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Grace Leslie’s work with ATLAS’ Brain Music Lab transforms brain activity into sound, blending art, technology and neuroscience

Grace Leslie stands in front of a crowd, a flute perched at her lips. In many ways, the ingredients of this performance are nothing extraordinary: performer, audience, instrument … other than, perhaps, the odd-looking headband Leslie wears.

When she begins, the sounds of the flute are joined by a wash of vaguely electronic tones. The result is ethereal and strange, moving between atonal and harmonious, unsettling and soothing.

What you’re hearing are the brain waves of Leslie, an assistant professor of music technology. During this performance of Vessels, a 30-minute brain-body concert, she wears a special electroencephalogram (EEG) monitoring device that measures electrical activity from her brain. These brain waves are then sonified by means of an algorithm that imprints their spectrum onto a bank of recorded samples of flute and singing.

In other words, Leslie is playing two instruments: the flute and her own brain.

Grace Leslie

This is the sort of work Leslie does in the Brain Music Lab at the ATLAS Institute, ��ƷSM����ӰƬ’s interdisciplinary institute for radical creativity and invention.

The Brain Music Lab is focused on the nexus between music, technology and neuroscience. “We look at people experiencing music and study their brain waves,” said Leslie. “From there, we develop new ways of working with that data and then often transform it back into the performance or a new artistic piece.”

Typically, students begin with a broad scientific concept. For example: “What would we learn if we measured the brain waves of jazz performers during an improvisational set?”

At an ordinary lab, measuring that data may be the end result. However, the Brain Music Lab takes it a step further. Once those brain waves are measured and analyzed, the question becomes: “How do we transform what we’ve learned into a new artistic expression?” The result may be a visual art piece, a composition or even a new form of electronic instrument.

The lab works on the continuum of an art-science loop.

“It’s super exciting for a student with an electrical engineering background to be able to apply the technical skills that they have to brain waves or a medical question or to a creative pursuit,” said Leslie. “I’m constantly astounded by the work that they’re doing. They surprise me every day.”

Thiago Roque—who is pursuing a triple PhD in creative technology, neuroscience and cognitive sciences—is investigating the phenomenon of neural entrainment in musical settings to better understand social interaction and empathy.

His current research is centered on hyperscanning (a procedure that records activity in two brains at the same time) during a musical performance to better understand the neurological link between performers and audience, as well as between performers themselves. He hopes this research will help inform how we understand empathy—by watching how people interact with each other in nonverbal ways.

Jessie Lausé recently earned a master’s degree in music composition and is focusing on creating experimental works using sound from “found objects” rather than traditional instruments. Elements of a piece might include pouring out a bucket of water, ripping up crisp sheets of paper or dropping floor tiles from a height of five feet. A recent piece featured Lausé peeling a butternut squash alongside a saxophone quartet.

Lausé’s work centers on accessibility.

“I really like this idea of not needing to know how to play an instrument to engage in music,” said Lausé. “I didn’t grow up thinking that I was going to be in classical music or in academia. That was never something that was an accessible thought to me growing up.”

“ATLAS is a truly, truly unique place,” said Leslie. “Experimental work is impossible without the support of others in other disciplines.”