Writings
Lecture-Recital: The Golden Thread
An exploration of the development of Jewish liturgical modes, with a focus on the music of the deeply-rooted Babylonian Jewish community
What makes music sound Jewish? A.Z. Idelsohn speaks of unique modes and motives running through music like a “golden thread” working to express the inner workings of the Jewish soul. This project approaches Jewish music by highlighting its roots: musical modes and motives originating in the Near East. Featuring music from the very first Jewish diaspora, Babylonia (in modern-day Iraq), the project explores the questions: what are the ancient elements that define Jewish music, dating back to the Babylonian exile? (597-538 BCE) How did biblical cantillation influence the development of Jewish prayer modes? How has the history of Jewish modes been inseparably entangled with Gregorian chant and the Arab maqam system? Through a lecture-recital series, an album, and an informational webpage, “The Golden Thread” brings learning about Jewish modes into the present and into our communities.
Paper: A Snapshot of the Genizah World
The Role of the Cairo Genizah in our Understanding of Medieval Jewry
Paper: Effects of Vowel Modification in Singing
An Acoustic Investigation of the High Soprano Range
Linguistic research on the acoustics of vowel modification using an LPC (Linear predictive coding) model to track acoustic correlates of vowels across the high-frequency range of sopranos.
Study: Measuring music and prosody
How does musical ability affect sensitivity to speech sounds?
Accounting for variation in non-native speech discrimination with working memory, specialized music skills, and music background. I collected and processed data for this study, under Dr. Jocelyn Dueck and Dr. Seth Wiener.
Materials and Data: Available on Open Science Framework
Paper: Expressive Tuning in the Baroque and Beyond
An investigation into the history of tunings and temperaments, particularly concerning the underlying causes of the pull towards standardization and equal temperament. This paper explores the ancient and pre-modern roots of later tuning trends with an emphasis on Gioseffe Zarlino and Pythagoras, and challenges the traditional idea of viewing tuning changes over time through a tunnel view of societal progression.