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Neural Architecture of Timbral Form: Mapping Saariaho's Six Japanese Gardens onto the Brain's Auditory Segmentation Network

20 November 2025

Timbral cognition as structural architecture: how Saariaho's Six Japanese Gardens maps onto the auditory segmentation network, and what that implies for treating timbre as form rather than colour.


An analysis of Kaija Saariaho’s Six Japanese Gardens that treats timbral organisation as structural architecture rather than surface colour, mapping the work’s segmentation onto the brain’s auditory segmentation network.

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