The short version
- A new lab at Case Western Reserve University turns electrical activity from the brain, read by EEG, into sound and music.
- It revives brainwave composition from the 1960s and 1970s with far more sensitive modern equipment.
- A concert of David Rosenboom’s music is set for February 14, 2027, in Cleveland.
At Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, a cognitive scientist, a music professor and an audio engineer have set up the Brain Media Lab, which converts EEG readings of the brain’s electrical activity into audible sound and finished compositions. The co-leads are Vera Tobin, from cognitive science, and Francesca Brittan, from music, with Stephan Haluska on the audio. The university describes the work as reviving experiments by composers of the 1960s and 1970s with equipment that picks up far more detail.
The lab’s concert “Music for Live Brains” performs work by the composer David Rosenboom on February 14, 2027, at the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Mixon Hall, with a workshop and public talk by Rosenboom that month. A second performance, built on the work of Alvin Lucier, follows in April at the university’s Art Studio. “Music has important applications in the domains of health, well-being, and scientific discovery,” Brittan said.
This is an art-and-science project, not a study: no findings have been reported, and none are claimed.
