Ever sit behind the kit, wishing that you had one more limb to pull off that crazy polyrhythm with? Well, the possibility of that may not be too far away. A team at Georgia Tech’s Center for Music Technology is currently developing robotic prosthetics that can not only be useful to drummers who have lost a limb, but could also allow two-armed percussionists to add a third, fully controlled by the performer’s brain activity.
Tag: science
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The secret to serious groove drumming may just be . . . math!
In an article for Science magazine, Kerry Klein reveals the results of a Max Planck Institute study, which demonstrated fractals, or patterns that look “self-similar” on many different scales.A team headed up by physicist Holger Hennig analyzed the timekeeping of legendary drummer Jeff Porcaro – specifically, his recorded performance on Michael McDonald’s classic song, “I Keep Forgettin’.” What they found was that both Porcaro’s 16th-note rhythms AND dynamic volumes varied throughout the piece (although nearly unnoticeable to the human ear), and that those variations formed fractals.
“It seems that the timekeeper in the brain not only produces fractal timing,” Hennig says, “but likely also fractal intensity or, in this case, loudness.”
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What A Drummer’s Brain Looks Like
We’ve all heard drummer jokes (here are 23 of the best drummer jokes out there) and some of them ARE pretty darn funny! But science has recently been pointing out some incredibly remarkable differences between the brain of a percussionist and that of just your average Joe.
The good people at General Electric released this rad video that begins to touch on the neural connections made as a drummer performs:
For more reading along these lines, check out this I Heart Intelligence post, as well as this from mic.com
For your additional viewing pleasure, Mickey Hart…
