Scope and Content of Collection
Biography
Separated Materials
Title: Elizabeth Cohen Collection
Identifier/Call Number: MS.343
Contributing Institution:
University of California, Santa Cruz
Language of Material:
English
Physical Description:
6.0 containers
(1) box, documents; (1) box, T-shirts; (1) box, realia; (3) items, over-sized realia
Date (bulk): Bulk, 1977-1991
Date (inclusive): 1948 - 2010
creator:
Cohen, Elizabeth, (Elizabeth A.)
creator:
Hart, Mickey
creator:
Weir, Bob, 1947-
Scope and Content of Collection
This collection comprises documents, apparel, musical instruments, and equipment used in, or acquired during, Elizabeth Cohen's
work with Grateful Dead band members Bob Weir and Mickey Hart on various projects.
Biography
Dr. Elizabeth Cohen is a physicist who specializes in acoustics. As an undergraduate at Bennington College in Vermont she
combined her interest in music and physics, earning degrees in both fields in 1975. She earned her master’s degree in electrical
engineering at Stanford after completing a two-year program at Bell Labs, going on to earn her PhD in acoustics from Stanford.
She retired as a professor of Film and Information studies at UCLA, where she also served as a board member of UCLA's Moving
Image Preservation Program. In addition to her academic appointments at Stanford and UCLA, she founded her own consulting
firm, Cohen Acoustical, in 1981, working with an array of clients including the Hollywood Bowl, Dolby Laboratories, and the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. She served as the president of the Audio Engineering Society and was an engineering
fellow to the White House National Economic Council. Her work with the Grateful Dead included research with Bob Weir to develop
an electric guitar, a collaboration that resulted in a coauthored article, "The Influence of Signal Processing Devices on
the Timbre Perception of Electrical Guitars," published in the Journal of Guitar Acoustics, no. 6 (1982). She went on to work
with Mickey Hart and UC Santa Cruz music professor Fredric Lieberman on several projects relating to drumming, percussion
and rhythm, which informed the books Drumming at the Edge of Magic (1990), Planet Drum (1991), and Spirit into Sound (1999).
As one journalist observed, "The effusive Cohen speaks about acoustical technology with a fervor approaching evangelism" (Karen
Kaplan, “The Sounds Inside Our Heads,” Los Angeles Times, July 14, 1997).
Separated Materials
(2) backstage passes, Grateful Dead at Madison Square Garden, Sept. 12, 1991, removed and filed with MS350, Deadhead Contributions,
Backstage Passes.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Grateful Dead (Musical group)