%0 Journal Article
%T Music Composition from the Brain Signal: Representing the Mental State by Music
%A Dan Wu
%A Chaoyi Li
%A Yu Yin
%A Changzheng Zhou
%A Dezhong Yao
%J Computational Intelligence and Neuroscience
%D 2010
%I Hindawi Publishing Corporation
%R 10.1155/2010/267671
%X This paper proposes a method to translate human EEG into music, so as to represent mental state by music. The arousal levels of the brain mental state and music emotion are implicitly used as the bridge between the mind world and the music. The arousal level of the brain is based on the EEG features extracted mainly by wavelet analysis, and the music arousal level is related to the musical parameters such as pitch, tempo, rhythm, and tonality. While composing, some music principles (harmonics and structure) were taken into consideration. With EEGs during various sleep stages as an example, the music generated from them had different patterns of pitch, rhythm, and tonality. 35 volunteers listened to the music pieces, and significant difference in music arousal levels was found. It implied that different mental states may be identified by the corresponding music, and so the music from EEG may be a potential tool for EEG monitoring, biofeedback therapy, and so forth. 1. Introduction Music is a universal human trait throughout the human history and across all cultures, and it is also a powerful tool for emotion and mood modulation [1]. Music is not only a kind of entertainment, but another kind of language; thus music composition may be conceived as a specific representation of human mind. Along with the widespread of computer application, some researchers attempted to ¡°teach¡± the computer to compose music, where a variety of mathematic algorithms [2] and fundamental music rules [3] were explored. In general, for such a computer composition, subjective algorithm design and artificial selection of music rules are crucial and difficult. To learn from the nature and ourselves, various signals from human body, such as the DNA [4], proteins [5], electromyograms (EMGs) [6], and brainwaves [7], have been utilized in computer composition in 1990s. The brainwaves, the electroencephalograms (EEGs), are the visual plotting of the brain neural electric activities projected to the scalp surface. The earliest attempt to hear brainwaves as music was made in 1934 [8]. In most of these early works, however, only the amplitude of the alpha waves or other simple and direct characters of EEG signals was utilized as the driving sources of the musical sound. In the 1990s, various new music generating rules were created from digital filtering or coherent analysis of EEG [9]. In general, these techniques may be classified into two categories. The first one is sonification, which aims at monitoring the brainwaves in an auditory way and includes various methods, such as the direct
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/cin/2010/267671/