New Technology Turns Brainwaves into Music

According to a report by The BBC, a program now exists that uses a brain-wave sensing headset to dictate a musical composition.

"We took the brief of 'take any data and turn it into art' and decided that an interesting source of data would be to actually scan people's brains," said Adam William, the system's programmer.

Williams and his collaborators, Robert Wollner and Alex Wakeman, debuted the system, called Soul Filter, at Art Hack, which is organized by the company 3beard. The event brings together the London's start-up community.

According to Williams, the headset takes the raw electrical impulses that the person's brain signals through the headset, and the data goes into a computer. A set of formulas calculates how excited, meditative, frustrated or engaged the person is. Those measures are used to generate music and visuals.

In The BBC's video, the programmer's father takes a turn using the machine.

"We wanted to do something where you literally couldn't have any of that sort of false pretense to it," Williams said. "Get rid of all of the stuff where people might lie about their music tastes or pretend they like things that they don't.... literally take what is actively engaging to their brain, so that other people can see art."

Check out The BBC's video here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23904077

What do you think of this new technology? What sort of music do you think your brain would create?