Ringvorlesungen

What makes us musical animals
Vortragsfolien (PDF)
 

Abstract

Over the years it has become clear that all humans share a predisposition for music, just like we all have a capacity for language. This view is supported by a growing body of research ranging from the pioneering work of developmental psychologists Sandra Trehub and Laurel Trainor to that of neuroscientists such as Isabelle Peretz and Robert Zatorre. These studies also indicate that our capacity for music has an intimate relationship with our cognition and underlying biology, which is particularly clear when the focus is on perception rather than production.
Until relatively recently most scholars were wary of the notion that music cognition could have a biological basis. Instead music was viewed as a cultural product with no evolutionary history and no biological constraints on its manifestation. Such a view is indicative of a Western perspective on music, in which music is viewed as the preserve of professional musicians who have honed their skills through years of practise. Obviously, such notions do not fit the presence of music in all cultures and time periods, let alone other species. Rather than being something special or reserved for highly-trained individuals, there is increasing evidence that all humans share a predisposition for music in the form of musicality – defined as a spontaneous developing set of traits based on and constraint by our cognitive abilities and their underlying biology [1]. To recognise a melody and perceive the beat of music are trivial skills for most humans, but at the same time fundamental features of our musicality. Even infants and young children are already sensitive to such features, which are common across cultures. Though we are learning more and more about our own musical skills, the cognitive and biological mechanisms underlying musicality remain unclear.
In this presentation I aim to decompose the constituent components of musicality (using a ‘divide and conquer’ strategy) by focussing on one feature that has attracted considerable discussion in the recent literature: beat induction. I will discuss our recent findings in humans (adults and newborn infants; [2,3]), nonhuman primates [4,5], and avian species [6,7] using a comparative approach.

1.   Honing H, ten Cate C, Peretz I, Trehub SE (2015) Without it no music: cognition, biology and evolution of musicality. Philos Trans R Soc London B Biol Sci 370: 20140088. doi:10.1098/rstb.2014.0088.

2.   Winkler I, Háden GP, Ladinig O, Sziller I, Honing H (2009) Newborn infants detect the beat in music. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 106: 2468–2471. doi:10.1073/pnas.0809035106.

3.   Honing H (2012) Without it no music: beat induction as a fundamental musical trait. Ann N Y Acad Sci 1252: 85–91. doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.2011.06402.x.

4.   Merchant H, Honing H (2014) Are non-human primates capable of rhythmic entrainment? Evidence for the gradual audiomotor evolution hypothesis. Front Audit Cogn Neurosci 7: 1–8. doi:10.3389/fnins.2013.00274.

5.   Honing H, Merchant H, Háden GP, Prado L, Bartolo R (2012) Rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) detect rhythmic groups in music, but not the beat. PLoS One 7: 1–10. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0051369.

6.   van der Aa J, Honing H, ten Cate C (2015) The perception of regularity in an isochronous stimulus in zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) and humans. Behav Processes 115: 37–45. doi:10.1016/j.beproc.2015.02.018.

7.   ten Cate C, Spierings M, Hubert J, Honing H (2016) Can birds perceive rhythmic patterns? A review and experiments on a songbird and a parrot species. Front Psychol 7: 1–14. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00730.

Daniela Sammler (Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig)

Abstract

Over the past 20 years, research on the neurocognition of music has gained a lot of insights into how the brain perceives music. Yet, our knowledge about the neural mechanisms of music production remains sparse. One aspect that has been studied particularly well in perception is musical syntax, i.e. the processing of harmonic rules in the auditory signal. The present talk will demonstrate that the notion of syntax not only applies to the auditory modality but transfers – in trained musicians – to a “grammar of musical action”. I will present a series of neuroimaging experiments that show (i) that the performance of musicians is guided by their music-syntactic knowledge – irrespective of sounds, (ii) that syntax takes priority over the selection of finger movements during piano performance, (iii) that training style (classical vs. Jazz) has an impact on syntactic motor planning, and (iv) that syntax perception and production in music overlap partly – but not fully – in the musician’s brain. Altogether, these results show how strongly musicians rely on syntax as a scaffolding that facilitates their performance and enables them to achieve the motoric proficiency that is required on stage.

01.11.2016

Subhendu Ghosh (Hindustani Classical vocalist, dramatist, music director, cultural and social activist)

see note (*) below

Abstract
In the backdrop of South Asian Classical Musical tradition fractured by partition it is interesting to understand the historical dynamics of the Music of Bengal in post 1947 period. By music I mean music as a whole that includes mainly folk music and also classical, semi-classical, modern and popular music. In the musical tradition of Bengal an important landmark is Lalan Fakir who is known as the Guru of all the Bauls. Bauls are known to be not only musicians but also the practicing philosophers. The tradition of Bauls had a remarkable impact on the post Lalan music history of Bengal, e.g. Rabindra Sangeet (the songs of Tagore). In addition to Baul, the music, which is deep in the heart of Bengal, is Bhatiali, the music of the boatmen, quite often full of sorrow. A twentieth century legend of Bengali poetry and music Kazi Nazrul Islam, known as Vidrohi Kavi or the revolutionary poet, very beautifully integrated Bhatiali, Baul and Classical/ Semi-Classical music in his songs, which has set a new tradition of popular music in Bengal. During the pre-partition colonial Bengal there were a number of poets cum music composers who gave popular songs with flavours of classical and folk music.

When British Government divided Bengal in 1905, the intelligentsia took to the streets. People like Rabindranath Tagore sang against the division of Bengal and the poetry and music as described above kept different religious communities together. In 1947 the partition of Bengal added to the discomfort of people from both eastern and western parts. Despite the fact that East Bengal remains politically separated from the west (Bengal) it has been successful in upholding the Musical Heritage, the traditions of Bauls, Bhatali and other imbibed Classical, Semi-Classical music. In this paper I am going to discuss how the people of Bengal have achieved this.

_____________

* N.B.: This event is part of the "Structure, Culture, and Cognition in Cross-Cultural Music Research" workshop, the full schedule of which you can find here

Abstract
In contrast to language, much of the music made around the world is designed to support and accompany periodic bodily movements - dance.  In a more metaphoric sense, music is also exceptional in that it "moves us" emotionally.  I will explore this topic from comparative, neurological and computational perspectives, concluding that music is specialized to engage the predictive component of our brains at both the obvious level of physical movement (dance, marching, working) but also at the level of our cognition and emotions (by evoking "aesthetic trajectories" that map onto more abstract dynamic components of cognition).  I will end by addressing the long-running debate concerning whether music is an adaptation from this perspective, concluded that this question needs to be reformulated if it is to lead to any valuable insights.

Syntax in Music and Language: A Comparative Approach and Action-Oriented Perspective
Vortragsfolien (PDF)

Abstract

It is often claimed that music and language share a process of hierarchical structure building, a mental “syntax.” Although several lines of research point to commonalities, and possibly a shared syntactic component of music and language, differences between “language syntax” and “music syntax” can also be found at several levels: conveyed meaning and the atoms of combination, for example. Instead of comparing syntax in language and music some researchers have suggested a comparison between music and phonology (“phonological syntax”), but here too, one quickly arrives at a situation of intriguing similarities and obvious differences. In this talk, I suggest different comparative approach to go beyond such a shared/distinct dichotomy in comparing language and musical “syntax” and “phonology”. First, I show that the similarity of syntax in music and language lies in the fact that hierarchically structured representations are mapped onto temporal sequences or vice versa, i.e. the problem of linearization and structure building. Second, I claim that a fruitful comparison between these two cognitive domains can benefit from taking action syntax, i.e. a grammar of action, into account. I will end with an application of the action-oriented perspective to music in the domain of rhythmic syntax, and conclude that research on rhythmic syntax – till now a neglected aspect of musical syntax – is necessary to reveal the mysterious relationship between music and language from a theoretical, psychological, neuroscientific, and evolutionary perspective.

_____________

* N.B.: Please note this talk replaces the originally-scheduled one by Elaine Chew, which the speaker has had to cancel due to personal reasons.

Iain Morley (University of Oxford)

__________

Björn Merker (independent scholar)

Without a song or a dance what are we? Multi-disciplinary approaches to the prehistory of music

__________

Our path to music and language: the vocal learning bottleneck and the powers of cultural transmission
Vortragsfolien (PDF)

Abstract (Iain Morley)

Archaeological evidence for musical activities pre-dates even the earliest-known cave art and no human culture has yet been encountered that does not practise some recognisably musical activity. Yet the human abilities to make and appreciate music have been described as “amongst the most mysterious with which [we are] endowed” (Charles Darwin, 1872) and music itself as “the supreme mystery of the science of man” (Claude Levi-Strauss, 1970).

Unlike the evolution of human language abilities, it is only recently that the origins of musical capacities have begun to receive dedicated attention, and much has remained mysterious about this ubiquitous human phenomenon, not least its prehistoric origins.

No single field of investigation can address the wide range of issues relevant to answering the question of music’s origins. This talk brings together evidence from a wide range of anthropological and human sciences, including palaeoanthropology, archaeology, neuroscience, primatology and developmental psychology, in an attempt to elucidate the nature of the foundations of music, how they have evolved, and how they are related to capabilities underlying other important human behaviours.

Biog: Dr Iain Morley researches the evolution of human cognition, and in particular the emergence of ‘modern’ human behaviours such as music, ritual, and imagery. His books include “The Prehistory of Music”, published by Oxford University Press in 2013, as well as “Becoming Human” (regarding the early evidence for ritual thought in the Palaeolithic) and “Image and Imagination” (looking at the prehistory of representational imagery), co-edited with Colin Renfrew.

He has carried out archaeological excavation work in Britain, Croatia, Moravia (Czech Republic), Italy, Greece and Libya; he is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and is based at the University of Oxford in the School of Anthropology & Museum Ethnography.

____________________________________________

Abstract (Bjorn Merker)

Imagine a population in which each member expresses their cognitive contents by means of strings of syllables, one string per content, randomly generated for each content, and independently so for each individual. There would, of course be utter and total mutual incomprension among members of such a population. Imagine then that someone told you that if each member of this population simply repeated what they heard and remembered of the incomprehensible utterances of others and repeated this to their offspring, the nonsense babbling of this population would over generations converge on a population-wide shared vocabulary and efficient grammar, and this without a trace of Darwinian selection or differential reinforcement of outcomes. You might think the claim to be preposterous, but you would be wrong, as demonstrated by computer simulations of just such populations of learning agents by Simon Kirby and colleagues at Edinburgh.

In my presentation I will explain the mechanism behind this apparently miraculous power of pure cultural transmission, and explore its implications for our conception of the origins of music and language. I will do so  by outlining how so called vocal production learning, a specialized capacity spottily distributed across the animal kingdom, supplies a mechanism for implementing the iterated learning paradigm in nature rather than in silico. Having done so, I will suggest that this paradigm explicating the formal powers of purely cultural transmission supplies the key to the consilience of the humanities and the natural sciences by disclosing the inner workings of cultural traditions.

N.B.: for more details of this event, please see English version of page

Abstract
There is increasing interest in music and empathy, and with the ways in which music can draw listeners and active participants into forms of engagement with one another. The idea of empathy originally arose in the context of visual art, to account for the ways in which observers can be drawn into the world of a work of art, but quickly developed into a powerful and more general psychological concept. The definition of empathy, however, remains controversial, and the frameworks that have been proposed to account for it range from neuroscience through psychology to sociology and cultural studies. In this lecture I explore the ways in which a broad concept of empathy might provide a fruitful way to understand how it is that listeners engage with the ‘virtual worlds’ that music affords, and what kind of extended musical consciousness they (and we) might experience.

Abstract
In this talk I will focus on the similarity of temporal structures in music and speech and the extent to which they may emerge from similar neural dynamics and repose on similar physical and neurophysiological principles. I will show that musical temporal structures can influence linguistic structures at several temporal scales and that experience with temporal structures also affects perception/production of speech. I will finish my talk by showing the implication of this approach in terms of language rehabilitation in different pathologies.

The audio-visual music performer: Intermodal interactions in evaluation processes
Vortragsfolien (PDF)

Abstract

The visual component of music performance as experienced in a live concert is of central importance for the appreciation of music performance. However, up until now the influence of the visual component on the audience’s evaluation of music performance has been investigated unsystematically.

I will start with some historical examples to demonstrate the visual modality as an integral part of music performance over centuries. Reports on concerts of famous virtuosos of the 19th century such as Franz Liszt are a comprehensive source. These descriptions raise two questions: First, how can the influence of the visual component on music evaluation processes be quantified? Second, which theoretical model could give an explanation for potential evaluation differences?

Musical examples from classical and popular music will demonstrate possible methods for providing an answer to both questions.  
Against the theoretical background of social interaction theory, I will finally argue that performance evaluation can only be understood as an interaction between expectations of audience’s sub-classes and observable behavior of groups of performers.  A model of music performance elaboration can be an alternative to models of musical communication.

“As time goes by” - Perception of tempo and time in music
Vortragsfolien (PDF)

Abstract

Starting point of the lecture is W. R. Talsma’s theory of a „metric“ interpretation of historical metronome marks. This theory postulates that today’s performances of compositions from the late 18th and early 19th centuries are wrong: fast movements are performed twice as fast as they were intended, because of a rapid change of time perception in the 19th century as a consequence of industrialization. This theory raises a lot of questions which will be discussed in the lecture. With respect to time perception in music, the question is whether changes in technical processes, in transport techniques etc. really changed tempo in music. If so, why was this change never discussed in books on music theory or musical practice? It can be shown that Talsma’s theory is wrong and that differences in the choice of tempi between performances of the 19th and 20th century derive from different interpretations of the expressive character of the compositions.

The second part of the lecture deals with experiments and theories on (musical) time perception. Not only conductors and performers of music can develop precise ideas of performance tempi and keep them in mind but also listeners, even if the music is unfamiliar to them. This corroborates theories of internal „clocks“ in the human brain, developed e.g. by Ernst Pöppel. However, other empirical data show strong contextual influences on time perception in music, especially on perception of rhythm and long term durations. The theory of embodied cognition links human thinking and emotions to bodily experiences and seems to be good framework for the explanation of phenomena in musical time perception.

Abstract

What makes our experience of music possible – and effortless – is an intricate puzzle of cognitive processes, involving a subtle interplay of what psychologists refer to as bottom-up and top-down components. The key concept of expectation can be construed at the centre of a complex feedback loop between these components, relaying information in both directions, and at different time scales. This framework holds not just for music we hear (an exogenous/bottom-up process) but also for music we create in our minds (endogenous/top-down).

One mode of acquiring musical knowledge is implicit learning, which gradually gets to shape our sensory preferences, e.g. for certain combinations of simultaneous notes over others (consonant over dissonant chords  – or indeed, in some contexts, vice-versa!), and also our unfolding expectations relating to e.g. what musical event might come next. These expectations form the core of a set of intuitions that have been formalised as models of musical structure, most notably Schenkerian analysis. Such models can inspire quantifiable predictions about the temporal nature of our expectation – for instance, with regards to the moment in time when we feel a piece is "beginning to end". The sum of these intuitions endows us with a template that on the one hand enables us to make sense of music that we hear; but equally, also to (re)create music in our own minds – a process known as musical imagery, which shares commonalities with music perception not only at the cognitive level (e.g. both can be conjectured to stem from a single generative model) but also at the neuronal level.

In this talk, I will describe three distinct studies from the Dresden Music Cognition Lab, that address – using behavioural and neuroimaging methods – individual elements of the expectation-mediated loop outlined above, namely (i) the (local) perception of consonance and dissonance; (ii) the (non-local) perception of hierarchical musical structures; and (iii) the role of harmonic function in imagined music. I will then attempt to integrate these findings into the larger questions of how expectation guides our listening and imagery of music, and how the brain is wired to make these processes run smoothly in the background.

Abstract
What is it about music that makes people want to move? And why does if feel so good? In this lecture, we will cover the musical, cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying pleasure from musical rhythm, with a focus on groove. Groove is psychologically defined as a musical quality associated with a pleasurable desire to move, and has been shown to affect both reward and motor functioning, in the body and the brain. We will learn about why certain kinds of rhythmic patterns - such as syncopations and off-beat rhythms - have such a powerful effect on us. Finally, we’ll consider the implications of the pleasure of rhythm for social interaction and discuss the potential evolutionary purpose of moving together in time.

28.04.
 

Jonna Vuoskoski
University of Oxford

The intriguing case of sad music
-> Folien zur Vorlesung

Zusammenfassung

Music has the ability to evoke powerful emotions in listeners and performers alike, and it has even been proposed that the expression and communication of emotion may be the most fundamental function of music. Although a fair amount of research has been carried out to investigate the psychological mechanisms underlying music-induced emotions, it is still somewhat of an enigma how an auditory stimulus without any explicit semantic meaning is able to move us to tears. This talk explores the fascinating phenomenon of music-induced emotions, and introduces theories that offer an account of the underlying psychological mechanisms. The second part of the talk will focus on the fascinating and paradoxical case of sad music. Can sad music evoke real sadness listeners? Why should listening to music make one sad? How can sadness be enjoyable in an aesthetic context? And why do only some people enjoy listening to sad music? These questions will be discussed in the light of prevalent theories and recent empirical evidence

05.05.

Richard Widdess
SOAS University of London

Cognitive Research and South Asian Music
Folien zur Vorlesung
Vorlesungstext

Vorlesungsmitschnitt vom 13.04.15

Zusammenfassung
 

While the meanings of music may be unique to a particular society, there is good reason to believe that the cognitive abilities involved in music are shared cross-culturally, even universally.  Indeed, such capacities are not necessarily restricted to music, but may also play their part in other domains of human behaviour and experience. Analysis of music thus takes us to the heart of human cognitive experience, and links music with other realms of cultural meaning such as social relationships or religious devotion. Taking examples from Indian classical music and sacred singing in Nepal, I’ll argue that processes of implicit learning enable musical structure to be learned; that recursive structure in music exploits the universal capacity for recursive thought, but may acquire culture-specific meanings; and that the structure of performance may articulate locally-defined cultural models, and at the same time generate the cross-culturally attested psychological state of “flow”

12.05

 

Ian Cross
University of Cambridge
 

The nature of music
-> Folien zur Vorlesung
 

Zusammenfassung
 

When we engage with music, we do so in culturally-appropriate ways.  In recent Western cultures, listening—consumption—has become privileged as the culturally-appropriate mode of engagement; and emotion or aesthetic experience as the proper forms of our response to music.  These conceptions have been the foci of most scientific research into our engagement with music.  Music is thus conceived of and investigated as a medium for presentation or display, reflecting or embodying abstract structures that we experience affectively or aesthetically.  But in many world cultures—including our own—music is an interactive, participatory medium that has many different social roles and cultural embeddings, and participation in music may have consequences that are not limited to the affective or aesthetic domains.  I shall suggest that by conceiving of music as a primary human mode of interaction, and by situating this idea within recent research on the human capacity for complex interaction, we can develop novel and effective approaches to exploring and understanding music and its functions in human life

19.05.

Fernando Bravo
TU Dresden

What can film-music reveal about human emotion?

Vorlesungsmitschnitt vom 19.05.15

Zusammenfassung
 

The analysis of music in audiovisual contexts provides a valuable framework in which to explore the links between musical structure and emotional response. Neuroscientific research on human emotion has predominantly used images as experimental stimuli. However, in recent years neuroscientists have found music to be a potentially helpful tool. This presentation will centre on the main outcomes of my doctoral research at Cambridge University, which investigated the effects of musical dissonance upon the emotional interpretation of visual information from cognitive and neuroscientific perspectives. Overall, this work demonstrated that the systematic manipulation of musical dissonance in controlled audiovisual paradigms could serve as a effective tool to identify and further investigate specific neurofunctional networks implicated in the appraisal of emotion and in theory of mind processing

02.06.

Rolf Bader
Universität Hamburg
 

Models and findings of synchronization in musical acoustics and music psychology

Zusammenfassung
 

I shall argue that "music" is most productively construed as a communicative medium that is cognate with, and complementary to, language in the form of speech; the behaviours, sounds and concepts that we can characterise as music and as speech reflect aspects of the human communicative toolkit that are optimised for somewhat different ends.  While we can think of speech as a deployment of communicative resources that can be used to change the information about states of affairs in the world shared between members of a culture, from an interactionist perspective music constitutes a deployment of similar communicative resources that can elicit the sense that each participant has the same awareness of the world and of each other.  This approach can help to clarify relationships between music and language, in the form of speech;  it can begin to resolve some of the implications of recent research that has shown aspects of music to have powerful effects on memory and social attitude; and its implication that music as a mode of interaction may possess humanly-generic properties provides us with new perspectives on the investigation of music beyond the bounds of western culture

09.06.

Michael Polth
University of Music and Performing Art Mannheim

Musikalische Syntax und Harmonik in der Wiener Klassik

-> Folien zur Vorlesung (passwortgeschützt, nur für Studenten zu erfragen)
 

Zusammenfassung
 

Die merkwürdigen und teils abgründigen Klangeffekte, die Ludwig van Beethoven im zweiten Satz seiner Klaviersonate op. 101 (dort im Mittelteil) komponiert, stellen eine Herausforderung für strukturelle Analysen dar. Der Vortrag möchte den Möglichkeiten einer Klärung nachgehen.

16.06.

Sebastian Klotz
Universität Leipzig

`Thought Conductors'
– Towards a
non- reductionist music cognition research

-> Folien zur Vorlesung

Zusammenfassung

Given the complexity of human auditory perception, models that rely on information theory concepts have been substituted by more ecologically nuanced perspectives on listening as a culturally situated practice.

This presentation argues that empirically driven research which has exhausted the strictly functionalist paradigm (input/functional localization of cortical activation) desperately seeks input that allows it to approach more volatile constructs such as autobiographical memory and musical empathy.

A project by the London based art collective artEmergent which is called "Thought Conductor" will serve as backdrop for this critical assessment.

Literaturhinweise:

• „Klang als epistemische Ressource und als operativer Prozess“, in: Axel Volmar, Jens Schröter (Hg.),  Auditive Medienkulturen. Techniken des Hörens und Praktiken der Klanggestaltung, Bielefeld 2013 (Kultur- und Medientheorie), S. 189-205.
• “Rhythm and Consensuality. Extending Gumbrecht’s Model to Music, Cognition and Action Studies”, in: Veronika Busch, Kathrin Schlemmer, Clemens Wöllner (eds.), Wahrnehmung - Erkenntnis -Vermittlung. Musikwissenschaftliche Brückenschläge. Festschrift für Wolfgang Auhagen, Hildesheim 2013 (Studien und Materialien zur Musikwissenschaft, 78), pp. 104-111.

• “Musical Listening. From Feature Extraction to Ecological Models” in: Gianmario Borio (ed.), Musical Listening in the Age of Technological Reproducibility, Farnham: Ashgate (in Druck vor. 2015) (Musical Cultures of the Twentieth Century Series)

23.06.

Hans-Christian Jabusch
Hochschule für Musik Dresden

Erwerb und Verlust feinmotorischer Kontrolle bei Musikern

1. Artikel zum Thema
2. Artikel zum Thema
3. Artikel zum Thema

Zusammenfassung
 

Professionelles Musizieren erfordert ein Höchstmaß an räumlich-zeitlicher feinmotorischer Präzision und bewegt sich hier an der Grenze des menschlichen Leistungsvermögens.

Für die Musikphysiologie – wie auch für die Instrumentalpädagogik – ist die Identifizierung optimaler Bedingungen für den Erwerb und die Aufrechterhaltung feinmotorischer Präzision ein wichtiges Anliegen. Feinmotorische Fertigkeiten der Musiker lassen sich valide und reliabel objektivieren, wie beispielsweise für Pianisten und einem hier eingesetzten MIDI-basierten Verfahren gezeigt wurde. Durch gleichzeitige Betrachtung der musikalischen Performanz und biografischer Faktoren (z.B. Angaben zur Übehistorie und zu motivationalen Aspekten) lassen sich Einflussgrößen identifizieren, die den Erwerb und die Aufrechterhaltung feinmotorischer Präzision am Instrument begünstigen. Als hirnphysiologische Korrelate wurden funktionelle und strukturelle Anpassungsvorgänge des Musikergehirns identifiziert, die mit der musikalischen Entwicklung einhergehen und deren Ausprägungen z.T.  mit den feinmotorischen Fertigkeiten oder mit Expertise-assoziierten biografischen Faktoren korrelieren.

In der Musikermedizin ist die so genannte Musikerdystonie eine zentrale Herausforderung. Sie gehört zu den tätigkeitsspezifischen fokalen Dystonien und ist charakterisiert durch den Verlust der feinmotorischen Kontrolle der Bewegungen am Instrument. Die Krankheitsmechanismen der Musikerdystonie sind nicht eindeutig geklärt. Familiäre Häufungen legen einen hereditären Zusammenhang nahe, infolgedessen steht die Musikerdystonie derzeit im Fokus neurogenetischer Untersuchungen. Die Therapie zielt darauf ab, die stark fixierten dystonen Bewegungsmuster zu lockern und durch nicht-dystone Bewegungen zu ersetzen. Die Objektivierung musikalischer Performanz konnte im vergangenen Jahrzehnt dazu beitragen, sowohl die Diagnostik als auch das Therapiemonitoring zu verbessern. Unter Einsatz der vorhandenen Therapieoptionen lässt sich heute bei der Hälfte der Musiker mit Handdystonien eine deutliche Verbesserung der Bewegungskontrolle am Instrument erzielen. Für die Zukunft sind (a) eine Optimierung der Therapien und (b) eine Identifizierung eines protektiven Verhaltens am Instrument im Hinblick auf eine effektive Prävention wünschenswert

30.06.

Markus Neuwirth
KU Leuven

On the perception of musical form

-> Folien zur Vorlesung (passwortgeschützt, nur für Studenten zu erfragen)

Zusammenfassung
 

Musikalische Formenlehre stand lange im Verdacht, die Essenz vielschichtiger Kunstwerke auf „musikferne Schemata“ bzw. „blutleere Konstruktionen“ zu reduzieren. Ein solcher Verdacht wird gegenwärtig durch ein Revival der Formenlehre in der anglophonen Musikwissenschaft eindrucksvoll widerlegt. Doch obgleich die sog. „New Formenlehre“ eine hochgradige Verfeinerung des Methodenapparats zur Folge hatte, wurde die dringliche Frage danach, was es heißt, musikalische Form(en) im realzeitlichen Verlauf wahrzunehmen (und nicht bloß lesend im Notentext zu identifizieren), kaum gestellt. Ziel des Vortrags (auf Englisch) ist es, die wenigen belastbaren empirischen Befunde zu Dimensionen und Grenzen der Wahrnehmbarkeit musikalischer Form kritisch zu beleuchten und dabei auch die Grundlagen sowohl der Experimentalmethodik als auch der musikalischen Formtheorie zu erläutern. Insbesondere soll die These diskutiert werden, dass der Nachvollzug selbst vermeintlich abstrakter Formzusammenhänge ohne internalisiertes Stilwissen bzgl. historisch differenzierter Tonsatzkonstellationen (Satzmodelle und Topoi) schlechterdings unmöglich ist

07.07.

Oliver Schwab-Felisch
TU Berlin

Crossing the Gap: Bedingungen einer kognitiven Musiktheorie

Folien zur Vorlesung
Vorlesungstext
(passwortgeschützt, nur für Studenten zu erfragen)
 

Zusammenfassung
 

Musikkognition und Musiktheorie unterscheiden sich hinsichtlich ihrer epistemologischen Voraussetzungen, Erkenntnisziele und Methoden. Sie miteinander zu verknüpfen wirft eine Reihe von Fragen auf. Welche Konstellationen, funktionalen Rollen, Hierarchisierungen der Disziplinen sind im Begriff der kognitiven Musiktheorie mitgemeint? Wie konzeptualisieren sich die Disziplinen gegenseitig? Welche Kognitionsbegriffe sind an bisherigen kognitionswissenschaftlichen Reformulierungen von Musiktheorie beteiligt – und welche nicht? Im Dialog mit drei paradigmatischen Texten und anhand einer multiperspektivischen Analyse eines Ausschnitts der Arietta aus Beethovens op. 111 soll deutlich werden, dass Kooperationen von Musikkognition und Musiktheorie dort am ehesten zu überzeugen vermögen, wo nicht versucht wird, die Differenz ihrer Herangehensweisen zu nivellieren

14.07.

Dan Tidhar
University of Cambridge
City University London

Big data musicology

Artikel zum Thema weiterführende Webseite zum Thema
 

Zusammenfassung
 

The recent ascent of data-driven approaches in academic and commercial contexts on the one hand, and the relative maturity of music information retrieval and audio analysis on the other, provide a fruitful setting for developing a big data approach to music analysis. I will explore different implications of this approach, while touching upon specific challenges, limitations, and opportunities it can offer. My starting point will be a discussion of a recent project titled 'Digital Music Lab – Analysing Big Music Data' which involved several London universities and the British Library (completed in March 2015).
I will discuss the project's achievements while describing several test-cases including examples from Ethnomusicology and popular music. I will then concentrate on a particular example from the field of early music performance practice, which involves the application of the big data approach to the analysis of tuning and temperament in harpsichord recordings

21.07.

Uli Reich
Freie Universität Berlin

Language as music distorted by semantics

Zusammenfassung
 

Both music and language organize sound to create meaning and both are universal and particular for the species: All and only humans have them. What is the difference, then? In my talk I will elaborate the claim that language and music share many, but not all levels of meaning: illocutionary, emotional and conversational meanings can be observed in both music and language, but propositional semantics based on truth conditions and driven by logical operators is a notion that makes sense to describe linguistic, but not musical utterances. To express propositional semantics, language makes use of double articulation, a twofold structure that is absent in music: the linguistic sound system organizes not only itself in prosodic categories like syllables, feet and phrases, but also codes an abstract morphological system which contains lexical and grammatical meaning in order to create propositions. This second system exploits phonetic events of all kinds, from single articulatory features to the positions of accents, in order to establish contrasts between words and sentences. The same phonetic events are organized in music without the need to construct propositions: They can be organized obeying metrical, rhythmic and harmonic principles strictly, while these principles only have a secondary force in linguistic utterances. The shared levels of meaning coincide very often also in ways of expression: pitch, speed and loudness. Thus, music and language are different by the ranking of constraints on common principles. These observations may help to defend a connectionist view on the cognitive architecture of the two domains