People engaged in making music are at a higher risk for mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety, according to researchers at Frankfurt’s Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics. Results of the study suggest there is an overlap between inherited genetic variants associated with a tendency to make music, and those that increase the risk for mental illness. Van Magazine talked to Laura Wesseldijk, one of the authors of the study, herself a musician too.

Online music school Soundfly shares an interesting article about birds' singing and why they do it. Soundfly is looking for reasons for the beautiful bird habit, such as trying to draw attention, communicating, avoiding troubles, or just having pure fun.

Music writer Ted Gioia shares an extract from his new book where he's looking for the beginnings of music research: "Musicology originated as the study of magical incantations... From the beginnings of human history magic was embedded in songs. The most powerful magic is always sung or chanted... That was even true for the oldest hunter-gatherer tribes. We know that because the magical images on the cave walls are always located in spots with the best acoustics... The oldest book in Europe, Derveni papyrus... is actually a musicology text... Conductor’s baton was initially a magic wand... And we’ve encountered similar magical underpinnings to music in hundreds of other places, from shamans in Siberia to the lore of Celtic bards".

hundreds of tech, science, and academic leaders – have signed an open letter simply titled “Pause Giant AI Experiments”, calling on all AI labs around the world “to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4”. In their open letter signatories write: “AI systems with human-competitive intelligence can pose profound risks to society and humanity". Those who’ve signed the letter include Elon Musk (CEO of SpaceX, Twitter, and Tesla, also the co-founder of OpenAI, creators of GPT-4), the co-founder of Apple, Steve Wozniak, Evan Sharp, the co-founder of Pinterest, three team members at Alphabet/Google‘s experimental AI hub, DeepMind: Victoria Krakovna (DeepMind, Research Scientist, co-founder of Future of Life Institute); Zachary Kenton, (DeepMind, Senior Research Scientist); and Ramana Kumar, DeepMind, Research Scientist.

In the 14th century BC in the ancient Syrian city of Ugarit several tablets were inscribed with cuneiform signs in the hurrian language. Archaeologists unearthed these clay tablets in the 1950s, and they turned out to be the oldest known piece of music ever discovered, a 3,400-year-old cult hymn. Richard Fink points out that this piece of music also confirms a theory that “the 7-note diatonic scale, as well as harmony, existed 3,400 years ago.” Open History reminds about the discovery.

• "Everything gets faster. That’s why TikTok creators are speeding up their songs and visuals.
• Everything gets shorter. That’s why song duration is shrinking—the 3-minute pop song has been replaced by the 2-minute pop song.
• Everything new soon seems old. Trends come and go as users churn through novelties.
• Everything gets dumber. Hey, just look around you.

Music writer Ted Gioia is longing for more substance in our lives in his latest newsletter, as opposed to shots of dopamine served on social media. He compares it to intermittent reinforcement - a theory based on an experiment with rats that showed that they could be manipulated more easily if rewards and punishments were sporadic and unpredictable. Gioia is hopeful - "most people crave something more enriching than a quick dose of dopamine from their handheld Skinner Box. Once they’ve tasted the real thing, a meaningful number of them—a decisive majority, in my opinion—will refuse to give up the riches of their music, books, movies, museums, and other repositories of glory and genius"

Scientists in Denmark have created the world’s smallest “vinyl” record, which is so tiny that it can barely be seen by the naked human eye, EDM reports. Measuring just 15x15 micrometres, with grooves of a depth of just 65 nanometres – the tiny record contains music - it plays 25 seconds of ‘Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree’, in stereo. Professor Peter Nøggild explained that the technology could be critical in future scientific research: “While we make these kinds of grooves here with nanometre precision, we can transfer these to a number of other materials, where that will fundamentally allow us to manipulate material properties on a nanoscale.”

The latest episode of Source Material podcast explores the symbiotic links between electronic music and house plants discovering how bass frequencies mimic bees and why festivals are adopting sonic soil pollution. Diving into the world of frequencies and root systems, RA's Martha Pazienti Caidan speaks to four musicians and artists who make music and/or technology for plants - biotherapeutic musician Imka, Joe Patitucci of PlantWave, an app that translates plants' biorhythms into music, sound artist Karine Bonneval and composer Erland Cooper.

A great, well spirited reaction today by the Music REDEF to a ludicrous quote earlier this week about the invention of microphones. "The man generally credited with the breakthrough that put mics into widespread use was Emile Berliner, a German Jew who fled his homeland for America in 1870. Berliner’s placement of a layer of carbon particles between two contacts greatly improved the sound of recorded voices and was essential for—among other applications—making telephones work. He sold his patent, in fact, to Alexander Graham Bell. Berliner was a giant figure in the early days of the sound and music industries: He also invented the gramophone—the predecessor of modern vinyl records—and founded Deutsche Grammophon, which eventually became Polygram, which became a key part of Universal Music Group, and which survives as the world’s leading classical music brand".

New Zealand artist and scientist Jesse Austin-Stewart has created music that only be felt through the vibrations of a PlayStation Dualsense controller, not heard. To feel them, a “listener” has to plug in their controller into a computer and press play on the audio. The controller will then automatically vibrate, with the rhythm of each song forming the track. ‘Music For PlayStation’ contains five separate tracks, each with different rhythms and tempos running through the controllers. The tracks, which were written and developed with a number of deaf artists, are available on all streaming sites, and can also be downloaded on Austin-Stewart’s Bandcamp.

When it comes to musical tastes, people tend to favor songs with lyrics that correspond to their attachment style - researchers in the psychology department of the University of Toronto have found in a study that involved asking 570 people about their favourite songs. The participants were asked a series of questions about their relationship histories. The analysis of more than 7,000 songs revealed that people tended to like song lyrics that related to their attachment style in intimate relationships. This means most people tend to like songs that spell out what they are going through in a relationship. Vice reports about the study.

The global recording industry association IFPI, released 'Engaging with Music 2022', the largest music study on how people around the world enjoy and engage with music. It is based on the responses of more than 44,000 people in 22 countries. Highlights of the 2022 report include:

• Music fans are listening to more music today than ever before, spending on average 20.1 hours listening to music weekly - up from 18.4 hours in 2021.
• 46% of respondents use subscription audio streaming services, which offer uninterrupted and on-demand access to millions of licensed tracks.
• 69% of people say music is important to their mental health, 68% say that music is important when they exercise.

In his latest post, music writer Ted Gioia presents a scientific basis for his alternative musicology—a holistic way of thinking about songs and their impact on individuals and societies. He makes the argument that too much of our world today is controlled by left-hemisphere-of-the-brain worldview — analytic and detail-oriented - and calls for the right hemisphere - controls creativity, intuition, and imagination - to take over. "The simplest way to tap into the right hemisphere is music… The connection between songs and the right hemisphere of our brains is so strong that stroke victims who have lost the language-making capacity of their left brain are sometimes still able to sing words they can no longer speak". A great intro to the theory.

Latin American countries are the top consumers of music worldwide, by a wide margin, according to data culled from the IFPI's recently released "Engaging With Music" report, Billboard reports. In Mexico, people consume most music per capita - 25.7 hours per week, compared to an average of 18.4 hours per week across the globe. At No. 2 is Brazil, where fans listen to 25.4 hours of music per week. Finally, Argentina -- the third Latin American country included in the study -- is at No. 6, consuming 22.6 hours of music per week. It's not a new thing - these stats have remained relatively stable since IFPI began doing this particular research several years ago. The report surveyed music consumption habits of 43,000 people in 21 countries.

A 469 million-year-old fossil of a newly discovered species of conodonts (extinct jawless vertebrates that closely resemble eels) has just been named after founding Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi, Blabbermouth reports. A team of Danish and Swedish paleontologists retrieved the fossil from a succession of limestone in western Russia which, during the Ordovician Period (a 45-million year period dating 488.3 million years back), formed sea floor sediments. Mats E. Eriksson, one of the paleontologists on the mission, has an extensive background in naming newly discovered fossils after heavy metal legends, having already honored Motorhead leader Lemmy Kilmister, Cannibal Corpse bassist Alex Webster and singer King Diamond in the fossil.

The effect of background music on concentration largely depends on a person’s personality and taste, but work-appropriate music tends to share a few general qualities - Maria A.G. Witek, a professor in the Department of Music at Birmingham University, states in a new study she co-authored. The best kind of music to listen to while working should have no vocals, Witek says, because lyrics tend to be distracting. The music should also be slow, repetitive, and soft. Tram Nguyen, a member of the Cambridge Brain Sciences Team, recently also found some evidence that low-tempo songs may benefit the regions of the brain responsible for memory and completing tasks. Elemental reports on the science of music to work to.

Universal Music Group has signed a first-of-its-kind partnership with digital therapeutics company MedRhythms, in order to help people with walking impairments, Rolling Stone reports. The partnership provides MedRhythms with access to UMG’s catalog in order to build “direct stimulation solutions” that use clinical-grade sensors, software and music to help restore function lost to neurologic disease or injury. MedRhythms is developing a patented platform of evidence-based, prescription digital therapeutics using music to address walking impairments.

The pattern of music downloads after their release appears to closely resemble epidemic curves for infectious disease - mathematicians from McMaster University in Ontario, Canada have found. The team followed the pattern of 1,000 songs downloaded in the UK between 2007 and 2014, measuring how well a standard model of epidemic disease, called the SIR model, fitted trends in song downloads over time. The research found the model performed just as well when describing song download trends as it did when describing the spread of a disease through the population. In their research, electronic music turned out to be the most infectious genre of all. Guardian reports about the interesting study.

“When we watch something or listen to something that undeniably does make us feel sad at some level, it’s not like we’re only seeking to feel sad” - Mary Beth Oliver, PhD, a professor of media studies at Penn State University Oliver told Elemental. “I think we’re trying to have a greater insight into the bigger questions — the purpose of life, or of human virtue” - sha added. Rather than “sad", she said she prefers terms like “meaningful” or “poignant” or “bittersweet”. “It’s absolutely possible to feel good about feeling sad sometimes,” she said. “Our emotions are much richer than some of these blunt terms we use”.

Sarah Brand, a student of sociology at Oxford University, has released a song 'Red Dress', which she said was a "cinematic, holistic portrayal of judgement". The A.V. club said the video invited a "kind of car wreck curiosity", while Newsweek debated whether it was part of a "grand social experiment". BBC explores what's behind the out-of-tune song.

Drums really can be used to convey speech - an award-winning new study published in the journal Frontiers in Communication shows. It proved Dùndún drumming, an oral tradition among the Yorùbá peoples of Western Africa which involves a special type of drum that, when used properly, can mimic the unique patterns and sounds of Yorùbá speech. So close is the resemblance that the instrument is sometimes referred to as the “talking drum”, Cosmos Magazine reports.

"Even space itself was once brimming with sound"- US filmmaker John D Boswell explores, where sound is possible. 'The Sounds of Space: A sonic adventure to other worlds' - takes you "on a journey back in time and to the edge of our solar system and beyond, to discover what other worlds of sound are lurking beyond Earth's atmosphere".

Music historian Katherine Schofield writes a short essay for the Grin, marrying her knowledge of Indian classical music and art, about how each swara or Indian note, seven in all, interrelate to cries of animals. Sur is a musical sound made up of swaras.

Music impacts blood pressure, body chemistry, brain rhythms, heart rate, body temperature, psychological attitude and a host of other factors. which makes it an audio-steroid, Ted Gioia argues examining the role of music in athletic performances. The research of professor Costas I. Karageorghis has shown the value of music in building team cohesion, creating dissociative mindsets that may reduce pain or fatigue, and almost any other sports parameter imaginable. USA Track & Field, the governing body regulating the sport, saw music as a threat - it imposed a ban in 2006 on headsets and portable audio players at races “to prevent runners from having a competitive edge".

Google Arts & Culture has a very well laid-out microsite about the history of electronic music. It covers the technology used to make the music, the essential clubs, the studios, the musical innovators, and much more (although it is a microsite).

Oxford University Press has made several articles about music and technology available for free until the end of May. Articles explore "the impact of technology on the field of Music, including discussions on studies of musical instruments through CAD and 3D printing, and how the recording studio can be perceived as an instrument in its own right".

A growing body of research more directly links air and road-traffic noise to heightened risks for a number of cardiovascular ailments, the Atlantic points out. Estimates suggest that roughly a third of Americans are regularly exposed to unhealthy levels of noise, typically defined as starting around 70 to 80 decibels. People living near the Frankfurt airport, for example, have as much as a 7 percent higher risk of stroke than those living in similar but quieter neighborhoods. An analysis of nearly 25,000 cardiovascular deaths between 2000 and 2015 among people living near Zurich’s airport saw significant increases in nighttime mortality after airplane flyovers, especially among women.

A total of 1,300 people took part in a party on Saturday in Amsterdam's Ziggo Dome, which also acted as a research project, the Chronicle Herald reports. Dutch DJs Sam Feldt, Sunnery James & Ryan Marciano were playing as the party-goers were followed in all their movements and contacts through a tag they were made to wear, as part of an effort to examine how events may safely be opened up for the public again. The event was part of a series of government-backed tests that also include a business conference, two football matches and a comedy show – all of which have different rules for different groups, to see what works best.

'80s pop and heavy metal are the best musical genres for lowering blood pressure and heart rate, Metal Sucks reports on a recent Istanbul study. The study recruited 1,540 adults, ranging in age from 18 to 65, for a series of mental stress tests while listening to music. The '80s pop playlist prompted a blood pressure drop in 96 percent of respondents and a heart rate reduction of 36 percent. A mix of metal classics elicited a decrease in blood pressure among 89 percent of those studied and a reduction in heart rate in 18 percent of the listeners.

In 1989, Norweigan pop sensation A-ha's singer Morten Harket and keyboardist Magne Furuholmen brought back from Switzerland to Norway something rarely seen back then - an electric car. Once in Oslo, A-ha boys started breaking the rules with the car: parking it illegally, driving it in bus lanes and blowing through toll booths without paying, sending a message that people should be allowed to drive electric cars - which weren’t classified for registration in Norway at the time - and, in fact, should be exempt from tolls, parking fees and bus lane restrictions for doing so. Harket's antics, heavily covered by the press, kicked off the country’s EV revolution - the following year, the government began implementing incentives for driving EVs, many of them closely resembling those that had been highlighted by the A-ha bandmates’ joyride. Last year, over half of all cars sold in Norway in 2020 were fully electric. Reasons to be Cheerful tells the whole nice story.