Learning to perform music is about much more than just playing the right notes.
After acquiring this basic skill, in many subsequent years of intensive teaching and practice the complex skill of musical expression and style is
developed. As important as choosing a musical interpretation is the amount of motor control needed for achieving the chosen expressive
timing, dynamics, intonation, articulation, etc. These motor skills are hard to learn. In this project a system will be developed that monitors a
student during practice and provides feedback on the success of imitation in an integrated visual way. This helps in exploring through the space
of possible performances. How the method helps in learning to control the instrument will be evaluated in several experiments.
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| We are currently running an web experiment! It takes 5 - 10 minutes. Please participate in the experiment on http://www.rodo.nl. May 2008 |
Recent studies have shown that imagery of patterns in time, both of auditory sequences and of motor behavior, gives rise to almost the same pattern of neuronal activity in the central nervous system as the actual perception or performance of the same pattern. We are using this to develop new methods that enable patients with impairments of the motor system (like ALS) to control devices and even to communicate. The key idea of this work is to measure temporal modulation of EEG while imagining temporal patterns, such as musical rhythm, and to classify these signals in discrete categories. The project will be carried out in the Faculty of Social Siences, in collaboration with the department of Medical Physics (Prof. C. Gielen) and the Maartenskliniek (prof. J. Duysens).
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Basically, each project belongs to one of three different categories: music domain studies, methodological studies of computational modeling, and applications of the findings. Our research is unique in its multi-disciplinary approach, as musicologists, psychologists, and computer scientists work together to solve problems in music cognition research, hence the name "Music, Mind, Machine".