Independent Research Initiative

About Isophonia

Isophonia is an independent research initiative dedicated to understanding how musical thought becomes acoustic reality and how acoustic reality becomes musical experience.

Purpose

Reconnecting the elements of musical performance

Musical performance is often studied through separate disciplines: acoustics, biomechanics, neuroscience, psychology, pedagogy and instrument making.

Each of these fields describes one part of a larger process. Isophonia starts from one conviction: musical performance becomes intelligible once these perspectives are reconnected within a single framework.

Its research examines the complete chain of transformations linking a musician’s imagined sound, bodily movement, mechanical energy, the acoustic behaviour of the bow and instrument, auditory perception and the listener’s musical experience.

Approach

From musical intention to musical experience

Isophonia treats performance as one continuous process.

The musical intention is organised through movement. Movement produces mechanical energy. The bow and instrument transform that energy into an acoustic signal. The signal is then perceived, interpreted and reconstructed by the listener as a musical experience.

Understanding this sequence requires dialogue between scientific research, musical practice, instrument making and direct observation of performers.

Fields of Inquiry

Musical thought

How performers imagine phrasing, colour, articulation, tension and musical direction before these qualities become sound.

Movement and biomechanics

How the body organises movement and transforms intention into controlled mechanical energy.

Acoustic behaviour

How the bow and instrument encode, transmit and transform the mechanical actions of the performer.

Perception

How acoustic information is interpreted and reconstructed by performers and listeners.

Learning

How auditory intention, sensory feedback and motor organisation develop through musical education and practice.

Instrument making

How materials, structures and design choices influence the relationship between movement and sound.

Founder

Gilles Saurais

Gilles Saurais directs the JF Daber bow workshop in Lyon, France, where he leads research and development.

Over the past two decades, he has developed an independent research programme exploring how musical thought is transformed into acoustic reality through movement, the bow and the instrument. Reviewing his book in October 2026, Diapason described him as a bow maker and researcher.

Bringing together acoustics, biomechanics, perception and instrument making, Isophonia provides the interdisciplinary framework through which this research is pursued and shared.

Lectures and Press

Sharing the research

Lectures and masterclasses

Gilles Saurais presents this research to teachers, students and instrument makers through lectures, masterclasses and comparative bow sessions. He has spoken at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and the Xi’an Conservatory of Music (May 2026), in Berlin at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler (November 2025) and the Bach-Gymnasium (January 2020), at the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music in Riga (November 2024 and March 2026), the Sichuan Conservatory of Music in Chengdu, the Xinghai Conservatory of Music in Guangzhou, and in Singapore.

Shanghai Conservatory of Music poster for the masterclass by Gilles Saurais, 27 May 2026 — Shanghai Conservatory of Music, 27 May 2026. Expert class for strings, Fenyang Road campus, organised by the Orchestra Academy and the Department of Orchestral Instruments.

Xi'an Conservatory of Music poster for the lecture by Gilles Saurais, 29 May 2026 — Xi’an Conservatory of Music, 29 May 2026. Lecture “On the relationship between the bow, posture and sound”, part of the conservatory’s 2026 International Academic Exchange Series.

In the press

Diapason, no. 759, October 2026. Review of L’archet, au cœur de l’acoustique, du geste et de la pédagogie by Elsa de Lacerda. See Books.

M Le magazine du Monde, November 2025. « L’archet qui épuise la forêt brésilienne », by Marine Bourrier: the pernambuco crisis and the search for alternatives, featuring the JF Daber workshop.

La Presse (Montréal), 28 November 2025. « Fabrication d’archets : sauver l’arbre ou la tradition ? », by Philippe Teisceira-Lessard.

La Lettre du Musicien, September 2026. Presentation of the book.

Practice

Research grounded in practice

Isophonia's work starts in the workshop and the teaching studio, and develops through experimentation, observation, collaboration and dialogue across disciplines.

Its purpose is to formulate useful questions, build testable models and connect forms of knowledge that have grown apart.

Explore the Research Contact Isophonia