((( upcoming )))

PHD DEFENSE: BRAIN DYNAMICS DURING MUSIC IMPROVISATION, 4/8/25 @ 3:15pm, CCRMA STAGE, STANFORD, USA

From having conversations to playing sports, humans improvise often in daily life. For researchers, music improvisation provides a window into the creative process and social coordination in real-time, revealing the extraordinary capability of the human mind and its underpinning physiology. What happens in the brain when we improvise musically? Furthermore, how do improvisers manage the simultaneous demands of playing an instrument, coming up with new ideas, and listening to other musicians, all in millisecond timescales?

I will discuss three research projects investigating brain dynamics during music improvisation in solo, duet, and group contexts. The first describes Pauline Oliveros’ 1973 experiment, the Meditation Project, where she investigated the cognitive and behavioral effects of meditation and music improvisation over a 10-week class. I will present the digitization and analysis of her paper electroencephalography (EEG) data. The second project was designed as a modern follow-up study using EEG to look at attention, engagement, and creative ideation during an adapted Sonic Meditation by Oliveros. The third project investigates neural activity during piano duet improvisation versus score playing. I will explain how brain dynamics change depending on creative freedom and musical role. These studies reveal fundamental aspects of musical creativity in the mind, illuminating how musicians pay attention to an evolving musical context while coming up with new material and performing it in the moment.

projects

THe art of Falling

Composed for Manuela Freua (soprano) and myself (guitar). Video editing and videography in Half Moon Bay by Susana Canales Barrón. Manuela and I recorded it at The TANK Center for Sonic Arts in Rangely, Colorado on May 9, 2024. Audio Recording by Michael Van Wagoner and Samantha Wade. Videography at The TANK by Caleb Wiley.

The live performance premiered at The TANK on May 9, 2024, followed by another performance at the CCRMA Stage, Stanford on May 18, 2024 (with different reverb).

The video was shown at the CCRMA Stage, Stanford on February 14, 2025 and will be shown at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music on March 8, 2025.

Elephant Ears on the Brain

In June 2023, I had the opportunity to collaborate with Elefantöra ensemble (Sayam Chortip, Ewe Larsson, Joel Mansour) in Sweden to create a new piece exploring heartbeats, brainwaves, and breath, as part of ShareMusic & Performing Arts’ TechLab residency series with Stanford. I brought 2 EEG headsets and 3 stethophones, and through experimentation and improvisation, Elefantöra and I crafted a new piece together, Elephant Ears on the Brain.

The piece premiered on June 15, 2023 at the Sound and Music Computing (SMC) conference at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, with Sayam and Joel livestreamed via JackTrip from Gothenburg (more info here).

Elefantöra subsequently performed the piece during their hour-long show at the Freja Funkfestival in Spira Culture Centre, Jönköping, Sweden (watch the full concert here, my piece begins at 45:41).

Guitar Flight

final project for Music 220B: Compositional Algorithms, Psychoacoustics, and Computational Music, taught by Ge Wang @ Stanford University, Winter 2022

This 8-channel improvisation utilizes two separate feedback delay networks coded in ChucK. I enjoyed playing the guitar more than my controller, which took a back seat. There are many more settings I could work with, so the system has a lot of possibilities.

BLACK BONES

Black Bones (2021) is a dance performance created by Bri Peet for completion of Stanford University's Honors in the Arts program. Music was written and performed by Barbara Nerness (electronics) and Seth Parker Woods (cello). Videography by Charlie Nordstrom. Featuring the voices of McKinley Willis, Caleb Dowden, Runako Campbell, Sierra Jones.

Black Bones is a dance performance focused on the lived experiences of Black women in the professional dance industry. Through a series of interviews with Black professional female dancers, Bri discussed the hardships of practicing art within a discipline whose foundations have been molded and reinforced to reject their bodies. Bri used the language from the interviews to craft a soundscape with the help of her sound designer Barbara Nerness, and she choreographed a 10 minute long work in response. Watch Bri talk about making the work.

Completed during the COVID-19 pandemic and released online on May 21, 2021.

alkimiya transfer

Selected works:

10-23 (Stand-by)

10-23 (Stand-by) is a subconscious reflection of an internal space; a mirror to the cognitive dissonance of 2020. In its newest iteration adapted for the CineChamber, 2-dimensional forms produced using Zoom, Snap Camera, and video feedback are liberated from a singular screen-space to create an immersive audiovisual experience.

The piece was shown at Gray Area in San Francisco on August 18 & 19, 2021 for Recombinant Media Labs (RML) Incubator Series, utilizing the immersive CineChamber system. The CineChamber consists of 10 screens, 8 speakers & subs, and a raised floor with transducers. You can watch a 360 recording from inside the space below.

Code 6: Responding from a Long Distance

Code 6: Responding from a Long Distance aims to diagram the historical injustice within the American criminal justice system through an amalgamation of electroacoustic processes, including instruments, objects, and surveillance tools while utilizing fundamental voices integral to the fight for human rights across time. The perspectives of contemporary and historical Black civil rights activists including Angela Davis, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Junior support the inequalities outlined in the poem, Distributive Justice, by artist and activist Kenneth Reams, who has been living in solitary confinement for over 30 years. Real-time police broadcasts from Minneapolis and Louisville further frame contemporary field recordings from Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 that call for the dismantling of systemic racism ignited by the murder of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. The sustained violent response of police and federal government, highlight the critical need for the redistribution of resources and state power accumulated within the American criminal justice system. We hope to leave you questioning who is afforded the right to justice and why.

The piece premiered at Gray Area’s online event, Patch Pulse: Bathing & Alkimiya Transfer, on August 28, 2020. Watch a video below of the performance.

We performed it again in 2020 for CCRMA@HOME (livestream), and in 2022 at Carnival: A Festival for Black Art at Stanford and Sonorities Festival in Belfast, Ireland.

417: Disturbance

Through the incorporation of live streamed police scanner communications, 417 attempts to create a sonic experience structured around the observation of real-time events exploring themes of surveillance and darkness with electronic and analog sounds. Using 5th order ambisonics and custom interfaces, the duo creates immersive soundscapes illuminating the myriad technologies that are listening to and watching us. 417 is the Alameda County police code for “Disturbance”.

Live improvisations (instruments & electronics)

STETHOPhONE

The stethophone pulls from a rich history of research on bio-sensors, embodied cognition, and the body as instrument. Stethophone is the name for my hacked stethoscope, which allows the capture of heartbeat and other bodily sounds at a very low cost (~$6). In Fall 2019, high school student Anika Fuloria began helping with further development, which now utilizes a pulse sensor ($25) + Arduino. I’ve also added visual feedback for use with musicians in live settings. For full documentation, visit this page created by Anika!

embody

embody premiered on May 31st, 2019 at Bing Concert Hall, Stanford

It was screened online in 2020 at the New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME) conference and the Sigma Xi STEM Art and Film Festival, where the stethophone project won the Best Performing Art Award!

embody is a piece for live performers using stethophones (stethoscope microphones), which I have created from hacked stethoscopes, in order to amplify the heartbeat and voice in the chest or vocal tract. The motivation came from my exploration of the sounds trapped within my body, such as my heartbeat and the resonance of my voice in my vocal tract or chest. Is it possible to record our voice as we hear it in our head?

On the surface, embody asks the questions: “What if the ocean had a heart? What if machines could speak?” In some sense, the ocean does have a pulse through tides and machines do make noise, we just do not understand them as human. In the piece, sounds of the natural and built environment are anthropomorphized using the sounds inside the performers' bodies. On a technical level, the sounds were constructed using spectral convolution and envelope following, probing the spectral overlap of our bodies with sounds external to us.

The piece includes sounds from two field recording sessions; one at the beach in Pescadero, California and another on a tour through the Stanford Energy Facility. The piece is spatialized in 3rd order Ambisonics to resemble a sonic body.

Performers - Michiko Theurer: stethophone; Julie Zhu: stethophone; me: live electronics and heartbeat

Video recorded by Dave Kerr; Audio recorded by Fernando Lopez-Lezcano

Installation: Doublevision

On view @ CCRMA, Stanford, January 9 - February 3rd, 2019

Inaugural piece for the Wall for AudioVisual Expression (WAVE)

Opening Reception and Talk on January 9th, 2019, 5:30 - 7pm (CCRMA Event)

Doublevision is a video installation that turns audio and movement into visuals. The visuals are created using the Synchronator, which turns audio into visuals by imitating old CRT television technology. Ambient sounds and movement also affect the visuals in real time, hence the name Doublevision. 

fff ensemble

fff ensemble is an interdisciplinary feminist improv collective dedicated to supporting collaboration in the Bay Area and beyond. fff formed in 2018 and is currently comprised of Clara Allison, Doğa Çavdir, Michele Cheng, Simona Fitcal, Julie Herndon, Tiffany Lin, Patricia Robinson, Stephanie Sherriff, Michiko Theurer, Katherine Whatley, Julie Zhu, and myself.

In 2021 we had the honor to share a virtual concert with Pamela Z. You can watch a recording below (starts at 8:24).

On January 26, 2019, we performed our first evening-length concert at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) at Stanford University. You can watch our opening improvisation below.

Audiovisual designs

created during Music 256A: Music, Computing, Design I: The Art of Design, taught by Ge Wang @ Stanford University, Autumn quarter, 2018

VIDEO INSTALLATIONs for kamuna 2018

@ ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, DE, August, 2018

Audiovisual installations by Barbara Nerness (visuals) and Benjamin Miller (audio) for KAMUNA 2018 on August 4th, 2018.

Audio is primarily bass, so unless you have a sub or some good headphones, you may not hear much when watching the video.

Audio was remixed from livestreamed performances by Lasse-Marc Riek, Lintu + Royk, KITeratur, and No Input Ensemble. Videography by Jürgen Galli.

Read about my experience interning at ZKM Karlsruhe in Summer 2018 as a Stanford Graduate Internship and Research Program in Germany Fellow!

relate

final project for Music 255: Sonic Crossroads, taught by Guillermo Galindo @ Stanford University, Spring 2018

Relate is an instrument, a composition, and a performance. The instrument is made out of a Leap motion controller and programmed in Max/MSP using the granular synthesis patch from Wekinator. Additional drones were created using FM synthesis in ChucK.

Resist

an intermedia performance piece, 2018

Resist is an audiovisual performance investigating surveillance, presence, and vulnerability of the body using found footage, Max/MSP, and voice. It utilizes helicopter surveillance footage from the 2015 Baltimore protests, which the FBI secretly took, and audio samples from protests around the world (found on freesound.org). The audio is spatialized in 5th order ambisonics.

Resist premiered at the CCRMA Transitions Concert in 2018, and has been performed at the CCRMA Open House, Mills College, and UC San Diego.

Performed at the CCRMA Open House on the CCRMA Stage (Stanford University), March 2, 2018. Video documentation by Dave Kerr.

Final Project Performance for Intermedia Workshop class at CCRMA stage (Stanford University), March 15th, 2018. Video documentation by Dave Kerr.

sound

SOLO GUITAR

This piece was recorded in October 2013 at The Integratron, an acoustically shaped dome, in Landers, California. Movement II was released in Issue No. 5: Field Guide by Mudthroat Records.

Karte Kinski

Karte Kinski was a four-piece band led by myself. We formed in 2011, performed around the SF Bay Area throughout 2012, and recorded an album in January 2013. You can listen below and buy cassettes or CDs over on bandcamp!

An earlier version of Adam was released in Issue No. 5: Field Guide by Mudthroat Records.

Photography

analog & digital

Crux Magazine, Issue 01 (6 photos), Oakland, 2017 

Life Framer Alternative Lives Exhibition, Menier Gallery, London, 2013

Album cover/art for Karte Kinski's Here Is How, Oakland, 2013

Cal Literature & Arts Magazine, Volume XV, Fall 2009

Cal Literature & Arts Magazine, Volume XIII, Fall 2007

Cal Literature & Arts Magazine, Volume XII, Spring 2007

ABOUT

Barbara Nerness is an artist, researcher, and PhD candidate at Stanford University's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA). She is also pursuing a certificate in Composition, a program that she started for CCRMA PhDs to participate in DMA Composition coursework and residencies. Her research focuses on brain dynamics measured by EEG during music improvisation, and she also writes, performs, and improvises her own multichannel music inspired by sounds of the body (heartbeat, breath, brainwaves). Barbara also enjoys collaborating with other artists, especially projects investigating the body, surveillance, and technological subversion. In 2019, the Stanford Department of Music awarded her the Carolyn Applebaum Memorial Prize for “helping to engender a robust and engaged arts community”. She has performed at venues throughout the Bay Area and Los Angeles, as well as the Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York, ZKM (Center for Art and Media), Germany, and the Sonic Arts Research Centre (SARC), Ireland. She holds an M.A. in Music, Science, and Technology from Stanford University and a B.A. in Mathematics from UC Berkeley.

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(( PAST ))

2025

2024

2023

THRUU @ Upper market Gallery, 11/21/23, San francisco, USA

• Live improvisation with Julie Zhu featuring stretched samples, heartbeats, and electronics

CCRMA Transitions Concert #1, 10/5/23, Stanford, USA

• Community Dialogue (inspired by Pauline Oliveros’ Environmental Dialogue)

International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition (ICMPC), 8/25/23, Tokyo, Japan

• Scientific Talk: Alpha Power Dynamics during Guided Meditation with Humming and Imagery Inspired by Pauline Oliveros’ Sonic Meditations

Freja Funkfestival at Spira Culture Centre, 6/17/23, Jönköping, Sweden 

• Elephant Ears on the Brain (composed in collaboration with Elefantöra ensemble, performed by Elefantöra ensemble) 

• watch the full performance here (begins at 45:41)

Sound and Music Computing (SMC) Conference, 6/15/23, Stockholm, Sweden

• Community Dialogue (inspired by Pauline Oliveros’ Environmental Dialogue)

• Elephant Ears on the Brain (composed in collaboration with Elefantöra ensemble, performed by Elefantöra) 

Centering Disability in Online Musical Experiences, 3/9/23, CCRMA, Stanford, USA

• Panelist and guest performer

Music 222 Guest Lecture, 2/6/23, Stanford, USA

• Talk: Continua in Natasha Barrett’s The Umbrella

Music 101 Guest Lecture, 1/25/23, Stanford, USA

• Talk: Pauline Oliveros, Sonic Meditations, and EEG

2022

CCRMA Open House, 10/21/22, Stanford, usa

• Scientific Talk: Pauline Oliveros’s Investigations Into the Effects of Sonic Meditations on Behavior and Neurophysiology

CCRMA Transitions Concert #2, 10/8/22, Stanford, USA

• Premiere of a new piece by Alkmiya Transfer

Carnival: A Festival for Black Art, 5/22/22, Dinkelspiel Auditorium, Stanford, USA

• Live performance by Alkimiya Transfer of Code 6: Responding from a Long Distance

UCSD Graduate Music Composition Department, 5/3/22, San Diego, USA

• Artist Talk: The Sound of the Body in Resistance

Music Composition Forum, 4/29/22, CCRMA Stage, Stanford, USA

• Artist Talk: The Sound of the Body in Resistance

CCRMAlite Spring Concert #1, 4/21/22, CCRMA Stage, Stanford, USA

• Live electronics improvisation by Alkimiya Transfer

CCRMA @ CNMAT, 4/15/22, Berkeley, USA

• Artist Talk: The Sound of the Body in Resistance for the UC Berkeley Graduate Composition Program

• Live performance by Alkimiya Transfer: Code 6: Responding from a Long Distance & Liquēre

Sonorities Festival, Sonic Arts Research Lab (SARC), 4/11/22, Belfast, Ireland

• Live performance by Alkimiya Transfer of Code 6: Responding from a Long Distance (recording)

2021

INTERMINACY: Tom Djill, Tim Perkis, & Gino Robair + Alkimiya Transfer, 12/15/21, Adobe Books, San Francisco, USA

• Live electronics improvisation with Alkimiya Transfer, called 10-91B: Animal, noisy

Sankofa Concert: Healing, Reflection, and Renewal, 10/10/21, Memorial Church, Stanford, USA

• Premiere of Liquēre by Alkimiya Transfer

RML Incubator Series, 8/18-8/19/21, CineChamber at Gray Area, San Francisco, USA

• 10-23 (Stand-by) by Alkimiya Transfer, adapted for the CineChamber (10 screens, 8 speakers)

International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition (ICMPC), 7/30/21, virtual

• Scientific Talk: Pauline Oliveros’s Investigations Into the Effects of Sonic Meditations on Behavior and Neurophysiology (recording)

Quarantine Session #60 (LIVESTREAM), 7/25/21

• Live electronics improvisation by Alkimiya Transfer (San Francisco, USA) with Quarantine Session core: Constantin Basica (Palo Alto, CA), Chris Chafe (Woodside, CA), Henrik von Coler (Berlin, DE), Fernando Lopez-Lezcano (San Carlos, CA), Juan Parra (Ghent, BE), Klaus Scheuermann (Berlin, DE)  

Neurosciences and Music VII Conference, 6/21/21, virtual

• Poster: Neural alpha oscillations during turn-taking piano duet index creative thinking and engagement to the partner’s action

Pamela Z + fff ensemble (livestream), 3/19/21

• Premiere of ffface by Clara Allison for fff ensemble, and live electroacoustic improvisation

• watch the live recording

CCRMA@HOME (livestream), 3/6/21

• Premiere of 10-23 (Stand-by) by Alkimiya Transfer

2020

2019

2018