Kevin Short, Department of Mathematics, University of New Hampshire

Topic: "A Mathematical Physicist at the Grammies?"  (Video)

Abstract: This talk will look at the mathematics underlying the analysis of music signals, and how ideas like the uncertainty principle, convolution, partitions of unity, and the (fast) Fourier transform naturally arise in the analysis. Applications to music decomposition, compression and repair will be considered. Some examples will be shown of work on restoring music tracks, including a 1949 Woody Guthrie wire recording that resulted in a Grammy award in 2008. Other examples may include real-time playback of layered decompositions of music, tracks from a compressed chaotic music synthesizer, and image and video compression. The underlying mathematical concepts will primarily be presented through diagrams and graphics, with technical details if time allows.