Jakob Kobal: Harmony of the worlds of music and science
On Friday, July 5, ASEF, in cooperation with the SILAQ Student Association and the Šentjošt Cultural Association, organized a special semi-scientific lecture as part of the ASEF Young Minds lecture series. In the last event of the series before the summer holidays, Jakob Kobal, musician, multimedia engineer and ASEF Junior Fellow 2022, presented his work.
Jakob attended the Ljubljana Conservatory of Music and Ballet as a classical accordion student. While attending the conservatory, he began studying multimedia at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and the Faculty of Computer Science and Informatics in Ljubljana. Eager to explore the intersection of music and science, he completed his studies in December 2021 with the defense of his thesis entitled “Recognition of fundamental frequencies in a chord”, for which he received the highest possible grade. In his thesis, he developed his own algorithm for chord recognition from audio recordings and described its development and implementation.
Where is Jakob today? Immediately after graduating from high school, Jakob dedicated himself to studying music at the prestigious Berklee College in Boston, where he continues to expand his musical horizons. Jakob is exploring all the possibilities of playing the accordion in different ensembles and genres, including jazz, folk, classical, “gypsy” and tango. He looks forward to new experiences playing and making music with the many outstanding musicians in and around Boston. The rich musical environment offers him tremendous opportunities to play with great musicians, for which he is extremely grateful. And his accordion can be heard in high quality musical productions. Listen to Ballerina and Reaching Out (links to Spotify).
The young musician can be proud of his collaborations with great musicians, for which he is extremely grateful. The rich musical environment in which he lives offers him such opportunities. Among his most notable performances were with Marc Pignataro and his septet at the prestigious Regattabar Jazz Club, with the Boston Civic Symphony and soloist Allison Eldridge at the New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall, and with the Formas String Quartet. You can listen to his favorite concert at the following link.
At Friday’s event, we first learned what sound is through a mathematical explanation that understands sound as mechanical air waves, a periodic signal that sounds and can be written as the sum of several ordinary sines of different frequencies. We then learned about the process of developing his algorithm for recognizing chords from sound recordings, which was developed out of a desire to ensure that even those without absolute pitch could recognize what tone they were hearing. In doing so, Jakob addressed the problems of higher harmonics, aliquots, room acoustics and distortions, and the complete imperfection of acoustic instruments. When he applied his algorithm to recordings of 100 different consonances, he found that the program produced better results on the organ than on the piano, because the piano’s amplitude spectrum is more complex.
The event ended with a physics, math and music debate with the audience, followed by Jakob’s accordion performance and a feast with a wide variety of local delicacies. Finally, Jakob thanked his family for their support and the ASEF Institute for helping him realize his dream, which he greatly appreciates. He invited everyone to his next solo concert, which will take place on 27 July at the Church of St. Jošt in Šentjošt. The Institute would like to thank his fellow citizens (SILAQ Student Association and Šentjošt Cultural Association) for their successful cooperation, organization of the event and photography.
The event was coordinated by Luka Petravić, ASEF Junior Fellow 2023.
The ASEF Young Minds project is supported by the Office of the Republic of Slovenia for Youth and the Government Office for Slovenians Abroad.