About The Myelin Muse Project
The Myelin Muse Project:
The project begins with the chemical sounds of Myelin sheathing, and invites musicians, poets, and artists to improvise over it creating a fascinating musical interaction between modern music and the fundamental sounds of the Human body. The Myelin Muse project began with the collaboration between Jean Claude Jones and Andy Shipway to create the Myelin sequence. Over the past four years, well-known Israeli musicians, including Jean Claude himself, were invited to play improvised music with and in response to the fragmenting shape of the sheath.
The project continues to expand and is now actively seeking contributions from performing artists from all around the world.

How the myelin sequence was created:
All molecular matter is constantly vibrating, bending and rotating. As sound is also made up of vibrations, the possibility exists to listen to the “sounds” created by the vibrations of the molecules.
Using a sophisticated computer simulation, the vibrations are slow them down by several orders of magnitude to bring them into the range of human hearing. As each molecule was allowed to move in the simulation, the total potential energy of the system was constantly monitored. This wave was then normalized, time-stretched, and converted to a sound file.
Each of the naturally occurring amino acids was modeled. The differences between the sounds of the amino acids are striking, ranging greatly in volume, pitch, intensity, and depth.
In order to “listen” to a protein, the amino acids that make up the protein chain are strung together using music production software, to make a long piece that travels all the way along the protein sequence, with the distinct sound of each amino acid residue fading into the next.
Strings of amino acids are possibly the most fundamental engineering device in nature, giving rise to both structural and functional materials and molecules. Myelin sheathing around nerves acts as an insulator for the communications of the nervous system, and is extremely important in the brain, spinal column, and nerves. Without it the nervous system becomes a cacophony of crossed wires and bad message transmission, leading to serious medical disorders such as MS.

Contributors:
Jean Claude Jones, an internationally known bassist, a pioneer of the Israeli jazz scene, and former head of the Jazz Department at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, was formally diagnosed with MS ten years ago.
Andy Shipway Ph.D. is a freelance chemist and musician. He began work on the Myelin project several years ago when he found himself with too much free time around a piece of very powerful quantum chemical modeling software and wanted to find out how the universe sounded.
Aaron Askanase is an Acupuncturist and Healer. He was diagnosed with MS in 1996, and has been exploring the spiritual aspects healing and illness ever since.