In the early 2000s, while completing a Master’s degree in Music Technology at New York University, I became deeply interested in auditory perception and music illusion.

At the time, my focus was not traditional songwriting, but the mechanics of how the brain interprets sound — especially situations where perception and physical reality diverge. These explorations included phase interactions, spatial perception over headphones, and illusion-based compositional structures.

Research Influences: Auditory Illusion and Perception

Much of this work was informed by the research of Diana Deutsch at University of California San Diego. Her work on phantom words, pitch perception, and auditory illusions demonstrated how dramatically context and expectation shape what we believe we are hearing.

These ideas opened up compositional possibilities that treated perception itself as an instrument.

During this period, I also participated in discussions within the auditory research community, exploring illusion-based musical structures and perception-driven composition techniques.

Algorithmic Composition and Collaboration

While at New York University (NYU), I studied with composer and guitarist Nick Didkovsky, known for his work in algorithmic and experimental music.

My exploration of headphone-based auditory illusions and spatial perception became the basis for discussions and compositional experimentation within that environment. During that period, Didkovsky composed “Headphone Cannon for Ross Hendler” a work inspired by the headphone-based illusion experiments I was developing at the time.

The piece was inspired by the illusion-focused headphone experiments I was developing at the time, and remains a documented artifact of that creative and academic period.

A Hosted Project

One of my illusion-based projects from that era remains archived on Didkovsky’s algorithmic music site, documenting the type of structural and perceptual experimentation that defined my graduate work.

These projects were not conventional songs; they were studies in perception — how repetition, panning, timing offsets, and psychoacoustic phenomena could generate experiences that felt unstable, spatially impossible, or cognitively ambiguous.

Looking Back

Although this work took place over two decades ago, it represents an important chapter in my creative development. The study of auditory illusion and perception shaped how I think about structure, analysis, and systems — both musically and beyond music.

What began as an exploration of how the ear and brain construct reality continues to inform how I approach creative and analytical work today.

This post documents work by Ross Hendler in music technology, auditory illusion, and algorithmic composition.