
SonicBoom lets robots "feel" their way through farms using sound. Could this be the key to affordable and efficient harvesting?
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 27/06/2025
Can the sound of laughter encourage optimistic behavior? Study shows that bonobos approach ambiguous stimuli to search for rewards more often after hearing laughter. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Bonobos tend to behave optimistically after hearing laughter - Scientific Reports
Scientific Reports - Bonobos tend to behave optimistically after hearing laughter
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 04/06/2025
Concert for pipe organ & live Kyma electronics: 5 June 6:30 pm St Paul's Cathedral London. While performing the pipe organ, Franz controls Kyma processing with an EEG scanner & a MIDI glove! www.stpauls.co.uk/whats-on/cel...
stpauls.co.uk
Celebrity Organ Recital by Franz Danksagmüller | St Paul's Cathedral
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 18/05/2025
Please contact support@symbolicsound.com Thanks!
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 13/05/2025
Please contact support@symbolicsound.com Thanks!
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 10/05/2025
Not currently...
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 10/05/2025
Kyma 7.44 is HERE! New synthesis/processing Sound objects, !SongPosition from MIDI, new Smalltalk messages, roll the dice on a single component of VCS, selectable MPE mode, Community Library access & tons of UI/workflow improvements. Free update from the Help menu in #Kyma #SoundDesign #MusicTech
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 24/04/2025
Prosody — pitch contour, stress, rhythm & loudness of speech — found to have its own vocabulary, semantics & simple syntax. Study finds Intonation Units (IUs) which when stripped of text consist of a pitch contour — as an element of a prosodic vocabulary doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
doi.org
Structure in conversation: Evidence for the vocabulary, semantics, and syntax of prosody | PNAS
Prosody, the musical facet of speech, is pivotal in human communication, and its structure and meaning remain subjects of ongoing research. In this...
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 19/03/2025
What’s Behind the ‘Pop and Slosh’ When Opening a Beer? Using high-speed video, audio recordings, & computational fluid dynamics simulations, researchers say the sound is explained by a sudden expansion of CO2 + a drop in temp to -50C which slows the speed of sound publishing.aip.org/publications...
publishing.aip.org
What’s Behind the ‘Pop and Slosh’ When Opening a Swing-Top Bottle of Beer? - AIP Publishing LLC
WASHINGTON, March 18, 2025 — In a fun experiment, Max Koch, a researcher at the University of Göttingen in Germany — who also happens to be passionate […]
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 17/03/2025
Audible enclaves: Delivering audio to a targeted listener located at the intersection of 2 nonlinear ultrasonic beams without disturbing others nearby www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...
pnas.org
Audible enclaves crafted by nonlinear self-bending ultrasonic beams | PNAS
Delivering audible content to a targeted listener without disturbing others is paramount in audio engineering. However, achieving this goal has lon...
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 13/03/2025
In memory of Kaija Saariaho, the Sons of Chipotle (Anssi Karttunen + John Paul Jones) are performing w/ piano, cello, various controllers & live Kyma processing this Saturday 15 March 2025 @ the Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam — part of the first Saariaho Festival news.symbolicsound.com/2025/02/sons...
news.symbolicsound.com
Sons of Chipotle at Saariaho Festival – the eighth nerve
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 12/03/2025
Study of human hand claps finds Helmholtz resonators to be a good model for the dominant sound generation mechanism & for physically separating factors contributing to different aspects of the sound. doi.org/10.1103/Phys...
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 07/03/2025
Check out Cork by Phil Maguire & Anne La Berge (flutes, Kyma System, laptops & synthesizer), mastered by Jim O'Rourke. On March 7, Bandcamp waives their revenue share & passes the funds directly to artists maguirelaberge.bandcamp.com/album/cork
maguirelaberge.bandcamp.com
Cork, by Maguire/La Berge
3 track album
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 06/03/2025
Hearing triggered by molecular 'spring': Researchers at Göttingen’s Max Planck Institute identify an elastically suspended molecular spring that opens an ion channel in the human ear: "it is not the spiral but the flexible joint that bends under mechanical tension” www.mpinat.mpg.de/4945389/pr_2...
mpinat.mpg.de
Hearing triggered by molecular “spring”
A Göttingen research team has discovered the molecular “spring” that opens ion channels in the auditory sensory cells in the ear.
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 05/03/2025
Franz Danksagmüller: live Ciné-concert: Kyma electronics & 1937 Wurlitzer organ to accompany Fritz Lang’s Metropolis Friday 7 March at 8 pm in Geneva at Collége Claparède. Masterclass on Thursday 6 March 2 pm. news.symbolicsound.com/2025/02/metr...
news.symbolicsound.com
Metropolis in Geneva – the eighth nerve
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 01/03/2025
A novel method uses sound (24 kHz/400W) to change glass to have either a hydrophobic or a charged surface. Sonochemical modification has applications in filtration systems & biofuel cells advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Sonochemical Functionalization of Glass
A new method for functionalizing glass using ultrasonication of aryl diazonium salts. Aryl radicals generated by ultrasounds react with glass, forming a stable, covalently bonded organic film. The fu....
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 25/02/2025
From an interview with Lowell Pickett, Senior Audio Engineer at Zoox: "A well-considered audio experience improves workplaces and recreational spaces alike." According to Lowell, "Every company should have an audio professional on staff!" news.symbolicsound.com/2025/02/driv...
news.symbolicsound.com
the eighth nerve – Official organ of the Symbolic Sound Corporation
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 16/02/2025
Aminoglycosides (AGs) antibiotics are ototoxic, causing irreversible hearing loss in millions annually. By inhibiting GABARAP expression in inner ear hair cells, researchers successfully prevented AG-induced hair cell death & subsequent hearing loss www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
pnas.org
Inhibition of GABARAP or GABARAPL1 prevents aminoglycoside- induced hearing loss | PNAS
Aminoglycosides (AGs) are highly potent, broad-spectrum antibiotics frequently used as first-line treatments for multiple life-threatening infectio...
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 14/02/2025
U of Chicago researchers demonstrate multi-phonon entanglement between two physically separated acoustic wave resonators. [Reminds me of Huygens' "odd kind of sympathy"?] www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Deterministic multi-phonon entanglement between two mechanical resonators on separate substrates - Nature Communications
Recent advancements have enabled quantum control and measurement of mechanical resonators. Here the authors demonstrate quantum entanglement between two mechanical resonators on separate substrates by...
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 06/02/2025
Study published in Science reveals that humpback whale vocalizations have a statistical structure similar to that of human language. Shane Gero suggests this structure might exist because whale songs are communication systems transmitted through social learning www.science.org/content/arti...
science.org
Humpback whale songs are structured like human language
Languagelike patterns in whale songs could make them easier for whales to learn
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 30/01/2025
A spherical 10-100 µm microrobot converts acoustic energy into thrust for velocities up to 300 body lengths per second. Resonance of a trapped bubble disrupts acoustic streaming symmetry for multiple frequency-dependent boundary-free 3D locomotion modes. doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
doi.org
PNAS
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 21/01/2025
The sound of a virus! Study tracks acoustic vibrations of a single virus using ultrafast spectroscopy. The acoustic spectrum reveals vibrational modes associated with virus morphology, viral envelope protein interactions & acoustic mode-coupling w/the local environment. doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
doi.org
Nanoscopic acoustic vibrational dynamics of a single virus captured by ultrafast spectroscopy | PNAS
The natural vibrational frequencies of biological particles such as viruses and bacteria encode critical information about their mechanical and bio...
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 18/01/2025
Auditory system's ability to follow cycle-by-cycle fluctuations or Temporal Fine Structure (TFS) is found to contribute to resilience to effects of reverberation & is associated with faster response times, indicating reduced listening effort.  doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
doi.org
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 18/01/2025
Study observes chimpanzees producing rhythmic displays—suggesting that mechanisms for rhythm production may be shared between humans & non-human primates. They recorded isochronous rhythms in vocal (pants, grunts & hoots) as well as in motoric (swaying & stomping) behaviors. doi.org/10.1098/rspb...
doi.org
Context-dependent rhythmicity in chimpanzee displays | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Rhythm is an important component of human language and music production. Rhythms such as isochrony (intervals spaced equally in time) are also present in vocalizations of certain non-human species, in...
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 16/01/2025
First issue of ‘eighth nerve’ for 2025 finds the Kyma Community zeitgeist trending toward human mechanization, way-finding, questions of what is “life” and what is “live”, the fall of empire, and secrets…#Kyma #SoundDesign news.symbolicsound.com
news.symbolicsound.com
the eighth nerve – Official organ of the Symbolic Sound Corporation
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 15/01/2025
Songbirds migrating at night may use sounds to coordinate with each other. University of Illinois researchers use ML to analyze 18,300 hours of recordings & detect signature flight calls of 25 species while the rest of the world sleeps @uofilsystem.bsky.social aces.illinois.edu/news/songbir...
aces.illinois.edu
Songbirds socialize on the wing during migration, new study says | College of Agricultural, Consumer & Environmental Sciences | Illinois
The night sky teems with migrating songbirds, aloft in their millions following routes etched in evolutionary time.
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Symbolic Sound Kyma @symbolicsound.com · 14/01/2025
Can you imagine hearing & making sounds in your mind? Are they as vivid as sounds in the real world? This article in @NautilusMag describes “anauralia” — the lack of hearing any sound in your head nautil.us/people-who-c...
nautil.us
People Who Can’t Picture Sound in Their Minds
For some, the brain is a quiet place.
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