Sound, music, and science

Have you ever wondered what the difference between sound and music is? What makes some sounds music and others not? Well, it is not that easy to answer, I can tell you as much!

In this course we will explore the science behind sound, and we will learn some music theory to understand what happens when sounds are combined into music. Did you know that what we hear as one note is actually a spectrum of tones? This spectrum is a core concept in music theory and can be calculated from a recording of the tone using physics and mathemathics. During the course, we will listen to cool sound phenomena, learn basic music theory about them, and do our own calculations to predict these sound effects! To be able to do that, you will be taught the required knowledge from music theory, acoustics (physics) and mathematics, which means that you dont need any prior knowledge from these fields.

After the course you will be able explain many things, such as why some notes sound good together and others don’t, why the same note sounds different on different instruments or how you can make „ghost“ notes (that is notes that you can clearly hear, but which are not there physically) appear. And you’ll have learnt many more cool things about music and sound! This course will probably change how you perceive music.

Sol Johansen

As a child, Sol was driving the grown-ups around her crazy (in school, kindergarten etc.) with her curiousness about almost everything, which would often result in a lot of weird questions. Often, getting one answer would just open the door for various new questions. So she decided that physics would be the best subject to give her some answers. And in summer 2021 she finished her bachelor’s degree in physics with a minor in philosophy. However, even though she thought that physics was an amazing field to study, she figured that it didn’t give good work opportunities after graduation. From her year-long student jobs at nursing homes where she found great meaning in supporting elderly people in living there lives as well as possible, she developed an interested in health. That inspired her to start a program to become a medical doctor, where she has been for 2 years now. She thinks that medicine is a little bit more boring to study but makes much more sense in the long run. When Sol does not juggle with mathematical formulas or tries to learn how nerves are organized, she likes to sing or play on her clarinet (especially when she gets an opportunity to play with others). To make sure that her life doesn’t get too sedentary, she has a very happy, cute and energetic dog who is 2 years-old, and he loves playing more than anything. The two of them love to go discovering new places together, especially areas with nature. Sol also loves watching plants grow and pondering about the fact that a complete tree can grow out of one small seed. How amazing is that!

Session D

Applied Earth Sciences

Sara Gašpar

Art Against the Mainstream

Štěpán Folget

Biological Psychiatry

Aleksa Petković

Categories of Political Science

Gosha Evlanov

Contagion: infectious disease and society

Jana Lohrova

Cross-cultural studies 101

Mwika Kiarie

Defending Human Rights

Mirek Crha

Medicine

Soňa Feciskaninová

Neuronal Biophysics

Sara Banovska

Positive psychology

Laura Opletalová

Sound, music, and science

Sol Johansen

Surveillance capitalism

Vašek Šmatera

Sustainable design

Mariana Ochodková

Theory of General Relativity

Bohdan Glisevic