Audiological and electrophysiological assessment of professional pop/rock musicians

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Alessandra G Samelli

2012-01-01

Full Text Available In the present study, we evaluated peripheral and central auditory pathways in professional musicians (with and without hearing loss compared to non-musicians. The goal was to verify if music exposure could affect auditory pathways as a whole. This is a prospective study that compared the results obtained between three groups (musicians with and without hearing loss and non-musicians. Thirty-two male individuals participated and they were assessed by: Immittance measurements, pure-tone air conduction thresholds at all frequencies from 0.25 to 20 kHz, Transient Evoked Otoacoustic Emissions, Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR, and Cognitive Potential. The musicians showed worse hearing thresholds in both conventional and high frequency audiometry when compared to the non-musicians; the mean amplitude of Transient Evoked Otoacoustic Emissions was smaller in the musicians group, but the mean latencies of Auditory Brainstem Response and Cognitive Potential were diminished in the musicians when compared to the non-musicians. Our findings suggest that the population of musicians is at risk for developing music-induced hearing loss. However, the electrophysiological evaluation showed that latency waves of ABR and P300 were diminished in musicians, which may suggest that the auditory training to which these musicians are exposed acts as a facilitator of the acoustic signal transmission to the cortex.

Superior pre-attentive auditory processing in musicians.

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Koelsch, S; Schröger, E; Tervaniemi, M

1999-04-26

The present study focuses on influences of long-term experience on auditory processing, providing the first evidence for pre-attentively superior auditory processing in musicians. This was revealed by the brain's automatic change-detection response, which is reflected electrically as the mismatch negativity (MMN) and generated by the operation of sensoric (echoic) memory, the earliest cognitive memory system. Major chords and single tones were presented to both professional violinists and non-musicians under ignore and attend conditions. Slightly impure chords, presented among perfect major chords elicited a distinct MMN in professional musicians, but not in non-musicians. This demonstrates that compared to non-musicians, musicians are superior in pre-attentively extracting more information out of musically relevant stimuli. Since effects of long-term experience on pre-attentive auditory processing have so far been reported for language-specific phonemes only, results indicate that sensory memory mechanisms can be modulated by training on a more general level.

Transient evoked otoacoustic emissions in rock musicians.

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Høydal, Erik Harry; Lein Størmer, Carl Christian; Laukli, Einar; Stenklev, Niels Christian

2017-09-01

Our focus in this study was the assessment of transient evoked otoacoustic emissions (TEOAEs) in a large group of rock musicians. A further objective was to analyse tinnitus among rock musicians as related to TEOAEs. The study was a cross-sectional survey of rock musicians selected at random. A control group was included at random for comparison. We recruited 111 musicians and a control group of 40 non-musicians. Testing was conducted by using clinical examination, pure tone audiometry, TEOAEs and a questionnaire. TEOAE SNR in the half-octave frequency band centred on 4 kHz was significantly lower bilaterally in musicians than controls. This effect was strongly predicted by age and pure-tone hearing threshold levels in the 3-6 kHz range. Bilateral hearing thresholds were significantly higher at 6 kHz in musicians. Twenty percent of the musicians had permanent tinnitus. There was no association between the TEOAE parameters and permanent tinnitus. Our results suggest an incipient hearing loss at 6 kHz in rock musicians. Loss of TEOAE SNR in the 4 kHz half-octave frequency band was observed, but it was related to higher mean 3-6 kHz hearing thresholds and age. A large proportion of rock musicians have permanent tinnitus.

Pain among professional orchestral musicians

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Nygaard Andersen, Lotte; Roessler, Kirsten K; Eichberg, Henning

2013-01-01

Professional musicians experience high rates of musculoskeletal pain, but only few studies have investigated how this pain is accepted by musicians.......Professional musicians experience high rates of musculoskeletal pain, but only few studies have investigated how this pain is accepted by musicians....

Pitch Discrimination in Musicians and Non-Musicians: Effects of Harmonic Resolvability and Processing Effort

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Bianchi, Federica; Santurette, Sébastien; Wendt, Dorothea

2016-01-01

-musicians, suggesting similar peripheral frequency selectivity in the two groups of listeners. In a follow-up experiment, listeners’ pupil dilations were measured as an indicator of the required effort in performing the same pitch discrimination task for conditions of varying resolvability and task difficulty...... abilities in musicians are unlikely to be related to higher peripheral frequency selectivity and may suggest an enhanced pitch representation at more central stages of the auditory system in musically trained listeners....

Temporal processing of audiovisual stimuli is enhanced in musicians: evidence from magnetoencephalography (MEG.

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Yao Lu

Full Text Available Numerous studies have demonstrated that the structural and functional differences between professional musicians and non-musicians are not only found within a single modality, but also with regard to multisensory integration. In this study we have combined psychophysical with neurophysiological measurements investigating the processing of non-musical, synchronous or various levels of asynchronous audiovisual events. We hypothesize that long-term multisensory experience alters temporal audiovisual processing already at a non-musical stage. Behaviorally, musicians scored significantly better than non-musicians in judging whether the auditory and visual stimuli were synchronous or asynchronous. At the neural level, the statistical analysis for the audiovisual asynchronous response revealed three clusters of activations including the ACC and the SFG and two bilaterally located activations in IFG and STG in both groups. Musicians, in comparison to the non-musicians, responded to synchronous audiovisual events with enhanced neuronal activity in a broad left posterior temporal region that covers the STG, the insula and the Postcentral Gyrus. Musicians also showed significantly greater activation in the left Cerebellum, when confronted with an audiovisual asynchrony. Taken together, our MEG results form a strong indication that long-term musical training alters the basic audiovisual temporal processing already in an early stage (direct after the auditory N1 wave, while the psychophysical results indicate that musical training may also provide behavioral benefits in the accuracy of the estimates regarding the timing of audiovisual events.

Temporal processing of audiovisual stimuli is enhanced in musicians: evidence from magnetoencephalography (MEG).

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Lu, Yao; Paraskevopoulos, Evangelos; Herholz, Sibylle C; Kuchenbuch, Anja; Pantev, Christo

2014-01-01

Numerous studies have demonstrated that the structural and functional differences between professional musicians and non-musicians are not only found within a single modality, but also with regard to multisensory integration. In this study we have combined psychophysical with neurophysiological measurements investigating the processing of non-musical, synchronous or various levels of asynchronous audiovisual events. We hypothesize that long-term multisensory experience alters temporal audiovisual processing already at a non-musical stage. Behaviorally, musicians scored significantly better than non-musicians in judging whether the auditory and visual stimuli were synchronous or asynchronous. At the neural level, the statistical analysis for the audiovisual asynchronous response revealed three clusters of activations including the ACC and the SFG and two bilaterally located activations in IFG and STG in both groups. Musicians, in comparison to the non-musicians, responded to synchronous audiovisual events with enhanced neuronal activity in a broad left posterior temporal region that covers the STG, the insula and the Postcentral Gyrus. Musicians also showed significantly greater activation in the left Cerebellum, when confronted with an audiovisual asynchrony. Taken together, our MEG results form a strong indication that long-term musical training alters the basic audiovisual temporal processing already in an early stage (direct after the auditory N1 wave), while the psychophysical results indicate that musical training may also provide behavioral benefits in the accuracy of the estimates regarding the timing of audiovisual events.

Temporal Resolution and Active Auditory Discrimination Skill in Vocal Musicians

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Kumar, Prawin

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Introduction Enhanced auditory perception in musicians is likely to result from auditory perceptual learning during several years of training and practice. Many studies have focused on biological processing of auditory stimuli among musicians. However, there is a lack of literature on temporal resolution and active auditory discrimination skills in vocal musicians. Objective The aim of the present study is to assess temporal resolution and active auditory discrimination skill in vocal musicians. Method The study participants included 15 vocal musicians with a minimum professional experience of 5 years of music exposure, within the age range of 20 to 30 years old, as the experimental group, while 15 age-matched non-musicians served as the control group. We used duration discrimination using pure-tones, pulse-train duration discrimination, and gap detection threshold tasks to assess temporal processing skills in both groups. Similarly, we assessed active auditory discrimination skill in both groups using Differential Limen of Frequency (DLF. All tasks were done using MATLab software installed in a personal computer at 40dBSL with maximum likelihood procedure. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS (version 17.0. Result Descriptive statistics showed better threshold for vocal musicians compared with non-musicians for all tasks. Further, independent t-test showed that vocal musicians performed significantly better compared with non-musicians on duration discrimination using pure tone, pulse train duration discrimination, gap detection threshold, and differential limen of frequency. Conclusion The present study showed enhanced temporal resolution ability and better (lower active discrimination threshold in vocal musicians in comparison to non-musicians.

Verbal memory retrieval engages visual cortex in musicians.

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Huang, Z; Zhang, J X; Yang, Z; Dong, G; Wu, J; Chan, A S; Weng, X

2010-06-16

As one major line of research on brain plasticity, many imaging studies have been conducted to identify the functional and structural reorganization associated with musical expertise. Based on previous behavioral research, the present study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to identify the neural correlates of superior verbal memory performance in musicians. Participants with and without musical training performed a verbal memory task to first encode a list of words auditorily delivered and then silently recall as many words as possible. They performed in separate blocks a control task involving pure tone pitch judgment. Post-scan recognition test showed better memory performance in musicians than non-musicians. During memory retrieval, the musicians showed significantly greater activations in bilateral though left-lateralized visual cortex relative to the pitch judgment baseline. In comparison, no such visual cortical activations were found in the non-musicians. No group differences were observed during the encoding stage. The results echo a previous report of visual cortical activation during verbal memory retrieval in the absence of any visual sensory stimulation in the blind population, who are also known to possess superior verbal memory. It is suggested that the visual cortex can be recruited to serve as extra memory resources and contributes to the superior verbal memory in special situations. While in the blind population, such cross-modal functional reorganization may be induced by sensory deprivation; in the musicians it may be induced by the long-term and demanding nature of musical training to use as much available neural resources as possible. 2010 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Evidence for enhanced interoceptive accuracy in professional musicians

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Katharina eSchirmer-Mokwa

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Interoception is defined as the perceptual activity involved in the processing of internal bodily signals. While the ability of internal perception is considered a relatively stable trait, recent data suggest that learning to integrate multisensory information can modulate it. Making music is a uniquely rich multisensory experience that has shown to alter motor, sensory, and multimodal representations in the brain of musicians. We hypothesize that musical training also heightens interoceptive accuracy comparable to other perceptual modalities. Thirteen professional singers, twelve string players, and thirteen matched non-musicians were examined using a well-established heartbeat discrimination paradigm complemented by self-reported dispositional traits. Results revealed that both groups of musicians displayed higher interoceptive accuracy than non-musicians, whereas no differences were found between singers and string-players. Regression analyses showed that accumulated musical practice explained about 49% variation in heartbeat perception accuracy in singers but not in string-players. Psychometric data yielded a number of psychologically plausible inter-correlations in musicians related to performance anxiety. However, dispositional traits were not a confounding factor on heartbeat discrimination accuracy. Together, these data provide first evidence indicating that professional musicians show enhanced interoceptive accuracy compared to non-musicians. We argue that musical training largely accounted for this effect.

Cognitive control in auditory working memory is enhanced in musicians.

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Karen Johanne Pallesen

Full Text Available Musical competence may confer cognitive advantages that extend beyond processing of familiar musical sounds. Behavioural evidence indicates a general enhancement of both working memory and attention in musicians. It is possible that musicians, due to their training, are better able to maintain focus on task-relevant stimuli, a skill which is crucial to working memory. We measured the blood oxygenation-level dependent (BOLD activation signal in musicians and non-musicians during working memory of musical sounds to determine the relation among performance, musical competence and generally enhanced cognition. All participants easily distinguished the stimuli. We tested the hypothesis that musicians nonetheless would perform better, and that differential brain activity would mainly be present in cortical areas involved in cognitive control such as the lateral prefrontal cortex. The musicians performed better as reflected in reaction times and error rates. Musicians also had larger BOLD responses than non-musicians in neuronal networks that sustain attention and cognitive control, including regions of the lateral prefrontal cortex, lateral parietal cortex, insula, and putamen in the right hemisphere, and bilaterally in the posterior dorsal prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate gyrus. The relationship between the task performance and the magnitude of the BOLD response was more positive in musicians than in non-musicians, particularly during the most difficult working memory task. The results confirm previous findings that neural activity increases during enhanced working memory performance. The results also suggest that superior working memory task performance in musicians rely on an enhanced ability to exert sustained cognitive control. This cognitive benefit in musicians may be a consequence of focused musical training.

Statistical learning of multisensory regularities is enhanced in musicians: An MEG study.

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Paraskevopoulos, Evangelos; Chalas, Nikolas; Kartsidis, Panagiotis; Wollbrink, Andreas; Bamidis, Panagiotis

2018-07-15

The present study used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to identify the neural correlates of audiovisual statistical learning, while disentangling the differential contributions of uni- and multi-modal statistical mismatch responses in humans. The applied paradigm was based on a combination of a statistical learning paradigm and a multisensory oddball one, combining an audiovisual, an auditory and a visual stimulation stream, along with the corresponding deviances. Plasticity effects due to musical expertise were investigated by comparing the behavioral and MEG responses of musicians to non-musicians. The behavioral results indicated that the learning was successful for both musicians and non-musicians. The unimodal MEG responses are consistent with previous studies, revealing the contribution of Heschl's gyrus for the identification of auditory statistical mismatches and the contribution of medial temporal and visual association areas for the visual modality. The cortical network underlying audiovisual statistical learning was found to be partly common and partly distinct from the corresponding unimodal networks, comprising right temporal and left inferior frontal sources. Musicians showed enhanced activation in superior temporal and superior frontal gyrus. Connectivity and information processing flow amongst the sources comprising the cortical network of audiovisual statistical learning, as estimated by transfer entropy, was reorganized in musicians, indicating enhanced top-down processing. This neuroplastic effect showed a cross-modal stability between the auditory and audiovisual modalities. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A Meta-study of musicians' non-verbal interaction

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Jensen, Karl Kristoffer; Marchetti, Emanuela

2010-01-01

interruptions. Hence, despite the fact that the skill to engage in a non-verbal interaction is described as tacit knowledge, it is fundamental for both musicians and teachers (Davidson and Good 2002). Typical observed non-verbal cues are for example: physical gestures, modulations of sound, steady eye contact...

Is there addiction to loud music? Findings in a group of non-professional pop/rock musicians.

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Schmuziger, Nicolas; Patscheke, Jochen; Stieglitz, Rolf; Probst, Rudolf

2012-01-09

Listening to loud music may be connected to addictive behavior possibly leading to damaging effects on the cochlea. We hypothesized that members of non-professional pop/rock bands with regular exposure to loud music are more likely to show an addictive-like behavior for loud music than matched control subjects. Fifty non-professional musicians and 50 matched control subjects were asked to complete the Northeastern Music Listening Survey (NEMLS) with two basic components. The first comprises an adaptation of the validated Michigan Alcohol Screening Test (MAST) to study the addictive-like behavior towards loud music. The second comprises the criteria outlined by the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) of the American Psychiatric Society for the diagnosis of substance dependence. The NEMLS was scored using the same point system as used in the MAST. The DSM-IV criteria for substance dependence were met by nine of the musician group and by one control subject. Seven of these nine musicians also had a positive NEMLS score. Traits of addictive-like behavior to loud music were detected more often in members of nonprofessional pop/rock bands than in control subjects.

Is there addiction to loud music? Findings in a group of non-professional pop/rock musicians

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Nicolas Schmuziger

2012-07-01

Full Text Available Listening to loud music may be connected to addictive behavior possibly leading to damaging effects on the cochlea. We hypothesized that members of non-professional pop/rock bands with regular exposure to loud music are more likely to show an addictive-like behavior for loud music than matched control subjects. Fifty non-professional musicians and 50 matched control subjects were asked to complete the Northeastern Music Listening Survey (NEMLS with two basic components. The first comprises an adaptation of the validated Michigan Alcohol Screening Test (MAST to study the addictive-like behavior towards loud music. The second comprises the criteria outlined by the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV of the American Psychiatric Society for the diagnosis of substance dependence. The NEMLS was scored using the same point system as used in the MAST. The DSM-IV criteria for substance dependence were met by nine of the musician group and by one control subject. Seven of these nine musicians also had a positive NEMLS score. Traits of addictive-like behavior to loud music were detected more often in members of nonprofessional pop/rock bands than in control subjects.

Connectivity patterns during music listening: Evidence for action-based processing in musicians.

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Alluri, Vinoo; Toiviainen, Petri; Burunat, Iballa; Kliuchko, Marina; Vuust, Peter; Brattico, Elvira

2017-06-01

Musical expertise is visible both in the morphology and functionality of the brain. Recent research indicates that functional integration between multi-sensory, somato-motor, default-mode (DMN), and salience (SN) networks of the brain differentiates musicians from non-musicians during resting state. Here, we aimed at determining whether brain networks differentially exchange information in musicians as opposed to non-musicians during naturalistic music listening. Whole-brain graph-theory analyses were performed on participants' fMRI responses. Group-level differences revealed that musicians' primary hubs comprised cerebral and cerebellar sensorimotor regions whereas non-musicians' dominant hubs encompassed DMN-related regions. Community structure analyses of the key hubs revealed greater integration of motor and somatosensory homunculi representing the upper limbs and torso in musicians. Furthermore, musicians who started training at an earlier age exhibited greater centrality in the auditory cortex, and areas related to top-down processes, attention, emotion, somatosensory processing, and non-verbal processing of speech. We here reveal how brain networks organize themselves in a naturalistic music listening situation wherein musicians automatically engage neural networks that are action-based while non-musicians use those that are perception-based to process an incoming auditory stream. Hum Brain Mapp 38:2955-2970, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Cognitive control in auditory working memory is enhanced in musicians

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Pallesen, Karen Johanne; Brattico, Elvira; Bailey, Christopher J

2010-01-01

focus on task-relevant stimuli, a skill which is crucial to working memory. We measured the blood oxygenation-level dependent (BOLD) activation signal in musicians and non-musicians during working memory of musical sounds to determine the relation among performance, musical competence and generally...... hemisphere, and bilaterally in the posterior dorsal prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate gyrus. The relationship between the task performance and the magnitude of the BOLD response was more positive in musicians than in non-musicians, particularly during the most difficult working memory task....... The results confirm previous findings that neural activity increases during enhanced working memory performance. The results also suggest that superior working memory task performance in musicians rely on an enhanced ability to exert sustained cognitive control. This cognitive benefit in musicians may...

The sound of music: differentiating musicians using a fast, musical multi-feature mismatch negativity paradigm.

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Vuust, Peter; Brattico, Elvira; Seppänen, Miia; Näätänen, Risto; Tervaniemi, Mari

2012-06-01

Musicians' skills in auditory processing depend highly on instrument, performance practice, and on level of expertise. Yet, it is not known though whether the style/genre of music might shape auditory processing in the brains of musicians. Here, we aimed at tackling the role of musical style/genre on modulating neural and behavioral responses to changes in musical features. Using a novel, fast and musical sounding multi-feature paradigm, we measured the mismatch negativity (MMN), a pre-attentive brain response, to six types of musical feature change in musicians playing three distinct styles of music (classical, jazz, rock/pop) and in non-musicians. Jazz and classical musicians scored higher in the musical aptitude test than band musicians and non-musicians, especially with regards to tonal abilities. These results were extended by the MMN findings: jazz musicians had larger MMN-amplitude than all other experimental groups across the six different sound features, indicating a greater overall sensitivity to auditory outliers. In particular, we found enhanced processing of pith and sliding up to pitches in jazz musicians only. Furthermore, we observed a more frontal MMN to pitch and location compared to the other deviants in jazz musicians and left lateralization of the MMN to timbre in classical musicians. These findings indicate that the characteristics of the style/genre of music played by musicians influence their perceptual skills and the brain processing of sound features embedded in a musical context. Musicians' brain is hence shaped by the type of training, musical style/genre, and listening experiences. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Absolute Memory for Tempo in Musicians and Non-Musicians.

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Irene Gratton

Full Text Available The ability to remember tempo (the perceived frequency of musical pulse without external references may be defined, by analogy with the notion of absolute pitch, as absolute tempo (AT. Anecdotal reports and sparse empirical evidence suggest that at least some individuals possess AT. However, to our knowledge, no systematic assessments of AT have been performed using laboratory tasks comparable to those assessing absolute pitch. In the present study, we operationalize AT as the ability to identify and reproduce tempo in the absence of rhythmic or melodic frames of reference and assess these abilities in musically trained and untrained participants. We asked 15 musicians and 15 non-musicians to listen to a seven-step `tempo scale' of metronome beats, each associated to a numerical label, and then to perform two memory tasks. In the first task, participants heard one of the tempi and attempted to report the correct label (identification task, in the second, they saw one label and attempted to tap the correct tempo (production task. A musical and visual excerpt was presented between successive trials as a distractor to prevent participants from using previous tempi as anchors. Thus, participants needed to encode tempo information with the corresponding label, store the information, and recall it to give the response. We found that more than half were able to perform above chance in at least one of the tasks, and that musical training differentiated between participants in identification, but not in production. These results suggest that AT is relatively wide-spread, relatively independent of musical training in tempo production, but further refined by training in tempo identification. We propose that at least in production, the underlying motor representations are related to tactus, a basic internal rhythmic period that may provide a body-based reference for encoding tempo.

Effects of practice and experience on the arcuate fasciculus: comparing singers, instrumentalists, and non-musicians

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Gus F. Halwani

2011-07-01

Full Text Available Structure and function of the human brain are affected by training in both linguistic and musical domains. Individuals with intensive vocal musical training provide a useful model for investigating neural adaptations of learning in the vocal-motor domain and can be compared with learning in a more general musical domain. Here we confirm general differences in macrostructure (tract volume and microstructure (fractional anisotropy (FA of the arcuate fasciculus (AF, a prominent white-matter tract connecting temporal and frontal brain regions, between singers, instrumentalists, and non-musicians. Both groups of musicians differed from non-musicians in having larger tract volume and higher FA values of the right and left AF. The AF was then subdivided in a dorsal (superior branch connecting the superior temporal gyrus and the inferior frontal gyrus (STG<–>IFG, and ventral (inferior branch connecting the middle temporal gyrus and the inferior frontal gyrus (MTG<–>IFG. Relative to instrumental musicians, singers had a larger tract volume but lower FA values in the left dorsal AF (STG<–>IFG, and a similar trend in the left ventral AF (MTG<–>IFG. This between-group comparison controls for the general effects of musical training, although FA was still higher in singers compared to non-musicians. Both musician groups had higher tract volumes in the right dorsal and ventral tracts compared to non-musicians, but did not show a significant difference between each other. Furthermore, in the singers’ group, FA in the left dorsal branch of the AF was inversely correlated with the number of years of participants’ vocal training. Our findings suggest that long-term vocal-motor training might lead to an increase in volume and microstructural complexity of specific white matter tracts connecting regions that are fundamental to sound perception, production, and its feedforward and feedback control which can be differentiated from a more general musician

Effects of practice and experience on the arcuate fasciculus: comparing singers, instrumentalists, and non-musicians.

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Halwani, Gus F; Loui, Psyche; Rüber, Theodor; Schlaug, Gottfried

2011-01-01

Structure and function of the human brain are affected by training in both linguistic and musical domains. Individuals with intensive vocal musical training provide a useful model for investigating neural adaptations of learning in the vocal-motor domain and can be compared with learning in a more general musical domain. Here we confirm general differences in macrostructure (tract volume) and microstructure (fractional anisotropy, FA) of the arcuate fasciculus (AF), a prominent white-matter tract connecting temporal and frontal brain regions, between singers, instrumentalists, and non-musicians. Both groups of musicians differed from non-musicians in having larger tract volume and higher FA values of the right and left AF. The AF was then subdivided in a dorsal (superior) branch connecting the superior temporal gyrus and the inferior frontal gyrus (STG ↔ IFG), and ventral (inferior) branch connecting the middle temporal gyrus and the inferior frontal gyrus (MTG ↔ IFG). Relative to instrumental musicians, singers had a larger tract volume but lower FA values in the left dorsal AF (STG ↔ IFG), and a similar trend in the left ventral AF (MTG ↔ IFG). This between-group comparison controls for the general effects of musical training, although FA was still higher in singers compared to non-musicians. Both musician groups had higher tract volumes in the right dorsal and ventral tracts compared to non-musicians, but did not show a significant difference between each other. Furthermore, in the singers' group, FA in the left dorsal branch of the AF was inversely correlated with the number of years of participants' vocal training. Our findings suggest that long-term vocal-motor training might lead to an increase in volume and microstructural complexity of specific white-matter tracts connecting regions that are fundamental to sound perception, production, and its feedforward and feedback control which can be differentiated from a more general musician

Focal dystonia in musicians: From phenomenology to therapy

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Hans-Christian Jabusch

2006-01-01

Full Text Available Background: Musician's dystonia is a task-specific movement disorder which manifests itself as a loss of voluntary motor control in extensively trained movements. In many cases, the disorder terminates the careers of affected musicians. Approximately 1% of all professional musicians are affected.Etiology and Pathophysiology: The pathophysiology of the disorder is still unclear. Findings include (a reduced inhibition in different levels of the central nervous system, (b maladaptive plasticity, e.g. in the somatosensory cortex and in the basal ganglia, and (c alterations in sensorimotor processing. Epidemiological data demon-strated a higher risk for those musicians who play instruments requiring maximal fine-motorskills. For instruments where workload differs across hands, focal dystonia appears more often in the more intensely used hand. In psychological studies, musicians with dystonia had more perfectionist tendencies than healthy musicians. These findings streng then the assumption that behavioral factors may be involved in the etiology of musician's dystonia. Hereditary factors may play a greater role than previously assumed. Preliminary findings suggest a genetic contributiont o focal task-specific dystonia with phenotypic variations including musician's dystonia.Treatment: Treatment options for musician's dystonia include pharmacological interventions such as administration of Trihexyphenidyl or Botulinum Toxin-A as well as retraining programs and ergonomic changes in the instrument. A long-term follow-up study was performed in 144 patients with musician's dystonia. The outcome was revealed on average 8.4 years after onset of symptoms. Outcome was assessed by patients' subjective rating of cumulative treatmentresponse and response to individual therapies. Seventy-seven patients (54% reported an alleviation of symptoms: 33% of the patients with Trihexyphenidyl, 49% with Botulinum Toxin, 50% with pedagogical retraining, 56% with unmonitored

Sound Exposure of Symphony Orchestra Musicians

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Schmidt, Jesper Hvass; Pedersen, Ellen Raben; Juhl, Peter Møller

2011-01-01

dBA and their left ear was exposed 4.6 dB more than the right ear. Percussionists were exposed to high sound peaks >115 dBC but less continuous sound exposure was observed in this group. Musicians were exposed up to LAeq8h of 92 dB and a majority of musicians were exposed to sound levels exceeding......Background: Assessment of sound exposure by noise dosimetry can be challenging especially when measuring the exposure of classical orchestra musicians where sound originate from many different instruments. A new measurement method of bilateral sound exposure of classical musicians was developed...... and used to characterize sound exposure of the left and right ear simultaneously in two different symphony orchestras.Objectives: To measure binaural sound exposure of professional classical musicians and to identify possible exposure risk factors of specific musicians.Methods: Sound exposure was measured...

Probabilistic diffusion tractography reveals improvement of structural network in musicians.

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Jianfu Li

Full Text Available PURPOSE: Musicians experience a large amount of information transfer and integration of complex sensory, motor, and auditory processes when training and playing musical instruments. Therefore, musicians are a useful model in which to investigate neural adaptations in the brain. METHODS: Here, based on diffusion-weighted imaging, probabilistic tractography was used to determine the architecture of white matter anatomical networks in musicians and non-musicians. Furthermore, the features of the white matter networks were analyzed using graph theory. RESULTS: Small-world properties of the white matter network were observed in both groups. Compared with non-musicians, the musicians exhibited significantly increased connectivity strength in the left and right supplementary motor areas, the left calcarine fissure and surrounding cortex and the right caudate nucleus, as well as a significantly larger weighted clustering coefficient in the right olfactory cortex, the left medial superior frontal gyrus, the right gyrus rectus, the left lingual gyrus, the left supramarginal gyrus, and the right pallidum. Furthermore, there were differences in the node betweenness centrality in several regions. However, no significant differences in topological properties were observed at a global level. CONCLUSIONS: We illustrated preliminary findings to extend the network level understanding of white matter plasticity in musicians who have had long-term musical training. These structural, network-based findings may indicate that musicians have enhanced information transmission efficiencies in local white matter networks that are related to musical training.

Task-irrelevant auditory feedback facilitates motor performance in musicians

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Virginia eConde

2012-05-01

Full Text Available An efficient and fast auditory–motor network is a basic resource for trained musicians due to the importance of motor anticipation of sound production in musical performance. When playing an instrument, motor performance always goes along with the production of sounds and the integration between both modalities plays an essential role in the course of musical training. The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of task-irrelevant auditory feedback during motor performance in musicians using a serial reaction time task (SRTT. Our hypothesis was that musicians, due to their extensive auditory–motor practice routine during musical training, have a superior performance and learning capabilities when receiving auditory feedback during SRTT relative to musicians performing the SRTT without any auditory feedback. Here we provide novel evidence that task-irrelevant auditory feedback is capable to reinforce SRTT performance but not learning, a finding that might provide further insight into auditory-motor integration in musicians on a behavioral level.

Musicians--same or different?

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Tervaniemi, Mari

2009-07-01

In the neuroscience of music, musicians have traditionally been treated as a unified group, as if the demands set by their musical activities would be more or less equal in terms of perceptual, cognitive, and motor functions. However, obviously, their musical preferences differentiate them to a higher degree, for instance, in terms of the instrument they choose and the music genre they are mostly engaged with as well as their practicing style. This diversity in musicians' profiles has been recently taken into account in several empirical endeavors. The present contribution will review the evidence available about the various neurocognitive profiles these different kinds of musicians display.

Tinnitus, Anxiety, Depression and Substance Abuse in Rock Musicians a Norwegian Survey.

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Stormer, Carl Christian Lein; Sorlie, Tore; Stenklev, Niels Christian

2017-06-01

Rock musicians are known to have an increased prevalence of hearing loss and tinnitus. The aims of the present study were to examine the distribution of anxiety and depression symptoms among rock musicians with or without tinnitus and how these mental health indicators and internal locus of control influenced upon their tinnitus symptom concerns and the degree to which the tinnitus affected their lives. The study was a questionnairebased cross-sectional survey of subjects selected from a cohort of rock musicians. We recruited 111 active musicians from the Oslo region, and a control group of 40 non-musicians from the student population at the University of Tromso. Among the rock musicians 19.8% reported permanent tinnitus vs. 0% among the controls. Musicians more often reported anxiety symptoms than controls (35.1% vs. 17.5%), however this prevalence was not different in musicians with and without tinnitus. Tinnitus-affected musicians reported depressive symptoms, significantly more than controls (13.6% vs. 5%). Rock musicians consumed more alcohol than controls, but alcohol consumption was unrelated to severity of tinnitus. Drug abuse was not more prevalent in rock musicians than in controls. Duration of tinnitus, internal locus of control, sleep disturbance and anxiety were significant predictors of how affected and how concerned musicians were about their tinnitus. Rock musicians are at risk for the development of chronic tinnitus, and they have an increased prevalence of anxiety. There is an association between chronic tinnitus and depressive symptoms in rock musicians, but our results are ambiguous. Although rock musicians have a chronic exposure to noise, noise-induced hearing loss is not the sole causative agent for the development of tinnitus.

Shifting identities : the musician as theatrical perfomer

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hübner, Falk

2013-01-01

The artistic PhD research "Shifting Identities" investigates the musicians' professional identity and how this identity might shift when musicians start acting as theatrical performers. In most of the theatrical situations where musicians "perform", their profession is extended by additional tasks

Popular Musician Responses to Mental Health Treatment.

Science.gov (United States)

Berg, Lloyd; King, Benjamin; Koenig, Jessica; McRoberts, Roger L

2018-06-01

Popular (i.e., nonclassical) musicians have higher rates of mental health disorders and mental health service utilization than the general population. Little is known, however, about how popular musicians perceive mental health interventions in terms of overall satisfaction and therapeutic benefit. An online client satisfaction survey was sent to all musicians and family members who received mental health services through a nonprofit mental health organization in Austin, Texas, between July 2014 and June 2015 (n=628). 260 individuals (41.4%) responded to the survey, of whom 94% (n=244) were musicians. A majority of musician respondents were male (60%) and white (82%). 87% received counseling, 32% received psychiatric medication treatment, and 8% received addiction recovery services. 97% of musicians (205/211) rated their counselor as 'very good' or 'excellent,' 88% (64/79) rated their psychiatric providers as 'very good' or 'excellent,' and 94% (17/19) rated their addiction recovery specialists as 'very good' or 'excellent' (nonsignificant between all categories, p>0.05). 89% of musicians receiving counseling, 84% receiving psychiatric medication treatment, and 95% receiving addiction recovery services agreed or strongly agreed that their symptoms and overall functioning improved as a result of their treatment (nonsignificant between all categories, p>0.05). Popular musicians express strong provider satisfaction and overall benefit when mental health interventions are accessible, affordable, and delivered by professionals familiar with their concerns. More research is needed to understand the unique psychosocial stresses popular musicians face to inform treatment planning for this high-risk, underserved population.

The influence of music and stress on musicians' hearing

Science.gov (United States)

Kähäri, Kim; Zachau, Gunilla; Eklöf, Mats; Möller, Claes

2004-10-01

Hearing and hearing disorders among classical and rock/jazz musicians was investigated. Pure tone audiometry was done in 140 classical and 139 rock/jazz musicians. The rock/jazz musicians answered a questionnaire concerning hearing disorders and psychosocial exposure. All results were compared to age appropriate reference materials. Hearing thresholds showed a notch configuration in both classical and rock/jazz musicians indicating the inclusion of high sound levels but an overall well-preserved hearing thresholds. Female musicians had significantly better hearing thresholds in the high-frequency area than males. Rock/jazz musicians showed slight worse hearing thresholds as compared to classical musicians. When assessing hearing disorders, a large number of rock/jazz musicians suffered from different hearing disorders (74%). Hearing loss, tinnitus and hyperacusis were the most common disorders and were significantly more frequent in comparison with different reference populations. Among classical musicians, no extended negative progress of the pure tone hearing threshold values was found in spite of the continued 16 years of musical noise exposure. In rock/jazz musicians, there was no relationships between psychosocial factors at work and hearing disorders. The rock/jazz musicians reported low stress and high degree of energy. On the average, the rock/jazz musicians reported higher control, lower stress and higher energy than a reference material of white-collar workers.

Instrument-related Skin Disorders in Musicians.

Science.gov (United States)

Patruno, Cataldo; Napolitano, Maddalena; La Bella, Serena; Ayala, Fabio; Balato, Nicola; Cantelli, Mariateresa; Balato, Anna

2016-01-01

Among artists, musicians may suffer from occupational skin problems; notwithstanding, these conditions have been rarely reviewed. The characteristics of individual performer and the type of instrument will determine the kind of disease. Moreover, the hours that the musician spent to advance artistic skill may influence the severity. The frequency and risk factors of instrument-related skin disorders in musicians from southern Italy were analyzed. An observational study was conducted in 628 musicians. A questionnaire including questions related to age, sex, instrument played, musical activity, previous or current skin disorders, and impact of skin symptoms on music making was submitted. Of 628 musicians, 199 (31.7%) reported suffering from at least 1 skin disease. Cutaneous diseases likely directly correlated with the use of the musical instrument were found in 129 (20.5%) of the 628 subjects. In particular, different patterns of irritant contact dermatitis were found. Skin conditions may be a significant problem in professional instrumentalists. They are mainly related to musical activity. Preventive measures should be established.

Life Expectancy and Cause of Death in Popular Musicians: Is the Popular Musician Lifestyle the Road to Ruin?

Science.gov (United States)

Kenny, Dianna T; Asher, Anthony

2016-03-01

Does a combination of lifestyle pressures and personality, as reflected in genre, lead to the early death of popular musicians? We explored overall mortality, cause of death, and changes in patterns of death over time and by music genre membership in popular musicians who died between 1950 and 2014. The death records of 13,195 popular musicians were coded for age and year of death, cause of death, gender, and music genre. Musician death statistics were compared with age-matched deaths in the US population using actuarial methods. Although the common perception is of a glamorous, free-wheeling lifestyle for this occupational group, the figures tell a very different story. Results showed that popular musicians have shortened life expectancy compared with comparable general populations. Results showed excess mortality from violent deaths (suicide, homicide, accidental death, including vehicular deaths and drug overdoses) and liver disease for each age group studied compared with population mortality patterns. These excess deaths were highest for the under-25-year age group and reduced chronologically thereafter. Overall mortality rates were twice as high compared with the population when averaged over the whole age range. Mortality impacts differed by music genre. In particular, excess suicides and liver-related disease were observed in country, metal, and rock musicians; excess homicides were observed in 6 of the 14 genres, in particular hip hop and rap musicians. For accidental death, actual deaths significantly exceeded expected deaths for country, folk, jazz, metal, pop, punk, and rock.

Auditory and cognitive performance in elderly musicians and nonmusicians.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Massimo Grassi

Full Text Available Musicians represent a model for examining brain and behavioral plasticity in terms of cognitive and auditory profile, but few studies have investigated whether elderly musicians have better auditory and cognitive abilities than nonmusicians. The aim of the present study was to examine whether being a professional musician attenuates the normal age-related changes in hearing and cognition. Elderly musicians still active in their profession were compared with nonmusicians on auditory performance (absolute threshold, frequency intensity, duration and spectral shape discrimination, gap and sinusoidal amplitude-modulation detection, and on simple (short-term memory and more complex and higher-order (working memory [WM] and visuospatial abilities cognitive tasks. The sample consisted of adults at least 65 years of age. The results showed that older musicians had similar absolute thresholds but better supra-threshold discrimination abilities than nonmusicians in four of the six auditory tasks administered. They also had a better WM performance, and stronger visuospatial abilities than nonmusicians. No differences were found between the two groups' short-term memory. Frequency discrimination and gap detection for the auditory measures, and WM complex span tasks and one of the visuospatial tasks for the cognitive ones proved to be very good classifiers of the musicians. These findings suggest that life-long music training may be associated with enhanced auditory and cognitive performance, including complex cognitive skills, in advanced age. However, whether this music training represents a protective factor or not needs further investigation.

Cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, and respiratory changes induced by different types of music in musicians and non-musicians: the importance of silence.

Science.gov (United States)

Bernardi, L; Porta, C; Sleight, P

2006-04-01

To assess the potential clinical use, particularly in modulating stress, of changes in the cardiovascular and respiratory systems induced by music, specifically tempo, rhythm, melodic structure, pause, individual preference, habituation, order effect of presentation, and previous musical training. Measurement of cardiovascular and respiratory variables while patients listened to music. University research laboratory for the study of cardiorespiratory autonomic function. 12 practising musicians and 12 age matched controls. After a five minute baseline, presentation in random order of six different music styles (first for a two minute, then for a four minute track), with a randomly inserted two minute pause, in either sequence. Breathing rate, ventilation, carbon dioxide, RR interval, blood pressure, mid-cerebral artery flow velocity, and baroreflex. Ventilation, blood pressure, and heart rate increased and mid-cerebral artery flow velocity and baroreflex decreased with faster tempi and simpler rhythmic structures compared with baseline. No habituation effect was seen. The pause reduced heart rate, blood pressure, and minute ventilation, even below baseline. An order effect independent of style was evident for mid-cerebral artery flow velocity, indicating a progressive reduction with exposure to music, independent of style. Musicians had greater respiratory sensitivity to the music tempo than did non-musicians. Music induces an arousal effect, predominantly related to the tempo. Slow or meditative music can induce a relaxing effect; relaxation is particularly evident during a pause. Music, especially in trained subjects, may first concentrate attention during faster rhythms, then induce relaxation during pauses or slower rhythms.

Auditory temporal processing skills in musicians with dyslexia.

Science.gov (United States)

Bishop-Liebler, Paula; Welch, Graham; Huss, Martina; Thomson, Jennifer M; Goswami, Usha

2014-08-01

The core cognitive difficulty in developmental dyslexia involves phonological processing, but adults and children with dyslexia also have sensory impairments. Impairments in basic auditory processing show particular links with phonological impairments, and recent studies with dyslexic children across languages reveal a relationship between auditory temporal processing and sensitivity to rhythmic timing and speech rhythm. As rhythm is explicit in music, musical training might have a beneficial effect on the auditory perception of acoustic cues to rhythm in dyslexia. Here we took advantage of the presence of musicians with and without dyslexia in musical conservatoires, comparing their auditory temporal processing abilities with those of dyslexic non-musicians matched for cognitive ability. Musicians with dyslexia showed equivalent auditory sensitivity to musicians without dyslexia and also showed equivalent rhythm perception. The data support the view that extensive rhythmic experience initiated during childhood (here in the form of music training) can affect basic auditory processing skills which are found to be deficient in individuals with dyslexia. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Musician Map: visualizing music collaborations over time

Science.gov (United States)

Yim, Ji-Dong; Shaw, Chris D.; Bartram, Lyn

2009-01-01

In this paper we introduce Musician Map, a web-based interactive tool for visualizing relationships among popular musicians who have released recordings since 1950. Musician Map accepts search terms from the user, and in turn uses these terms to retrieve data from MusicBrainz.org and AudioScrobbler.net, and visualizes the results. Musician Map visualizes relationships of various kinds between music groups and individual musicians, such as band membership, musical collaborations, and linkage to other artists that are generally regarded as being similar in musical style. These relationships are plotted between artists using a new timeline-based visualization where a node in a traditional node-link diagram has been transformed into a Timeline-Node, which allows the visualization of an evolving entity over time, such as the membership in a band. This allows the user to pursue social trend queries such as "Do Hip-Hop artists collaborate differently than Rock artists".

The effect of music performance on the transcriptome of professional musicians.

Science.gov (United States)

Kanduri, Chakravarthi; Kuusi, Tuire; Ahvenainen, Minna; Philips, Anju K; Lähdesmäki, Harri; Järvelä, Irma

2015-03-25

Music performance by professional musicians involves a wide-spectrum of cognitive and multi-sensory motor skills, whose biological basis is unknown. Several neuroscientific studies have demonstrated that the brains of professional musicians and non-musicians differ structurally and functionally and that musical training enhances cognition. However, the molecules and molecular mechanisms involved in music performance remain largely unexplored. Here, we investigated the effect of music performance on the genome-wide peripheral blood transcriptome of professional musicians by analyzing the transcriptional responses after a 2-hr concert performance and after a 'music-free' control session. The up-regulated genes were found to affect dopaminergic neurotransmission, motor behavior, neuronal plasticity, and neurocognitive functions including learning and memory. Particularly, candidate genes such as SNCA, FOS and DUSP1 that are involved in song perception and production in songbirds, were identified, suggesting an evolutionary conservation in biological processes related to sound perception/production. Additionally, modulation of genes related to calcium ion homeostasis, iron ion homeostasis, glutathione metabolism, and several neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases implied that music performance may affect the biological pathways that are otherwise essential for the proper maintenance of neuronal function and survival. For the first time, this study provides evidence for the candidate genes and molecular mechanisms underlying music performance.

Musicians have better memory than nonmusicians: A meta-analysis

OpenAIRE

Talamini, Francesca; Altoè, Gianmarco; Carretti, Barbara; Grassi, Massimo

2017-01-01

Background Several studies have found that musicians perform better than nonmusicians in memory tasks, but this is not always the case, and the strength of this apparent advantage is unknown. Here, we conducted a meta-analysis with the aim of clarifying whether musicians perform better than nonmusicians in memory tasks. Methods Education Source; PEP (WEB)—Psychoanalytic Electronic Publishing; Psychology and Behavioral Science (EBSCO); PsycINFO (Ovid); PubMed; ScienceDirect—AllBooks Content (E...

Accurate guitar tuning by cochlear implant musicians.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Thomas Lu

Full Text Available Modern cochlear implant (CI users understand speech but find difficulty in music appreciation due to poor pitch perception. Still, some deaf musicians continue to perform with their CI. Here we show unexpected results that CI musicians can reliably tune a guitar by CI alone and, under controlled conditions, match simultaneously presented tones to <0.5 Hz. One subject had normal contralateral hearing and produced more accurate tuning with CI than his normal ear. To understand these counterintuitive findings, we presented tones sequentially and found that tuning error was larger at ∼ 30 Hz for both subjects. A third subject, a non-musician CI user with normal contralateral hearing, showed similar trends in performance between CI and normal hearing ears but with less precision. This difference, along with electric analysis, showed that accurate tuning was achieved by listening to beats rather than discriminating pitch, effectively turning a spectral task into a temporal discrimination task.

Musical Expectations Enhance Auditory Cortical Processing in Musicians: A Magnetoencephalography Study.

Science.gov (United States)

Park, Jeong Mi; Chung, Chun Kee; Kim, June Sic; Lee, Kyung Myun; Seol, Jaeho; Yi, Suk Won

2018-01-15

The present study investigated the influence of musical expectations on auditory representations in musicians and non-musicians using magnetoencephalography (MEG). Neuroscientific studies have demonstrated that musical syntax is processed in the inferior frontal gyri, eliciting an early right anterior negativity (ERAN), and anatomical evidence has shown that interconnections occur between the frontal cortex and the belt and parabelt regions in the auditory cortex (AC). Therefore, we anticipated that musical expectations would mediate neural activities in the AC via an efferent pathway. To test this hypothesis, we measured the auditory-evoked fields (AEFs) of seven musicians and seven non-musicians while they were listening to a five-chord progression in which the expectancy of the third chord was manipulated (highly expected, less expected, and unexpected). The results revealed that highly expected chords elicited shorter N1m (negative AEF at approximately 100 ms) and P2m (positive AEF at approximately 200 ms) latencies and larger P2m amplitudes in the AC than less-expected and unexpected chords. The relations between P2m amplitudes/latencies and harmonic expectations were similar between the groups; however, musicians' results were more remarkable than those of non-musicians. These findings suggest that auditory cortical processing is enhanced by musical knowledge and long-term training in a top-down manner, which is reflected in shortened N1m and P2m latencies and enhanced P2m amplitudes in the AC. Copyright © 2017 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Towards wearable support for nomadic musicians

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kock, S.V.; Bouwer, A.

2011-01-01

This article presents the design of the Boogynoma system, which aims to support musicians on the go. The system is designed to capture musical ideas which would normally require a guitar, bass, or drum kit and recording equipment. To inform the design of the system, four emiprofessional musicians,

Benefits and disadvantages of joint hypermobility among musicians.

Science.gov (United States)

Larsson, L G; Baum, J; Mudholkar, G S; Kollia, G D

1993-10-07

Joint hypermobility is considered to be both an advantage and a disadvantage. However, the degree of hypermobility in members of particular occupations requiring intense physical activity and the nature of the association between symptoms referable to specific joints and their hypermobility are unknown. We interviewed 660 musicians (300 women and 360 men) about work-related symptoms such as joint pain and swelling and examined them for joint hypermobility according to a standard protocol. We then determined the relation between the mobility of their fingers, thumbs, elbows, knees, and spine and any symptoms referable to these regions. Five of the 96 musicians (5 percent) with hypermobility of the wrists, mostly instrumentalists who played the flute, violin, or piano, had pain and stiffness in this region, whereas 100 of the 564 musicians (18 percent) without such hypermobility had symptoms (P = 0.001). Hypermobility of the elbow was associated with symptoms in only 1 of 208 musicians (< 1 percent), whereas 7 of 452 (2 percent) without this hypermobility had symptoms (P = 0.45). Among the 132 musicians who had hypermobile knees, 6 (5 percent) had symptoms, whereas only 1 of 528 (< 1 percent) with normal knees had symptoms (P < 0.001). Of the 462 musicians who had normal mobility of the spine, 50 (11 percent) had symptoms involving the back, as compared with 46 of the 198 musicians (23 percent) who had hypermobility of the spine (P < 0.001). Among musicians who play instruments requiring repetitive motion, hypermobility of joints such as the wrists and elbows may be an asset, whereas hypermobility of less frequently moved joints such as the knees and spine may be a liability.

Hearing in nonprofessional pop/rock musicians.

Science.gov (United States)

Schmuziger, Nicolas; Patscheke, Jochen; Probst, Rudolf

2006-08-01

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the hearing and subjective auditory symptoms in a group of nonprofessional pop/rock musicians who had experienced repeated exposures to intense sound levels during at least 5 yr of musical activity. An evaluation of both ears in 42 nonprofessional pop/rock musicians included pure-tone audiometry in the conventional and extended high-frequency range, the measurement of uncomfortable loudness levels, and an assessment of tinnitus and hypersensitivity to sound. Exclusion criteria were (a) the occurrence of acoustic trauma, (b) excessive noise exposure during occupational activities, (c) a history of recurrent otitis media, (d) previous ear surgery, (e) a fracture of the cranium, (f) ingestion of potentially ototoxic drugs, and (g) reported hearing difficulties within the immediate family. These audiometric results were then compared with a control group of 20 otologically normal young adults with no history of long-term noise exposure. After adjusting for age and gender, relative to ISO 7029, the mean hearing threshold in the frequency range of 3 to 8 kHz was 6 dB in the musicians and 1.5 dB in the control group. This difference was statistically significant (Mann-Whitney rank sum test, p rock musicians who had experienced repeated exposure to intense sound levels over at least 5 yr but with minimal impact on their lives. Moreover, hearing loss was minimal in the subjects who always used ear protection, being only 0.9 dB higher than the control group. In contrast, hearing loss was significantly more pronounced, at 6.7 dB higher than the control group, in those musicians who never used ear protection. Continued education about the risk to hearing and the benefits of the persistent use of ear protection is warranted for musicians who are exposed frequently to intense sound levels.

The sound of music: Differentiating musicians using a fast, musical multi-feature mismatch negativity paradigm

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Vuust, Peter; Brattico, Elvira; Seppänen, Miia

2012-01-01

to the other deviants in jazz musicians and left lateralization of the MMN to timbre in classical musicians. These findings indicate that the characteristics of the style/genre of music played by musicians influence their perceptual skills and the brain processing of sound features embedded in a musical......Musicians' skills in auditory processing depend highly on instrument, performance practice, and on level of expertise. Yet, it is not known though whether the style/genre of music might shape auditory processing in the brains of musicians. Here, we aimed at tackling the role of musical style....../genre on modulating neural and behavioral responses to changes in musical features. Using a novel, fast and musical sounding multi-feature paradigm, we measured the mismatch negativity (MMN), a pre-attentive brain response, to six types of musical feature change in musicians playing three distinct styles of music...

Musicians have better memory than nonmusicians: A meta-analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Talamini, Francesca; Altoè, Gianmarco; Carretti, Barbara; Grassi, Massimo

2017-01-01

Several studies have found that musicians perform better than nonmusicians in memory tasks, but this is not always the case, and the strength of this apparent advantage is unknown. Here, we conducted a meta-analysis with the aim of clarifying whether musicians perform better than nonmusicians in memory tasks. Education Source; PEP (WEB)-Psychoanalytic Electronic Publishing; Psychology and Behavioral Science (EBSCO); PsycINFO (Ovid); PubMed; ScienceDirect-AllBooks Content (Elsevier API); SCOPUS (Elsevier API); SocINDEX with Full Text (EBSCO) and Google Scholar were searched for eligible studies. The selected studies involved two groups of participants: young adult musicians and nonmusicians. All the studies included memory tasks (loading long-term, short-term or working memory) that contained tonal, verbal or visuospatial stimuli. Three meta-analyses were run separately for long-term memory, short-term memory and working memory. We collected 29 studies, including 53 memory tasks. The results showed that musicians performed better than nonmusicians in terms of long-term memory, g = .29, 95% CI (.08-.51), short-term memory, g = .57, 95% CI (.41-.73), and working memory, g = .56, 95% CI (.33-.80). To further explore the data, we included a moderator (the type of stimulus presented, i.e., tonal, verbal or visuospatial), which was found to influence the effect size for short-term and working memory, but not for long-term memory. In terms of short-term and working memory, the musicians' advantage was large with tonal stimuli, moderate with verbal stimuli, and small or null with visuospatial stimuli. The three meta-analyses revealed a small effect size for long-term memory, and a medium effect size for short-term and working memory, suggesting that musicians perform better than nonmusicians in memory tasks. Moreover, the effect of the moderator suggested that, the type of stimuli influences this advantage.

Mental rotation and working memory in musicians' dystonia.

Science.gov (United States)

Erro, Roberto; Hirschbichler, Stephanie T; Ricciardi, Lucia; Ryterska, Agata; Antelmi, Elena; Ganos, Christos; Cordivari, Carla; Tinazzi, Michele; Edwards, Mark J; Bhatia, Kailash P

2016-11-01

Mental rotation of body parts engages cortical-subcortical areas that are actually involved in the execution of a movement. Musicians' dystonia is a type of focal hand dystonia that is grouped together with writer's cramp under the rubric of "occupational dystonia", but it is unclear to which extent these two disorders share common pathophysiological mechanisms. Previous research has demonstrated patients with writer's cramp to have deficits in mental rotation of body parts. It is unknown whether patients with musicians' dystonia would display similar deficits, reinforcing the concept of shared pathophysiology. Eight patients with musicians' dystonia and eight healthy musicians matched for age, gender and musical education, performed a number of tasks assessing mental rotation of body parts and objects as well as verbal and spatial working memories abilities. There were no differences between patients and healthy musicians as to accuracy and reaction times in any of the tasks. Patients with musicians' dystonia have intact abilities in mentally rotating body parts, suggesting that this disorder relies on a highly selective disruption of movement planning and execution that manifests only upon playing a specific instrument. We further demonstrated that mental rotation of body parts and objects engages, at least partially, different cognitive networks. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Tourette's syndrome in famous musicians

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Carlos Henrique F. Camargo

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Tourette's syndrome (TS is defined as a disorder characterized by multiple motor tics and at least one vocal tic that have lasted for not less than one year. It is a relatively complex neurobehavioral disorder, in which patients may present with coexistent attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder or other behavioral comorbidities. The musical genius Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791 and the rock star Kurt Cobain (1967-1994 may both have suffered from TS, and some contemporary musicians have had their clinical condition confirmed as TS. Our hypothetical diagnosis of TS in Mozart and Cobain is based on the presence of tics and psychiatric comorbidities. In contemporary musicians, such as Michael Wolff, Nick Van Bloss and James Durbin, TS has often only been diagnosed after a considerable delay. This delay in diagnosis and the controversies surrounding the clinical case of Mozart show how difficult a confirmatory diagnosis of this complex disease is.

Auditory and visual memory in musicians and nonmusicians

OpenAIRE

Cohen, Michael A.; Evans, Karla K.; Horowitz, Todd S.; Wolfe, Jeremy M.

2011-01-01

Numerous studies have shown that musicians outperform nonmusicians on a variety of tasks. Here we provide the first evidence that musicians have superior auditory recognition memory for both musical and nonmusical stimuli, compared to nonmusicians. However, this advantage did not generalize to the visual domain. Previously, we showed that auditory recognition memory is inferior to visual recognition memory. Would this be true even for trained musicians? We compared auditory and visual memory ...

Creativity and personality in classical, jazz and folk musicians.

Science.gov (United States)

Benedek, Mathias; Borovnjak, Barbara; Neubauer, Aljoscha C; Kruse-Weber, Silke

2014-06-01

The music genre of jazz is commonly associated with creativity. However, this association has hardly been formally tested. Therefore, this study aimed at examining whether jazz musicians actually differ in creativity and personality from musicians of other music genres. We compared students of classical music, jazz music, and folk music with respect to their musical activities, psychometric creativity and different aspects of personality. In line with expectations, jazz musicians are more frequently engaged in extracurricular musical activities, and also complete a higher number of creative musical achievements. Additionally, jazz musicians show higher ideational creativity as measured by divergent thinking tasks, and tend to be more open to new experiences than classical musicians. This study provides first empirical evidence that jazz musicians show particularly high creativity with respect to domain-specific musical accomplishments but also in terms of domain-general indicators of divergent thinking ability that may be relevant for musical improvisation. The findings are further discussed with respect to differences in formal and informal learning approaches between music genres.

Hearing loss and tinnitus in rock musicians: A Norwegian survey

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Carl Christian Lein Størmer

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Our focus in this study was to assess hearing thresholds and the prevalence and characteristics of tinnitus in a large group of rock musicians based in Norway. A further objective was to assess related factors such as exposure, instrument category, and the preventive effect of hearing protection. The study was a cross-sectional survey of rock musicians selected at random from a defined cohort of musicians. A random control group was included for comparison. We recruited 111 active musicians from the Oslo region, and a control group of 40 nonmusicians from the student population at the University of TromsØ. The subjects were investigated using clinical examination, pure tone audiometry, tympanometry, and a questionnaire. We observed a hearing loss in 37.8% of the rock musicians. Significantly poorer hearing thresholds were seen at most pure-tone frequencies in musicians than controls, with the most pronounced threshold shift at 6 kHz. The use of hearing protection, in particular custom-fitted earplugs, has a preventive effect but a minority of rock musicians apply them consistently. The degree of musical performance exposure was inversely related to the degree of hearing loss in our sample. Bass and guitar players had higher hearing thresholds than vocalists. We observed a 20% prevalence of chronic tinnitus but none of the affected musicians had severe tinnitus symptomatology. There was no statistical association between permanent tinnitus and hearing loss in our sample. We observed an increased prevalence of hearing loss and tinnitus in our sample of Norwegian rock musicians but the causal relationship between musical exposure and hearing loss or tinnitus is ambiguous. We recommend the use of hearing protection in rock musicians.

Psychosocial stressors and the short life spans of legendary jazz musicians.

Science.gov (United States)

Patalano, F

2000-04-01

Mean age at death of 168 legendary jazz musicians and 100 renowned classical musicians were compared to examine whether psychosocial stressors such as severe substance abuse, haphazard working conditions, lack of acceptance of jazz as an art form in the United States, marital and family discord, and a vagabond life style may have contributed to shortened life spans for the jazz musicians. Analysis indicated that the jazz musicians died at an earlier age (57.2 yr.) than the classical musicians (73.3 yr.).

[Medical problems of musicians].

Science.gov (United States)

van de Wiel, Albert; Rietveld, Boni

2010-01-01

Most individuals enjoy making music, but pleasure may be diminished by physical complaints. The most common complaints in musicians include injuries of the upper part of the body including the shoulder and spine, skin disorders and hearing problems. Injuries are not so much related to the extent of rehearsing and playing but are mostly the result of a wrong position and misuse of the instrument. Adequate preparation before playing and professional coaching to avoid injuries or to detect problems at an early stage are exceptions rather than the rule. Because of the large number of amateur and professional musicians in the Netherlands, music medicine deserves a more prominent role.

Symptoms of craniomandibular dysfunction in professional orchestra musicians.

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Steinmetz, A; Zeh, A; Delank, K S; Peroz, I

2014-01-01

Up to 80% of professional musicians are affected by playing-related musculoskeletal disorders, but data regarding the frequency of craniomandibular dysfunction (CMD) in professional orchestra musicians is scarce. To evaluate the frequency of CMD and its relation to musculoskeletal pain in various body regions. A questionnaire-based survey approach assessing CMD symptoms and musculoskeletal pain in professional orchestra players was adopted. Relative prevalence rates and prevalence ratios for different instrument groups were estimated. A total of 408 musicians completed the questionnaire (response rate 57%). Playing-related pain in the teeth or jaw was reported by 19-47% of musicians and TMJ pain by 15-34%, depending on the instrument group. Current pain in the face indicating a painful CMD was reported in 6-10% and related symptoms such as teeth grinding in 25-34%, jaw clenching in 33-42% and jaw locking in 11-18% of musicians. Females were 2.4 times (95% confidence intervals (CI) 1.49-3.84) more likely to report having had orofacial pain within the last month. Musicians reporting orofacial pain within the last month were 4.8 times (95% CI: 2.83-8.02) more likely to report pain in the neck and 2.5-3.8 times (P neck, shoulder and hands. There is a need to enhance awareness of CMD to optimize early medical diagnosis and treatment.

Auditory Profiles of Classical, Jazz, and Rock Musicians: Genre-Specific Sensitivity to Musical Sound Features.

Science.gov (United States)

Tervaniemi, Mari; Janhunen, Lauri; Kruck, Stefanie; Putkinen, Vesa; Huotilainen, Minna

2015-01-01

When compared with individuals without explicit training in music, adult musicians have facilitated neural functions in several modalities. They also display structural changes in various brain areas, these changes corresponding to the intensity and duration of their musical training. Previous studies have focused on investigating musicians with training in Western classical music. However, musicians involved in different musical genres may display highly differentiated auditory profiles according to the demands set by their genre, i.e., varying importance of different musical sound features. This hypothesis was tested in a novel melody paradigm including deviants in tuning, timbre, rhythm, melody transpositions, and melody contour. Using this paradigm while the participants were watching a silent video and instructed to ignore the sounds, we compared classical, jazz, and rock musicians' and non-musicians' accuracy of neural encoding of the melody. In all groups of participants, all deviants elicited an MMN response, which is a cortical index of deviance discrimination. The strength of the MMN and the subsequent attentional P3a responses reflected the importance of various sound features in each music genre: these automatic brain responses were selectively enhanced to deviants in tuning (classical musicians), timing (classical and jazz musicians), transposition (jazz musicians), and melody contour (jazz and rock musicians). Taken together, these results indicate that musicians with different training history have highly specialized cortical reactivity to sounds which violate the neural template for melody content.

Faster native vowel discrimination learning in musicians is mediated by an optimization of mnemonic functions.

Science.gov (United States)

Elmer, Stefan; Greber, Marielle; Pushparaj, Arethy; Kühnis, Jürg; Jäncke, Lutz

2017-09-01

The ability to discriminate phonemes varying in spectral and temporal attributes constitutes one of the most basic intrinsic elements underlying language learning mechanisms. Since previous work has consistently shown that professional musicians are characterized by perceptual and cognitive advantages in a variety of language-related tasks, and since vowels can be considered musical sounds within the domain of speech, here we investigated the behavioral and electrophysiological correlates of native vowel discrimination learning in a sample of professional musicians and non-musicians. We evaluated the contribution of both the neurophysiological underpinnings of perceptual (i.e., N1/P2 complex) and mnemonic functions (i.e., N400 and P600 responses) while the participants were instructed to judge whether pairs of native consonant-vowel (CV) syllables manipulated in the first formant transition of the vowel (i.e., from /tu/ to /to/) were identical or not. Results clearly demonstrated faster learning in musicians, compared to non-musicians, as reflected by shorter reaction times and higher accuracy. Most notably, in terms of morphology, time course, and voltage strength, this steeper learning curve was accompanied by distinctive N400 and P600 manifestations between the two groups. In contrast, we did not reveal any group differences during the early stages of auditory processing (i.e., N1/P2 complex), suggesting that faster learning was mediated by an optimization of mnemonic but not perceptual functions. Based on a clear taxonomy of the mnemonic functions involved in the task, results are interpreted as pointing to a relationship between faster learning mechanisms in musicians and an optimization of echoic (i.e., N400 component) and working memory (i.e., P600 component) functions. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Factors Affecting Healthful Eating Among Touring Popular Musicians and Singers.

Science.gov (United States)

Cizek, Erin; Kelly, Patrick; Kress, Kathleen; Mattfeldt-Beman, Mildred

2016-06-01

Maintaining good health is essential for touring musicians and singers. The stressful demands of touring may impact food choices, leading to detrimental effects on health and performance. This exploratory pilot study aimed to assess factors affecting healthful eating of touring musicians and singers. A 46-item survey was used to assess food- and nutrition-related attitudes, knowledge and behaviors, and environmental factors, as well as lifestyle, musical background, and demographic data. Participants (n=35) were recruited from a musicians' assistance foundation as well as touring musical theater productions and a music festival. Results indicate that touring musicians and singers had positive attitudes regarding healthful foods. Of 35 respondents, 80.0% indicated eating healthful food was important to them. Respondents reported feeling confident selecting (76.5%) and preparing (82.4%) healthful foods; however, they showed uncertainty when determining if carbohydrate-containing foods should be consumed or avoided. Respondents indicated environmental factors including availability and cost of healthy food options and tour schedules limited access to healthful foods. Venues (73.5%), fast food restaurants (67.6%), and airports (64.7%) were the most frequently identified locations in need of offering more healthful food choices. Respondents (52.9%) indicated more support from others while touring would help them make healthier food choices. More research is needed to develop mobile wellness programs as well as performance-based nutrition guidelines for musicians and singers that address the unique demands associated with touring.

Imagery mismatch negativity in musicians.

Science.gov (United States)

Herholz, Sibylle C; Lappe, Claudia; Knief, Arne; Pantev, Christo

2009-07-01

The present study investigated musical imagery in musicians and nonmusicians by means of magnetoencephalography (MEG). We used a new paradigm in which subjects had to continue familiar melodies in their mind and then judged if a further presented tone was a correct continuation of the melody. Incorrect tones elicited an imagery mismatch negativity (iMMN) in musicians but not in nonmusicians. This finding suggests that the MMN component can be based on an imagined instead of a sensory memory trace and that imagery of music is modulated by musical expertise.

Towards an Active Hearing Protection Device for Musicians =

Science.gov (United States)

Bernier, Antoine

Professional musicians are oftentimes exposed to high levels of sound. Prolonged or severe exposure to high sound levels could lead to permanent hearing loss and compromise their career. The logical solution would be to wear hearing protection devices (HPDs) when appropriate. However, perceptual discomfort associated with wearing HPD can discourage their use by musicians. The perceptual discomfort is caused by two detrimental effects: the occlusion effect and the isolation effect. The occlusion effect is often reported as an augmented, unnatural and annoying perception of one's own voice or instrument mechanically coupled to the head when wearing HPDs. The isolation effect is the unnatural sensation of being isolated from a given sound environment and can be caused by wearing HPDs that do not compensate for psychoacoustical factors and therefore alter the wearer's auditory perception. Both effects are highly unfavorable to the musicians' auditory perception and compromise their capacity to perform to the best of their abilities for their audience. They are among the reasons most often reported by musicians to decide not to wear HPDs. This master's project presents the concept and first prototype of an active HPD for musicians that aims at solving the detrimental effects while protecting the musician's hearing. A solution for the occlusion effect is presented in the form of an earplug complemented with in-ear active noise control. Practical design issues and required trade-off are analyzed through a literature review and the implementation and characterization of an active occlusion effect reduction system, allowing reduction of the occlusion effect between 8.5 and 12 dB at 250 Hz. A solution for the isolation effect is presented in the form of an earplug complemented with digital signal processing capabilities. Factors that may cause the isolation effect are identified through a literature review and corresponding algorithms that aim at re-establishing the

Modulated neural processing of Western harmony in folk musicians.

Science.gov (United States)

Brattico, Elvira; Tupala, Tiina; Glerean, Enrico; Tervaniemi, Mari

2013-07-01

A chord deviating from the conventions of Western tonal music elicits an early right anterior negativity (ERAN) in inferofrontal brain regions. Here, we tested whether the ERAN is modulated by expertise in more than one music culture, as typical of folk musicians. Finnish folk musicians and nonmusicians participated in electroencephalography recordings. The cadences consisted of seven chords. In incongruous cadences, the third, fifth, or seventh chord was a Neapolitan. The ERAN to the Neapolitans was enhanced in folk musicians compared to nonmusicians. Folk musicians showed an enhanced P3a for the ending Neapolitan. The Neapolitan at the fifth position was perceived differently and elicited a late enhanced ERAN in folk musicians. Hence, expertise in more than one music culture seems to modify chord processing by enhancing the ERAN to ambivalent chords and the P3a to incongruous chords, and by altering their perceptual attributes. Copyright © 2013 Society for Psychophysiological Research.

The Self-Taught Career Musician: Investigating Learning Sources and Experiences

Science.gov (United States)

Watson, Leah

2016-01-01

This article reports early findings from a qualitative study of 10 full-time musicians who are self-taught, to investigate their learning biographies. The aim is to identify, define and explore learning sources and experiences across the musician's learning biography. Conducted in Melbourne, Australia, the musicians were recruited through snowball…

The Commodification of Music Theorising Musicians

OpenAIRE

Bradshaw, Alan

2005-01-01

This thesis considers the dialectical relationship between music and commerce and asks the question why are some musicians uneasy with the commodification of their music? The question is considered from the vantage points of professional musicians and their experiences in dealing with the commodification process. In exploring this dialectic, the thesis is organised around the interactionist orientation and a framework designed by Holt (2004) in which the research design and question emerges f...

Is 27 really a dangerous age for famous musicians? Retrospective cohort study.

Science.gov (United States)

Wolkewitz, Martin; Allignol, Arthur; Graves, Nicholas; Barnett, Adrian G

2011-12-20

To test the "27 club" hypothesis that famous musicians are at an increased risk of death at age 27. Design Cohort study using survival analysis with age as a time dependent exposure. Comparison was primarily made within musicians, and secondarily relative to the general UK population. The popular music scene from a UK perspective. Musicians (solo artists and band members) who had a number one album in the UK between 1956 and 2007 (n = 1046 musicians, with 71 deaths, 7%). Risk of death by age of musician, accounting for time dependent study entry and the number of musicians at risk. Risk was estimated using a flexible spline which would allow a bump at age 27 to appear. We identified three deaths at age 27 amongst 522 musicians at risk, giving a rate of 0.57 deaths per 100 musician years. Similar death rates were observed at ages 25 (rate = 0.56) and 32 (0.54). There was no peak in risk around age 27, but the risk of death for famous musicians throughout their 20s and 30s was two to three times higher than the general UK population. The 27 club is unlikely to be a real phenomenon. Fame may increase the risk of death among musicians, but this risk is not limited to age 27.

Reluctant entrepreneurs: musicians and entrepreneurship in the 'new' music industry.

Science.gov (United States)

Haynes, Jo; Marshall, Lee

2018-06-01

Changing labour conditions in the creative industries - with celebrations of autonomy and entrepreneurialism intertwined with increasing job insecurity, portfolio careers and short-term, project-based contracts - are often interpreted as heralding changes to employment relations more broadly. The position of musicians' labour in relation to these changes is unclear, however, given that these kinds of conditions have defined musicians' working practices over much longer periods of time (though they may have intensified due to well-documented changes to the music industry brought about by digitization and disintermediation). Musicians may thus be something of a barometer of current trends, as implied in the way that the musically derived label 'gig economy' is being used to describe the spread of precarious working conditions to broader sections of the population. This article, drawing on original qualitative research that investigated the working practices of musicians, explores one specific aspect of these conditions: whether musicians are self-consciously entrepreneurial towards their work and audience. We found that, while the musicians in our study are routinely involved in activities that could be construed as entrepreneurial, generally they were reluctant to label themselves as entrepreneurs. In part this reflected understandings of entrepreneurialism as driven by profit-seeking but it also reflected awareness that being a popular musician has always involved business and commercial dimensions. Drawing on theoretical conceptions of entrepreneurship developed by Joseph Schumpeter we highlight how the figure of the entrepreneur and the artist/musician share much in common and reflect various aspects of romantic individualism. Despite this, there are also some notable differences and we conclude that framing musicians' labour as entrepreneurial misrepresents their activities through an overemphasis on the economic dimensions of their work at the expense of the

Spatial vision is superior in musicians when memory plays a role.

Science.gov (United States)

Weiss, Atalia H; Biron, Tali; Lieder, Itay; Granot, Roni Y; Ahissar, Merav

2014-08-21

Musicians' perceptual advantage in the acoustic domain is well established. Recent studies show that musicians' verbal working memory is also superior. Additionally, some studies report that musicians' visuospatial skills are enhanced although others failed to find this enhancement. We now examined whether musicians' spatial vision is superior, and if so, whether this superiority reflects refined visual skills or a general superiority of working memory. We examined spatial frequency discrimination among musicians and nonmusician university students using two presentation conditions: simultaneous (spatial forced choice) and sequential (temporal forced choice). Musicians' performance was similar to that of nonmusicians in the simultaneous condition. However, their performance in the sequential condition was superior, suggesting an advantage only when stimuli need to be retained, i.e., working memory. Moreover, the two groups showed a different pattern of correlations: Musicians' visual thresholds were correlated, and neither was correlated with their verbal memory. By contrast, among nonmusicians, the visual thresholds were not correlated, but sequential thresholds were correlated with verbal memory scores, suggesting that a general working memory component limits their performance in this condition. We propose that musicians' superiority in spatial frequency discrimination reflects an advantage in a domain-general aspect of working memory rather than a general enhancement in spatial-visual skills. © 2014 ARVO.

Investigation of symphony orchestra musicians' use of hearing protectors

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Poulsen, Torben; Koskinen, Heli

2010-01-01

A questionnaire study was performed about the use of hearing protectors in Danish symphony orchestras. The musicians in three Danish symphony orchestras were asked to complete a questionnaire about their use of hearing protection. A total of 146 musicians filled in the questionnaire. Results show...... an investigation is performed about the use of hearing aids as hearing protectors by symphony orchestra musicians. Preliminary results from this investigation will be presented at the conference....

Auditory and visual memory in musicians and nonmusicians.

Science.gov (United States)

Cohen, Michael A; Evans, Karla K; Horowitz, Todd S; Wolfe, Jeremy M

2011-06-01

Numerous studies have shown that musicians outperform nonmusicians on a variety of tasks. Here we provide the first evidence that musicians have superior auditory recognition memory for both musical and nonmusical stimuli, compared to nonmusicians. However, this advantage did not generalize to the visual domain. Previously, we showed that auditory recognition memory is inferior to visual recognition memory. Would this be true even for trained musicians? We compared auditory and visual memory in musicians and nonmusicians using familiar music, spoken English, and visual objects. For both groups, memory for the auditory stimuli was inferior to memory for the visual objects. Thus, although considerable musical training is associated with better musical and nonmusical auditory memory, it does not increase the ability to remember sounds to the levels found with visual stimuli. This suggests a fundamental capacity difference between auditory and visual recognition memory, with a persistent advantage for the visual domain.

The assessment and treatment of performance anxiety in musicians.

Science.gov (United States)

Clark, D B; Agras, W S

1991-05-01

Performance anxiety in musicians may be severe enough to require intervention but has been the subject of relatively little clinical research. The authors' objectives were to describe the results of a comprehensive clinical and laboratory assessment and to perform a double-blind, placebo-controlled study comparing buspirone, cognitive-behavior therapy, and the combination of these treatments for performance anxiety. Ninety-four subjects were recruited by mass media announcements and were seen in a university-based outpatient psychiatric clinic. Assessments were 1) questionnaires for all 94 subjects, 2) diagnostic interview of 50 subjects, and 3) laboratory performance of 34 subjects. Treatment conditions were 1) 6 weeks of buspirone, 2) 6 weeks of placebo, 3) a five-session, group cognitive-behavior therapy program with buspirone, or 4) the cognitive-behavior therapy program with placebo. Treatment outcome measures included subjective anxiety ratings and heart rate measures during a laboratory performance, a questionnaire measure of performance confidence, and a blind rating of musical performance quality. All subjects fulfilled criteria for DSM-III-R social phobia. Of the 15 full-time professional musicians, ten had tried propranolol and three had stopped performing. Most of the subjects had substantial anxiety and heart rate increases during laboratory speech and musical performances. Cognitive-behavior therapy resulted in statistically significant reductions in subjective anxiety, improved quality of musical performance, and improved performance confidence. Buspirone was not an effective treatment. Cognitive-behavior therapy is a viable treatment approach for performance anxiety in musicians.

Making Mavericks: Preparing Musicians for Independent Artistic Culture

Science.gov (United States)

Canham, Nicole L.

2016-01-01

This essay explores the role that maverick qualities--"independent or unorthodox behaviour" ("The Oxford Dictionary," 2015)--play in developing and sustaining musician employability. Whilst career education for musicians often highlights new career models (Bridgstock, 2005), there is limited evidence of how these concepts work…

Music and its Impact on Musicians in Broadcasting Company

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mina Milani

1999-03-01

Full Text Available Sound is an inseparable part of human life and provides us with lovely experiences such as listening to music. Musicians from classical orchestras to rock groups are exposed to high decibel of sounds. Musicians playing percussion musical instruments are exposed to high level of impact noise and players of Brass musical instruments are highly exposed to noise peaks higher than 100dB. Woodwind players are enduring the risk of posing directly in front of Brass players. Based on the above-mentioned risks for hearing loss clinical consideration of noise induced hearing loss in musicians is highly required. In the current study we were aimed at examining hearing stratus of classic and traditional musicians by means of pure tone audiometry in Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting. 33 subjects were evaluated aged between 22 to 59 years old. Their musical experience was variable between 6 to 45 years. The study demonstrated that most of the musicians in this study suffered bilateral high frequency hearing loss with a notch in the frequency range of 4-8 KHz.

Left-hemisphere activation is associated with enhanced vocal pitch error detection in musicians with absolute pitch

Science.gov (United States)

Behroozmand, Roozbeh; Ibrahim, Nadine; Korzyukov, Oleg; Robin, Donald A.; Larson, Charles R.

2014-01-01

The ability to process auditory feedback for vocal pitch control is crucial during speaking and singing. Previous studies have suggested that musicians with absolute pitch (AP) develop specialized left-hemisphere mechanisms for pitch processing. The present study adopted an auditory feedback pitch perturbation paradigm combined with ERP recordings to test the hypothesis whether the neural mechanisms of the left-hemisphere enhance vocal pitch error detection and control in AP musicians compared with relative pitch (RP) musicians and non-musicians (NM). Results showed a stronger N1 response to pitch-shifted voice feedback in the right-hemisphere for both AP and RP musicians compared with the NM group. However, the left-hemisphere P2 component activation was greater in AP and RP musicians compared with NMs and also for the AP compared with RP musicians. The NM group was slower in generating compensatory vocal reactions to feedback pitch perturbation compared with musicians, and they failed to re-adjust their vocal pitch after the feedback perturbation was removed. These findings suggest that in the earlier stages of cortical neural processing, the right hemisphere is more active in musicians for detecting pitch changes in voice feedback. In the later stages, the left-hemisphere is more active during the processing of auditory feedback for vocal motor control and seems to involve specialized mechanisms that facilitate pitch processing in the AP compared with RP musicians. These findings indicate that the left hemisphere mechanisms of AP ability are associated with improved auditory feedback pitch processing during vocal pitch control in tasks such as speaking or singing. PMID:24355545

Auditory profiles of classical, jazz, and rock musicians: Genre-specific sensitivity to musical sound features

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mari eTervaniemi

2016-01-01

Full Text Available When compared with individuals without explicit training in music, adult musicians have facilitated neural functions in several modalities. They also display structural changes in various brain areas, these changes corresponding to the intensity and duration of their musical training. Previous studies have focused on investigating musicians with training in Western classical music. However, musicians involved in different musical genres may display highly differentiated auditory profiles according to the demands set by their genre, i.e. varying importance of different musical sound features. This hypothesis was tested in a novel melody paradigm including deviants in tuning, timbre, rhythm, melody transpositions, and melody contour. Using this paradigm while the participants were watching a silent video and instructed to ignore the sounds, we compared classical, jazz, and rock musicians’ and non-musicians’ accuracy of neural encoding of the melody. In all groups of participants, all deviants elicited an MMN response, which is a cortical index of deviance discrimination. The strength of the MMN and the subsequent attentional P3a responses reflected the importance of various sound features in each music genre: these automatic brain responses were selectively enhanced to deviants in tuning (classical musicians, timing (classical and jazz musicians, transposition (jazz musicians, and melody contour (jazz and rock musicians. Taken together, these results indicate that musicians with different training history have highly specialized cortical reactivity to sounds which violate the neural template for melody content.

159 THE ROLE OF MUSIC AND MUSICIANS IN PROMOTING ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

User

instability, musicians and music have a holistic role to play. And this is ... musicians useful, so that the child grows up a responsible ... endearing messages of body movements… ... In a similar development, he encouraged people never to be.

Training of tonal similarity ratings in non-musicians: a "rapid learning" approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Oechslin, Mathias S; Läge, Damian; Vitouch, Oliver

2012-01-01

Although cognitive music psychology has a long tradition of expert-novice comparisons, experimental training studies are rare. Studies on the learning progress of trained novices in hearing harmonic relationships are still largely lacking. This paper presents a simple training concept using the example of tone/triad similarity ratings, demonstrating the gradual progress of non-musicians compared to musical experts: In a feedback-based "rapid learning" paradigm, participants had to decide for single tones and chords whether paired sounds matched each other well. Before and after the training sessions, they provided similarity judgments for a complete set of sound pairs. From these similarity matrices, individual relational sound maps, intended to display mental representations, were calculated by means of non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS), and were compared to an expert model through procrustean transformation. Approximately half of the novices showed substantial learning success, with some participants even reaching the level of professional musicians. Results speak for a fundamental ability to quickly train an understanding of harmony, show inter-individual differences in learning success, and demonstrate the suitability of the scaling method used for learning research in music and other domains. Results are discussed in the context of the "giftedness" debate.

Training of tonal similarity ratings in non-musicians: a rapid learning approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mathias S Oechslin

2012-05-01

Full Text Available Although music psychology has a long tradition of expert-novice comparisons, experimental training studies are rare. Studies on the learning progress of trained novices in hearing harmonic relationships are still largely lacking. This paper presents a simple training concept using the example of tone/triad similarity ratings, demonstrating the gradual progress of non-musicians compared to musical experts: In a feedback-based rapid learning paradigm, participants had to decide for single tones and chords whether paired sounds matched each other well. Before and after the training sessions, they provided similarity judgments for a complete set of sound pairs. From these similarity matrices, individual relational sound maps, aiming to map the mental representations, were calculated by means of non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS, which were compared to an expert model through procrustean transformation. Approximately half of the novices showed substantial learning success, with some participants even reaching the level of professional musicians. Results speak for a fundamental ability to quickly train an understanding of harmony, show inter-individual differences in learning success, and demonstrate the suitability of the scaling method used for music psychological research. Results are discussed in the context of the giftedness debate.

The Alexander Technique and musicians: a systematic review of controlled trials.

Science.gov (United States)

Klein, Sabine D; Bayard, Claudine; Wolf, Ursula

2014-10-24

Musculoskeletal disorders, stress and performance anxiety are common in musicians. Therefore, some use the Alexander Technique (AT), a psycho-physical method that helps to release unnecessary muscle tension and re-educates non-beneficial movement patterns through intentional inhibition of unwanted habitual behaviours. According to a recent review AT sessions may be effective for chronic back pain. This review aimed to evaluate the evidence for the effectiveness of AT sessions on musicians' performance, anxiety, respiratory function and posture. The following electronic databases were searched up to February 2014 for relevant publications: PUBMED, Google Scholar, CINAHL, EMBASE, AMED, PsycINFO and RILM. The search criteria were "Alexander Technique" AND "music*". References were searched, and experts and societies of AT or musicians' medicine contacted for further publications. 237 citations were assessed. 12 studies were included for further analysis, 5 of which were randomised controlled trials (RCTs), 5 controlled but not randomised (CTs), and 2 mixed methods studies. Main outcome measures in RCTs and CTs were music performance, respiratory function, performance anxiety, body use and posture. Music performance was judged by external experts and found to be improved by AT in 1 of 3 RCTs; in 1 RCT comparing neurofeedback (NF) to AT, only NF caused improvements. Respiratory function was investigated in 2 RCTs, but not improved by AT training. Performance anxiety was mostly assessed by questionnaires and decreased by AT in 2 of 2 RCTs and in 2 of 2 CTs. A variety of outcome measures has been used to investigate the effectiveness of AT sessions in musicians. Evidence from RCTs and CTs suggests that AT sessions may improve performance anxiety in musicians. Effects on music performance, respiratory function and posture yet remain inconclusive. Future trials with well-established study designs are warranted to further and more reliably explore the potential of AT in the

Musicians have better memory than nonmusicians: A meta-analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Altoè, Gianmarco; Carretti, Barbara; Grassi, Massimo

2017-01-01

Background Several studies have found that musicians perform better than nonmusicians in memory tasks, but this is not always the case, and the strength of this apparent advantage is unknown. Here, we conducted a meta-analysis with the aim of clarifying whether musicians perform better than nonmusicians in memory tasks. Methods Education Source; PEP (WEB)—Psychoanalytic Electronic Publishing; Psychology and Behavioral Science (EBSCO); PsycINFO (Ovid); PubMed; ScienceDirect—AllBooks Content (Elsevier API); SCOPUS (Elsevier API); SocINDEX with Full Text (EBSCO) and Google Scholar were searched for eligible studies. The selected studies involved two groups of participants: young adult musicians and nonmusicians. All the studies included memory tasks (loading long-term, short-term or working memory) that contained tonal, verbal or visuospatial stimuli. Three meta-analyses were run separately for long-term memory, short-term memory and working memory. Results We collected 29 studies, including 53 memory tasks. The results showed that musicians performed better than nonmusicians in terms of long-term memory, g = .29, 95% CI (.08–.51), short-term memory, g = .57, 95% CI (.41–.73), and working memory, g = .56, 95% CI (.33–.80). To further explore the data, we included a moderator (the type of stimulus presented, i.e., tonal, verbal or visuospatial), which was found to influence the effect size for short-term and working memory, but not for long-term memory. In terms of short-term and working memory, the musicians’ advantage was large with tonal stimuli, moderate with verbal stimuli, and small or null with visuospatial stimuli. Conclusions The three meta-analyses revealed a small effect size for long-term memory, and a medium effect size for short-term and working memory, suggesting that musicians perform better than nonmusicians in memory tasks. Moreover, the effect of the moderator suggested that, the type of stimuli influences this advantage. PMID:29049416

The lived experience of working as a musician with an injury.

Science.gov (United States)

Guptill, Christine

2011-01-01

Research and clinical experience have shown that musicians are at risk of acquiring playing-related injuries. This paper explores findings from a qualitative research study examining the lived experience of professional instrumental musicians with playing-related injuries, which has thus far been missing from the performing arts health literature. This study employed a phenomenological methodology influenced by van Manen to examine the lived experiences of professional musicians with playing-related injuries. Ten professional musicians in Ontario, Canada were interviewed about their experiences as musicians with playing-related injuries. Six of the participants later attended a focus group where preliminary findings were presented. The findings demonstrate a need for education about risk and prevention of injuries that could be satisfied by healthcare professionals and music educators. The practice and training of healthcare professionals should include the "tactful" (van Manen) delivery of care for this important and vulnerable population.

A motion capture study to measure the feeling of synchrony in romantic couples and in professional musicians

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Delphine Preissmann

2016-10-01

Full Text Available The feeling of synchrony is fundamental for most social activities and prosocial behaviors. However, little is known about the behavioral correlates of this feeling and its modulation by intergroup differences. We previously showed that the subjective feeling of synchrony in subjects involved in a mirror imitation task was modulated by objective behavioral measures, as well as contextual factors such as task difficulty and duration of the task performance. In the present study, we extended our methodology to investigate possible interindividual differences. We hypothesized that being in a romantic relationship or being a professional musician can modulate both implicit and explicit synchronisation and the feeling of synchrony as well as the ability to detect synchrony from a third person perspective. Contrary to our hypothesis, we did not find significant differences between people in a romantic relationship and control subjects. However, we observed differences between musicians and control subjects. For the implicit synchrony (spontaneous synchronization during walking, the results revealed that musicians that had never met before spontaneously synchronized their movements earlier among themselves than control subjects, but not better than people sharing a romantic relationship. Moreover, in explicit behavioral synchronisation tasks (mirror game, musicians reported earlier feeling of synchrony and had less speed errors than control subjects. This was in interaction with tasks difficulty as these differences appeared only in tasks with intermediate difficulty. Finally, when subjects had to judge synchrony from a third person perspective, musicians had a better performance to identify if they were present or not in the videos. Taken together, our results suggest that being a professional musician can play a role in the feeling of synchrony and its underlying mechanisms.

Individual, lifestyle, and psychosocial factors related to insomnia among Norwegian musicians

OpenAIRE

Saksvik-Lehouillier, Ingvild; Bjerkeset, Ottar; Vaag, Jonas

2017-01-01

Musicians report a considerably higher prevalence of insomnia symptoms compared to community samples in the general workforce. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between insomnia and health, work-related, and lifestyle factors among musicians. A total of 645 full-time musicians completed a questionnaire measuring insomnia symptoms: personality, psychosocial factors (perceived job demands, job control, effort-reward imbalance, and general social support), and lifestyle (s...

Musician effect on perception of spectro-temporally degraded speech, vocal emotion, and music in young adolescents.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Başkent, Deniz; Fuller, Christina; Galvin, John; Schepel, Like; Gaudrain, Etienne; Free, Rolien

2018-01-01

In adult normal-hearing musicians, perception of music, vocal emotion, and speech in noise has been previously shown to be better than non-musicians, sometimes even with spectro-temporally degraded stimuli. In this study, melodic contour identification, vocal emotion identification, and speech

Effects of Aging on Musical Performance in Professional Orchestral Musicians.

Science.gov (United States)

Kenny, Dianna T; Driscoll, Tim; Ackermann, Bronwen J

2018-03-01

The physical and psychological demands of playing a musical instrument are likely to be affected by age-related decline in function, including physical, cognitive, psychological, and organ-related changes. However, the complex neurophysiological demands of playing a musical instrument may delay many normal aging-related changes. This study compared professional classical musicians of different ages, using a range of physical and psychological measures, to discover how increasing age might affect work performance and to identify possible risk and protective factors for physical and psychological health as the musicians age. 377 professional orchestral musicians from eight Australian orchestras (70% response rate), ages 18 to 68 yrs (mean 42.1). Multiple standardized physical and psychological tools were used to evaluate the impact of age on a range of physical and mental health variables. Age was not statistically associated with frequency or severity of performance-related musculoskeletal disorders, ratings of perceived exertion, QuickDASH scores, use of beta-blockers, workplace satisfaction, and most psychological tests. Differences were observed on SPIN (social anxiety) scores, with lowest scores in the oldest age group (10.66 in 55+ yrs vs 17.83 in 18-30 yrs, p=0.016). Older musicians had higher BMIs and fewer practice sessions per day than younger musicians and also were more likely to consume alcohol on 5+ days/wk (44% vs 9%, p=0.003). Advancing age does not appear to exert undue negative impacts on physical and psychological health or performance capacity of professional orchestral musicians. However, dwindling numbers in the older age groups may suggest a "survivor" effect, whereby those who develop significant age-related decrements may cease professional performance at earlier ages. Longitudinal studies on the professional trajectories of professional orchestral musicians are needed to explore this question further.

Pain among professional orchestral musicians: a case study in body culture and health psychology.

Science.gov (United States)

Nygaard Andersen, Lotte; Roessler, Kirsten K; Eichberg, Henning

2013-09-01

Professional musicians experience high rates of musculoskeletal pain, but only few studies have investigated how this pain is accepted by musicians. To investigate the culture of pain and to explore how professional musicians experience and cope with pain. Ten semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted; 8 with musicians and 2 with professional elite athletes. In addition, a concert and two rehearsals were observed. The audiotaped interviews were transcribed verbatim. Configurational analysis was used to interpret the material as a whole. Musicians often experience pain as a consequence of prolonged repetitive work early in their career. Such pain is compounded by the lack of breaks during concerts and rehearsals. Orchestras seldom give opportunities for adjustments required for individual instruments, breaks, or action to prevent pain. Musicians' strong sense of coherence and the experience of pain as integral to their identity have encouraged musicians to develop flexible coping strategies. Ignoring pain and potential damage is an accepted concomitant to striving for perfection. A musician does not focus on pain but on the music. For the musician, pain has a significance beyond being something that can simply be removed by a practitioner. Pain tells both an individual story and a cultural story that is crying out to be heard.

Musicians do not benefit from differences in fundamental frequency when listening to speech in competing speech backgrounds

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Madsen, Sara Miay Kim; Whiteford, Kelly L.; Oxenham, Andrew J.

2017-01-01

Recent studies disagree on whether musicians have an advantage over non-musicians in understanding speech in noise. However, it has been suggested that musicians may be able to use diferences in fundamental frequency (F0) to better understand target speech in the presence of interfering talkers....... Here we studied a relatively large (N=60) cohort of young adults, equally divided between nonmusicians and highly trained musicians, to test whether the musicians were better able to understand speech either in noise or in a two-talker competing speech masker. The target speech and competing speech...... were presented with either their natural F0 contours or on a monotone F0, and the F0 diference between the target and masker was systematically varied. As expected, speech intelligibility improved with increasing F0 diference between the target and the two-talker masker for both natural and monotone...

Visual Complaints and Eye Problems in Orchestral Musicians.

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Beckers, Henny Jm; van Kooten-Noordzij, Marina Aw; de Crom, Ronald Mpc; Schouten, Jan Sag; Webers, Carroll Ab

2016-09-01

To study visual complaints and eye diseases among professional and amateur orchestral musicians in the Netherlands. In this observational study, members from professional and amateur symphony or wind orchestras were asked to complete a questionnaire collecting demographic data, musical, medical, and family history, and data on present visual complaints and/or eye diseases. Questions about playing in the orchestra were also asked. Data from 70 professionals and 48 amateurs showed that most musicians needed glasses or contact lenses for playing in the orchestra (61% of the professionals, 63% of the amateurs). A majority (66% of professionals, 71% of amateurs) had visited an ophthalmologist at least once during their lifetime, and 10% of the professionals and 23% of the amateurs were currently under treatment of an ophthalmologist. Visual complaints while playing in the orchestra were quite common and included poor lighting conditions, problems with reading small notes, blurred vision, tired eyes, and itching or burning eyes. Professional musicians especially reported adverse effects of eye complaints encountered in the orchestra for daily life; 35% got tired earlier and 33% felt that they could not adequately perform their tasks in the orchestra. The results show that visual complaints and eye problems probably are quite common among orchestral musicians and therefore warrant further interest and research.

A Motion Capture Study to Measure the Feeling of Synchrony in Romantic Couples and in Professional Musicians

KAUST Repository

Preissmann, Delphine

2016-10-27

The feeling of synchrony is fundamental for most social activities and prosocial behaviors. However, little is known about the behavioral correlates of this feeling and its modulation by intergroup differences. We previously showed that the subjective feeling of synchrony in subjects involved in a mirror imitation task was modulated by objective behavioral measures, as well as contextual factors such as task difficulty and duration of the task performance. In the present study, we extended our methodology to investigate possible interindividual differences. We hypothesized that being in a romantic relationship or being a professional musician can modulate both implicit and explicit synchronization and the feeling of synchrony as well as the ability to detect synchrony from a third person perspective. Contrary to our hypothesis, we did not find significant differences between people in a romantic relationship and control subjects. However, we observed differences between musicians and control subjects. For the implicit synchrony (spontaneous synchronization during walking), the results revealed that musicians that had never met before spontaneously synchronized their movements earlier among themselves than control subjects, but not better than people sharing a romantic relationship. Moreover, in explicit behavioral synchronization tasks (mirror game), musicians reported earlier feeling of synchrony and had less speed errors than control subjects. This was in interaction with tasks difficulty as these differences appeared only in tasks with intermediate difficulty. Finally, when subjects had to judge synchrony from a third person perspective, musicians had a better performance to identify if they were present or not in the videos. Taken together, our results suggest that being a professional musician can play a role in the feeling of synchrony and its underlying mechanisms. © 2016 Preissmann, Charbonnier, Chagué, Antonietti, Llobera, Ansermet and Magistretti.

[Focal dystonia in musicians: Phenomenology and musical triggering factors].

Science.gov (United States)

Aránguiz, R; Chana-Cuevas, P; Alburquerque, D; Curinao, X

2015-06-01

Dystonias are defined as a joint sustained and involuntary contraction of agonist and antagonist muscles, which can cause torsion, repetitive abnormal involuntary movements, and/or abnormal postures. One special group of dystonias are those known as occupational, which include dystonia disorders triggered by a repetitive motor activity associated with a specific professional activity or task. Musicians are a population particularly vulnerable to these types of dystonia, which are presented as a loss of coordination and voluntary motor control movements highly trained in musical interpretation. Our aim is to describe a clinical series of focal dystonias in musicians evaluated and treated in our centre. Data is presented on a clinical series of 12 musicians with occupational dystonia. Their history and phenomenology are described, as well as well as their outcome after therapy. Demographic details: Mean age 34.8 ± 11.8 years, 10 males (83.3%) and 2 females (16.7%). History of trauma in dystonic segment, 6 patients (50%); family history of neurological diseases in first-degree relatives, 6 patients (50%); occupational history according to music category, 8 patients (66.6%) were classical musicians and 4 patients (33.3%) were popular musicians. The dystonia syndrome was characterised by having a mean age of onset of 28.2 ± 11.3 years (range 18-57 years). The segment affected was the hand (91.7%) in 11 patients. Of all the musicians seen in the clinic, 9 of them (75%) received therapy. The majority of patients appeared to have triggering factors specific to musical execution and linked to the requirement of fine motor control. It should be mentioned that 50% of the musicians treated maintained their professional activity or position in the orchestra to which they belonged. The majority of our phenomenological findings are consistent with those reported in the current literature. However, it is worth mentioning the presence of triggering factors attributed to the

Yoga reduces performance anxiety in adolescent musicians.

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Khalsa, Sat Bir S; Butzer, Bethany; Shorter, Stephanie M; Reinhardt, Kristen M; Cope, Stephen

2013-01-01

Professional musicians often experience high levels of stress, music performance anxiety (MPA), and performance-related musculoskeletal disorders (PRMDs). Given the fact that most professional musicians begin their musical training before the age of 12, it is important to identify interventions that will address these issues from an early age. This study intended to replicate and expand upon adult research in this area by evaluating the effects of a yoga intervention on MPA and PRMDs in a population of adolescent musicians. The present study was the first to examine these effects. The research team assigned participants, adolescent musicians, into two groups. The intervention group (n = 84) took part in a 6-wk yoga program, and the control group (n = 51) received no treatment. The team evaluated the effects of the yoga intervention by comparing the scores of the intervention group to those of the control group on a number of questionnaires related to MPA and PRMDs. The study was conducted at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute (BUTI). BUTI is a training academy for advanced adolescent musicians, located in Lenox, Massachusetts. Participants were adolescent, residential music students (mean age = 16 y) in a 6-wk summer program at the BUTI in 2007 and 2008. Participants in the yoga intervention group were requested to attend three, 60-min, Kripalustyle yoga classes each wk for 6 wk. MPA was measured using the Performance Anxiety Questionnaire (PAQ) and the Music Performance Anxiety Inventory for Adolescents (MPAI-A). PRMDs were measured using the Performance-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders Questionnaire (PRMD-Q). RESULTS • Yoga participants showed statistically significant reductions in MPA from baseline to the end of the program compared to the control group, as measured by several subscales of the PAQ and MPAI-A; however, the results for PRMDs were inconsistent. The findings suggest that yoga may be a promising way for adolescents to reduce MPA and

Functional connectivity of the dorsal striatum in female musicians

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shoji eTanaka

2016-04-01

Full Text Available The dorsal striatum (caudate/putamen is a node of the cortico-striato-pallido-thalamo-cortical (CSPTC motor circuit, which plays a central role in skilled motor learning, a critical feature of musical performance. The dorsal striatum receives input from a large part of the cerebral cortex, forming a hub in the cortical-subcortical network. This study sought to examine how the functional network of the dorsal striatum differs between musicians and nonmusicians.Resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI data were acquired from female university students majoring in music and nonmusic disciplines. The data were subjected to graph theoretical analysis and functional connectivity analysis. The graph theoretical analysis of the entire brain revealed that the degree, which represents the number of connections, of the bilateral putamen was significantly lower in musicians than in nonmusicians. The functional connectivity analysis indicated that compared with nonmusicians, musicians had significantly decreased connectivity between the left putamen and bilateral frontal operculum and between the left caudate nucleus and cerebellum. In conclusion, compared with nonmusicians, female musicians have a smaller functional network of the dorsal striatum, with decreased connectivity. These data are consistent with previous anatomical studies reporting a reduced volume of the dorsal striatum in musicians and ballet dancers. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study suggesting that long-term musical training results in a less extensive or selective functional network of the dorsal striatum.

Basic timing abilities stay intact in patients with musician's dystonia.

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M C van der Steen

Full Text Available Task-specific focal dystonia is a movement disorder that is characterized by the loss of voluntary motor control in extensively trained movements. Musician's dystonia is a type of task-specific dystonia that is elicited in professional musicians during instrumental playing. The disorder has been associated with deficits in timing. In order to test the hypothesis that basic timing abilities are affected by musician's dystonia, we investigated a group of patients (N = 15 and a matched control group (N = 15 on a battery of sensory and sensorimotor synchronization tasks. Results did not show any deficits in auditory-motor processing for patients relative to controls. Both groups benefited from a pacing sequence that adapted to their timing (in a sensorimotor synchronization task at a stable tempo. In a purely perceptual task, both groups were able to detect a misaligned metronome when it was late rather than early relative to a musical beat. Overall, the results suggest that basic timing abilities stay intact in patients with musician's dystonia. This supports the idea that musician's dystonia is a highly task-specific movement disorder in which patients are mostly impaired in tasks closely related to the demands of actually playing their instrument.

Basic Timing Abilities Stay Intact in Patients with Musician's Dystonia

Science.gov (United States)

van der Steen, M. C.; van Vugt, Floris T.; Keller, Peter E.; Altenmüller, Eckart

2014-01-01

Task-specific focal dystonia is a movement disorder that is characterized by the loss of voluntary motor control in extensively trained movements. Musician's dystonia is a type of task-specific dystonia that is elicited in professional musicians during instrumental playing. The disorder has been associated with deficits in timing. In order to test the hypothesis that basic timing abilities are affected by musician's dystonia, we investigated a group of patients (N = 15) and a matched control group (N = 15) on a battery of sensory and sensorimotor synchronization tasks. Results did not show any deficits in auditory-motor processing for patients relative to controls. Both groups benefited from a pacing sequence that adapted to their timing (in a sensorimotor synchronization task at a stable tempo). In a purely perceptual task, both groups were able to detect a misaligned metronome when it was late rather than early relative to a musical beat. Overall, the results suggest that basic timing abilities stay intact in patients with musician's dystonia. This supports the idea that musician's dystonia is a highly task-specific movement disorder in which patients are mostly impaired in tasks closely related to the demands of actually playing their instrument. PMID:24667273

Musicians Reaching out to People with Dementia : Perspectives of Learning

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Smilde, Rineke; Herzberg, H.; Kammler, E.

2011-01-01

Article on the emergence of the community musician in particular the project Music for Life of Wigmore Hall in London is described. The biographical learning and the learning processes are examined in detail and examples of the interactions between musicians and people with dementia are given as

Secrets of virtuoso: neuromuscular attributes of motor virtuosity in expert musicians

Science.gov (United States)

Furuya, Shinichi; Oku, Takanori; Miyazaki, Fumio; Kinoshita, Hiroshi

2015-10-01

Musical performance requires extremely fast and dexterous limb movements. The underlying biological mechanisms have been an object of interest among scientists and non-scientists for centuries. Numerous studies of musicians and non-musicians have demonstrated that neuroplastic adaptations through early and deliberate musical training endowed superior motor skill. However, little has been unveiled about what makes inter-individual differences in motor skills among musicians. Here we determined the attributes of inter-individual differences in the maximum rate of repetitive piano keystrokes in twenty-four pianists. Among various representative factors of neuromuscular functions, anatomical characteristics, and training history, a stepwise multiple regression analysis and generalized linear model identified two predominant predictors of the maximum rate of repetitive piano keystrokes; finger tapping rate and muscular strength of the elbow extensor. These results suggest a non-uniform role of individual limb muscles in the production of extremely fast repetitive multi-joint movements. Neither age of musical training initiation nor the amount of extensive musical training before age twenty was a predictor. Power grip strength was negatively related to the maximum rate of piano keystrokes only during the smallest tone production. These findings highlight the importance of innate biological nature and explicit training for motor virtuosity.

Music performance anxiety in young musicians: comparison of playing classical or popular music.

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Nusseck, Manfred; Zander, Mark; Spahn, Claudia

2015-03-01

Music performance anxiety (MPA) is an issue frequently experienced by musicians. It occurs not only in experienced musicians but also in children and adolescents. Furthermore, most research on MPA has been done with musicians who specialized in classical music. This study investigated the development of MPA across the ages in young musicians focusing on the classical and popular genres. In a cross-sectional survey, 239 students at German music schools, aged between 7 and 20 yrs, were asked about their perceived MPA and musical background. The data were analyzed according to musical genre and age. Multiple regression analyses were performed to investigate the influences of musical experiences on MPA. The analyses yielded high levels of MPA for classical musicians between 7 and 16 yrs, which was reduced in older students; for popular musicians, low MPA was seen in the younger (7-11 yrs) and high MPA in the older (16+ yrs) musicians. MPA was influenced by gender and the number of performances in the classical music group and only by gender and age in the popular music group. The results showed clear different trends for the development of MPA between musical genres that should be taken into account for educational aspects in musical training.

Error management for musicians: an interdisciplinary conceptual framework.

Science.gov (United States)

Kruse-Weber, Silke; Parncutt, Richard

2014-01-01

Musicians tend to strive for flawless performance and perfection, avoiding errors at all costs. Dealing with errors while practicing or performing is often frustrating and can lead to anger and despair, which can explain musicians' generally negative attitude toward errors and the tendency to aim for flawless learning in instrumental music education. But even the best performances are rarely error-free, and research in general pedagogy and psychology has shown that errors provide useful information for the learning process. Research in instrumental pedagogy is still neglecting error issues; the benefits of risk management (before the error) and error management (during and after the error) are still underestimated. It follows that dealing with errors is a key aspect of music practice at home, teaching, and performance in public. And yet, to be innovative, or to make their performance extraordinary, musicians need to risk errors. Currently, most music students only acquire the ability to manage errors implicitly - or not at all. A more constructive, creative, and differentiated culture of errors would balance error tolerance and risk-taking against error prevention in ways that enhance music practice and music performance. The teaching environment should lay the foundation for the development of such an approach. In this contribution, we survey recent research in aviation, medicine, economics, psychology, and interdisciplinary decision theory that has demonstrated that specific error-management training can promote metacognitive skills that lead to better adaptive transfer and better performance skills. We summarize how this research can be applied to music, and survey-relevant research that is specifically tailored to the needs of musicians, including generic guidelines for risk and error management in music teaching and performance. On this basis, we develop a conceptual framework for risk management that can provide orientation for further music education and

The Role of Personality in Musicians' Information Seeking for Creativity

Science.gov (United States)

Kostagiolas, Petros; Lavranos, Charilaos; Martzoukou, Konstantina; Papadatos, Joseph

2017-01-01

Introduction: This paper explores the relationship between musicians' information seeking behaviour and their personality traits within the context of musical creativity. Although previous research has addressed different socio-technological and behavioral aspects of music information seeking, the role of personality characteristics around…

Sound Practice– Improving occupational health and safety for professional orchestral musicians in Australia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bronwen Jane Ackermann

2014-09-01

Full Text Available The Sound Practice Project is a five-year study involving baseline evaluation, development and implementation of musician-specific work health and safety initiatives. A cross-sectional population physical and psychological survey and physical assessment were conducted at the same time, with an auditory health assessment conducted later. The results were used to guide the development of a series of targeted interventions, encompassing physical, psychological and auditory health components. This paper provides an overview of the project but focuses on the health findings arising from the cross-sectional survey.377 musicians from the eight professional symphony orchestras in Australia took part in the cross-sectional study (about 70% of eligible musicians. Eighty-four percent (84% of musicians reported past performance-related musculoskeletal disorder (PRMD episodes; 50% were suffering a current PRMD. Of the 63% who returned hearing surveys, 43% believed they had hearing loss, and 64% used earplugs at least intermittently. Noise exposure was found to be high in private practice, although awareness of risk and earplug use in this environment was lower than in orchestral settings. Improved strategic approaches, acoustic screens and recently developed active earplugs were found to provide effective new options for hearing protection. With respect to psychosocial screening, female musicians reported significantly more trait anxiety, music performance anxiety, social anxiety, and other forms of anxiety and depression than male musicians. The youngest musicians were significantly more anxious compared with the oldest musicians. Thirty-three percent (33% of musicians may meet criteria for a diagnosis of social phobia; 32% returned a positive depression screen and 22% for post-traumatic stress disorder. PRMDs and trigger point discomfort levels were strongly associated with increasing severity of psychological issues such as depression and music

Behavioral Quantification of Audiomotor Transformations in Improvising and Score-Dependent Musicians

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Harris, Robert; van Kranenburg, Peter; de Jong, Bauke M.

2016-01-01

The historically developed practice of learning to play a music instrument from notes instead of by imitation or improvisation makes it possible to contrast two types of skilled musicians characterized not only by dissimilar performance practices, but also disparate methods of audiomotor learning.

Training of Tonal Similarity Ratings in Non-Musicians: A “Rapid Learning” Approach

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Oechslin, Mathias S.; Läge, Damian; Vitouch, Oliver

2012-01-01

Although cognitive music psychology has a long tradition of expert–novice comparisons, experimental training studies are rare. Studies on the learning progress of trained novices in hearing harmonic relationships are still largely lacking. This paper presents a simple training concept using the example of tone/triad similarity ratings, demonstrating the gradual progress of non-musicians compared to musical experts: In a feedback-based “rapid learning” paradigm, participants had to decide for single tones and chords whether paired sounds matched each other well. Before and after the training sessions, they provided similarity judgments for a complete set of sound pairs. From these similarity matrices, individual relational sound maps, intended to display mental representations, were calculated by means of non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS), and were compared to an expert model through procrustean transformation. Approximately half of the novices showed substantial learning success, with some participants even reaching the level of professional musicians. Results speak for a fundamental ability to quickly train an understanding of harmony, show inter-individual differences in learning success, and demonstrate the suitability of the scaling method used for learning research in music and other domains. Results are discussed in the context of the “giftedness” debate. PMID:22629252

Neurosyphilis in Anglo-American Composers and Jazz Musicians.

Science.gov (United States)

Breitenfeld, Darko; Kust, Davor; Breitenfeld, Tomislav; Prpić, Marin; Lucijanić, Marko; Zibar, Davor; Hostić, Vedran; Franceschi, Maja; Bolanča, Ante

2017-09-01

Syphilis is a sexually transmitted, systemic disease caused by the spirochete bacterium Treponema pallidum. The most common mechanism of transmission is sexual intercourse. Although there are several hypotheses, the exact origin of the disease remains unknown. Newly published evidence suggests that the hypothesis supporting the theory of the American origin of the disease is the valid one. Among 1500 analyzed pathographies of composers and musicians, data on ten Anglo-American composers and jazz musicians having suffered from neurosyphilis (tertiary stage of the disease) were extracted for this report. In this group of Anglo-American composers and musicians, most of them died from progressive paralysis while still in the creative phase of life. Additionally, diagnoses of eleven other famous neurosyphilitic composers, as well as basic biographic data on ten less known composers that died from neurosyphilis-progressive paralysis are also briefly mentioned. In conclusion, neurosyphilis can cause serious neurological damage, as well as permanent disability or death, preventing further work and skill improvement.

Differential parietal and temporal contributions to music perception in improvising and score-dependent musicians, an fMRI study

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Robert Harris; Bauke M. de Jong

2015-01-01

Using fMRI, cerebral activations were studied in 24 classically-trained keyboard performers and 12 musically unskilled control subjects. Two groups of musicians were recruited: improvising (n=12) and score-dependent (non-improvising) musicians (n=12). While listening to both familiar and unfamiliar

Musicians and Tone-Language Speakers Share Enhanced Brainstem Encoding but Not Perceptual Benefits for Musical Pitch

Science.gov (United States)

Bidelman, Gavin M.; Gandour, Jackson T.; Krishnan, Ananthanarayan

2011-01-01

Behavioral and neurophysiological transfer effects from music experience to language processing are well-established but it is currently unclear whether or not linguistic expertise (e.g., speaking a tone language) benefits music-related processing and its perception. Here, we compare brainstem responses of English-speaking musicians/non-musicians…

A pilot study of occupational injury and illness experienced by classical musicians.

Science.gov (United States)

Raymond, Delbert M; Romeo, June Hart; Kumke, Karoline V

2012-01-01

Limited attention is paid to the hazards experienced by orchestra musicians in the occupational health and safety literature. Within that literature, the primary focus has been on noise exposure. A focus on this area is warranted because high sound pressure levels are a product of this work environment. However, in addition to being at risk for noise-induced hearing loss, workers are also at risk for musculoskeletal injury and illness related to stressful body postures held for prolonged work periods. The socio-political forces of employment may place workers at risk for mental health disorders (e.g., depression). The researchers distributed an anonymous survey to classical orchestra musicians in the southwestern United States. The survey inventoried several areas related to occupational health risks. Results suggest low health care-seeking behaviors relative to self-reported signs and symptoms of morbidity. Musicians also reported limited formal training and education regarding occupational health risks. Risk information was provided late in their professional development. This is a particular concern because of the young age at which music training is initiated. Copyright 2012, SLACK Incorporated.

Neuroarchitecture of verbal and tonal working memory in nonmusicians and musicians.

Science.gov (United States)

Schulze, Katrin; Zysset, Stefan; Mueller, Karsten; Friederici, Angela D; Koelsch, Stefan

2011-05-01

Working memory (WM) for auditory information has been thought of as a unitary system, but whether WM for verbal and tonal information relies on the same or different functional neuroarchitectures has remained unknown. This fMRI study examines verbal and tonal WM in both nonmusicians (who are trained in speech, but not in music) and highly trained musicians (who are trained in both domains). The data show that core structures of WM are involved in both tonal and verbal WM (Broca's area, premotor cortex, pre-SMA/SMA, left insular cortex, inferior parietal lobe), although with significantly different structural weightings, in both nonmusicians and musicians. Additionally, musicians activated specific subcomponents only during verbal (right insular cortex) or only during tonal WM (right globus pallidus, right caudate nucleus, and left cerebellum). These results reveal the existence of two WM systems in musicians: A phonological loop supporting rehearsal of phonological information, and a tonal loop supporting rehearsal of tonal information. Differences between groups for tonal WM, and between verbal and tonal WM within musicians, were mainly related to structures involved in controlling, programming and planning of actions, thus presumably reflecting differences in action-related sensorimotor coding of verbal and tonal information. Copyright © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Assessment of hearing and hearing disorders in rock/jazz musicians.

Science.gov (United States)

Kähärit, Kim; Zachau, Gunilla; Eklöf, Mats; Sandsjö, Leif; Möller, Claes

2003-07-01

The aim of this study was to assess hearing and hearing disorders among rock/jazz musicians. One hundred and thirty-nine (43 women and 96 men) musicians participated. The results are based on pure-tone audiometry and questionnaire responses. According to our definition of hearing loss, tinnitus, hyperacusis, distortion and/or diplacusis as hearing disorders, we found disorders in 74%, of the rock/jazz musicians studied. Hearing loss, tinnitus and hyperacusis were most common, and the latter two were found significantly more frequently than in different reference populations. The women showed bilateral, significantly better hearing thresholds at 3-6 kHz than the men. Hyperacusis, and the combination of both hyperacusis and tinnitus, were found to be significantly more frequent among women than among men. Hearing loss and tinnitus were significantly more common among men than among women. It is important to evaluate all kinds of hearing problems (other than hearing loss) in musicians, since they represent an occupational group especially dependent on optimal, functional hearing. On the basis of our results, we suggest that hearing problems such as tinnitus, hyperacusis, distortion and/or diplacusis should, in addition to hearing loss, be defined as hearing disorders.

Sound experiences: the vision of experimental musician on the folkloric music in modern society

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rieko Tanaka

2016-11-01

Full Text Available This work begins narrating how folk music has always been a remnant in the influence on classical composers. It makes special mention of origin Hungarian musicians Bela Bartok, Zoltan Kodaly. This Musicians are considerate in this work as the most immediate ancestors of an experimental musicians northamericans, because both are influenced by their passion for folk music. We select as musicians principals exponents of American experimental music to John Cage, Lou Harrison and Carl Ruggles. Their works will be considered and analyzed in this text as the sounds as the experiences. Composers that will analyze the sound as experience, as feeling, as emotion, as time and origin. related traits in folk music and experimental music. Not forgetting in this work, and in his final considerations, the relationship between the musician, creation, society and art.

Musicians as Teachers: Developing a Positive View through Collaborative Learning Partnerships

Science.gov (United States)

Bennett, Dawn; Stanberg, Andrea

2006-01-01

Previous research with classical instrumental musicians has highlighted the intrinsic benefits of teaching in addition to the perhaps more obvious benefits of securing a regular income. Yet, despite the presence of educational activities in the portfolio of most musicians, teaching remains on the periphery of many music performance programmes in…

Lifelong learning for professional musicians

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Smilde, Rineke; McPherson, G.; Welsh, G.

2012-01-01

In order to meet the challenges of rapidly changing cultural life in the 21st century, professional musicians have to be lifelong learners, drawing on a wide range of knowledge and skills. To be successful in a variety of roles, they need a reflective and responsive attitude to change. This chapter

Hearing of note: an electrophysiologic and psychoacoustic comparison of pitch discrimination between vocal and instrumental musicians.

Science.gov (United States)

Nikjeh, Dee A; Lister, Jennifer J; Frisch, Stefan A

2008-11-01

Cortical auditory evoked potentials of instrumental musicians suggest that music expertise modifies pitch processing, yet less is known about vocal musicians. Mismatch negativity (MMN) to pitch deviances and difference limen for frequency (DLF) were examined among 61 young adult women, including 20 vocalists, 21 instrumentalists, and 20 nonmusicians. Stimuli were harmonic tone complexes from the mid-female vocal range (C4-G4). MMN was elicited by multideviant paradigm. DLF was obtained by an adaptive psychophysical paradigm. Musicians detected pitch changes earlier and DLFs were 50% smaller than nonmusicians. Both vocal and instrumental musicians possess superior sensory-memory representations for acoustic parameters. Vocal musicians with instrumental training appear to have an auditory neural advantage over instrumental or vocal only musicians. An incidental finding reveals P3a as a sensitive index of music expertise.

In Their Own Words: Interviews with Musicians Reveal the Advantages and Disadvantages of Wearing Earplugs.

Science.gov (United States)

Beach, Elizabeth F; O'Brien, Ian

2017-06-01

Musicians are at risk of hearing loss from sound exposure, and earplugs form part of many musicians' hearing conservation practices. Although musicians typically report a range of difficulties when wearing earplugs, there are many who have managed to successfully incorporate earplugs into their practice of music. The study aim was to provide a detailed account of earplug usage from the perspective of the musician, including motivating factors, practical strategies, and attitudes. In-depth interviews with 23 musicians were transcribed and content analysis was performed. Responses were coded and classified into three main themes: advantages, disadvantages, and usage patterns and strategies, together with an overlapping fourth theme, youth perspectives. Several positive aspects of wearing earplugs were identified, including long-term hearing protection and reduced levels of fatigue and pain. Musicians reported that earplugs present few problems for communication, improve sound clarity in ensembles, are discreet, and are easy to handle. However, earplugs also present challenges, including an overall dullness of sound, reduced immediacy, and an impaired ability to judge balance and intonation due to the occlusion effect, all of which influence usage habits and patterns. The experiences of the younger musicians and long-term users of earplugs indicate that practice, persistence, and a flexible approach are required for successful earplug usage. In time, there may be greater acceptance of earplugs, particularly amongst a new generation of musicians, some of whom regard the earplugs as a performance enhancement tool as well as a protective device.

An evaluation of musician earplugs with college music students.

Science.gov (United States)

Chesky, Kris; Pair, Marla; Yoshimura, Eri; Landford, Scott

2009-01-01

Musician earplugs are marketed and recommended for use in music settings but no studies have evaluated these products with musicians. This study evaluated the influences of earplugs on college students' perception and abilities to communicate in a musical environment, attitudes of earplugs, comfort over time, and the influence of earplugs on ability to play music. College students (N = 323) were provided with earplugs for use during and following an experimental condition designed to mimic a night club. Results underline the challenges of earplugs in environments that are both loud and require verbal interaction. Responses to comfort questions were variable and suggest a multi-factorial set of influences that may include intrinsic variables. Despite these limitations, subjects in this study generally liked the earplugs and believed that they are valuable. However, the earplugs were not viewed favorably by musicians willing to use the earplugs while playing music. This study supports the view that earplugs are subject to many problems and should be considered as a last resort.

Prototype system to recommend appropriate amount of independent musicians who matched user's preference

OpenAIRE

Uetake, Tomofumi; Kiyohara, Seiya

2006-01-01

Recently we can easily get music information at home. Furthermore, by using ''independent music community site''on lnternet, we can easily get songs of independent musicians. However, it is very difficult for us to look for the musician who matched one's preference. Because there is a great deal of　number of the musicians, and a genre of a song is various. In this paper, We analyze the independent community music site in Japan and clarify the characteristics of the information about registere...

[Contribution to the study of laterality in professional musicians].

Science.gov (United States)

Chouard, C H

1991-01-01

Left-handed professional musicians percentage is not significantly different from normal population, excepted for piano, organ and harpsichord players. For these instruments the melody is always written for the right hand, probably because of the location of the frequencies which are the most easily perceived by the human ear on the right part of the keyboard. Thus for a lefthanded musician to play piano is comparable to write with his right hand, and as a consequence leads him to play an other instrument for his professional activity.

Psychosocial stressors in the lives of great jazz musicians.

Science.gov (United States)

Patalano, F

1997-02-01

Brief biographical information on four great jazz tenor saxophone players of the past is presented to illustrate the similar psychosocial stressors these men seemed to experience, namely, severe substance abuse, haphazard working conditions, lack of acceptance of their art form in the United States, marital and family discord, and a vagabond life style. Ages at death of 80 great jazz musicians may indicate that the stressful life style of jazz musicians may be reflected in a shortened life span, but a control group is needed.

Investigating Musical Performance: Commonality and Diversity among Classical and Non-Classical Musicians

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Creech, Andrea; Papageorgi, Ioulia; Duffy, Celia; Morton, Frances; Hadden, Elizabeth; Potter, John; De Bezenac, Christophe; Whyton, Tony; Himonides, Evangelos; Welch, Graham

2008-01-01

The research project "Investigating Musical Performance: Comparative Studies in Advanced Musical Learning" was devised to investigate how classical, popular, jazz and Scottish traditional musicians deepen and develop their learning about performance in undergraduate, postgraduate and wider music community contexts. The aim of this paper is to…

Forty lives in the bebop business: mental health in a group of eminent jazz musicians.

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Wills, Geoffrey I

2003-09-01

Above-average levels of psychopathology have been demonstrated convincingly in groups of outstanding individuals working in the arts. Currently, jazz musicians have not been studied in this regard. To investigate any evidence of psychopathology in a group of eminent jazz musicians. Biographical material relating to 40 eminent American modern jazz musicians was reviewed and an attempt was made to formulate diagnoses using DSM-IV. Evidence was provided of levels of psychopathology in the sample of jazz musicians similar to those found in other previously investigated creative groups, with the exception of substance related problems. An interesting connection between creativity and sensation-seeking was highlighted. The link between psychopathology and creativity in the arts was given further weight. Future studies of jazz musicians using larger samples and making comparison with groups from different eras of music would give greater clarification to this area.

Exploring the thoughts and focus of attention of elite musicians under pressure

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Buma, L.A.; Bakker, F.C.; Oudejans, R.R.D.

2015-01-01

Although musicians often have to perform under high pressure, there is little systematic research into the foci of attention needed to maintain performance in such situations. In the current study, we asked elite musicians to report what they focus on and think about during moments of high pressure,

Prevalence of temporomandibular joint disorders and neck pain in musicians: a sytematic review

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Bennatan Ferreira dos Santos

Full Text Available Abstract Introduction: The instrumental practice for a long time, the high performance level, the strict technique and the specific shape of each musical instrument can take musicians to overcome their physiological limits, giving a high prevalence of musculoskeletal injuries. Objective: Investigate the prevalence of temporomandibular joint disorder and neck pain in musicians. Methods: Between August and September 2015 were reviewed five databases: LILACS, SciELO, Medline / PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science. The articles were read and evaluated by the criteria of the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE, items, that obtained a percentage above of 50 percent, were considered in the analysis of this work. Results: 15 articles attended the inclusion criteria. Among all musicians the prevalence of TMJ pain ranged from 10 - 81% and the prevalence of neck pain ranged from 29 - 80%. Conclusion: In this study was observed that the musicians showed both, temporomandibular joint disorders and neck pain, watching a high prevalence especially in violinists and the horn players. In the risk factors identified in the literature for the emergence of painful symptoms in musicians, stand out the biomechanical factors involved in maintaining anti-physiologic postures.

Pop-rock musicians: assessment of their satisfaction provided by hearing protectors.

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Santoni, Cristiane Bolzachini; Fiorini, Ana Claudia

2010-01-01

Pop-rock musicians are at risk of developing hearing loss and other symptoms related to amplified music. The aim of the present study was to assess the satisfaction provided by the use of hearing protection in pop-rock musicians. Contemporary cohort study. A study of 23 male pop-rock musicians, aged between 25 to 45 years. After audiological evaluation (pure tone audiometry, middle ear analysis, TEOAE and DPOAE) hearing protective devices were provided to be used for three months. After that musicians answered a satisfaction assessment questionnaire. The prevalence of hearing loss was of 21.7%. The most common complaints about the hearing protectors were: autophonia, pressure in the ears, interference in high frequencies perception and full time use of the hearing protector during concerts. There was a positive correlation between a reduction in tinnitus after the use of the HPD with the following complaints: tinnitus after beginning the career (p= 0.044), discomfort with the sound intensity in the work place (p= 0.009) and intolerance to loud sound (p= 0.029). There was a high prevalence of hearing loss and a positive tendency towards the use of the ear protector device among the sample population.

Perceptions of Playing-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders (PRMDs) in Irish traditional musicians: a focus group study.

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Wilson, Iseult M; Doherty, Liz; McKeown, Laura

2014-01-01

Playing-related musculoskeletal disorders (PRMDs) are common in musicians and interfere with the ability to play an instrument at the accustomed level. There is limited research into injuries affecting folk musicians. To explore the Irish traditional musicians' experience of PRMDs. Focus group interviews were conducted in 2011 and 2012, in two venues in Ireland. Data were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data collection ended when no new findings emerged from the analysis of interviews. The inclusion criteria were: males or females aged 18 and above, and who taught or played Irish traditional music on any instrument. The data were analysed using the interpretative phenomenological method. All participants (n=22) believed there was a link between playing music and musculoskeletal problems. The main body areas affected were the back, shoulders, arms and hands. The main theme that emerged was: 'PRMDs are an integral part of being a traditional musician', and that the musical experience was generally prioritised over the health of the musician. There were sub-themes of 'fear' and 'stresses that contributed to PRMDs'. PRMDs are an occupational hazard for Irish musicians. There is an awareness of PRMDs, but changes (technique, environment) may threaten identity.

The Effect of Conceptual Advancement in Jazz Music Selections and Jazz Experience on Musicians' Aesthetic Response

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Coggiola, John C.

2004-01-01

This study is an investigation of what musicians consider to be their aesthetic experience with jazz music selections that vary in level of conceptual advancement (melodic complexity during improvised solos). Music major participants (N = 128) were assigned to either the jazz musician (n = 64) or nonjazz musician (n = 64) group. Data were gathered…

Hearing loss in relation to sound exposure of professional symphony orchestra musicians

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Schmidt, J. H.; Pedersen, E. R.; Paarup, H. M.

2014-01-01

OBJECTIVES: The objectives of this study were to: (1) estimate the hearing status of classical symphony orchestra musicians and (2) investigate the hypothesis that occupational sound exposure of symphony orchestra musicians leads to elevated hearing thresholds. DESIGN: The study population compri...... that performing music may induce hearing loss to the same extent as industrial noise....

Noise induced hearing loss and other hearing complaints among musicians of symphony orchestras

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Jansen, E. J. M.; Helleman, H. W.; Dreschler, W. A.; de Laat, J. A. P. M.

2009-01-01

OBJECTIVES: An investigation of the hearing status of musicians of professional symphony orchestras. Main questions are: (1) Should musicians be treated as a special group with regard to hearing, noise, and noise related hearing problems (2) Do patterns of hearing damage differ for different

Facial Recognition of Happiness Is Impaired in Musicians with High Music Performance Anxiety.

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Sabino, Alini Daniéli Viana; Camargo, Cristielli M; Chagas, Marcos Hortes N; Osório, Flávia L

2018-01-01

Music performance anxiety (MPA) can be defined as a lasting and intense apprehension connected with musical performance in public. Studies suggest that MPA can be regarded as a subtype of social anxiety. Since individuals with social anxiety have deficits in the recognition of facial emotion, we hypothesized that musicians with high levels of MPA would share similar impairments. The aim of this study was to compare parameters of facial emotion recognition (FER) between musicians with high and low MPA. 150 amateur and professional musicians with different musical backgrounds were assessed in respect to their level of MPA and completed a dynamic FER task. The outcomes investigated were accuracy, response time, emotional intensity, and response bias. Musicians with high MPA were less accurate in the recognition of happiness ( p  = 0.04; d  = 0.34), had increased response bias toward fear ( p  = 0.03), and increased response time to facial emotions as a whole ( p  = 0.02; d  = 0.39). Musicians with high MPA displayed FER deficits that were independent of general anxiety levels and possibly of general cognitive capacity. These deficits may favor the maintenance and exacerbation of experiences of anxiety during public performance, since cues of approval, satisfaction, and encouragement are not adequately recognized.

Safety of subcutaneous microinjections (mesotherapy) in musicians.

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Navarte, Danik Arana; Rosset-Llobet, Jaume

2011-06-01

Determine the safety and tolerance of mesotherapy as a technique for the treatment of musculoskeletal complaints in musicians. 67 patients (55.2% women) were subjected to a total of 267 mesotherapy sessions. A mesotherapy needle or normal needle was used randomly. The drugs employed were thiocolchicoside and diazepam as muscular relaxants, pentoxifylline or buflomedil as vasodilators, and piroxicam as an anti-inflammatory, as directed. A visual analogue scale was used to quantify the pain produced by the microinjections as well as the degree of immediate and midterm side effects as reported on a standard questionnaire. A mean of 155.5 microinjections were performed per session, of which 45.6% were perceived as painful by the patient with a mean severity of 4.3 out of 10. The pain reduced to 0.5 out of 10 after 24 hours. The most sensitive areas were the levator scapulae and splenius muscles. Systemic symptoms were reported by 5.99% of the musicians after the mesotherapy sessions (muscular weakness 1.5%, rash 1.5%, drowsiness 1.1% and itching 1.1%, being the most frequent). The mean severity of these symptoms was 2.77 out of 10. In all cases the symptoms had completely disappeared after 24 hours. No patient referred to signs of local or systemic infection. The application of drugs by means of subcutaneous injections (mesotherapy) in musicians is a technique that is safe, well tolerated, and without any severe complications.

The Musician, the Researcher and the Psychologist

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Uddholm, Mats

practice. In contrast, the results indicate that the force contained in music-theoretical concepts appears to have an impact on how music situations are interpreted. These diversities were expressed as three different types of music-therapists; the Musician, the Researcher and the Psychologist, which......The Musician, the Researcher and the Psychologist The aim of this presentation is to illuminate and discuss some connections between the therapeutic profession and development of music pedagogic theory. A topic that initially emerged as a result of a sub-study in my PhD -project about professional...... practitioners music-pedagogical Powers of Definition. The purpose of this sub-study was to generate data about which concepts music-therapists use in their meta-reflections on musical situations in special-pedagogic related practices. The link between the sub-study’s results and the research question was based...

Resting-state functional connectivity and pitch identification ability in non-musicians

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Jiancheng eHou

2015-02-01

Full Text Available Previous studies have used task-related fMRI to investigate the neural basis of pitch identification (PI, but no study has examined the associations between resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC and PI ability. Using a large sample of Chinese non-musicians (N = 320, with 56 having prior musical training, the current study examined the associations among musical training, PI ability, and RSFC. Results showed that musical training was associated with increased RSFC within the networks for multiple cognitive functions (such as vision, phonology, semantics, auditory encoding, and executive functions. PI ability was associated with RSFC with regions for perceptual and auditory encoding for participants with musical training, and with RSFC with regions for short-term memory, semantics, and phonology for participants without musical training.

On detecting the playing/non-playing activity of musicians in symphonic music videos

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Bazzica, A.; Liem, C.C.S.; Hanjalic, A.

2016-01-01

Information on whether a musician in a large symphonic orchestra plays her instrument at a given time stamp or not is valuable for a wide variety of applications aiming at mimicking and enriching the classical music concert experience on modern multimedia platforms. In this work, we propose a novel

Exposure to music and noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) among professional pop/rock/jazz musicians.

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Halevi-Katz, Dana N; Yaakobi, Erez; Putter-Katz, Hanna

2015-01-01

Noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) has been extensively studied in industrial work environments. With the advent of new technologies, loud music has been increasingly affecting listeners outside of the industrial setting. Most research on the effects of music and hearing loss has focused on classical musicians. The purpose of the current study was to examine the relationship between the amount of experience a professional pop/rock/jazz musician has and objective and subjective variables of the musician's hearing loss. This study also examined professional pop/rock/jazz musicians' use of hearing protection devices in relation to the extent of their exposure to amplified music. Forty-four pop/rock/jazz musicians were interviewed using the Pop/Rock/Jazz Musician's Questionnaire (PRJMQ) in order to obtain self-reported symptoms of tinnitus and hyperacusis. Forty-two of the subjects were also tested for air-conduction hearing thresholds in the frequency range of 1-8 kHz. Results show that the extent of professional pop/rock/jazz musicians' exposure to amplified music was related to both objective and subjective variables of hearing loss: Greater musical experience was positively linked to higher hearing thresholds in the frequency range of 3-6 kHz and to the subjective symptom of tinnitus. Weekly hours playing were found to have a greater effect on hearing loss in comparison to years playing. Use of hearing protection was not linked to the extent of exposure to amplified music. It is recommended that further research be conducted with a larger sample, in order to gain a greater understanding of the detrimental effects of hours playing versus years playing.

Processing of complex auditory patterns in musicians and nonmusicians.

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Boh, Bastiaan; Herholz, Sibylle C; Lappe, Claudia; Pantev, Christo

2011-01-01

In the present study we investigated the capacity of the memory store underlying the mismatch negativity (MMN) response in musicians and nonmusicians for complex tone patterns. While previous studies have focused either on the kind of information that can be encoded or on the decay of the memory trace over time, we studied capacity in terms of the length of tone sequences, i.e., the number of individual tones that can be fully encoded and maintained. By means of magnetoencephalography (MEG) we recorded MMN responses to deviant tones that could occur at any position of standard tone patterns composed of four, six or eight tones during passive, distracted listening. Whereas there was a reliable MMN response to deviant tones in the four-tone pattern in both musicians and nonmusicians, only some individuals showed MMN responses to the longer patterns. This finding of a reliable capacity of the short-term auditory store underlying the MMN response is in line with estimates of a three to five item capacity of the short-term memory trace from behavioural studies, although pitch and contour complexity covaried with sequence length, which might have led to an understatement of the reported capacity. Whereas there was a tendency for an enhancement of the pattern MMN in musicians compared to nonmusicians, a strong advantage for musicians could be shown in an accompanying behavioural task of detecting the deviants while attending to the stimuli for all pattern lengths, indicating that long-term musical training differentially affects the memory capacity of auditory short-term memory for complex tone patterns with and without attention. Also, a left-hemispheric lateralization of MMN responses in the six-tone pattern suggests that additional networks that help structuring the patterns in the temporal domain might be recruited for demanding auditory processing in the pitch domain.

Processing of complex auditory patterns in musicians and nonmusicians.

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Bastiaan Boh

Full Text Available In the present study we investigated the capacity of the memory store underlying the mismatch negativity (MMN response in musicians and nonmusicians for complex tone patterns. While previous studies have focused either on the kind of information that can be encoded or on the decay of the memory trace over time, we studied capacity in terms of the length of tone sequences, i.e., the number of individual tones that can be fully encoded and maintained. By means of magnetoencephalography (MEG we recorded MMN responses to deviant tones that could occur at any position of standard tone patterns composed of four, six or eight tones during passive, distracted listening. Whereas there was a reliable MMN response to deviant tones in the four-tone pattern in both musicians and nonmusicians, only some individuals showed MMN responses to the longer patterns. This finding of a reliable capacity of the short-term auditory store underlying the MMN response is in line with estimates of a three to five item capacity of the short-term memory trace from behavioural studies, although pitch and contour complexity covaried with sequence length, which might have led to an understatement of the reported capacity. Whereas there was a tendency for an enhancement of the pattern MMN in musicians compared to nonmusicians, a strong advantage for musicians could be shown in an accompanying behavioural task of detecting the deviants while attending to the stimuli for all pattern lengths, indicating that long-term musical training differentially affects the memory capacity of auditory short-term memory for complex tone patterns with and without attention. Also, a left-hemispheric lateralization of MMN responses in the six-tone pattern suggests that additional networks that help structuring the patterns in the temporal domain might be recruited for demanding auditory processing in the pitch domain.

Italian musicians in Greece during the nineteenth century

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Romanou Ekaterini

2003-01-01

Full Text Available In Greece, the monophonic chant of the Orthodox church and its neumatic notation have been transmitted as a popular tradition up to the first decades of the 20th century. The transformation of Greek musical tradition to a Western type of urban culture and the introduction of harmony, staff notation and western instruments and performance practices in the country began in the 19th century. Italian musicians played a central role in that process. A large number of them lived and worked on the Ionian Islands. Those Italian musicians have left a considerable number of transcriptions and original compositions. Quite a different cultural background existed in Athens. Education was in most cases connected to the church - the institution that during the four centuries of Turkish occupation kept Greeks united and nationally conscious. The neumatic notation was used for all music sung by the people, music of both western and eastern origin. The assimilation of staff notation and harmony was accelerated in the last quarter of the 19th century. At the beginning of the 20th century in Athens a violent cultural clash was provoked by the reformers of music education all of them belonging to German culture. The clash ended with the displacement of the Italian and Greek musicians from the Ionian Islands working at the time in Athens, and the defamation of their fundamental work in music education.

One-Handed Musicians-More Than a Gimmick

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Woldendorp, K. H.; van Gils, W.

2012-01-01

There are many musicians with acquired limitations in making music, and there are many people with a disability who would like to play a music instrument in a modified way. There is discouragingly little information about this topic in literature. This article gives an overview of "making music in a

Exercise DVD effect on musculoskeletal disorders in professional orchestral musicians.

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Chan, C; Driscoll, T; Ackermann, B

2014-01-01

Professional musicians report a high prevalence of performance-related musculoskeletal disorders (PRMDs). Excessive muscle tension and fatigue have been reported as important factors contributing to PRMDs. To evaluate feasibility and effectiveness of a specific exercise programme delivered via a digital video disc (DVD) targeting PRMDs and associated risk factors. Volunteers from eight Australian symphony orchestras undertook two or more sessions per week over 12 weeks. Questionnaires were administered pre- and post-intervention with items including the frequency and severity of PRMDs, perceived exertion during different playing situations, per formance effects of the DVD and satisfaction rates. Musicians who had also participated in an equivalent face-to-face programme prior to this DVD trial compared the two interventions. One hundred and forty-four out of 576 musicians volunteered (25% uptake), and 50 participants completed a mean 2.1 (SD 0.42) sessions over the 12 week period (41% compliance). PRMD frequency and severity were significantly reduced post-intervention (P benefits of the DVD on strengthening muscles, increasing ease of movement and improving flexibility related to playing. Despite this, perceived exertion levels during private practice, rehearsal and performance remained the same (not significant). Seventy-eight per cent of participants scored their overall experience of the use of the DVD as good or excellent. Owing to its convenience and detailed exercise demonstrations, the DVD was rated as better or much better overall than the face-to-face classes by 55% of participants who had experienced both. An exercise DVD was well received and appeared to be effective, convenient and safe in managing occupational-specific musculoskeletal disorders in musicians.

Is the audiologic status of professional musicians a reflection of the noise exposure in classical orchestral music?

Science.gov (United States)

Emmerich, Edeltraut; Rudel, Lars; Richter, Frank

2008-07-01

The sound in classical orchestral music is louder than noise emissions allowed by national rules in industry. We wanted to assess the audiologic status of professional musicians at different ages of their careers and to look for a coherence of declined hearing ability and the sound emissions in order to substantiate advices for hearing protection and occupational medicine in musicians. Data from questionnaires (anamnestic data on sound exposure in profession and leisure times, use of hearing protection, self-evaluation of hearing function and hearing deficits), audiometric data and amplitudes of OAE were evaluated from 109 professional musicians aged 30-69 years from three major German orchestras and from 110 students of an academy of music (aged 11-19 years). Sound emissions of the whole orchestra and of single instruments/instrument groups were measured at the orchestra stages and pits during rehearsals and performances. None of the musicians was engaged in noisy hobbies and only a few used hearing protectors regularly. More than 50% of the musicians had a hearing loss of 15 dB(A) and more. Highest losses were found among the strings and the brass players. DPOAE amplitudes coincidently declined with the duration of performing music in the orchestras. Professional musicians aged older than 60 years had a significantly greater hearing loss at 4 and 6 kHz than those aged 30-39 years. Among the strings in one orchestra a dominant hearing deficit in the left ears was observed. Musicians need the same health care for their hearing as workers in noisy industry. A better education on the hearing hazards (use of hearing protectors) as well as sound protection in the rehearsal rooms is necessary. Hearing loss in professional musicians should be accepted as an occupational disease.

Music lessons: what musicians can teach doctors (and other health professionals).

Science.gov (United States)

Davidoff, Frank

2011-03-15

Medicine is a learned profession, but clinical practice is above all a matter of performance, in the best and deepest sense of the word. Because music is, at its core, a pure distillate of real-time performance, musicians are in an excellent position to teach us about better ways to become and remain expert performers in health care and ways for our teachers and mentors to help us do that. Ten features of the professionalization of musicians offer us lessons on how the clinical practice of medicine might be learned, taught, and performed more effectively.

Enhanced feature integration in musicians

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hansen, Niels Christian; Højlund, Andreas; Møller, Cecilie

the classical oddball control paradigm which used identical sounds. This novel finding supports the dependent processing hypothesis suggesting that musicians recruit overlapping neural resources facilitating more holistic representations of domain-relevant stimuli. These specialised refinements in predictive......Distinguishing and integrating features of sensory input is essential to human survival and no less paramount in music perception and cognition. Yet, little is known about training-induced plasticity of neural mechanisms for auditory feature integration. This study aimed to contrast the two...

Action in Perception: Prominent Visuo-Motor Functional Symmetry in Musicians during Music Listening.

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Iballa Burunat

Full Text Available Musical training leads to sensory and motor neuroplastic changes in the human brain. Motivated by findings on enlarged corpus callosum in musicians and asymmetric somatomotor representation in string players, we investigated the relationship between musical training, callosal anatomy, and interhemispheric functional symmetry during music listening. Functional symmetry was increased in musicians compared to nonmusicians, and in keyboardists compared to string players. This increased functional symmetry was prominent in visual and motor brain networks. Callosal size did not significantly differ between groups except for the posterior callosum in musicians compared to nonmusicians. We conclude that the distinctive postural and kinematic symmetry in instrument playing cross-modally shapes information processing in sensory-motor cortical areas during music listening. This cross-modal plasticity suggests that motor training affects music perception.

Hearing Health in College Instrumental Musicians and Prevention of Hearing Loss.

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Olson, Anna D; Gooding, Lori F; Shikoh, Fara; Graf, Julie

2016-03-01

College musicians exhibit greater declines in hearing than the general population and are at particular risk because they rehearse and perform daily in loud environments. Also, they engage in use of personal listening devices which increases the amount of "exposure" time. Despite increased risk, many do not use hearing protection devices (HPD). The purpose of this study was to (1) to identify the present level of education about hearing health, (2) identify the perceived advantages and disadvantages of using HPD, and (3) evaluate results among different musical instrument groups. A mixed-methods group design was used including both quantitative and qualitative instruments. SPSS was used to generate descriptive statistics, and non-parametric statistical analysis was performed on quantitative data. NVivo software was used to evaluate qualitative responses. Of the 90 college instrumental music students who participated, 12% reported a history of hearing loss, and over one-third reported tinnitus. Seventy-seven percent of participants had never received any training about hearing health and only a small percentage of students used HPD. The most cited reason for lack of protection use was its negative impact on sound quality. However, group differences were noted between brass, woodwind, and percussion musicians in terms of HPD uptake. Improving the type of information disseminated to college musicians may reduce the risk of ear-related deficits. Noise dosage information, HPD information, and prevention education grounded in theories like the Health Belief Model may increase awareness and promote greater use of HPDs in this population.

Musicians working in community contexts : perspectives of learning

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Smilde, Rineke

2012-01-01

This paper will explore types of learning, which takes place when musicians work in situations where they have to connect to community contexts. It will first address musicians’ changing professional roles in the changing sociocultural landscape and the need for lifelong learning and emergence of

Ethnomusicological biography of the traditional folk musician: Biography of the gusle-player

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Lajić-Mihajlović Danka

2008-01-01

Full Text Available With the development of ethnomusicology from a comparative discipline to an anthropologically oriented science there has been an increase in the significance of the biography of folk musicians as scientific sources. The intention of the anthropological thought to accept and theoretically consider human nature as open and dynamic, has been realized in the ethnomusicological plane through the understanding of music as a product of thinking and behaviour of a particular musician in given circumstances. The concept of an artist is especially complex in the field of oral music culture, where creation and performance are connected in one person and the transferring process involves direct communication. The attempt to overcome the dichotomy of the musicological and sociological, i. e. anthropological attitude in ethnomusicology by synthesizing concepts which involve music, culture and man has brought particular importance to the relations between individual biographies and 'biographies of the collective' - relevant historical ethnological, anthropological, sociological, culturological, religion ideological and other types of data. Observations enlightening the social side of the folk musician's personality make the necessary 'frame' for the biography: from 'objective' social circumstances which modelled it to the opinion of the cultural environment about his performing. The folk musician's biography oriented towards ethnomusicology involves the result of a critical evaluation of the picture based on the emic and ethic vision autobiographical data and the observations of others, primarily researchers. The complexity of a biographical discourse in ethnomusicology can be perfectly seen in the example of the gusle-player's biography, as a genre-determined solo role in the tradition. For studying the relation between a person and a style of music expression, concerning gusle-players it is important to bear in mind the change in the profile of gusle

Music genre preference and tempo alter alpha and beta waves in human non-musicians

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Hunter Gentry

2013-10-01

Full Text Available This study examined the effects of music genre and tempo on brain activation patterns in 10 nonmusicians.Two genres (rock and jazz and three tempos (slowed, medium/normal, andquickened were examined using EEG recording and analyzed through Fast Fourier Transform(FFT analysis. When participants listened to their preferred genre, an increase in alpha waveamplitude was observed. Alpha waves were not significantly affected by tempo. Beta waveamplitude increased significantly as the tempo increased. Genre had no effect on beta waves. Thefindings of this study indicate that genre preference and artificially modified tempo do affectalpha and beta wave activation in non-musicians listening to preselected songs.

Jazz talks: representations & self-representations of African American music and its musicians from bebop to free jazz

OpenAIRE

Mazman, Alper

2010-01-01

The main focus of this thesis is the representation of jazz music and its musicians, and the ways in which American (black and white) critics, novelists, and musicians interpret this music from the development of bebop to free jazz. My aim is to reveal the complexities of the dialogue between white and black representations of jazz, as well as among the self-representations of African American musicians. To this end, I discuss the discourses of jazz that are embedded within the broader cultur...

Differential processing of melodic, rhythmic and simple tone deviations in musicians--an MEG study.

Science.gov (United States)

Lappe, Claudia; Lappe, Markus; Pantev, Christo

2016-01-01

Rhythm and melody are two basic characteristics of music. Performing musicians have to pay attention to both, and avoid errors in either aspect of their performance. To investigate the neural processes involved in detecting melodic and rhythmic errors from auditory input we tested musicians on both kinds of deviations in a mismatch negativity (MMN) design. We found that MMN responses to a rhythmic deviation occurred at shorter latencies than MMN responses to a melodic deviation. Beamformer source analysis showed that the melodic deviation activated superior temporal, inferior frontal and superior frontal areas whereas the activation pattern of the rhythmic deviation focused more strongly on inferior and superior parietal areas, in addition to superior temporal cortex. Activation in the supplementary motor area occurred for both types of deviations. We also recorded responses to similar pitch and tempo deviations in a simple, non-musical repetitive tone pattern. In this case, there was no latency difference between the MMNs and cortical activation was smaller and mostly limited to auditory cortex. The results suggest that prediction and error detection of musical stimuli in trained musicians involve a broad cortical network and that rhythmic and melodic errors are processed in partially different cortical streams. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Affirmation, Validation, and Empowerment: Influences of a Composition Competition on Students' Self-Concepts as Musicians

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Albert, Daniel J.

2017-01-01

The purpose of this study was to determine if participation in a composition competition influenced four K-12 students' self-concepts as musicians. Research questions explored motivations for these four students to enter into a composition competition, influences of the competition on students' self-concepts as musicians (if at all), and effects…

Musicians' Enhanced Neural Differentiation of Speech Sounds Arises Early in Life: Developmental Evidence from Ages 3 to 30

Science.gov (United States)

Strait, Dana L.; O'Connell, Samantha; Parbery-Clark, Alexandra; Kraus, Nina

2014-01-01

The perception and neural representation of acoustically similar speech sounds underlie language development. Music training hones the perception of minute acoustic differences that distinguish sounds; this training may generalize to speech processing given that adult musicians have enhanced neural differentiation of similar speech syllables compared with nonmusicians. Here, we asked whether this neural advantage in musicians is present early in life by assessing musically trained and untrained children as young as age 3. We assessed auditory brainstem responses to the speech syllables /ba/ and /ga/ as well as auditory and visual cognitive abilities in musicians and nonmusicians across 3 developmental time-points: preschoolers, school-aged children, and adults. Cross-phase analyses objectively measured the degree to which subcortical responses differed to these speech syllables in musicians and nonmusicians for each age group. Results reveal that musicians exhibit enhanced neural differentiation of stop consonants early in life and with as little as a few years of training. Furthermore, the extent of subcortical stop consonant distinction correlates with auditory-specific cognitive abilities (i.e., auditory working memory and attention). Results are interpreted according to a corticofugal framework for auditory learning in which subcortical processing enhancements are engendered by strengthened cognitive control over auditory function in musicians. PMID:23599166

Exercise-related cognitive effects on sensory-motor control in athletes and drummers compared to non-athletes and other musicians.

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Bianco, V; Berchicci, M; Perri, R L; Quinzi, F; Di Russo, F

2017-09-30

Both playing a musical instrument and playing sport produce brain adaptations that might affect sensory-motor functions. While the benefits of sport practice have traditionally been attributed to aerobic fitness, it is still unknown whether playing an instrument might induce similar brain adaptations, or if a specific musical instrument like drums might be associated to specific benefits because of its high energy expenditure. Since the aerobic costs of playing drums was estimated to be comparable to those of average sport activities, we hypothesized that these two groups might show both behavioral and neurocognitive similarities. To test this hypothesis, we recruited 48 young adults and divided them into four age-matched groups: 12 drummers, 12 athletes, 12 no-drummer musicians and 12 non-athletes. Participants performed a visuo-motor discriminative response task, namely the Go/No-go, and their cortical activity was recorded by means of a 64-channel electroencephalography (EEG). Behavioral performance showed that athletes and drummers were faster than the other groups. Electrophysiological results showed that the pre-stimulus motor preparation (i.e. the Bereitschaftspotential or BP) and attentional control (i.e., the prefrontal negativity or pN), and specific post-stimulus components like the P3 and the pP2 (reflecting the stimulus categorization process) were enhanced in the athletes and drummers' groups. Overall, these results suggest that playing sport and drums led to similar benefits at behavioral and cognitive level as detectable in a cognitive task. Explanations of these findings, such as on the difference between drummers and other musicians, are provided in terms of long-term neural adaptation mechanisms and increased visuo-spatial abilities. Copyright © 2017 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

"Doctor Jazz": Lessons that medical professionals can learn from jazz musicians.

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van Ark, Allard E; Wijnen-Meijer, Marjo

2018-04-24

The worlds of a physician and a jazz musician seem entirely different. Various studies, however, relating the concepts behind jazz music to medical practice and education, have been published. The aim of this essayistic review is to summarize previously described concepts behind jazz music and its required artistic skills that could be translated to medicine, encouraging doctors, medical students and medical educators to see their professional environment from a different perspective. A systematic search was conducted using PubMed, Embase, and ERIC databases, combining keywords with regard to jazz, medicine and medical education. Background information concerning jazz music and several jazz musicians was retrieved through an additional nonsystematic search using Google Scholar. Lessons with regard to improvisational skills, both in communication with patients and in a technical context, communication skills, leadership, interprofessional teamwork and coping with errors are presented. Doctors and medical students could learn various lessons from jazz music performance and jazz musicians. The potential and the possibilities of implementing jazz into the medical curriculum, in order to contribute to the development of professional skills and attitudes of medical students, could be explored further.

Enhanced phase synchrony in the electroencephalograph gamma band for musicians while listening to music.

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Bhattacharya, J; Petsche, H

2001-07-01

Multichannel electroencephalograph signals from two broad groups, 10 musicians and 10 nonmusicians, recorded in different states (in resting states or no task condition, with eyes opened and eyes closed, and with two musical tasks, listening to two different pieces of music) were studied. Degrees of phase synchrony in various frequency bands were assessed. No differences in the degree of synchronization in any frequency band were found between the two groups in resting conditions. Yet, while listening to music, significant increases of synchronization were found only in the gamma-frequency range (>30 Hz) over large cortical areas for the group of musicians. This high degree of synchronization elicited by music in the group of musicians might be due to their ability to host long-term memory representations of music and mediate access to these stored representations.

Enhanced phase synchrony in the electroencephalograph γ band for musicians while listening to music

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Bhattacharya, Joydeep; Petsche, Hellmuth

2001-07-01

Multichannel electroencephalograph signals from two broad groups, 10 musicians and 10 nonmusicians, recorded in different states (in resting states or no task condition, with eyes opened and eyes closed, and with two musical tasks, listening to two different pieces of music) were studied. Degrees of phase synchrony in various frequency bands were assessed. No differences in the degree of synchronization in any frequency band were found between the two groups in resting conditions. Yet, while listening to music, significant increases of synchronization were found only in the γ-frequency range (>30 Hz) over large cortical areas for the group of musicians. This high degree of synchronization elicited by music in the group of musicians might be due to their ability to host long-term memory representations of music and mediate access to these stored representations.

EEG alpha desynchronization in musicians and nonmusicians in response to changes in melody, tempo, and key in classical music.

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Overman, Amy A; Hoge, Jessica; Dale, J Alexander; Cross, Jeffrey D; Chien, Alec

2003-10-01

Two experiments were performed to examine musicians' and nonmusicians' electroencephalographic (EEG) responses to changes in major dimensions (tempo, melody, and key) of classical music. In Exp. 1, 12 nonmusicians' and 12 musicians' EEGs during melody and tempo changes in classical music showed more alpha desynchronization in the left hemisphere (F3) for changes in tempo than in the right. For melody, the nonmusicians were more right-sided (F4) than left in activation, and musicians showed no left-right differences. In Exp. 2, 18 musicians' and 18 nonmusicians' EEG after a key change in classical music showed that distant key changes elicited more right frontal (F4) alpha desynchronization than left. Musicians showed more reaction to key changes than nonmusicians and instructions to attend to key changes had no significant effect. Classical music, given its well-defined structure, offers a unique set of stimuli to study the brain. Results support the concept of hierarchical modularity in music processing that may be automatic.

Is Playing in the Pit Really the Pits?: Pain, Strength, Music Performance Anxiety, and Workplace Satisfaction in Professional Musicians in Stage, Pit, and Combined Stage/Pit Orchestras.

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Kenny, Dianna T; Driscoll, Tim; Ackermann, Bronwen J

2016-03-01

Typically, Australian orchestral musicians perform on stage, in an orchestra pit, or in a combination of both workplaces. This study explored a range of physical and mental health indicators in musicians who played in these different orchestra types to ascertain whether orchestra environment was a risk factor affecting musician wellbeing. Participants comprised 380 full-time orchestral musicians from the eight major state orchestras in Australia comprised of two dedicated pit orchestras, three stage-only symphonic orchestras, and three mixed stage/pit orchestras. Participants completed a physical assessment and a range of self-report measures assessing performance-related musculoskeletal disorders (PRMD), physical characteristics including strength and perceived exertion, and psychological health, including music performance anxiety (MPA), workplace satisfaction, and bullying. Physical characteristics and performance-related musculoskeletal profiles were similar for most factors on the detailed survey completed by orchestra members. The exceptions were that pit musicians demonstrated greater shoulder and elbow strength, while mixed-workload orchestra musicians had greater flexibility Significantly more exertion was reported by pit musicians when rehearsing and performing. Stage/pit musicians reported less physical exertion when performing in the pit compared with performing on stage. Severity of MPA was significantly greater in pit musicians than mixed orchestra musicians. Pit musicians also reported more frequent bullying and lower job satisfaction compared with stage musicians. There were few differences in the objective physical measures between musicians in the different orchestra types. However, pit musicians appear more psychologically vulnerable and less satisfied with their work than musicians from the other two orchestra types. The physical and psychological characteristics of musicians who perform in different orchestra types have not been adequately

Injection Pharyngoplasty With Autologous Fat as Treatment for Stress Velopharyngeal Insufficiency in Brass and Woodwind Musicians.

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Syamal, Mausumi N; Bryson, Paul C

2017-02-01

Stress velopharyngeal insufficiency (SVPI) is an uncommon but often career-threatening condition affecting professional brass and woodwind musicians. To review the evaluation of and treatment for SVPI in professional musicians with lipoinjection to the posterior pharyngeal wall. A retrospective medical record and literature review. Two professional musicians with SVPI treated with autologous lipoinjection to the posterior pharyngeal wall were included. Nasopharyngoscopy was performed while patients played their instrument both before and after injection. To assess the effectiveness of autologous fat injection to the posterior pharyngeal wall to treat stress velopharyngeal insufficiency in 2 professional instrumentalists. Successful treatment was the absence of VPI during playing as visualized by flexible nasopharyngoscopy. After autologous lipoinjection of the posterior pharyngeal wall, 1 patient resumed full play with complete resolution, now 3 years after lipoinjection pharyngoplasty. The other patient received temporary resolution. Both had no surgical complications. Stress VPI is often a career-threatening condition for professional brass and woodwind musicians, with a cited incidence of 34%. Various treatment options in the literature include observation, speech and language pathology referral for pharyngeal strengthening, lipoinjection of the soft palate, and more invasive options, such as sphincter pharyngoplasty, pharyngeal flaps and V-Y pushback. Autologous fat injection pharyngoplasty of the posterior pharyngeal wall may be a less invasive treatment option for musicians with SVPI.

Clinical assessment of scapular positioning in musicians: an intertester reliability study.

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Struyf, Filip; Nijs, Jo; De Coninck, Kris; Giunta, Marco; Mottram, Sarah; Meeusen, Romain

2009-01-01

The reliability of the measurement of the distance between the posterior border of the acromion and the wall and the reliability of the modified lateral scapular slide test have not been studied. Overall, the reliability of the clinical tools used to assess scapular positioning has not been studied in musicians. To examine the intertester reliability of scapular observation and 2 clinical tests for the assessment of scapular positioning in musicians. Intertester reliability study. University research laboratory. Thirty healthy student musicians at a single university. Two assessors performed a standardized observation protocol, the measurement of the distance between the posterior border of the acromion and the wall, and the modified lateral scapular slide test. Each assessor was blinded to the other's findings. The intertester reliability coefficients (kappa) for the observation in relaxed position, during unloaded movement, and during loaded movement were 0.41, 0.63, and 0.36, respectively. The kappa values for the observation of tilting and winging at rest were 0.48 and 0.42, respectively; during unloaded movement, the kappa values were 0.52 and 0.78, respectively; and with a 1-kg load, the kappa values were 0.24 and 0.50, respectively. The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) of the measurement of the acromial distance was 0.72 in relaxed position and 0.75 with the participant actively retracting both shoulders. The ICCs for the modified lateral scapular slide test varied between 0.63 and 0.58. Our results demonstrated that the modified lateral scapular slide test was not a reliable tool to assess scapular positioning in these participants. Our data indicated that scapular observation in the relaxed position and during unloaded abduction in the frontal plane was a reliable assessment tool. The reliability of the measurement of the distance between the posterior border of the acromion and the wall in healthy musicians was moderate.

Error management for musicians: an interdisciplinary conceptual framework

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Silke eKruse-Weber

2014-07-01

Full Text Available Musicians tend to strive for flawless performance and perfection, avoiding errors at all costs. Dealing with errors while practicing or performing is often frustrating and can lead to anger and despair, which can explain musicians’ generally negative attitude toward errors and the tendency to aim for errorless learning in instrumental music education. But even the best performances are rarely error-free, and research in general pedagogy and psychology has shown that errors provide useful information for the learning process. Research in instrumental pedagogy is still neglecting error issues; the benefits of risk management (before the error and error management (during and after the error are still underestimated. It follows that dealing with errors is a key aspect of music practice at home, teaching, and performance in public. And yet, to be innovative, or to make their performance extraordinary, musicians need to risk errors. Currently, most music students only acquire the ability to manage errors implicitly - or not at all. A more constructive, creative and differentiated culture of errors would balance error tolerance and risk-taking against error prevention in ways that enhance music practice and music performance. The teaching environment should lay the foundation for the development of these abilities. In this contribution, we survey recent research in aviation, medicine, economics, psychology, and interdisciplinary decision theory that has demonstrated that specific error-management training can promote metacognitive skills that lead to better adaptive transfer and better performance skills. We summarize how this research can be applied to music, and survey relevant research that is specifically tailored to the needs of musicians, including generic guidelines for risk and error management in music teaching and performance. On this basis, we develop a conceptual framework for risk management that can provide orientation for further

[Questionnaire survey of musician's dystonia among students of a music college].

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Konaka, Kuni; Mochizuki, Hideki

2015-01-01

Musician's dystonia is known as a task specific dystonia. Though it is thought to occur during a long course of repetitive performance, the actual circumstances that precipitate this condition are not clear. According to factual reports this disease is not commonly known, probably because many of these patients may not have been visiting a hospital. We prepared a questionnaire and did a survey among the students of a music college. This is the first questionnaire survey aimed at finding out the prevalence of musician's dystonia among the students of music. Among the 480 participants of this survey, 29% of the students had knowledge of this disorder and 1.25% of the students had dystonia while performing music.

Electrophysiological evidences demonstrating differences in brain functions between nonmusicians and musicians.

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Zhang, Li; Peng, Weiwei; Chen, Jie; Hu, Li

2015-09-04

Long-term music training can improve sensorimotor skills, as playing a musical instrument requires the functional integration of information related to multimodal sensory perception and motor execution. This functional integration often leads to functional reorganization of cerebral cortices, including auditory, visual, and motor areas. Moreover, music appreciation can modulate emotions (e.g., stress relief), and long-term music training can enhance a musician's self-control and self-evaluation ability. Therefore, the neural processing of music can also be related to certain higher brain cognitive functions. However, evidence demonstrating that long-term music training modulates higher brain functions is surprisingly rare. Here, we aimed to comprehensively explore the neural changes induced by long-term music training by assessing the differences of transient and quasi-steady-state auditory-evoked potentials between nonmusicians and musicians. We observed that compared to nonmusicians, musicians have (1) larger high-frequency steady-state responses, which reflect the auditory information processing within the sensory system, and (2) smaller low-frequency vertex potentials, which reflect higher cognitive information processing within the novelty/saliency detection system. Therefore, we speculate that long-term music training facilitates "bottom-up" auditory information processing in the sensory system and enhances "top-down" cognitive inhibition of the novelty/saliency detection system.

Naturally together: pitch-height and brightness as coupled factors for eliciting the SMARC effect in non-musicians.

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Pitteri, Marco; Marchetti, Mauro; Priftis, Konstantinos; Grassi, Massimo

2017-01-01

Pitch-height is often labeled spatially (i.e., low or high) as a function of the fundamental frequency of the tone. This correspondence is highlighted by the so-called Spatial-Musical Association of Response Codes (SMARC) effect. However, the literature suggests that the brightness of the tone's timbre might contribute to this spatial association. We investigated the SMARC effect in a group of non-musicians by disentangling the role of pitch-height and the role of tone-brightness. In three experimental conditions, participants were asked to judge whether the tone they were listening to was (or was not) modulated in amplitude (i.e., vibrato). Participants were required to make their response in both the horizontal and the vertical axes. In a first condition, tones varied coherently in pitch (i.e., manipulation of the tone's F0) and brightness (i.e., manipulation of the tone's spectral centroid); in a second condition, pitch-height varied whereas brightness was fixed; in a third condition, pitch-height was fixed whereas brightness varied. We found the SMARC effect only in the first condition and only in the vertical axis. In contrast, we did not observe the effect in any of the remaining conditions. The present results suggest that, in non-musicians, the SMARC effect is not due to the manipulation of the pitch-height alone, but arises because of a coherent change of pitch-height and brightness; this effect emerges along the vertical axis only.

Memorization by a Jazz Musician: A Case Study

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Noice, Helga; Jeffrey, John; Noice, Tony; Chaffin, Roger

2008-01-01

To investigate the memory strategies of jazz musicians, we videotaped an experienced jazz pianist as he learned a new bebop piece. He had not previously heard a recording of the selection, nor had he seen the written music. The pianist provided detailed reports of the musical structure and the types of cues he used as landmarks to guide his…

Seeing Music? What musicians need to know about vision

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Michael Schutz

2008-09-01

Full Text Available Music is inherently an auditory art form, rooted in sound, and generally analyzed in terms of its acoustic properties. However, as the process of hearing is affected by seeing, visual information does in fact play an important role in the musical experience. Vision influences many aspects of music – from evaluations of performance quality and audience interest to the perception of loudness, timbre, and note duration. Moreover, it can be used to achieve musical goals that are in fact acoustically impossible. As such, understanding the benefits of embracing (and the costs of ignoring vision’s role is essential for all musicians. Furthermore, since music represents a pervasive and ubiquitous human practice, this topic serves as an ideal case study for understanding how auditory and visual information are integrated. Given that some musically-based studies have challenged and even contributed to updating psychological theories of sensory integration, this topic represents a rich area of research, relevant to musicians and psychologists alike.

Perception of orchestral musicians about work environment and conditions

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Clarissa Stefani Teixeira

2014-04-01

Full Text Available The objective of this study was to investigate the perception of 11 orchestral string (viola and violin musicians of both genders with respect to their work environment and conditions. We applied a questionnaire with demographic information and the scale Profile of Work Environment and Working Conditions by Nahas et al. (2009, which analyzes the following components: physical environment, social environment, development and professional achievement, salary and benefits, and social relevance. The social environment component presented the highest score - 8.00 (1.50 points, followed by professional achievement - 7.11 (1.96 points, and physical environment - 6.89 (0.93 points. The salary and benefits provided by the orchestra presented the lowest score - 6.78 (1.56 points. In general, the musicians showed positive perceptions of the components related to work environment and working conditions. However, remuneration and social relevance are work bases that could contribute to improve the working conditions of these professionals.

Musicians and music making as a model for the study of brain plasticity.

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Schlaug, Gottfried

2015-01-01

Playing a musical instrument is an intense, multisensory, and motor experience that usually commences at an early age and requires the acquisition and maintenance of a range of sensory and motor skills over the course of a musician's lifetime. Thus, musicians offer an excellent human model for studying behavioral-cognitive as well as brain effects of acquiring, practicing, and maintaining these specialized skills. Research has shown that repeatedly practicing the association of motor actions with specific sound and visual patterns (musical notation), while receiving continuous multisensory feedback will strengthen connections between auditory and motor regions (e.g., arcuate fasciculus) as well as multimodal integration regions. Plasticity in this network may explain some of the sensorimotor and cognitive enhancements that have been associated with music training. Furthermore, the plasticity of this system as a result of long term and intense interventions suggest the potential for music making activities (e.g., forms of singing) as an intervention for neurological and developmental disorders to learn and relearn associations between auditory and motor functions such as vocal motor functions. © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Rhythm synchronization performance and auditory working memory in early- and late-trained musicians.

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Bailey, Jennifer A; Penhune, Virginia B

2010-07-01

Behavioural and neuroimaging studies provide evidence for a possible "sensitive" period in childhood development during which musical training results in long-lasting changes in brain structure and auditory and motor performance. Previous work from our laboratory has shown that adult musicians who begin training before the age of 7 (early-trained; ET) perform better on a visuomotor task than those who begin after the age of 7 (late-trained; LT), even when matched on total years of musical training and experience. Two questions were raised regarding the findings from this experiment. First, would this group performance difference be observed using a more familiar, musically relevant task such as auditory rhythms? Second, would cognitive abilities mediate this difference in task performance? To address these questions, ET and LT musicians, matched on years of musical training, hours of current practice and experience, were tested on an auditory rhythm synchronization task. The task consisted of six woodblock rhythms of varying levels of metrical complexity. In addition, participants were tested on cognitive subtests measuring vocabulary, working memory and pattern recognition. The two groups of musicians differed in their performance of the rhythm task, such that the ET musicians were better at reproducing the temporal structure of the rhythms. There were no group differences on the cognitive measures. Interestingly, across both groups, individual task performance correlated with auditory working memory abilities and years of formal training. These results support the idea of a sensitive period during the early years of childhood for developing sensorimotor synchronization abilities via musical training.

The Influence of a Sudden Increase in Playing Time on Playing-Related Musculoskeletal Complaints in High-Level Amateur Musicians in a Longitudinal Cohort Study

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kok, Laura M; Haitjema, Saskia; Groenewegen, Karlijn A; Rietveld, A Boni M

2016-01-01

BACKGROUND: Several studies in the domain of professional musicians describe the relation between playing time and the occurrence of musculoskeletal complaints in professional musicians. To date, no longitudinal cohort study into this relationship has been performed and no amateur musicians were

Descriptions of Improvisational Thinking by Artist-Level Jazz Musicians

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Norgaard, Martin

2011-01-01

Thought processes of seven artist-level jazz musicians, each of whom recorded an improvised solo, were investigated. Immediately after completing their improvisations, participants listened to recordings of their playing and looked at the notation of their solos as they described in a directed interview the thinking processes that led to the…

Jazz Musicians as Academic Leaders: Improvisation in Higher Education

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Kleinschmidt, Robert A.

2011-01-01

Jazz musicians are unique individuals who seek to perform from a transcendental state in which tacit knowledge, teamwork, and communication blend to produce an effective performance. Academic leaders are also unique individuals who rely on communication to generate a sense of inclusion within a complex organization that at times epitomizes…

Temporal interaction between an artificial orchestra conductor and human musicians

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Reidsma, Dennis; Nijholt, Antinus; Bos, Pieter

2008-01-01

The Virtual Conductor project concerns the development of the first properly interactive virtual orchestra conductor—a Virtual Human that can conduct a piece of music through interaction with musicians, leading and following them while they are playing. This article describes our motivation for

Automatic encoding of polyphonic melodies in musicians and nonmusicians.

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Fujioka, Takako; Trainor, Laurel J; Ross, Bernhard; Kakigi, Ryusuke; Pantev, Christo

2005-10-01

In music, multiple musical objects often overlap in time. Western polyphonic music contains multiple simultaneous melodic lines (referred to as "voices") of equal importance. Previous electrophysiological studies have shown that pitch changes in a single melody are automatically encoded in memory traces, as indexed by mismatch negativity (MMN) and its magnetic counterpart (MMNm), and that this encoding process is enhanced by musical experience. In the present study, we examined whether two simultaneous melodies in polyphonic music are represented as separate entities in the auditory memory trace. Musicians and untrained controls were tested in both magnetoencephalogram and behavioral sessions. Polyphonic stimuli were created by combining two melodies (A and B), each consisting of the same five notes but in a different order. Melody A was in the high voice and Melody B in the low voice in one condition, and this was reversed in the other condition. On 50% of trials, a deviant final (5th) note was played either in the high or in the low voice, and it either went outside the key of the melody or remained within the key. These four deviations occurred with equal probability of 12.5% each. Clear MMNm was obtained for most changes in both groups, despite the 50% deviance level, with a larger amplitude in musicians than in controls. The response pattern was consistent across groups, with larger MMNm for deviants in the high voice than in the low voice, and larger MMNm for in-key than out-of-key changes, despite better behavioral performance for out-of-key changes. The results suggest that melodic information in each voice in polyphonic music is encoded in the sensory memory trace, that the higher voice is more salient than the lower, and that tonality may be processed primarily at cognitive stages subsequent to MMN generation.

Noise exposure levels for musicians during rehearsal and performance times.

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McIlvaine, Devon; Stewart, Michael; Anderson, Robert

2012-03-01

The purpose of this study was to determine daily noise doses and 8-hour time weighted averages for rock band musicians, crew members, and spectators during a typical rehearsal and performance using both Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) measurement criteria. Personal noise dosimetry was completed on five members of a rock band during one 2-hr rehearsal and one 4-hr performance. Time-weighted averages (TWA) and daily dose values were calculated using both OSHA and NIOSH criteria and compared to industry guidelines for enrollment in hearing conservation programs and the use of hearing protection devices. TWA values ranged from 84.3 to 90.4 dBA (OSHA) and from 90.0 to 96.4 dBA (NIOSH) during the rehearsal. The same values ranged from 91.0 to 99.7 dBA (OSHA) and 94.0 to 102.8 dBA (NIOSH) for the performance. During the rehearsal, daily noise doses ranged from 45.54% to 106.7% (OSHA) and from 317.74% to 1396.07% (NIOSH). During the performance, doses ranged from 114.66% to 382.49% (OSHA) and from 793.31% to 5970.15% (NIOSH). The musicians in this study were exposed to dangerously high levels of noise and should be enrolled in a hearing conservation programs. Hearing protection devices should be worn, especially during performances. The OSHA measurement criteria yielded values significantly more conservative than those produced by NIOSH criteria. Audiologists should counsel musician-patients about the hazards of excessive noise (music) exposure and how to protect their hearing.

Cathodal Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Improves Focal Hand Dystonia in Musicians: A Two-Case Study

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Sara Marceglia

2017-09-01

Full Text Available Focal hand dystonia (FHD in musicians is a movement disorder causing abnormal movements and irregularities in playing. Since weak electrical currents applied to the brain induce persistent excitability changes in humans, cathodal tDCS was proposed as a possible non-invasive approach for modulating cortical excitability in patients with FHD. However, the optimal targets and modalities have still to be determined. In this pilot study, we delivered cathodal (2 mA, anodal (2 mA and sham tDCS over the motor areas bilaterally for 20 min daily for five consecutive days in two musicians with FHD. After cathodal tDCS, both patients reported a sensation of general wellness and improved symptoms of FHD. In conclusion, our pilot results suggest that cathodal tDCS delivered bilaterally over motor-premotor (M-PM cortex for 5 consecutive days may be effective in improving symptoms in FHD.

Virtual Reality Exposure Training for Musicians: Its Effect on Performance Anxiety and Quality.

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Bissonnette, Josiane; Dubé, Francis; Provencher, Martin D; Moreno Sala, Maria T

2015-09-01

Music performance anxiety affects numerous musicians, with many of them reporting impairment of performance due to this problem. This exploratory study investigated the effects of virtual reality exposure training on students with music performance anxiety. Seventeen music students were randomly assigned to a control group (n=8) or a virtual training group (n=9). Participants were asked to play a musical piece by memory in two separate recitals within a 3-week interval. Anxiety was then measured with the Personal Report of Confidence as a Performer Scale and the S-Anxiety scale from the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-Y). Between pre- and post-tests, the virtual training group took part in virtual reality exposure training consisting of six 1-hour long sessions of virtual exposure. The results indicate a significant decrease in performance anxiety for musicians in the treatment group for those with a high level of state anxiety, for those with a high level of trait anxiety, for women, and for musicians with high immersive tendencies. Finally, between the pre- and post-tests, we observed a significant increase in performance quality for the experimental group, but not for the control group.

Increased gray matter volume of left pars opercularis in male orchestral musicians correlate positively with years of musical performance.

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Abdul-Kareem, Ihssan A; Stancak, Andrej; Parkes, Laura M; Sluming, Vanessa

2011-01-01

To compare manual volumetry of gray matter (GM) / white matter (WM) of Broca's area subparts: pars opercularis (POP) and pars triangularis (PTR) in both hemispheres between musicians and nonmusician, as it has been shown that these regions are crucial for musical abilities. A previous voxel-based morphometric (VBM) study conducted in our laboratory reported increased GM density in Broca's area of left hemisphere in male orchestral musicians. Functional segregation of POP/PTR justified separate volumetric analysis of these parts. We used the same cohort for the VBM study. Manual morphometry (stereology) was used to compare volumes between 26/26 right-handed orchestral musicians/nonmusicians. As expected, musicians showed significantly increased GM volume in the Broca's area, specifically in the left POP. No significant results were detected in right POP, left/right PTR GM volumes, and WM volumes for all regions. Results were positively correlated with years of musical performance (r = 0.7, P = 0.0001). This result corroborates the VBM study and is in line with the hypothesis of critical involvement of POP in hearing-action integration being an integral component of frontoparietotemporal mirror neuron network. We hypothesize that increased size of musicians' left POP represent use-dependent structural adaptation in response to intensive audiomotor skill acquisition. Copyright © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Evidence for Enhanced Interoceptive Accuracy in Professional Musicians

OpenAIRE

Schirmer-Mokwa, Katharina L.; Fard, Pouyan R.; Zamorano, Anna M.; Finkel, Sebastian; Birbaumer, Niels; Kleber, Boris A.

2015-01-01

Interoception is defined as the perceptual activity involved in the processing of internal bodily signals. While the ability of internal perception is considered a relatively stable trait, recent data suggest that learning to integrate multisensory information can modulate it. Making music is a uniquely rich multisensory experience that has shown to alter motor, sensory, and multimodal representations in the brain of musicians. We hypothesize that musical training also heightens interoceptive...

Evidence for enhanced interoceptive accuracy in professional musicians

OpenAIRE

Katharina eSchirmer-Mokwa; Pouyan Rafiei Fard; Anna Maria Zamorano; Sebastian eFinkel; Niels eBirbaumer; Niels eBirbaumer; Boris Alexander Kleber

2015-01-01

Interoception is defined as the perceptual activity involved in the processing of internal bodily signals. While the ability of internal perception is considered a relatively stable trait, recent data suggest that learning to integrate multisensory information can modulate it. Making music is a uniquely rich multisensory experience that has shown to alter motor, sensory, and multimodal representations in the brain of musicians. We hypothesize that musical training also heightens interoceptive...

Development and validation of a music performance anxiety inventory for gifted adolescent musicians.

Science.gov (United States)

Osborne, Margaret S; Kenny, Dianna T

2005-01-01

Music performance anxiety (MPA) is a distressing experience for musicians of all ages, yet the empirical investigation of MPA in adolescents has received little attention to date. No measures specifically targeting MPA in adolescents have been empirically validated. This article presents findings of an initial study into the psychometric properties and validation of the Music Performance Anxiety Inventory for Adolescents (MPAI-A), a new self-report measure of MPA for this group. Data from 381 elite young musicians aged 12-19 years was used to investigate the factor structure, internal reliability, construct and divergent validity of the MPAI-A. Cronbach's alpha for the full measure was .91. Factor analysis identified three factors, which together accounted for 53% of the variance. Construct validity was demonstrated by significant positive relationships with social phobia (measured using the Social Phobia Anxiety Inventory [Beidel, D. C., Turner, S. M., & Morris, T. L. (1995). A new inventory to assess childhood social anxiety and phobia: The Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory for Children. Psychological Assessment, 7(1), 73-79; Beidel, D. C., Turner, S. M., & Morris, T. L. (1998). Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory for Children (SPAI-C). North Tonawanda, NY: Multi-Health Systems Inc.]) and trait anxiety (measured using the State Trait Anxiety Inventory [Spielberger, C. D. (1983). State-Trait Anxiety Inventory STAI (Form Y). Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press, Inc.]). The MPAI-A demonstrated convergent validity by a moderate to strong positive correlation with an adult measure of MPA. Discriminant validity was established by a weaker positive relationship with depression, and no relationship with externalizing behavior problems. It is hoped that the MPAI-A, as the first empirically validated measure of adolescent musicians' performance anxiety, will enhance and promote phenomenological and treatment research in this area.

General Health Status, Music Performance Anxiety, and Coping Methods of Musicians Working in Turkish State Symphony Orchestras: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Science.gov (United States)

Topoğlu, Onur; Karagülle, Derya; Keskin, Tuba U; Abacigil, Filiz; Okyay, Pinar

2018-06-01

This study assessed the general health, music performance anxiety (MPA), and coping methods of musicians working in six state orchestras in Turkey. All musicians working in the state symphony orchestras (n=384) were invited to participate in the study. In face-to-face interviews, the authors administered a questionnaire, which consisted of five sections: sociodemographic information, history of musical performance, health status, general health questionnaire-12 (GHQ-12), and MPA scale. Mann-Whitney U-test, Student's t-test, and Spearman's correlation test were used to analyze the questionnaire data. The 220 musicians who participated included 121 (55%) males and 99 (45%) females, with a mean age of 42.4±11.3 yrs. For musculoskeletal symptoms, 87.6% reported at least one symptom with the most common being pain. For general health status, the GHQ-12 showed 64% of musicians were at low risk, 18.7% at moderate risk, and 17.3% at high risk in terms of mental health. The prevalence of MPA before or during performance was 81.8%, and 60% of musicians stated that performance anxiety negatively affected their performances. Results indicate that musicians working in Turkish state symphony orchestras encounter numerous health problems (tinnitus, hearing loss, musculoskeletal symptoms, etc.) due to their profession. No specific health support is provided, especially education and health service provision.

The occurrence of musculoskeletal complaints among professional musicians : a systematic review

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kok, Laura M.; Huisstede, Bionka M A; Voorn, Veronique M A; Schoones, Jan W.; Nelissen, Rob G H H

2016-01-01

Purpose: This study gives a systematic overview of the literature on the occurrence of musculoskeletal complaints in professional instrumental musicians. Methods: A systematic review. Nine literature databases were searched without time limits on June 25, 2015, also the complete index of the journal

Home recording for musicians for dummies

CERN Document Server

Strong, Jeff

2008-01-01

Invaluable advice that will be music to your ears! Are you thinking of getting started in home recording? Do you want to know the latest home recording technologies? Home Recording For Musicians For Dummies will get you recording music at home in no time. It shows you how to set up a home studio, record and edit your music, master it, and even distribute your songs. With this guide, you?ll learn how to compare studio-in-a-box, computer-based, and stand-alone recording systems and choose what you need. You?ll gain the skills to manage your sound, take full advantage of MIDI, m

Hearing ability in Danish symphony orchestra musicians

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Obeling, Lise; Poulsen, Torben

1999-01-01

audiograms showed no signs of hearing loss. The audiograms were also compared to the expected audiograms from ISO 1999, which takes account of the number of years at work, the number of playing hours per week, and the average sound level in the orchestra for the instrument group. In almost all cases......The audiograms of fifty-seven musicians from four Danish symphony orchestras were determined in connection with an interview about their working experience. Measurements of sound levels and noise dose were performed during rehearsal and during concerts in the four orchestras with the measuring...

Preference of reverberation time for musicians and audience of the Javanese traditional gamelan music

Science.gov (United States)

Suyatno; Tjokronegoro, H. A.; Merthayasa, I. G. N.; Supanggah, R.

2016-11-01

This paper presents results of an investigation of room acoustic parameters those are appropriated particularly to perform a Javanese gamelan. The acoustic parameters were obtained by analysing simulated sounds of performance. Those simulated sounds were obtained by sound convolution technique of a dry sound signal of Javanese gamelan performance with impulse responses rooms whose appropriated reverberation time. The reverberation time were varied between 1.0s to 1.8s, those belong to the characteristic of Pendopo Mangkunegaran Surakarta. In this case, Pendopo Mangkunegaran is assumed as one of the most suitable concert halls for Javanese gamelan performance. To obtain the acoustic parameters, we used a psycho-acoustics measurement based on paired comparison test that having different of acoustic parameters to determine the most comfortable one to majority of respondents. The respondents who have participated in this research composed of a group of professional musicians of Javanese gamelan and groups of audience who are not musician, nevertheless part of them were familiar with Javanese gamelan music. The comparison test gave results and showed majority of respondents of group of musicians had a notion sound reverberation time of 1.2s was most comfortable. This corresponds to +6.2dB, clarity and 74% definition. It means the appropriate acoustic condition allows musicians to recognize and distinguish clearly sound of each instrument being played. Meanwhile, group of audience had a notion reverberation time in a range of 1.2s - 1.6s was most comfortable. This range of reverberation time corresponds to +4dB to +6.2dB of clarity, and 66% to 74% of definition.

Enhanced Passive and Active Processing of Syllables in Musician Children

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Chobert, Julie; Marie, Celine; Francois, Clement; Schon, Daniele; Besson, Mireille

2011-01-01

The aim of this study was to examine the influence of musical expertise in 9-year-old children on passive (as reflected by MMN) and active (as reflected by discrimination accuracy) processing of speech sounds. Musician and nonmusician children were presented with a sequence of syllables that included standards and deviants in vowel frequency,…

What Classical Musicians Can Learn from Working with Actors: Conceptual and Pedagogic Foundations and Outcomes of Bringing Musicians to Integrate in a Drama Training Environment

Science.gov (United States)

Rea, Ken

2015-01-01

Effective teaching in a music conservatoire needs a continual quest to find new and better ways of delivering excellence. The challenge is to keep the work innovative. In this article I argue that, for a classical musician the communication of personality is a vital component of excellence in performance and I give reasons why an authentic,…

Perception of orchestral musicians about work environment and conditions

OpenAIRE

Clarissa Stefani Teixeira; Fausto Kothe; Luis Felipe Dias Lopes; Érico Felden Pereira

2014-01-01

The objective of this study was to investigate the perception of 11 orchestral string (viola and violin) musicians of both genders with respect to their work environment and conditions. We applied a questionnaire with demographic information and the scale Profile of Work Environment and Working Conditions by Nahas et al. (2009), which analyzes the following components: physical environment, social environment, development and professional achievement, salary and benefits, and social relev...

Working on a Dream: Careers of Pop Musicians in the Netherlands

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Zwaan, A.J.

2009-01-01

The studies presented in this dissertation are concerned with the question why a musician’s career can become a failure or a success. The central research question within this thesis is: What are the determinants of career success for Dutch pop musicians? The first study presents findings from a

Effects of Baton Usage on College Musicians' Perceptions of Ensemble Performance

Science.gov (United States)

Silvey, Brian A.; Wacker, Aaron T.; Felder, Logan

2017-01-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of baton usage on college musicians' perceptions of ensemble performance. Two conductors were videotaped while conducting a 1-minute excerpt from either a technical ("Pathfinder of Panama," John Philip Sousa) or lyrical ("Seal Lullaby," Eric Whitacre) piece of concert…

Musicians' and nonmusicians' short-term memory for verbal and musical sequences: comparing phonological similarity and pitch proximity.

Science.gov (United States)

Williamson, Victoria J; Baddeley, Alan D; Hitch, Graham J

2010-03-01

Language-music comparative studies have highlighted the potential for shared resources or neural overlap in auditory short-term memory. However, there is a lack of behavioral methodologies for comparing verbal and musical serial recall. We developed a visual grid response that allowed both musicians and nonmusicians to perform serial recall of letter and tone sequences. The new method was used to compare the phonological similarity effect with the impact of an operationalized musical equivalent-pitch proximity. Over the course of three experiments, we found that short-term memory for tones had several similarities to verbal memory, including limited capacity and a significant effect of pitch proximity in nonmusicians. Despite being vulnerable to phonological similarity when recalling letters, however, musicians showed no effect of pitch proximity, a result that we suggest might reflect strategy differences. Overall, the findings support a limited degree of correspondence in the way that verbal and musical sounds are processed in auditory short-term memory.

Communities of Practice in the Conservatory: Learning with a Professional Musician

Science.gov (United States)

Virkkula, Esa

2016-01-01

This article examines the sociocultural learning of popular and jazz music in communities of practice as part of secondary vocational music education in a Finnish conservatory. The research is based on performance workshops which were implemented as a joint effort between professional musicians and music students. These workshops are suggested as…

Context effects on pitch perception in musicians and nonmusicians

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Brattico, E; Naatanen, R; Tervaniemi, M

2001-01-01

concentrating on reading a book, were presented with sound stimuli that had an infrequent (p = 15 %) pitch shift of 144 Hz. In the familiar condition, the infrequent third-position deviant changed the mode (major vs. minor) of the five-tone pattern. In the unfamiliar condition, patterns were formed from five...... to sequential structured sound events, the auditory system reacts faster in musicians than in nonmusicians. Received December 8, 1999, accepted July 14, 2001....

Musicians Crossing Musical Instrument Gender Stereotypes: A Study of Computer-Mediated Communication

Science.gov (United States)

Abeles, Harold F.; Hafeli, Mary; Sears, Colleen

2014-01-01

This study examined computer-mediated communication (CMC) -- blogs and responses to YouTube postings -- to better understand how CMCs reflect adolescents' attitudes towards musicians playing instruments that cross gender stereotypes. Employing purposive sampling, we used specific search terms, such as "girl drummer", to identify a…

Psychosocial work aspects, stress and musculoskeletal pain among musicians. A systematic review in search of correlates and predictors of playing-related pain.

Science.gov (United States)

Jacukowicz, Aleksandra

2016-06-16

Musicians face numerous psychosocial and physical demands at work resulting in high prevalence of musculoskeletal problems. Unlike physical risks, little is known about psychosocial work factors influencing such health problems in this particular group. The paper aimed to identify psychosocial work demands resulting in musculoskeletal problems among musicians. A systematic review was undertaken to find data linking psychosocial work demands or stress with musculoskeletal disorders among musicians. The exploration of databases resulted in nine research studies linking psychosocial aspects of work or stress with musculoskeletal problems among musicians. The analyzed studies linked psychosocial aspects with musculoskeletal problems in three ways - showing proportions of people indicating particular causes of pain, indicating correlations between these variables or performing regression analysis showing psychosocial predictors of musculoskeletal pain. Only a few studies have undertaken the issue of psychosocial risk factors for musculoskeletal problems among musicians. The results revealed that some psychosocial aspects of work, e.g. long hours at work, work content, high job demands, low control/influence, lack of social support, were related to musculoskeletal pain, however, the methods and results were inconsistent. The extant studies employed variety of definitions of psychosocial aspects that hindered the possibility for consistent conclusions. Basing on those conclusions, future directions were offered.

The Effect of Tactile Cues on Auditory Stream Segregation Ability of Musicians and Nonmusicians

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Slater, Kyle D.; Marozeau, Jeremy

2016-01-01

Difficulty perceiving music is often cited as one of the main problems facing hearing-impaired listeners. It has been suggested that musical enjoyment could be enhanced if sound information absent due to impairment is transmitted via other sensory modalities such as vision or touch. In this study...... the random melody. Tactile cues were applied to the listener’s fingers on half of the blocks. Results showed that tactile cues can significantly improve the melodic segregation ability in both musician and nonmusician groups in challenging listening conditions. Overall, the musician group performance...... was always better; however, the magnitude of improvement with the introduction of tactile cues was similar in both groups. This study suggests that hearing-impaired listeners could potentially benefit from a system transmitting such information via a tactile modality...

Processing of Complex Auditory Patterns in Musicians and Nonmusicians

OpenAIRE

Boh, Bastiaan; Herholz, Sibylle C.; Lappe, Claudia; Pantev, Christo

2011-01-01

In the present study we investigated the capacity of the memory store underlying the mismatch negativity (MMN) response in musicians and nonmusicians for complex tone patterns. While previous studies have focused either on the kind of information that can be encoded or on the decay of the memory trace over time, we studied capacity in terms of the length of tone sequences, i.e., the number of individual tones that can be fully encoded and maintained. By means of magnetoencephalography (MEG) w...

Student Musicians' Ear-Playing Ability as a Function of Vernacular Music Experiences

Science.gov (United States)

Woody, Robert H.; Lehmann, Andreas C.

2010-01-01

This study explored the differences in ear-playing ability between formal "classical" musicians and those with vernacular music experience (N = 24). Participants heard melodies and performed them back, either by singing or playing on their instruments. The authors tracked the number of times through the listen-then-perform cycle that each…

Musicians' Memory for Verbal and Tonal Materials under Conditions of Irrelevant Sound

Science.gov (United States)

Williamson, Victoria J.; Mitchell, Tom; Hitch, Graham J.; Baddeley, Alan D.

2010-01-01

Studying short-term memory within the framework of the working memory model and its associated paradigms (Baddeley, 2000; Baddeley & Hitch, 1974) offers the chance to compare similarities and differences between the way that verbal and tonal materials are processed. This study examined amateur musicians' short-term memory using a newly adapted…

Kinetic characteristics of the gait of a musician carrying or not his instrument

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Carlos Bolli Mota

2009-01-01

Full Text Available The integrity of the locomotor system can be compromised by the transport of certain objects, especially when done in an inadequate manner. Due to their weight and size, the transport of musical instruments can contribute to body dysfunctions in musicians who frequently have to carry their instruments, influencing balance andbody posture. Thus, the soil reaction force was investigated during the gait of a musician carrying or not his instrument. Two AMTI (Advanced Mechanical Technologies, Inc. platforms were used for kinetic data acquisition. A total of 40 measurements were obtainedfor gait and balance: 20 without carrying the instrument and 20 while carrying the instrument. The t test showed significant differences between the two situations for all variables analyzed. The results suggest that the locomotor system suffers alterationswhen carrying any kind of load, as was the case here in which the subject carried 7.75% of his own weight.

[Death and the pop musician].

Science.gov (United States)

de Leeuw, Peter W

2011-01-01

Many people are inclined to believe that popular music artists are prone to die prematurely. Scientific research into this matter is scarce. There is only one epidemiological study on this subject, showing that mortality among pop stars during the first 25 years after they became famous is increased. This mortality is higher in Northern America than it is in Europe, but European pop stars die on average at an earlier age. A fairly common belief states that many pop stars die at the age of 27 years. This age has even been proclaimed as the most critical for modern musicians. However, data of several hundred deceased pop stars shows no evidence for increased mortality at the age of 27. Moreover, the data suggests that the age of death has increased over the past forty years. As far as the cause of death is concerned, overdose of drugs or alcohol rank highly next to cardiovascular disease and malignancy.

Do wind and brass players snore less? A cross-sectional study of snoring and daytime fatigue in professional orchestral musicians.

Science.gov (United States)

Wardrop, P J C; Ravichandran, S; Hair, M; Robertson, S M; Sword, D

2011-04-01

To determine whether playing a wind or brass musical instrument is associated with reduced snoring or daytime fatigue. Cross-sectional, controlled, anonymous, questionnaire-based observational study. Rehearsal and performance halls. Three hundred and forty musicians from Scotland's five professional orchestras. Snore Outcomes Survey questionnaire and the Epworth Sleepiness Score. Hierarchical linear regression analysis. No significant difference was found between the snoring severity (Snore Outcomes Survey score) or daytime sleepiness (Epworth score) of wind/brass and other professional musicians. A regression model with snoring severity (Snore Outcomes Survey score) as the dependent variable and the three covariates of gender, age and body mass index as independent variables was significant [F(3, 206) = 28.77, P study demonstrated no significant difference between the snoring severity or daytime sleepiness of brass/wind players and other professional orchestral musicians. This result may have been attributed to comparatively low levels of snoring/daytime sleepiness in the population studied. The findings contrast with previous studies examining the effects of singing and didgeridoo playing but concur with a recent similar study of orchestral musicians. A prospective interventional study would be required to determine whether playing a wind or brass instrument improves these variables in patients complaining of disruptive snoring. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Getting "Capital" in the Music World: Musicians' Learning Experiences and Working Lives

Science.gov (United States)

Coulson, Susan

2010-01-01

This paper discusses an exploration of the working lives of musicians working in a range of musical genres in the North East of England, revealing the factors that contribute to their ability to obtain a musical livelihood. These factors can be understood in terms of various forms of social, cultural and symbolic "capital" (Bourdieu,…

MythBusters, Musicians, and MP3 Players: A Middle School Sound Study

Science.gov (United States)

Putney, Ann

2011-01-01

Create your own speakers for an MP3 player while exploring the science of sound. Review of science notebooks, students' intriguing cabinet designs, and listening to students talk with a musician about the physics of an instrument show that complex concepts are being absorbed and extended with each new iteration. Science that matters to students…

When Work Starts in Childhood: The Anticipatory Socialization Process of Classical Musicians

Science.gov (United States)

Gabor, Elena

2009-01-01

Classical music is distinguished among professions in several ways: work has to start in childhood in order to achieve proficiency; the training takes an average of 16 years in order to become a professional musician (Manturzewska, 1990); the cost of training is high; a high level of discipline is required to develop performance abilities…

Does music training facilitate the mnemonic effect of song? An exploration of musicians and nonmusicians with and without Alzheimer's dementia.

Science.gov (United States)

Baird, Amee; Samson, Séverine; Miller, Laurie; Chalmers, Kerry

2017-02-01

The efficacy of using sung words as a mnemonic device for verbal memory has been documented in persons with probable Alzheimer's dementia (AD), but it is not yet known whether this effect is related to music training. Given that music training can enhance cognitive functioning, we explored the effects of music training and modality (sung vs. spoken) on verbal memory in persons with and without AD. We used a mixed factorial design to compare learning (5 trials), delayed recall (30-min and, 24-hour), and recognition of sung versus spoken information in 22 healthy elderly (15 musicians), and 11 people with AD (5 musicians). Musicians with AD showed better total learning (over 5 trials) of sung information than nonmusicians with AD. There were no significant differences in delayed recall and recognition accuracy (of either modality) between musicians with and without AD, suggesting that music training may facilitate memory function in AD. Analysis of individual performances showed that two of the five musicians with AD were able to recall some information on delayed recall, whereas the nonmusicians with AD recalled no information on delay. The only significant finding in regard to modality (sung vs. spoken) was that total learning was significantly worse for sung than spoken information for nonmusicians with AD. This may be due to the need to recode information presented in song into spoken recall, which may be more cognitively demanding for this group. This is the first study to demonstrate that music training modulates memory of sung and spoken information in AD. The mechanism underlying these results is unclear, but may be due to music training, higher cognitive abilities, or both. Our findings highlight the need for further research into the potentially protective effect of music training on cognitive abilities in our aging population.

Perceptions of Schooling, Pedagogy and Notation in the Lives of Visually-Impaired Musicians

Science.gov (United States)

Baker, David; Green, Lucy

2016-01-01

This article discusses findings on schooling, pedagogy and notation in the life-experiences of amateur and professional visually-impaired musicians/music teachers, and the professional experiences of sighted music teachers who work with visually-impaired learners. The study formed part of a broader UK Arts and Humanities Research Council funded…

A Gendered Study of the Working Patterns of Classical Musicians: Implications for Practice

Science.gov (United States)

Bennett, Dawn

2008-01-01

Despite an increase in participation at all levels of the music profession, women continue to experience fewer opportunities to forge careers in music and are less likely than men to apply for leadership positions. This article presents results from a study in which 152 instrumental musicians reflected upon their professional practice and career…

Heart Rate Response of Professional Musicians When Playing Music.

Science.gov (United States)

Vellers, Heather L; Irwin, Conor; Lightfoot, J T

2015-06-01

The primary aim was to determine the level of physiological stress evoked while playing music in a standing position as indicated by heart rate (HR) response. A secondary aim was to analyze the effect of music genre (classic rock, western, contemporary Christian, and metal rock) on the relative HR response. Lastly, we considered potential physiological initiators of the music-playing-induced HR response. HR response was monitored in 27 professional musicians (3 women, 24 men) between the ages of 21 and 67 yrs old during rehearsal and public performances. The percent maximal HR (%MHR) evoked was determined by taking a percentage of the age-predicted maximal HR for each musician and comparing the average %MHR in each genre during public and rehearsal events. The role of the potential initiators of these responses (e.g., number of years playing in public, event type, instrument type, tempo, etc.) was determined using multiple regression analyses. The overall average %MHR responses were 52 ± 5% and 59 ± 5% during rehearsal and public performances, respectively, with genre type having a significant effect on the HR response (p=0.01). Body mass index and tempo were each found to be significant contributors to the HR response while playing music (r²=0.506, p=0.001). Playing music professionally evokes considerable increases in HR response, with music genre influencing the level of the physiological response. We concluded that 50% of the HR response while playing music was associated with body mass index, music tempo, and instrument type.

Ergonomic activity analysis of the musicians of the Symphony Orchestra of Paraná state: risk factors and workloads

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jaqueline de Lima

2014-04-01

Full Text Available This study aimed to investigate the risk factors present in the work activity and their impact on the health of the musicians of the Symphony Orchestra of Parana state. It is a descriptive qualitative research based on the method of Ergonomic Workplace Analysis of Francophone strand, used as a tool by occupational therapists in the health-work interface. The following procedures were performed: bibliographical survey, documental analysis of productivity data, production and quality of the task, systematic observation of the rehearsals of the Symphony Orchestra of Parana, task and workplace analysis with the application of Ergonomic Workplace Analysis (EWA and, confrontation of the data analyzed with an instrumental musician. As a result, the study showed significant deviations with reference to the standards described in Brazilian Norm 17 (Ergonomics, especially regarding individual cognitive and physical demands as well as demands related to work organization, considering each item evaluated by this analytical instrument. The action of occupational therapy was grounded on the insertion in the health and illness process, health promotion, illness prevention, and training of musicians as workers and social actors, envisioning the transformation of work situations.

Beating time: How ensemble musicians' cueing gestures communicate beat position and tempo.

Science.gov (United States)

Bishop, Laura; Goebl, Werner

2018-01-01

Ensemble musicians typically exchange visual cues to coordinate piece entrances. "Cueing-in" gestures indicate when to begin playing and at what tempo. This study investigated how timing information is encoded in musicians' cueing-in gestures. Gesture acceleration patterns were expected to indicate beat position, while gesture periodicity, duration, and peak gesture velocity were expected to indicate tempo. Same-instrument ensembles (e.g., piano-piano) were expected to synchronize more successfully than mixed-instrument ensembles (e.g., piano-violin). Duos performed short passages as their head and (for violinists) bowing hand movements were tracked with accelerometers and Kinect sensors. Performers alternated between leader/follower roles; leaders heard a tempo via headphones and cued their partner in nonverbally. Violin duos synchronized more successfully than either piano duos or piano-violin duos, possibly because violinists were more experienced in ensemble playing than pianists. Peak acceleration indicated beat position in leaders' head-nodding gestures. Gesture duration and periodicity in leaders' head and bowing hand gestures indicated tempo. The results show that the spatio-temporal characteristics of cueing-in gestures guide beat perception, enabling synchronization with visual gestures that follow a range of spatial trajectories.

Music Therapy as a Caring Intervention: Swedish Musicians Learning a New Professional Field

Science.gov (United States)

Petersson, Gunnar; Nystrom, Maria

2011-01-01

The question of competence in providing music therapy has rarely been the focus of interest in empirical research, as most music therapy research aims at measuring outcomes. Therefore, the aim of this study is to analyse and describe musicians' learning processes when they study music therapy as a caring intervention. An initial presumption is…

A discourse on the master musician and informal music education in yoruba Traditional culture

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

OLUSOJI STEPHEN Ph.D

2013-06-01

Full Text Available  This paper discusses issues relating to informal education in Yoruba traditional music using the master musician as an important agent for propagating traditional knowledge and values. The study is an ethnographic research and uses oral interviews and other qualitative techniques for eliciting information. As part of its findings, the study found out that informal education in Yoruba culture follows a typical pattern of instruction which is acquired through heredity, apprentice under a well-known artist, observation and participation in communal activities. In the case of music, which is the focus of the study, it is promoted by the master musician, a position that could be occupied by men or women depending on the nature of the ensemble and the societal norms approved for such groups. In conclusion, it was suggested in the study that contemporary music educators and curriculum planners should tailor their curriculum to reflect the traditional values and practices of their people.

A discourse on the master musician and informal music education in yoruba Traditional culture

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

OLUSOJI STEPHEN Ph.D

2013-06-01

Full Text Available This paper discusses issues relating to informal education in Yoruba traditional music using the master musician as an important agent for propagating traditional knowledge and values. The study is an ethnographic research and uses oral interviews and other qualitative techniques for eliciting information. As part of its findings, the study found out that informal education in Yoruba culture follows a typical pattern of instruction which is acquired through heredity, apprentice under a well-known artist, observation and participation in communal activities. In the case of music, which is the focus of the study, it is promoted by the master musician, a position that could be occupied by men or women depending on the nature of the ensemble and the societal norms approved for such groups. In conclusion, it was suggested in the study that contemporary music educators and curriculum planners should tailor their curriculum to reflect the traditional values and practices of their people.

Polyrhythmic communicational devices appear as languagein the brains of musicians

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Vuust, Peter; Østergaard, Leif; Roepstorff, Andreas

2006-01-01

The relationship between music and language has been oneof the most fiercely debated subjects in the modern literatureof neuroscience and music. In this paper we argue thata musicological study of the online communication betweenjazz musicians in combination with brain imaging studiesoffers...... a unique setting to evaluate communicational aspectsof music practices that rarely enters the present discourseon the subject. We employ Miles Davis' quintet of the1960es and its use of polyrhythmic structures as a generalexample of a jazz group focusing on communication. First,we consider jazz...

Common hemisphericity of language and music in a musician. A case report.

Science.gov (United States)

Hofman, S; Klein, C; Arlazoroff, A

1993-06-01

Aphasia coupled with amusia is reported in a 73-year-old male musician who was a lawyer by profession. This condition followed an ischemic stroke in the lateral aspect of the parieto-occipital region of the left hemisphere. The patient's music production exhibits jargon amusia, similar to that in his verbal production. This case supports the thesis that language and music may share a common hemisphere.

The influence of Room Acoustic Aspects on the Noise Exposure of Symphonic Orchestra Musicians

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Wenmaekers, R.H.C.; Hak, C.C.J.M.; Luxemburg, van L.C.J.

2011-01-01

Musicians in a symphonic orchestra are exposed to the noise of a large number of different sound sources. The noise exposure can vary largely and has many aspects of influence. One group of aspects are musical aspects, like the orchestra size and composition, the musical piece and its interpretation

Embracing the digital in instrument making : Towards a musician-tailored mouthpiece by 3D printing

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Lorenzoni, V.; Doubrovski, E.L.; Verlinden, J.C.

2013-01-01

At present, the manufacturing of musical instruments still strongly relies on the tacit knowledge of experienced handcrafts while is commonly based on standard machining or casting techniques. This limits the musician-tailoredness to a small group of players, while others take compromises by

Trauma-Related Dissociation as a Factor Affecting Musicians' Memory for Music: Some Possible Solutions

Science.gov (United States)

Swart, Inette; van Niekerk, Caroline; Hartman, Woltemade

2010-01-01

An investigation of the influence of trauma on musicians revealed concentration and memory problems as two of the most common symptoms hampering the performance of affected individuals. In many instances where the causes of these problems were related to trauma sequelae, these could clearly be linked to dissociative symptoms. The following…

Increased dopamine DRD4 receptor mRNA expression in lymphocytes of musicians and autistic individuals: bridging the music-autism connection.

Science.gov (United States)

Emanuele, Enzo; Boso, Marianna; Cassola, Francesco; Broglia, Davide; Bonoldi, Ilaria; Mancini, Lara; Marini, Mara; Politi, Pierluigi

2010-01-01

People with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) are affected by a long-life disabling condition, characterized by communication deficits, severe impairments in social functioning, and stereotyped behaviors. Although ASD individuals display several problems in interactions, it has been reported that they may show a peculiar interest in music. Previous studies have suggested a pivotal role for the dopaminergic system in the psychobiology of reward, including the pleasure of music. In the present study, we sought to investigate dopamine DRD3 and DRD4 receptor expression in peripheral blood lymphocytes of adult healthy musicians and age- and gender-matched patients with ASD against the background hypothesis that the dopaminergic system may contribute a biological cause to the reward dimensions of the musical experience in both healthy and autistic individuals. ANOVA showed significant differences in DRD4 mRNA expression between the groups (P = 0.008). Post-hoc analysis showed significant differences between the control group and both musicians (P dopamine DRD4 receptor, music and autism, possibly via mechanisms involving the reward system and the appraisal of emotions.

Hearing loss induced by loud music among musicians of symphonic orchestra

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Tanja Carli

2012-12-01

Full Text Available Noise-induced hearing loss is an important public health issue, especially among musicians who are, more than any other occupation, dependent on their hearing. For them, hearing impairment is due to too loud music, the effect of which, if exceeding the limit depending on the individual sensitivity of one’s ear, can be compared with theeffect of noise on the ear. Risk factors for its development are: the type of musical instrument and sound character, the way of playing, music genre or composition, duration of exposure to loud music, sound source and its distance from the ear, intervals of acoustic stimuli, individual factors and the musician’s position in the orchestra. Hearing impairment is greater at higher frequencies; in pure tone audiogram it is shown as notches between 3000 and 6000 Hz and is most frequent in the wind and brass section. Hearing loss is greater among violinists and typically affects the left ear owing to the sound source proximity and their position in the orchestra. The most common health problems take the form of diplacusis, algiacusis and tinnitus, as exposure to the loud acoustic stimulus above 90 dB(A cause damage to the inner ear, the so-called acoustic trauma. Use of personal protective equipment among musicians is low especially because of too much high-frequency attenuation and occlusion effect.

Naturalistic music and dance: Cortical phase synchrony in musicians and dancers.

Science.gov (United States)

Poikonen, Hanna; Toiviainen, Petri; Tervaniemi, Mari

2018-01-01

Expertise in music has been investigated for decades and the results have been applied not only in composition, performance and music education, but also in understanding brain plasticity in a larger context. Several studies have revealed a strong connection between auditory and motor processes and listening to and performing music, and music imagination. Recently, as a logical next step in music and movement, the cognitive and affective neurosciences have been directed towards expertise in dance. To understand the versatile and overlapping processes during artistic stimuli, such as music and dance, it is necessary to study them with continuous naturalistic stimuli. Thus, we used long excerpts from the contemporary dance piece Carmen presented with and without music to professional dancers, musicians, and laymen in an EEG laboratory. We were interested in the cortical phase synchrony within each participant group over several frequency bands during uni- and multimodal processing. Dancers had strengthened theta and gamma synchrony during music relative to silence and silent dance, whereas the presence of music decreased systematically the alpha and beta synchrony in musicians. Laymen were the only group of participants with significant results related to dance. Future studies are required to understand whether these results are related to some other factor (such as familiarity to the stimuli), or if our results reveal a new point of view to dance observation and expertise.

Naturalistic music and dance: Cortical phase synchrony in musicians and dancers

Science.gov (United States)

Toiviainen, Petri; Tervaniemi, Mari

2018-01-01

Expertise in music has been investigated for decades and the results have been applied not only in composition, performance and music education, but also in understanding brain plasticity in a larger context. Several studies have revealed a strong connection between auditory and motor processes and listening to and performing music, and music imagination. Recently, as a logical next step in music and movement, the cognitive and affective neurosciences have been directed towards expertise in dance. To understand the versatile and overlapping processes during artistic stimuli, such as music and dance, it is necessary to study them with continuous naturalistic stimuli. Thus, we used long excerpts from the contemporary dance piece Carmen presented with and without music to professional dancers, musicians, and laymen in an EEG laboratory. We were interested in the cortical phase synchrony within each participant group over several frequency bands during uni- and multimodal processing. Dancers had strengthened theta and gamma synchrony during music relative to silence and silent dance, whereas the presence of music decreased systematically the alpha and beta synchrony in musicians. Laymen were the only group of participants with significant results related to dance. Future studies are required to understand whether these results are related to some other factor (such as familiarity to the stimuli), or if our results reveal a new point of view to dance observation and expertise. PMID:29672597

Growing Musicians in English Secondary Schools at Key Stage 3 (Age 11-14)

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Dalladay, Christopher

2017-01-01

The National Curriculum for Music in England at Key Stage 3 (KS3; age 11-14) declares its purpose that pupils should be inspired to "develop a love of music and their talent as musicians" (DfE, 2013: KS3 Music). The Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) have criticised secondary schools for a lack of progress in the musical…

Meeting the Other : Why Working with People Living with Dementia is So Important for Musicians

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Bisschop Boele, Evert

2013-01-01

Paper presented at international symposium ‘Dementia and Music. Research and Practice’. University of Vechta, Vechta, Germany, 21/9/2013. Paper argues that working with dementia for musicians and music students is important because it demands them to focus on the 'other' rather then on themselves

Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the Finnish Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ) in 590 Professional Musicians.

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Vastamäki, Heidi; Vastamäki, Martti; Laimi, Katri; Saltychev, Michail

2017-07-01

Poorly functioning work environments may lead to dissatisfaction for the employees and financial loss for the employers. The Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ) was designed to measure social and psychological characteristics of work environments. To investigate the factor construct of the Finnish 14-item version of JCQ when applied to professional orchestra musicians. In a cross-sectional survey, the questionnaire was sent by mail to 1550 orchestra musicians and students. 630 responses were received. Full data were available for 590 respondents (response rate 38%).The questionnaire also contained questions on demographics, job satisfaction, health status, health behaviors, and intensity of playing music. Confirmatory factor analysis of the 2-factor model of JCQ was conducted. Of the 5 estimates, JCQ items in the "job demand" construct, the "conflicting demands" (question 5) explained most of the total variance in this construct (79%) demonstrating almost perfect correlation of 0.63. In the construct of "job control," "opinions influential" (question 10) demonstrated a perfect correlation index of 0.84 and the items "little decision freedom" (question 14) and "allows own decisions" (question 6) showed substantial correlations of 0.77 and 0.65. The 2-factor model of the Finnish 14-item version of JCQ proposed in this study fitted well into the observed data. The "conflicting demands," "opinions influential," "little decision freedom," and "allows own decisions" items demonstrated the strongest correlations with latent factors suggesting that in a population similar to the studied one, especially these items should be taken into account when observed in the response of a population.

Effects of Excerpt Tempo and Duration on Musicians' Ratings of High-Level Piano Performances

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Wapnick, Joel; Ryan, Charlene; Campbell, Louise; Deek, Patricia; Lemire, Renata; Darrow, Alice-Ann

2005-01-01

The purpose of this study was to determine how judgments of solo performances recorded at an international piano competition might be affected by excerpt duration (20 versus 60 seconds) and tempo (slow versus fast). Musicians rated performances on six test items. Results indicated that piano majors rated slow excerpts higher than they rated fast…

Intervention program in college instrumental musicians, with kinematics analysis of cello and flute playing: a combined program of yogic breathing and muscle strengthening-flexibility exercises.

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Lee, Sang-Hie; Carey, Stephanie; Dubey, Rajiv; Matz, Rachel

2012-06-01

College musicians encounter health risks not dissimilar to those of professional musicians. Fifteen collegiate instrumental musicians participated in the intervention program of yogic-breathing and muscle-strengthening and flexibility exercises for 8 weeks. Pre- and post-intervention data from the Health-Pain-Injury Inventory (HPI) and the Physical & Musical-Performance Efficacy Assessment Survey (PME) were analyzed for the effects of the program on the musicians' physical and musical-performance efficacy. HPI results showed that the majority of our sample had healthy lifestyles and minimal pain and injuries but irregular eating and exercise habits. The pre-intervention PME data showed a high level of musical efficacy (i.e., awareness of music technique, tone, and flow) but a low-level of physical efficacy (i.e., awareness of posture, tension, and movement flexibility). Post-intervention data showed that the program improved physical efficacy by increased awareness of posture and tension. In 2 volunteer musicians, kinematics motion analysis was conducted for exploratory purposes. Our cellist played the scale using a larger range of motion (ROM) in right shoulder flexion and abduction and slightly increased rotation while keeping decreased right elbow ROM after the intervention program. The flutist shifted the body weight from one foot to the other more in the second playing post-intervention. These changes can be attributed to the increased physical efficacy that allowed freedom to express musicality. Findings from these case scenarios provide empirically based hypotheses for further study. We share our experience so that others may use our model and instruments to develop studies with larger samples.

Exposure to music and noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL among professional pop/rock/jazz musicians

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Dana N Halevi-Katz

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL has been extensively studied in industrial work environments. With the advent of new technologies, loud music has been increasingly affecting listeners outside of the industrial setting. Most research on the effects of music and hearing loss has focused on classical musicians. The purpose of the current study was to examine the relationship between the amount of experience a professional pop/rock/jazz musician has and objective and subjective variables of the musician′s hearing loss. This study also examined professional pop/rock/jazz musicians′ use of hearing protection devices in relation to the extent of their exposure to amplified music. Forty-four pop/rock/jazz musicians were interviewed using the Pop/Rock/Jazz Musician′s Questionnaire (PRJMQ in order to obtain self-reported symptoms of tinnitus and hyperacusis. Forty-two of the subjects were also tested for air-conduction hearing thresholds in the frequency range of 1-8 kHz. Results show that the extent of professional pop/rock/jazz musicians′ exposure to amplified music was related to both objective and subjective variables of hearing loss: Greater musical experience was positively linked to higher hearing thresholds in the frequency range of 3-6 kHz and to the subjective symptom of tinnitus. Weekly hours playing were found to have a greater effect on hearing loss in comparison to years playing. Use of hearing protection was not linked to the extent of exposure to amplified music. It is recommended that further research be conducted with a larger sample, in order to gain a greater understanding of the detrimental effects of hours playing versus years playing.

Giving away music to make money: Independent musicians on the Internet

OpenAIRE

Pfahl, Michael

2001-01-01

No one has felt the impact of music on the Internet more than the independent musician. The recording industry has dominated the production and distribution of music for many years. The big six recording labels are making a push to incorporate the Internet into their distribution process. Standing in their way is the issue of security. It seems that music files on the Internet, no matter how secure they may seem, are susceptible to tampering. This will force a shift in distribution away f...

Increased functional connectivity in the ventral and dorsal streams during retrieval of novel words in professional musicians.

Science.gov (United States)

Dittinger, Eva; Valizadeh, Seyed Abolfazl; Jäncke, Lutz; Besson, Mireille; Elmer, Stefan

2018-02-01

Current models of speech and language processing postulate the involvement of two parallel processing streams (the dual stream model): a ventral stream involved in mapping sensory and phonological representations onto lexical and conceptual representations and a dorsal stream contributing to sound-to-motor mapping, articulation, and to how verbal information is encoded and manipulated in memory. Based on previous evidence showing that music training has an influence on language processing, cognitive functions, and word learning, we examined EEG-based intracranial functional connectivity in the ventral and dorsal streams while musicians and nonmusicians learned the meaning of novel words through picture-word associations. In accordance with the dual stream model, word learning was generally associated with increased beta functional connectivity in the ventral stream compared to the dorsal stream. In addition, in the linguistically most demanding "semantic task," musicians outperformed nonmusicians, and this behavioral advantage was accompanied by increased left-hemispheric theta connectivity in both streams. Moreover, theta coherence in the left dorsal pathway was positively correlated with the number of years of music training. These results provide evidence for a complex interplay within a network of brain regions involved in semantic processing and verbal memory functions, and suggest that intensive music training can modify its functional architecture leading to advantages in novel word learning. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the Finnish Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ in 590 Professional Musicians

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Heidi Vastamäki

2017-07-01

Full Text Available Background: Poorly functioning work environments may lead to dissatisfaction for the employees and financial loss for the employers. The Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ was designed to measure social and psychological characteristics of work environments. Objective: To investigate the factor construct of the Finnish 14-item version of JCQ when applied to professional orchestra musicians. Methods: In a cross-sectional survey, the questionnaire was sent by mail to 1550 orchestra musicians and students. 630 responses were received. Full data were available for 590 respondents (response rate 38%.The questionnaire also contained questions on demographics, job satisfaction, health status, health behaviors, and intensity of playing music. Confirmatory factor analysis of the 2-factor model of JCQ was conducted. Results: Of the 5 estimates, JCQ items in the “job demand” construct, the “conflicting demands” (question 5 explained most of the total variance in this construct (79% demonstrating almost perfect correlation of 0.63. In the construct of “job control,” “repetitive work” (question 10 demonstrated a perfect correlation index of 0.84 and the items “little decision freedom” (question 14 and “allows own decisions” (question 6 showed substantial correlations of 0.77 and 0.65. Conclusion: The 2-factor model of the Finnish 14-item version of JCQ proposed in this study fitted well into the observed data. The “conflicting demands,” “repetitive work,” “little decision freedom,” and “allows own decisions” items demonstrated the strongest correlations with latent factors suggesting that in a population similar to the studied one, especially these items should be taken into account when observed in the response of a population.

Anterioposterior spinal curvatures and magnitude of asymmetry in the trunk in musicians playing the violin compared with nonmusicians.

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Barczyk-Pawelec, Katarzyna; Sipko, Tomasz; Demczuk-Włodarczyk, Ewa; Boczar, Agata

2012-05-01

Playing an instrument often requires a certain posture and asymmetric position that may affect the anteroposterior spinal curvatures and may lead to postural asymmetry. The aim of the study was to evaluate the spinal curvatures in the sagittal plane and the magnitude of asymmetries in the trunk in the frontal plane in a group of music students in comparison with a control group. The group of 67 students aged 20 to 26 years was made up of 2 subgroups: the musicians (violin playing students of the Academy of Music in Wroclaw) and the control group (physical therapy students who played no instruments). The examination included an interview, measuring of somatic characteristics, and evaluation of body posture by means of the photogrammetric method. The spinal curvatures of the instrumentalists in the sagittal plane differ from the control group mainly in terms of length and depth parameters. Compared with the control group, the musicians were characterized by statistically more significantly longer and deeper thoracic kyphosis (P < .01) and more shallow lumbar lordosis (P < .05), a greater angle of thoracic kyphosis (P < .005), and a smaller inclination angle of the thoracolumbar and lumbosacral section of the spine (P < .01). In the group of musicians, the asymmetries in the area of shoulders and waist triangles as well as the distance of the spinous processes from the C7 to S1 line were more frequent. Copyright © 2012 National University of Health Sciences. Published by Mosby, Inc. All rights reserved.

Gilles Apap's Mozart Cadenza and Expanding Musical Competences of Twenty-First-Century Musicians and Music Educators

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Webb, Michael

2008-01-01

In western musical contexts at global and local levels, musicians are becoming increasingly involved in what might be termed multicode music making and are expanding their musical competences. In this article I consider the practical and cognitive implications of such an expanding of competences for music education at various levels. Combining…

Music education and musicians: Expectations, course and outcomes

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Bogunović Blanka

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Considering the long-term talent development, from the moment of its recognition to the moment when an adult is confronted with the necessity of integration in the professional music and life streams, we wonder whether education satisfies the needs of talents and provides, in the long run, the necessary knowledge and skills. The aim of this research was to investigate: (1 the initial motivation for learning music and expectations from music education; (2 the course of development of young musicians (the degree of self-actualisation, developmental perspectives, evaluation of music education and (3 outcomes of music education and development of the professional career. The sample (N=487 consisted of five subsamples: music kindergarten pupils, students of primary music schools, students of secondary music schools, university students of music and teachers at music schools and universities. The paper analyses psychological, educational and professional aspects of education of musically gifted pupils and students, as well as music teachers in five successive age groups. The results indicate that with an increase in age there is a considerable increase in the variety and scope of expectations and a higher aspiration towards personal, educational and professional lifelong improvement, while, at the same time, there is a considerable decrease in the level of fulfilment of expectations and the level of assessment of self-actualisation. This is indicative of a continuously present feeling of “hidden underachievement” in the group of (relatively successful young musicians and professionals. Analysis of respondents’ answers points out to the existence of still traditional system of music education, which lacks flexibility and innovation and fails to provide a sufficient level of transferable knowledge and skills. The findings point out to a whole cluster of controversies demanding further reconsideration and (redesigning of the curriculum of (high

The Song of the Other/Public Space as a Learning Environment and Gypsy Musicians in Turkey

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Ozer, Ulas

2013-01-01

This work focuses on both public musical practices of Gypsy musicians who live in the Thracian land lying within the northwest of Turkey, and musical learning that takes place here. I primarily highlight the historic dimensions of the relation between Gypsies and music and emphasized musicianship in the lives of Gypsies as a fundamental class…

From Leisure to Work: Amateur Musicians Taking up Instrumental or Vocal Teaching as a Second Career

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Taylor, Angela; Hallam, Susan

2011-01-01

This article aims to increase our understanding of how amateur musicians become teachers as a change of career, how they use their musical and life skills in their teaching, and how their teaching impacts on their musical identity. The questionnaire responses of 67 career-change instrumental and vocal teachers showed evidence of their strong…

Prevalence and consequences of musculoskeletal symptoms in symphony orchestra musicians vary by gender: a cross-sectional study

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Paarup, Helene M.; Baelum, Jesper; Holm, Jonas W

2011-01-01

and a lower risk for the consequences. Among consequences were changed way of playing, reported by 73% of the musicians, difficulty in daily activities at home, reported by 55%, and difficulty in sleeping, reported by 49%. Their health behaviour included taking paracetamol as the most used analgesic, while...

Musical Imagery Involves Wernicke's Area in Bilateral and Anti-Correlated Network Interactions in Musicians.

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Zhang, Yizhen; Chen, Gang; Wen, Haiguang; Lu, Kun-Han; Liu, Zhongming

2017-12-06

Musical imagery is the human experience of imagining music without actually hearing it. The neural basis of this mental ability is unclear, especially for musicians capable of engaging in accurate and vivid musical imagery. Here, we created a visualization of an 8-minute symphony as a silent movie and used it as real-time cue for musicians to continuously imagine the music for repeated and synchronized sessions during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The activations and networks evoked by musical imagery were compared with those elicited by the subjects directly listening to the same music. Musical imagery and musical perception resulted in overlapping activations at the anterolateral belt and Wernicke's area, where the responses were correlated with the auditory features of the music. Whereas Wernicke's area interacted within the intrinsic auditory network during musical perception, it was involved in much more complex networks during musical imagery, showing positive correlations with the dorsal attention network and the motor-control network and negative correlations with the default-mode network. Our results highlight the important role of Wernicke's area in forming vivid musical imagery through bilateral and anti-correlated network interactions, challenging the conventional view of segregated and lateralized processing of music versus language.

Portfolio Careers and Work-Life Balance among Musicians: An Initial Study into Implications for Higher Music Education

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Teague, Adele; Smith, Gareth Dylan

2015-01-01

Musicians are acknowledged to lead complex working lives, often characterised as portfolio careers. The higher music education research literature has tended to focus on preparing students for rich working lives and multiple identity realisations across potential roles. Extant literature does not address the area of work-life balance, which this…

Musical and linguistic expertise influence pre-attentive and attentive processing of non-speech sounds.

Science.gov (United States)

Marie, Céline; Kujala, Teija; Besson, Mireille

2012-04-01

The aim of this experiment was two-fold. Our first goal was to determine whether linguistic expertise influences the pre-attentive [as reflected by the Mismatch Negativity - (MMN)] and the attentive processing (as reflected by behavioural discrimination accuracy) of non-speech, harmonic sounds. The second was to directly compare the effects of linguistic and musical expertise. To this end, we compared non-musician native speakers of a quantity language, Finnish, in which duration is a phonemically contrastive cue, with French musicians and French non-musicians. Results revealed that pre-attentive and attentive processing of duration deviants was enhanced in Finn non-musicians and French musicians compared to French non-musicians. By contrast, MMN in French musicians was larger than in both Finns and French non-musicians for frequency deviants, whereas no between-group differences were found for intensity deviants. By showing similar effects of linguistic and musical expertise, these results argue in favor of common processing of duration in music and speech. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Srl. All rights reserved.

Neurological problems of famous musicians: the classical genre.

Science.gov (United States)

Newmark, Jonathan

2009-08-01

Neurological histories of great musicians allow for a unique perspective on music physiology. Bedrich Smetana's autobiographical string quartet ends with the musical equivalent of tinnitus in the fourth movement, rendering the youthful and passionate themes of earlier movements moot as the piece ends depicting his ultimately fatal disease, neurosyphilis. Dmitri Shostakovich survived the censorship of Joseph Stalin's apparatchiks but suffered a prolonged form of paralysis attributable to slowly progressive motor neuron disease, although the viola sonata he wrote on his deathbed has become standard repertoire. Glenn Gould was a hypochondriacal pianist with obsessive-compulsive disorder and suspected Asperger syndrome. Vissarion Shebalin and (Ira) Randall Thompson had strokes followed by aphasia without amusia. Domenico Scarlatti provides an example of how even great composers must alter their technical expectations depending upon the skills and body habitus of their chief patrons. The focal dystonia afflicting Leon Fleisher and Gary Graffman catalyzed the discipline of performing arts medicine.

Why orchestral musicians are bound to wear earplugs: About the ineffectiveness of physical measures to reduce sound exposure

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Wenmaekers, R.H.C.; Nicolai, B.; Hornikx, M.C.J.; Kohlrausch, A.G.

2017-01-01

Symphony orchestra musicians are exposed to noise levels that put them at risk of developing hearing damage. This study evaluates the potential effectivity of common control measures used in orchestras on open stages with a typical symphonic setup. A validated acoustic prediction model is used that

Hiperacusia em músicos de banda militar Hyperacusis in military band musicians

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Maiara Santos Gonçalves

2007-12-01

ído ambiental incômodo e presença de zumbido.PURPOSE: To identify the presence of hyperacusis and to investigate the characteristics of uncomfortable sounds, as well as the behaviors triggered by the discomfort in musicians of a Military Band. METHODS: Twenty seven musicians of the Military Band of the Santa Maria Airbase (RS were studied. Their ages ranged from 22 to 50 years old and military work time from four to 26 years, with daily occupational noise exposure time from two to eight hours. All subjects were submitted to a basic audiological evaluation, sound discomfort threshold test and application of a questionnaire. It was considered presence of hyperacusis when the average of the obtained values on the discomfort threshold in 250, 500, 1000, 2000, 4000 Hertz was less than or equal to 90 decibels, associated with hearing discomfort complaint. RESULTS: It was verified presence of hyperacusis in 37% of the musicians. From these, 50% presented normal hearing and 50% had normal hearing with notch; 80% of them felt the discomfort daily and 20% only after band practice; 70% of the musicians had already avoided some activities, believing that the activity noise would be distressing; 70% of them used ear plugs regularly and 90% referred presence of tinnitus. The sounds that were considered to be distressing by hyperacusics were, predominantly, high intensity sounds. The most common emotional responses towards a distressing sound were tension, anxiety and the urge of repelling from it. CONCLUSION: According to the criteria used in this study, 37% of the studied individuals were classified as hyperacusics, which considered predominantly high intensity sounds to be unpleasant. The main emotional responses before these sounds were: tension, anxiety and the need to repel from the sound. The common characteristics among the subjects classified as hyperacusics were: normal hearing, use of ear plugs, avoidance of activities fearing the discomfort caused by the noise, and the presence

Absolute pitch memory: its prevalence among musicians and dependence on the testing context.

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Wong, Yetta Kwailing; Wong, Alan C-N

2014-04-01

Absolute pitch (AP) is widely believed to be a rare ability possessed by only a small group of gifted and special individuals (AP possessors). While AP has fascinated psychologists, neuroscientists, and musicians for more than a century, no theory can satisfactorily explain why this ability is so rare and difficult to learn. Here, we show that AP ability appears rare because of the methodological issues of the standard pitch-naming test. Specifically, the standard test unnecessarily poses a high decisional demand on AP judgments and uses a testing context that is highly inconsistent with one's musical training. These extra cognitive challenges are not central to AP memory per se and have thus led to consistent underestimation of AP ability in the population. Using the standard test, we replicated the typical findings that the accuracy for general violinists was low (12.38 %; chance level = 0 %). With identical stimuli, scoring criteria, and participants, violinists attained 25 % accuracy in a pitch verification test in which the decisional demand of AP judgment was reduced. When the testing context was increasingly similar to their musical experience, verification accuracy improved further and reached 39 %, three times higher than that for the standard test. Results were replicated with a separate group of pianists. Our findings challenge current theories about AP and suggest that the prevalence of AP among musicians has been highly underestimated in prior work. A multimodal framework is proposed to better explain AP memory.

"They Wasn't Makin' My Kinda Music": A Hip-Hop Musician's Perspective on School, Schooling, and School Music

Science.gov (United States)

Kruse, Adam J.

2016-01-01

This article focuses on a hip-hop perspective of school, schooling, and school music. The study involves applications of ethnographic (including autoethnographic) techniques within the framework of a holistic multiple case study. One case is an adult amateur hip-hop musician named Terrence (pseudonym), and the other is myself (a traditionally…

Surround inhibition in the primary motor cortex is task-specifically modulated in non-professional musicians but not in healthy controls during real piano playing

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Márquez, Gonzalo; Keller, Martin; Lundbye-Jensen, Jesper

2018-01-01

participants. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was applied to the contralateral motor cortex to assess SI in the first dorsal interosseous (FDI), abductor pollicis brevis (APB) and abductor digiti minimi (ADM) during the movement preparation and the late phasic phases. The results reveal stronger SI...... that long-term training as observed in skilled musicians is accompanied by task-specific effects on SI modulation potentially relating to the ability to perform selective and complex finger movements....

The Promise of Kickstarter: Extents to Which Social Networks Enable Alternate Avenues of Economic Viability for Independent Musicians Through Crowdfunding

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Cynthia Wang

2016-08-01

Full Text Available Since its inception in 2009, Kickstarter, a crowdsourced funding site, has been a platform for independent creative projects to get funding, ostensibly providing alternate routes of economic viability outside of a traditional framework of creative production and distribution. Kickstarter comes onto the scene after the proliferation of online social networking sites, through which bridging social capital ties are more easily maintained. This article investigates the ways in which independent musicians have used Kickstarter in conjunction with pre-existing social networks to fund their album and sustain themselves and their artistic endeavors economically while also exploring how social networks provide ways for these “Kickstarter campaigns” to reach potential backers (funders. Through three online surveys targeting musicians, their backers, and general Kickstarter backers, yielding a total of 61 respondents, this article finds that pre-existing personal social networks and relations are imperative to the successful funding of Kickstarter campaigns.

The correspondence between Miodrag Vasiljević and Bulgarian Musicians

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Jovanović Jelena L.

2002-01-01

Full Text Available The Serbian ethnomusicologist and music pedagogue Miodrag A. Vasiljević corresponded with colleagues from neighboring Bulgaria between 1934 and 1962. This exchange of letters went through three phases. The first phase was linked with his stay in Skopje until the breakout of World War II; during the second phase - in the course of the 1940's - he was active in the Department for Folk Music at Radio Belgrade and he founded his method of music teaching on traditional Serbian music; in the third phase (the 1950's and beginning of 1960's Vasiljević aimed at a closer cooperation with Bulgarian musicians. All the phases are characterized by his pronounced interest in the folk music heritage of Balkan peoples. At the beginning that interest was focused on popularizing art music that was based on folk music. Later, he enthusiastically carried out his reforms of music teaching in Serbia, as well as improvements of methods in Serbian ethnomusicology.

Tone Language Speakers and Musicians Share Enhanced Perceptual and Cognitive Abilities for Musical Pitch: Evidence for Bidirectionality between the Domains of Language and Music

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Bidelman, Gavin M.; Hutka, Stefanie; Moreno, Sylvain

2013-01-01

Psychophysiological evidence suggests that music and language are intimately coupled such that experience/training in one domain can influence processing required in the other domain. While the influence of music on language processing is now well-documented, evidence of language-to-music effects have yet to be firmly established. Here, using a cross-sectional design, we compared the performance of musicians to that of tone-language (Cantonese) speakers on tasks of auditory pitch acuity, music perception, and general cognitive ability (e.g., fluid intelligence, working memory). While musicians demonstrated superior performance on all auditory measures, comparable perceptual enhancements were observed for Cantonese participants, relative to English-speaking nonmusicians. These results provide evidence that tone-language background is associated with higher auditory perceptual performance for music listening. Musicians and Cantonese speakers also showed superior working memory capacity relative to nonmusician controls, suggesting that in addition to basic perceptual enhancements, tone-language background and music training might also be associated with enhanced general cognitive abilities. Our findings support the notion that tone language speakers and musically trained individuals have higher performance than English-speaking listeners for the perceptual-cognitive processing necessary for basic auditory as well as complex music perception. These results illustrate bidirectional influences between the domains of music and language. PMID:23565267

Tone language speakers and musicians share enhanced perceptual and cognitive abilities for musical pitch: evidence for bidirectionality between the domains of language and music.

Science.gov (United States)

Bidelman, Gavin M; Hutka, Stefanie; Moreno, Sylvain

2013-01-01

Psychophysiological evidence suggests that music and language are intimately coupled such that experience/training in one domain can influence processing required in the other domain. While the influence of music on language processing is now well-documented, evidence of language-to-music effects have yet to be firmly established. Here, using a cross-sectional design, we compared the performance of musicians to that of tone-language (Cantonese) speakers on tasks of auditory pitch acuity, music perception, and general cognitive ability (e.g., fluid intelligence, working memory). While musicians demonstrated superior performance on all auditory measures, comparable perceptual enhancements were observed for Cantonese participants, relative to English-speaking nonmusicians. These results provide evidence that tone-language background is associated with higher auditory perceptual performance for music listening. Musicians and Cantonese speakers also showed superior working memory capacity relative to nonmusician controls, suggesting that in addition to basic perceptual enhancements, tone-language background and music training might also be associated with enhanced general cognitive abilities. Our findings support the notion that tone language speakers and musically trained individuals have higher performance than English-speaking listeners for the perceptual-cognitive processing necessary for basic auditory as well as complex music perception. These results illustrate bidirectional influences between the domains of music and language.

Tone language speakers and musicians share enhanced perceptual and cognitive abilities for musical pitch: evidence for bidirectionality between the domains of language and music.

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Gavin M Bidelman

Full Text Available Psychophysiological evidence suggests that music and language are intimately coupled such that experience/training in one domain can influence processing required in the other domain. While the influence of music on language processing is now well-documented, evidence of language-to-music effects have yet to be firmly established. Here, using a cross-sectional design, we compared the performance of musicians to that of tone-language (Cantonese speakers on tasks of auditory pitch acuity, music perception, and general cognitive ability (e.g., fluid intelligence, working memory. While musicians demonstrated superior performance on all auditory measures, comparable perceptual enhancements were observed for Cantonese participants, relative to English-speaking nonmusicians. These results provide evidence that tone-language background is associated with higher auditory perceptual performance for music listening. Musicians and Cantonese speakers also showed superior working memory capacity relative to nonmusician controls, suggesting that in addition to basic perceptual enhancements, tone-language background and music training might also be associated with enhanced general cognitive abilities. Our findings support the notion that tone language speakers and musically trained individuals have higher performance than English-speaking listeners for the perceptual-cognitive processing necessary for basic auditory as well as complex music perception. These results illustrate bidirectional influences between the domains of music and language.

Beijing Experimental Electronic Musicians on the Phenomenon of Commercialization and Tourism in the Contemporary Chinese Art

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Matic Urbanija

2014-12-01

Full Text Available The article provides opinions of some Beijing experimental electronic musicians about the situation of contemporary art in China and in the world, primarily about the background of the so called Christmas performance in Art District 798's gallery UCCA in Beijing. This was a sort of protest against destroying art with commercialization as the only measure of art gallery's success. The article first describes the situation of contemporary art in the world at the beginning of 21st century as it is described in Julian Stallabrass' book Art Incorporated. It can be deduced from the words of experimental electronic musicians in Beijing that the situation is similar in China. During the debate about the Christmas performance in UCCA gallery, a problem with galleries was emphasize. These became more similar to tourist venues than places for enriching one's thoughts and awareness about the world surrounding us, through artwork. Therefore, the Christmas performance tried to express this sentiment. It offered visitors a tourist show brought to the point of absurd. The employees and the leader of UCCA couldn't comprehend the symbolic meaning of this happening, which, symbolically, took place on Christmas, the most commercialized holiday in the West as well as in China.

Exploratory factor analysis of Kenny Music Performance Anxiety Inventory (K-MPAI) in a Brazilian musician sample

OpenAIRE

Ana Elisa Medeiros Barbar; José Alexandre de Souza; Flávia de Lima Osório

2015-01-01

Abstract Background The Kenny Music Performance Anxiety Inventory (K-MPAI) is very significant among the available instruments which measures Musical Performance Anxiety (MPA). Objective The aim of this study is to find evidence of validity of the Kenny Music Performance Anxiety Inventory (K-MPAI), in its translated and adapted Brazilian version, through the study of its factor structure. Methods A convenience sample of 230 amateur musicians completed the K-MPAI. Results The initial facto...

Musician earplugs: Appreciation and protection.

Science.gov (United States)

Bockstael, Annelies; Keppler, Hannah; Botteldooren, Dick

2015-01-01

Recreational music exposure is a potential risk factor for noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL). Augmented hearing protectors have been designed with modified attenuation characteristics to combine hearing protection and listening comfort. However, to date, only a few independent studies have assessed the performance of those augmented protectors in realistic exposure conditions. This study compares the listening experience and temporary effects on cochlear status with different types of earplugs after exposure to contemporary club music. Five different types of commercially available hearing protectors were worn, all commonly used during leisure-time music exposure. Four of them were augmented premolded earplugs and the fifth type was an inexpensive, standard earplug frequently distributed for free at music events. During five different test sessions of 30 min each, participants not professionally involved in music wore one particular type of protector. Contemporary club music was played at sound pressure levels (SPLs) representative of concerts and bars. After each listening session, a questionnaire on sound quality and general appreciation was completed. In addition, otoacoustic emissions (OAEs) were measured directly before and after music exposure. The reported appreciation clearly differed depending on the addressed characteristics and the specific earplug type. In this test group, the reported appreciation mainly depended on comfort and looks, while differences in sound quality were less noticeable. The changes in OAE amplitude before and after noise exposure were small in terms of clinical standards. Nevertheless, the observed temporary shifts differed systematically for the different types of hearing protectors, with two types of musician earplug showing a more systematic decline than the others. Further research with respect to actual use and achieved protection for real, unsupervised music exposure is warranted.

Musician earplugs: Appreciation and protection

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Annelies Bockstael

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Recreational music exposure is a potential risk factor for noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL. Augmented hearing protectors have been designed with modified attenuation characteristics to combine hearing protection and listening comfort. However, to date, only a few independent studies have assessed the performance of those augmented protectors in realistic exposure conditions. This study compares the listening experience and temporary effects on cochlear status with different types of earplugs after exposure to contemporary club music. Five different types of commercially available hearing protectors were worn, all commonly used during leisure-time music exposure. Four of them were augmented premolded earplugs and the fifth type was an inexpensive, standard earplug frequently distributed for free at music events. During five different test sessions of 30 min each, participants not professionally involved in music wore one particular type of protector. Contemporary club music was played at sound pressure levels (SPLs representative of concerts and bars. After each listening session, a questionnaire on sound quality and general appreciation was completed. In addition, otoacoustic emissions (OAEs were measured directly before and after music exposure. The reported appreciation clearly differed depending on the addressed characteristics and the specific earplug type. In this test group, the reported appreciation mainly depended on comfort and looks, while differences in sound quality were less noticeable. The changes in OAE amplitude before and after noise exposure were small in terms of clinical standards. Nevertheless, the observed temporary shifts differed systematically for the different types of hearing protectors, with two types of musician earplug showing a more systematic decline than the others. Further research with respect to actual use and achieved protection for real, unsupervised music exposure is warranted.

The work of musicians in Brazil: identity tensions and domestic arrangements

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Jordão Horta Nunes

2017-07-01

Full Text Available The musicians’ job market in Brazil is heterogeneous in various senses. It is characterized by informality and job insecurity, in addition to being segmented by gender, both with respect to musical forms and to social relations between the sexes and the construction of correlative social representations. The purpose of this article is to analyze the work of musicians in Brazil, highlighting the recent occupational displacement that affects professional identities and the conciliation practices and domestic arrangements in households where musicians live. The methodology used was a quali-quantitative approach and the triangulation of sources: government databases, and surveys using Internet profiles selected through web scraping and interviews. The exploratory factor analysis based on variables related to domestic work and musical work identified five factors: traditional delegation arrangement, competitive musical work, societal conciliation arrangement, internal conciliation, and community conciliation. Findings showed that traditional delegation in the case of domestic work is not only explained by the relation between reproductive and productive work, with the traditional devaluation or subalternization of the former, but also by a gender construction that ends up assigning women–who are a minority in terms of employment–to teaching activities in the field of higher education and to their placement in stable formations, generally with higher performance and less flexible forms of hiring. Conciliation strategies involving musical work reflect the distinction, in the context of specific cultural and social characteristics, among orienting oneself through the assistance available in the services market, the State, or family arrangements, seen as ideal types, since these practices overlap. However, on the basis of the abovementioned factors, the current outlook reveals an imbalance with respect to the experience and

Leading to engage : An ethnographically informed case study into musicians and participants facilitating inclusion in collaborative music making activities with elderly people

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Karolien Dons

2015-01-01

In Leading to engage Karolien Dons explores the ways in which musicians and elderly participants of a collaborative music activity experience and contribute to the sense of inclusion. Through qualitative research strategies involving a theory-generating ethnographic exploration of existing practices

Comparing the Impact of Specific Strength Training vs General Fitness Training on Professional Symphony Orchestra Musicians

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nygaard Andersen, Lotte; Mann, Stephanie; Juul-Kristensen, Birgit

2017-01-01

Musculoskeletal symptoms, especially in the upper body, are frequent among professional symphony orchestra musicians. Physical exercise may relieve pain but might also interfere with playing performance. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the feasibility and effect of "specific strength training" (SST) versus...... "general fitness training" (GFT). METHODS: A feasibility study using randomized controlled methods. Primarily, evaluations involved self-reported impact on instrument playing and satisfaction with the interventions. Secondary evaluations included pain intensity, hand-grip strength, aerobic capacity, body...

Noise exposure of musicians of a ballet orchestra

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Cheng Liang Qian

2011-01-01

Full Text Available With over 70 dancers and its own orchestra, The National Ballet of Canada ranks amongst the world′s top dance companies. It performs three seasons annually: fall, winter and summer, plus many shows of Tchaikovsky′s Nutcracker. The 70-strong orchestra plays an average of 360 hours/year including rehearsals and performances. Rehearsals are held at two locations: one in a ballet rehearsal room with little or no absorption, and the other in an acoustically treated location. Performances are held in the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto. The present survey was done at the request of the National Ballet, since the musicians complained of excessive sound levels and were concerned about possible hearing losses. The survey was performed using five dosimeters Quest Mod 300 during 10 performances of the ballet Romeo and Juliet by Sergei Prokofiev, deemed as the noisiest in the whole repertoire. Results of the survey indicate that the noise exposure levels from only the orchestra′s activities do not present risk of hearing loss. Exposure due to other musical activities was, however, not included.

Giving away music to make money: Independent musicians on the Internet (originally published in August 2001)

OpenAIRE

Pfahl, Michael

2005-01-01

No one has felt the impact of music on the Internet more than the independent musician. The recording industry has dominated the production and distribution of music for many years. The big six recording labels are making a push to incorporate the Internet into their distribution process. Standing in their way is the issue of security. It seems that music files on the Internet, no matter how secure they may seem, are susceptible to tampering. This will force a shift in distribution away f...

Brain lateralization and neural plasticity for musical and cognitive abilities in an epileptic musician

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Isabel eTrujillo-Pozo

2013-12-01

Full Text Available The use of intracarotid propofol procedure (IPP when assessing musical lateralization has not been reported in literature up to now. This procedure (similar to Wada Test has provided the opportunity to investigate not only lateralization of language and memory functions on epileptic patients but also offers a functional mapping approach with superior spatial and temporal resolution to analyze the lateralization of musical abilities. Findings in literature suggest that musical training modifies functional and structural brain organization. We studied hemispheric lateralization in a professional musician, a 33 years old woman with refractory left medial temporal lobe epilepsy. A longitudinal neuropsychological study was performed over a period of 21 months. Before epilepsy surgery, musical abilities, language and memory were tested during IPP by means of a novel and exhaustive neuropsychological battery focusing on the processing of music. We used a selection of stimuli to analyze listening, score reading, and tempo discrimination. Our results suggested that IPP is an excellent method to determine not only language, semantic and episodic memory, but also musical dominance in a professional musician who may be candidate for epilepsy surgery. Neuropsychological testing revealed that right hemisphere’s patient is involved in semantic and episodic musical memory processes, whereas her score reading and tempo processing require contribution from both hemispheres. At 1-year follow-up, outcome was excellent with respect to seizures and professional skills, meanwhile cognitive abilities improved. These findings indicate that IPP helps to predict who might be at risk for postoperative musical, language and memory deficits after epilepsy surgery. Our research suggests that musical expertise and epilepsy critically modifies long-term memory processes and induces brain structural and functional plasticity.

Yoga Enhances Positive Psychological States in Young Adult Musicians.

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Butzer, Bethany; Ahmed, Khalique; Khalsa, Sat Bir S

2016-06-01

Although yoga has been shown to be a viable technique for improving the performance of the mind and body, little attention has been directed to studying the relationship between yoga and the psychological states of flow and mindfulness. Musicians enrolled in a 2-month fellowship program in 2005, 2006 and 2007 were invited to participate in a yoga and meditation program. Fellows not participating in the yoga program were recruited separately as controls. All participants completed baseline and end-program questionnaires evaluating dispositional flow, mindfulness, confusion, and music performance anxiety. Compared to controls, yoga participants reported significant decreases in confusion and increases in dispositional flow. Yoga participants in the 2006 sample also reported significant increases in the mindfulness subscale of awareness. Correlational analyses revealed that increases in participants' dispositional flow and mindfulness were associated with decreases in confusion and music performance anxiety. This study demonstrates the commonalities between positive psychology and yoga, both of which are focused on enhancing human performance and promoting beneficial psychological states. The results suggest that yoga and meditation may enhance the states of flow and mindful awareness, and reduce confusion.

What Happens When the Musicians Leave? Case Study of a Jessie’s Fund Project to Develop Teachers’ Skills and Confidence

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Tom Northey

2013-07-01

Full Text Available This article describes a project delivered by Jessie’s Fund, a UK charity which supports children through music therapy and creative music work. The project took place between January and July 2012 and involved staff and pupils from a special school in the north of England. The article describes briefly how music is delivered in special schools across the UK and explains some of the challenges Jessie’s Fund has faced in having a lasting impact on how schools cover the music curriculum for children with complex needs. In 2012 Jessie’s Fund partnered with a special school in the north of England to design a new approach which focused intensively on the development needs of staff. Jessie’s Fund musicians visited pairs of staff over a period of six months to build their skills and confidence in leading music sessions with their pupils. The project was considerably more effective than some previous ‘musician-led’ activities and had a significant, whole-school impact. This article describes the work that took place, the responses from the staff involved and how Jessie’s Fund intends to use this learning for future projects.

Music training and working memory: an ERP study.

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George, Elyse M; Coch, Donna

2011-04-01

While previous research has suggested that music training is associated with improvements in various cognitive and linguistic skills, the mechanisms mediating or underlying these associations are mostly unknown. Here, we addressed the hypothesis that previous music training is related to improved working memory. Using event-related potentials (ERPs) and a standardized test of working memory, we investigated both neural and behavioral aspects of working memory in college-aged, non-professional musicians and non-musicians. Behaviorally, musicians outperformed non-musicians on standardized subtests of visual, phonological, and executive memory. ERPs were recorded in standard auditory and visual oddball paradigms (participants responded to infrequent deviant stimuli embedded in lists of standard stimuli). Electrophysiologically, musicians demonstrated faster updating of working memory (shorter latency P300s) in both the auditory and visual domains and musicians allocated more neural resources to auditory stimuli (larger amplitude P300), showing increased sensitivity to the auditory standard/deviant difference and less effortful updating of auditory working memory. These findings demonstrate that long-term music training is related to improvements in working memory, in both the auditory and visual domains and in terms of both behavioral and ERP measures. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Organ builders, musicians and entrepreneurs: the De- Bernardi’s family in Salamanca, 1903-1932

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Judith Helvia García Martín

2018-01-01

Full Text Available In the early 20th century, Salamanca hosted one of the most culturally and musically active families of the city during the first three decades of the century: the De- Bernardis. Their activities as organ builders, musicians, teachers and music entrepreneurs, focused on the figures of Juan De-Bernardi and his son Luis, left a mark not only in the town, through their involvement in numerous cultural events, but also building and reparing various instruments in an area that covers from the North of Portugal to the South of Cáceres. Here we reconstruct, through the information given by local hemerographic sources, their trajectory from their arrival in Salamanca in 1903 until 1932.

Tapping Into Rate Flexibility: Musical Training Facilitates Synchronization Around Spontaneous Production Rates

Science.gov (United States)

Scheurich, Rebecca; Zamm, Anna; Palmer, Caroline

2018-01-01

The ability to flexibly adapt one’s behavior is critical for social tasks such as speech and music performance, in which individuals must coordinate the timing of their actions with others. Natural movement frequencies, also called spontaneous rates, constrain synchronization accuracy between partners during duet music performance, whereas musical training enhances synchronization accuracy. We investigated the combined influences of these factors on the flexibility with which individuals can synchronize their actions with sequences at different rates. First, we developed a novel musical task capable of measuring spontaneous rates in both musicians and non-musicians in which participants tapped the rhythm of a familiar melody while hearing the corresponding melody tones. The novel task was validated by similar measures of spontaneous rates generated by piano performance and by the tapping task from the same pianists. We then implemented the novel task with musicians and non-musicians as they synchronized tapping of a familiar melody with a metronome at their spontaneous rates, and at rates proportionally slower and faster than their spontaneous rates. Musicians synchronized more flexibly across rates than non-musicians, indicated by greater synchronization accuracy. Additionally, musicians showed greater engagement of error correction mechanisms than non-musicians. Finally, differences in flexibility were characterized by more recurrent (repetitive) and patterned synchronization in non-musicians, indicative of greater temporal rigidity. PMID:29681872

Tapping Into Rate Flexibility: Musical Training Facilitates Synchronization Around Spontaneous Production Rates

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Rebecca Scheurich

2018-04-01

Full Text Available The ability to flexibly adapt one’s behavior is critical for social tasks such as speech and music performance, in which individuals must coordinate the timing of their actions with others. Natural movement frequencies, also called spontaneous rates, constrain synchronization accuracy between partners during duet music performance, whereas musical training enhances synchronization accuracy. We investigated the combined influences of these factors on the flexibility with which individuals can synchronize their actions with sequences at different rates. First, we developed a novel musical task capable of measuring spontaneous rates in both musicians and non-musicians in which participants tapped the rhythm of a familiar melody while hearing the corresponding melody tones. The novel task was validated by similar measures of spontaneous rates generated by piano performance and by the tapping task from the same pianists. We then implemented the novel task with musicians and non-musicians as they synchronized tapping of a familiar melody with a metronome at their spontaneous rates, and at rates proportionally slower and faster than their spontaneous rates. Musicians synchronized more flexibly across rates than non-musicians, indicated by greater synchronization accuracy. Additionally, musicians showed greater engagement of error correction mechanisms than non-musicians. Finally, differences in flexibility were characterized by more recurrent (repetitive and patterned synchronization in non-musicians, indicative of greater temporal rigidity.

Imagining Homeland: Identity and Repertories of a Greek Labour-immigrant Musician in Germany

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Smaragdi Boura

2006-05-01

Full Text Available Migration has always played an important and determinative role in the formation of the Greek life-cycle, since the existence of a Greek Diaspora originates back to the institution of the Greek nation. However, whether the migration phenomenon represents a typical and integral part of the Greek cultural tradition or mentality, or appears as a forced consequence of specific economic or political circumstances, it should be pointed out that it has proved to be a transformative factor for the lives of people involved in it. The fate of "metanastes" (immigrants and the life in "xenitia" (foreign host land appear to be a very common and prominent topic elaborated in the poetic texts of the Greek "dimotika tragoudia" (traditional songs and "laika tragoudia" (folk-popular songs. Through these repertoires, music reveals its power in conveying and symbolically communicating and expressing public notions, feelings and cultural messages that acquire a particular significance for immigrant communities. Furthermore, diasporic music—along with dance—constitutes one of the basic components of the immigrant's cultural heritage, representing: an expressive way of maintaining cultural identity; a fixed, however metaphorical, conjunctional link between the mother country and the host land; and, a fundamental context through which the migratory community identifies or reconstitutes itself in relation to the majority and other surrounding groups. The author uses fieldwork from a year spent amongst Greek immigrant communities in the Stuttgart region of Germany to address and reflect on issues around the role of music in identity construction and the way in which this connects with processes of integration, assimilation and transnationalism. Specifically, the paper explores the multiple identities and repertories of a Greek musician in Germany, by focusing on several aspects of the musician's life-portrait and providing both emic and etic interpretations. This

Identifying attachment ruptures underlying severe music performance anxiety in a professional musician undertaking an assessment and trial therapy of Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP).

Science.gov (United States)

Kenny, Dianna T; Arthey, Stephen; Abbass, Allan

2016-01-01

Kenny has proposed that severe music performance anxiety that is unresponsive to usual treatments such as cognitive-behaviour therapy may be one manifestation of unresolved attachment ruptures in early life. Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy specifically targets early relationship trauma. Accordingly, a trial of Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy with severely anxious musicians was implemented to assess whether resolution of attachment ruptures resulted in clinically significant relief from music performance anxiety. Volunteer musicians participating in a nationally funded study were screened for MPA severity. Those meeting the critical cut-off score on the Kenny Music Performance Anxiety Inventory were offered a trial of Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy. In this paper, we present the theoretical foundations and rationale for the treatment approach, followed by sections of a verbatim transcript and process analysis of the assessment phase of treatment that comprised a 3-h trial therapy session. The 'case' was a professional orchestral musician (male, aged 55) who had suffered severe music performance anxiety over the course of his entire career, which spanned more than 30 years at the time he presented for treatment following his failure to secure a position at audition. The participant was able to access the pain, rage and grief associated with unresolved attachment ruptures with both parents that demonstrated the likely nexus between early attachment trauma and severe music performance anxiety. Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy is a potentially cost-effective treatment for severe music performance anxiety. Further research using designs with higher levels of evidence are required before clinical recommendations can be made for the use of this therapy with this population.

Matter over mind: a randomised-controlled trial of single-session biofeedback training on performance anxiety and heart rate variability in musicians.

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Wells, Ruth; Outhred, Tim; Heathers, James A J; Quintana, Daniel S; Kemp, Andrew H

2012-01-01

Musical performance is a skilled activity performed under intense pressure, thus is often a profound source of anxiety. In other contexts, anxiety and its concomitant symptoms of sympathetic nervous system arousal have been successfully ameliorated with HRV biofeedback (HRV BF), a technique involving slow breathing which augments autonomic and emotional regulatory capacity. This randomised-controlled study explored the impact of a single 30-minute session of HRV BF on anxiety in response to a highly stressful music performance. A total of 46 trained musicians participated in this study and were randomly allocated to a slow breathing with or without biofeedback or no-treatment control group. A 3 Group×2 Time mixed experimental design was employed to compare the effect of group before and after intervention on performance anxiety (STAI-S) and frequency domain measures of HRV. Slow breathing groups (n=30) showed significantly greater improvements in high frequency (HF) and LF/HF ratio measures of HRV relative to control (n=15) during 5 minute recordings of performance anticipation following the intervention (effect size: η(2) =0.122 and η(2) =0.116, respectively). The addition of biofeedback to a slow breathing protocol did not produce differential results. While intervention groups did not exhibit an overall reduction in self-reported anxiety, participants with high baseline anxiety who received the intervention (n=15) displayed greater reductions in self-reported state anxiety relative to those in the control condition (n=7) (r=0.379). These findings indicate that a single session of slow breathing, regardless of biofeedback, is sufficient for controlling physiological arousal in anticipation of psychosocial stress associated with music performance and that slow breathing is particularly helpful for musicians with high levels of anxiety. Future research is needed to further examine the effects of HRV BF as a low-cost, non-pharmacological treatment for music

The difference between standing and sitting in 3 different seat inclinations on abdominal muscle activity and chest and abdominal expansion in woodwind and brass musicians

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Bronwen Jane Ackermann

2014-08-01

Full Text Available Wind instrumentalists require a sophisticated functioning of their respiratory system to control their air stream, which provides the power for optimal musical performance. The air supply must be delivered into the instrument in a steady and controlled manner and with enough power by the action of the expiratory musculature to produce the desired level of sound at the correct pitch. It is suggested that playing posture may have an impact on the abdominal muscle activity controlling this expired air, but there is no research on musicians to support this theory. This study evaluated chest and abdominal expansion, via respiratory inductive plethysmography, as well as activation patterns of lower and upper abdominal musculature, using surface electromyography, during performance of a range of typical orchestral repertoire by 113 woodwind and brass players. Each of the five orchestral excerpts was played in one of four randomly allocated postures: standing; sitting flat; sitting inclined forwards; and sitting inclined backwards.Musicians showed a clear preference for playing in standing rather than sitting. In standing, the chest expansion range and maximum values were greater (p<0.01, while the abdominal expansion was less than in all sitting postures (p<0.01. Chest expansion patterns did not vary between the three sitting postures, while abdominal expansion was reduced in the forward inclined posture compared to the other sitting postures (p<0.05. There was no significant variation in abdominal muscle activation between the sitting postures, but the level of activation in sitting was only 2/3 of the significantly higher level observed in standing (p<0.01.This study has demonstrated significant differences in respiratory mechanics between sitting and standing postures in wind musicians during playing of typical orchestral repertoire. Further research is needed to clarify the complex respiratory mechanisms supporting musical performance.

Influence of musical training on sensitivity to temporal fine structure.

Science.gov (United States)

Mishra, Srikanta K; Panda, Manasa R; Raj, Swapna

2015-04-01

The objective of this study was to extend the findings that temporal fine structure encoding is altered in musicians by examining sensitivity to temporal fine structure (TFS) in an alternative (non-Western) musician model that is rarely adopted--Indian classical music. The sensitivity to TFS was measured by the ability to discriminate two complex tones that differed in TFS but not in envelope repetition rate. Sixteen South Indian classical (Carnatic) musicians and 28 non-musicians with normal hearing participated in this study. Musicians have significantly lower relative frequency shift at threshold in the TFS task compared to non-musicians. A significant negative correlation was observed between years of musical experience and relative frequency shift at threshold in the TFS task. Test-retest repeatability of thresholds in the TFS tasks was similar for both musicians and non-musicians. The enhanced performance of the Carnatic-trained musicians suggests that the musician advantage for frequency and harmonicity discrimination is not restricted to training in Western classical music, on which much of the previous research on musical training has narrowly focused. The perceptual judgments obtained from non-musicians were as reliable as those of musicians.

Trastornos músculo-esqueléticos en músicos profesionales: revisión bibliográfica Musculoskeletal disorders in professional musicians: a review of literature

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Gemma Almonacid-Canseco

2013-03-01

Full Text Available Introducción: los músicos son susceptibles de muchas patologías que repercuten en su carrera profesional debido a las posturas forzadas, las horas de práctica, los movimientos repetitivos y la carga psicológica. Las principales causas de los trastornos músculo-esqueléticos son la sobrecarga muscular, la compresión nerviosa y la distonía focal ocupacional. Este grupo de patologías en los músicos no está recogido en el cuadro de enfermedades profesionales español. Objetivo: conocer la producción científica sobre los trastornos músculo-esqueléticos en músicos profesionales como consecuencia de su actividad laboral. Material y Métodos: Se realiza una revisión bibliográfica de la literatura científica publicada entre 2006-2012. Se consultaron las bases de datos MEDLINE, OSH UPDATE, IBECS, Biblioteca Cochrane, Scielo, LILACS y CISDOC. Resultados: se seleccionaron 24 artículos; un estudio experimental, dos revisiones sistemáticas, cuatro estudios de casos y controles, 16 estudios transversales y una serie de casos. Se encontró una prevalencia de 25,5%-86% para los trastornos músculo-esqueléticos, sin consenso para los factores de riesgo. Las principales localizaciones fueron cuello, espalda y brazo. Se encontró más afectación en mujeres, excepto para la distonía focal que fue más frecuente en hombres. Conclusiones: los trastornos músculo-esqueléticos son muy frecuentes en músicos profesionales. Es necesario seguir investigando en esta materia e incidir sobre las medidas de prevención desde las etapas iniciales de su formación. Habría que valorar la inclusión de estos trastornos en los músicos dentro del cuadro de enfermedades profesionales español.Introduction: musicians are susceptible to many disorders that affect their professional careers, due to awkward posture, an excess of practice hours, to repetitive movements and psychological stress. The main causes leading to musculoskeletal disorders are those of

Manipulating Greek musical modes and tempo affects perceived musical emotion in musicians and nonmusicians.

Science.gov (United States)

Ramos, D; Bueno, J L O; Bigand, E

2011-02-01

The combined influence of tempo and mode on emotional responses to music was studied by crossing 7 changes in mode with 3 changes in tempo. Twenty-four musicians aged 19 to 25 years (12 males and 12 females) and 24 nonmusicians aged 17 to 25 years (12 males and 12 females) were required to perform two tasks: 1) listening to different musical excerpts, and 2) associating an emotion to them such as happiness, serenity, fear, anger, or sadness. ANOVA showed that increasing the tempo strongly affected the arousal (F(2,116) = 268.62, mean square error (MSE) = 0.6676, P effects were found between tempo and mode (F (1,58) = 115.6, MSE = 0.6428, P effects. This finding demonstrates that small changes in the pitch structures of modes modulate the emotions associated with the pieces, confirming the cognitive foundation of emotional responses to music.

Matter over mind: a randomised-controlled trial of single-session biofeedback training on performance anxiety and heart rate variability in musicians.

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Ruth Wells

Full Text Available Musical performance is a skilled activity performed under intense pressure, thus is often a profound source of anxiety. In other contexts, anxiety and its concomitant symptoms of sympathetic nervous system arousal have been successfully ameliorated with HRV biofeedback (HRV BF, a technique involving slow breathing which augments autonomic and emotional regulatory capacity.This randomised-controlled study explored the impact of a single 30-minute session of HRV BF on anxiety in response to a highly stressful music performance.A total of 46 trained musicians participated in this study and were randomly allocated to a slow breathing with or without biofeedback or no-treatment control group. A 3 Group×2 Time mixed experimental design was employed to compare the effect of group before and after intervention on performance anxiety (STAI-S and frequency domain measures of HRV.Slow breathing groups (n=30 showed significantly greater improvements in high frequency (HF and LF/HF ratio measures of HRV relative to control (n=15 during 5 minute recordings of performance anticipation following the intervention (effect size: η(2 =0.122 and η(2 =0.116, respectively. The addition of biofeedback to a slow breathing protocol did not produce differential results. While intervention groups did not exhibit an overall reduction in self-reported anxiety, participants with high baseline anxiety who received the intervention (n=15 displayed greater reductions in self-reported state anxiety relative to those in the control condition (n=7 (r=0.379.These findings indicate that a single session of slow breathing, regardless of biofeedback, is sufficient for controlling physiological arousal in anticipation of psychosocial stress associated with music performance and that slow breathing is particularly helpful for musicians with high levels of anxiety. Future research is needed to further examine the effects of HRV BF as a low-cost, non-pharmacological treatment for

Relação entre dor e antecedentes de adoecimento físico ocupacional: um estudo entre músicos instrumentistas Relationship between pain and antecedents of occupational illness: a study among musicians

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Thaís Branquinho Oliveira Fragelli

2009-01-01

Full Text Available Este artigo examina possíveis relações entre os sintomas de dor e os antecedentes físicos (carga física e ambiente físico de trabalho e psicossociais (carga cognitiva, carga psíquica, organização do trabalho de tais sintomas em um grupo de músicos instrumentistas. O trabalho constitui uma pesquisa exploratória envolvendo dados quantitativos e qualitativos e busca compreender aspectos relacionados aos fatores antecedentes do adoecimento muscular segundo a percepção dos músicos. A amostra foi composta por 46 músicos do estado de Goiás e do Distrito Federal, com idades entre 14 e 45 anos, que responderam a um questionário desenvolvido para este estudo. A análise quantitativa realizada por meio do coeficiente de correlação ρ de Spearman indicou uma relação entre a dor e a carga física de trabalho percebida pelo respondente. Os resultados da análise qualitativa confirmaram esta relação entre percepção de dor e carga física. Os resultados são discutidos apontando a necessidade de disseminar a idéia de que o músico deve atentar para sinais de desarmonia do próprio corpo.This paper examines possible relationships between the presence of symptoms of pain and their physical antecedents (physical load and physical environment of work and psychosocial antecedents (cognitive load, psychical load, work organization of these symptoms in musicians. It constitutes an exploratory study involving quantitave and qualitative data that aim to understand aspects related to antecedents factors in the muscular infirmity according to musicians' perceptions. The sample was composed by 46 musicians from the State of Goiás and the Federal District in Brazil, aged 14 through 45, which answered a questionnaire developed for the study. The quantitative analysis, done with Spearman ρ correlation, indicated a relationship between pain and physical work load perceived by the respondents. The qualitative analysis confirmed this relationship

Differentiation of Classical Music Requires Little Learning but Rhythm

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Dalla Bella, S.; Peretz, I.

2005-01-01

Detecting distinctions between the styles of classical music (e.g. Baroque and Romantic) is often viewed as the privilege of musicians. However, this elite perspective underestimates the abilities of non-musicians. We report that Western musicians and non-musicians, and non-Westerners (i.e. Chinese participants) rated pairs of excerpts presented…

Simultaneous EEG and EMG biofeedback for peak performance in musicians.

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Markovska-Simoska, Silvana; Pop-Jordanova, Nada; Georgiev, Dejan

2008-07-01

The aim of this study was to determine the effects of alpha neurofeedback and EMG biofeedback protocols for improvement of musical performance in violinists. The sample consisted of 12 music students (10 violinists and 2 viola players) from the Faculty of Music, Skopje (3 males, mean age of 20 +/- 0 and 9 females, mean age = 20.89 +/- 2.98). Six of them had a low alpha peak frequency (APF) ( 10 Hz). The sample was randomized in two groups. The students from the experimental group participated in 20 sessions of biofeedback (alpha/EMG), combined with music practice, while the students from the control group did only music practice. Average absolute power, interhemispheric coherence in the alpha band, alpha peak frequency (APF), individual alpha band width (IABW), amount of alpha suppression (AAS) and surface forehead integrated EMG power (IEMG), as well as a score on musical performance and inventories measuring anxiety, were assessed. Alpha-EEG/EMG-biofeedback was associated with a significant increase in average alpha power, APF and IABW in all the participants and with decreases in IEMG only in high-APF musicians. The biofeedback training success was positively correlated with the alpha power, IcoH, APF, IABW and baseline level of APF and IABW. Alpha-EEG/EMG biofeedback is capable of increasing voluntary self-regulation and the quality of musical performance. The efficiency of biofeedback training depends on the baseline EEG alpha activity status, in particular the APF.

Playing-related musculoskeletal disorders in music students-associated musculoskeletal signs.

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Steinmetz, A; Möller, H; Seidel, W; Rigotti, T

2012-12-01

Pain and overuse are common problems for musicians. Up to 80% of professional musicians suffer from playing-related musculoskeletal disorders (PRMD). The prevalence rate in music students is very high as well. Sufficient data on the underlying musculoskeletal dysfunctions however is scarce. Additionally, the self-assessment of health in musicians seems to differ compared to non-musicians, which might influence their attitudes concerning preventive strategies. Evaluation of frequency of PRMD in music students, investigation of signs and symptoms in music students compared to non-music controls, comparison of self-reported health and well-being between the two groups. Prospective, cross-sectional, case control, non-randomized. Other (University volunteers). Music students in comparison to a non-music control group. Musculoskeletal examination and questionnaire of 36 volunteers of a music university and 19 volunteer students of an university of education were analyzed. The total number of musculoskeletal dysfunctions and differences between the student groups were examined. The personal pain and health self-rating were compared between music and non-music students. Eighty one percent of musicians experienced PRMD. Musicians experienced 6.19 pain regions on average compared to 4.31 of non-musicians. Musicians experiencing PRMD reported significantly (PMusic students presented with nearly the double amount (8.39 versus 4.37) of musculoskeletal dysfunctions per person compared to the non-music control group. Nevertheless, musicians significantly (P<0.05) rated their health more positively than the controls. Musicians presented with more pain regions and a higher amount of musculoskeletal dysfunctions. Further studies evaluating the clinical relevance and their role in the development of PRMD are warranted. Screening of musicians for musculoskeletal dysfunction may identify those musicians at increased risk. Early treatment may prevent PRMD in musicians. Additional

Musical training, bilingualism, and executive function: a closer look at task switching and dual-task performance.

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Moradzadeh, Linda; Blumenthal, Galit; Wiseheart, Melody

2015-07-01

This study investigated whether musical training and bilingualism are associated with enhancements in specific components of executive function, namely, task switching and dual-task performance. Participants (n = 153) belonging to one of four groups (monolingual musician, bilingual musician, bilingual non-musician, or monolingual non-musician) were matched on age and socioeconomic status and administered task switching and dual-task paradigms. Results demonstrated reduced global and local switch costs in musicians compared with non-musicians, suggesting that musical training can contribute to increased efficiency in the ability to shift flexibly between mental sets. On dual-task performance, musicians also outperformed non-musicians. There was neither a cognitive advantage for bilinguals relative to monolinguals, nor an interaction between music and language to suggest additive effects of both types of experience. These findings demonstrate that long-term musical training is associated with improvements in task switching and dual-task performance. Copyright © 2014 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Acoustics and the Performance of Music Manual for Acousticians, Audio Engineers, Musicians, Architects and Musical Instrument Makers

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Meyer, Jürgen

2009-01-01

Acoustics and the Performance of Music connects scientific understandings of acoustics with practical applications to musical performance. Of central importance are the tonal characteristics of musical instruments and the singing voice including detailed representations of directional characteristics. Furthermore, room acoustical concerns related to concert halls and opera houses are considered. Based on this, suggestions are made for musical performance. Included are seating arrangements within the orchestra and adaptations of performance techniques to the performance environment. In the presentation we dispense with complicated mathematical connections and deliberately aim for conceptual explanations accessible to musicians, particularly for conductors. The graphical representations of the directional dependence of sound radiation by musical instruments and the singing voice are unique. Since the first edition was published in 1978, this book has been completely revised and rewritten to include current rese...

Musical Training, Bilingualism, and Executive Function: A Closer Look at Task Switching and Dual-Task Performance

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Moradzadeh, Linda; Blumenthal, Galit; Wiseheart, Melody

2015-01-01

This study investigated whether musical training and bilingualism are associated with enhancements in specific components of executive function, namely, task switching and dual-task performance. Participants (n = 153) belonging to one of four groups (monolingual musician, bilingual musician, bilingual non-musician, or monolingual non-musician)…

"If You Have to Ask, You'll Never Know": Effects of Specialised Stylistic Expertise on Predictive Processing of Music

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Hansen, Niels Christian; Vuust, Peter; Pearce, Marcus

2016-01-01

Musical expertise entails meticulous stylistic specialisation and enculturation. Even so, research on musical training effects has focused on generalised comparisons between musicians and non-musicians, and cross-cultural work addressing specialised expertise has traded cultural specificity and s......-musicians and classical musicians used a stylistically irrelevant cognitive model of general tonal music providing support for the theory of cognitive firewalls between stylistic models in predictive processing of music.......Musical expertise entails meticulous stylistic specialisation and enculturation. Even so, research on musical training effects has focused on generalised comparisons between musicians and non-musicians, and cross-cultural work addressing specialised expertise has traded cultural specificity...... and sensitivity for other methodological limitations. This study aimed to experimentally dissociate the effects of specialised stylistic training and general musical expertise on the perception of melodies. Non-musicians and professional musicians specialising in classical music or jazz listened to sampled...

Decision Making Strategy and the Simultaneous Processing of Syntactic Dependencies in Language and Music.

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Roncaglia-Denissen, M P; Bouwer, Fleur L; Honing, Henkjan

2018-01-01

Despite differences in their function and domain-specific elements, syntactic processing in music and language is believed to share cognitive resources. This study aims to investigate whether the simultaneous processing of language and music share the use of a common syntactic processor or more general attentional resources. To investigate this matter we tested musicians and non-musicians using visually presented sentences and aurally presented melodies containing syntactic local and long-distance dependencies. Accuracy rates and reaction times of participants' responses were collected. In both sentences and melodies, unexpected syntactic anomalies were introduced. This is the first study to address the processing of local and long-distance dependencies in language and music combined while reducing the effect of sensory memory. Participants were instructed to focus on language (language session), music (music session), or both (dual session). In the language session, musicians and non-musicians performed comparably in terms of accuracy rates and reaction times. As expected, groups' differences appeared in the music session, with musicians being more accurate in their responses than non-musicians and only the latter showing an interaction between the accuracy rates for music and language syntax. In the dual session musicians were overall more accurate than non-musicians. However, both groups showed comparable behavior, by displaying an interaction between the accuracy rates for language and music syntax responses. In our study, accuracy rates seem to better capture the interaction between language and music syntax; and this interaction seems to indicate the use of distinct, however, interacting mechanisms as part of decision making strategy. This interaction seems to be subject of an increase of attentional load and domain proficiency. Our study contributes to the long-lasting debate about the commonalities between language and music by providing evidence for their

Decision Making Strategy and the Simultaneous Processing of Syntactic Dependencies in Language and Music

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M. P. Roncaglia-Denissen

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Despite differences in their function and domain-specific elements, syntactic processing in music and language is believed to share cognitive resources. This study aims to investigate whether the simultaneous processing of language and music share the use of a common syntactic processor or more general attentional resources. To investigate this matter we tested musicians and non-musicians using visually presented sentences and aurally presented melodies containing syntactic local and long-distance dependencies. Accuracy rates and reaction times of participants’ responses were collected. In both sentences and melodies, unexpected syntactic anomalies were introduced. This is the first study to address the processing of local and long-distance dependencies in language and music combined while reducing the effect of sensory memory. Participants were instructed to focus on language (language session, music (music session, or both (dual session. In the language session, musicians and non-musicians performed comparably in terms of accuracy rates and reaction times. As expected, groups’ differences appeared in the music session, with musicians being more accurate in their responses than non-musicians and only the latter showing an interaction between the accuracy rates for music and language syntax. In the dual session musicians were overall more accurate than non-musicians. However, both groups showed comparable behavior, by displaying an interaction between the accuracy rates for language and music syntax responses. In our study, accuracy rates seem to better capture the interaction between language and music syntax; and this interaction seems to indicate the use of distinct, however, interacting mechanisms as part of decision making strategy. This interaction seems to be subject of an increase of attentional load and domain proficiency. Our study contributes to the long-lasting debate about the commonalities between language and music by

Long-term musical training may improve different forms of visual attention ability.

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Rodrigues, Ana Carolina; Loureiro, Maurício Alves; Caramelli, Paulo

2013-08-01

Many studies have suggested that structural and functional cerebral neuroplastic processes result from long-term musical training, which in turn may produce cognitive differences between musicians and non-musicians. We aimed to investigate whether intensive, long-term musical practice is associated with improvements in three different forms of visual attention ability: selective, divided and sustained attention. Musicians from symphony orchestras (n=38) and non-musicians (n=38), who were comparable in age, gender and education, were submitted to three neuropsychological tests, measuring reaction time and accuracy. Musicians showed better performance relative to non-musicians on four variables of the three visual attention tests, and such an advantage could not solely be explained by better sensorimotor integration. Moreover, in the group of musicians, significant correlations were observed between the age at the commencement of musical studies and reaction time in all visual attention tests. The results suggest that musicians present augmented ability in different forms of visual attention, thus illustrating the possible cognitive benefits of long-term musical training. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Influence of musical training on understanding voiced and whispered speech in noise.

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Ruggles, Dorea R; Freyman, Richard L; Oxenham, Andrew J

2014-01-01

This study tested the hypothesis that the previously reported advantage of musicians over non-musicians in understanding speech in noise arises from more efficient or robust coding of periodic voiced speech, particularly in fluctuating backgrounds. Speech intelligibility was measured in listeners with extensive musical training, and in those with very little musical training or experience, using normal (voiced) or whispered (unvoiced) grammatically correct nonsense sentences in noise that was spectrally shaped to match the long-term spectrum of the speech, and was either continuous or gated with a 16-Hz square wave. Performance was also measured in clinical speech-in-noise tests and in pitch discrimination. Musicians exhibited enhanced pitch discrimination, as expected. However, no systematic or statistically significant advantage for musicians over non-musicians was found in understanding either voiced or whispered sentences in either continuous or gated noise. Musicians also showed no statistically significant advantage in the clinical speech-in-noise tests. Overall, the results provide no evidence for a significant difference between young adult musicians and non-musicians in their ability to understand speech in noise.

A imagem pública do músico e da música na antigüidade clássica: desprezo ou admiração? The public image of the musician and the music in classical antiquity: despise or admiration?

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Fábio Vergara Cerqueira

2007-01-01

Full Text Available O objeto deste artigo será analisar o conjunto de representações que definem o músico no imaginário social das sociedades grega e romana antigas. Para tanto, buscaremos reconstituir a imagem pública que o homem antigo fazia dele. Essa imagem compunha-se, veremos, de um cluster, algo coerente, algo contraditório, de noções, conceitos, valores e preconceitos.The object of this article is to analyse the representations set that defines the musician in the social imaginary of the ancient Greek and Roman societies. The objective is to rebuild the public image that men of Classical Antiquity had created in relation to the musicians. Such image was composed of a cluster, rather coherent and contradictory, of notions, concepts, beliefs and preconceived ideas.

Influence of musical and psychoacoustical training on pitch discrimination.

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Micheyl, Christophe; Delhommeau, Karine; Perrot, Xavier; Oxenham, Andrew J

2006-09-01

This study compared the influence of musical and psychoacoustical training on auditory pitch discrimination abilities. In a first experiment, pitch discrimination thresholds for pure and complex tones were measured in 30 classical musicians and 30 non-musicians, none of whom had prior psychoacoustical training. The non-musicians' mean thresholds were more than six times larger than those of the classical musicians initially, and still about four times larger after 2h of training using an adaptive two-interval forced-choice procedure; this difference is two to three times larger than suggested by previous studies. The musicians' thresholds were close to those measured in earlier psychoacoustical studies using highly trained listeners, and showed little improvement with training; this suggests that classical musical training can lead to optimal or nearly optimal pitch discrimination performance. A second experiment was performed to determine how much additional training was required for the non-musicians to obtain thresholds as low as those of the classical musicians from experiment 1. Eight new non-musicians with no prior training practiced the frequency discrimination task for a total of 14 h. It took between 4 and 8h of training for their thresholds to become as small as those measured in the classical musicians from experiment 1. These findings supplement and qualify earlier data in the literature regarding the respective influence of musical and psychoacoustical training on pitch discrimination performance.

Can musical training influence brain connectivity? Evidence from diffusion tensor MRI.

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Moore, Emma; Schaefer, Rebecca S; Bastin, Mark E; Roberts, Neil; Overy, Katie

2014-06-10

In recent years, musicians have been increasingly recruited to investigate grey and white matter neuroplasticity induced by skill acquisition. The development of Diffusion Tensor Magnetic Resonance Imaging (DT-MRI) has allowed more detailed investigation of white matter connections within the brain, addressing questions about the effect of musical training on connectivity between specific brain regions. Here, current DT-MRI analysis techniques are discussed and the available evidence from DT-MRI studies into differences in white matter architecture between musicians and non-musicians is reviewed. Collectively, the existing literature tends to support the hypothesis that musical training can induce changes in cross-hemispheric connections, with significant differences frequently reported in various regions of the corpus callosum of musicians compared with non-musicians. However, differences found in intra-hemispheric fibres have not always been replicated, while findings regarding the internal capsule and corticospinal tracts appear to be contradictory. There is also recent evidence to suggest that variances in white matter structure in non-musicians may correlate with their ability to learn musical skills, offering an alternative explanation for the structural differences observed between musicians and non-musicians. Considering the inconsistencies in the current literature, possible reasons for conflicting results are offered, along with suggestions for future research in this area.

"If You Have to Ask, You'll Never Know": Effects of Specialised Stylistic Expertise on Predictive Processing of Music.

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Hansen, Niels Chr; Vuust, Peter; Pearce, Marcus

2016-01-01

Musical expertise entails meticulous stylistic specialisation and enculturation. Even so, research on musical training effects has focused on generalised comparisons between musicians and non-musicians, and cross-cultural work addressing specialised expertise has traded cultural specificity and sensitivity for other methodological limitations. This study aimed to experimentally dissociate the effects of specialised stylistic training and general musical expertise on the perception of melodies. Non-musicians and professional musicians specialising in classical music or jazz listened to sampled renditions of saxophone solos improvised by Charlie Parker in the bebop style. Ratings of explicit uncertainty and expectedness for different continuations of each melodic excerpt were collected. An information-theoretic model of expectation enabled selection of stimuli affording highly certain continuations in the bebop style, but highly uncertain continuations in the context of general tonal expectations, and vice versa. The results showed that expert musicians have acquired probabilistic characteristics of music influencing their experience of expectedness and predictive uncertainty. While classical musicians had internalised key aspects of the bebop style implicitly, only jazz musicians' explicit uncertainty ratings reflected the computational estimates, and jazz-specific expertise modulated the relationship between explicit and inferred uncertainty data. In spite of this, there was no evidence that non-musicians and classical musicians used a stylistically irrelevant cognitive model of general tonal music providing support for the theory of cognitive firewalls between stylistic models in predictive processing of music.

THE SONATA FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO BY VIOREL MUNTEANU IN THE INTERPRETATIVE CONCEPTION OF NATIVE MUSICIANS

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STOLEARCIUC XENIA

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Signed in 1974, the Sonata for violin and piano by Viorel Munteanu continues the Enescu tradition and distinguishes itself by an original musical language, that alongside of the form sobriety, places this opus among the most representative examples of Romanian chamber instrumental music of the second half of the 20th century. Special attention is given to the exploration of the source of folklore and the Byzantine influence that generate the intonational-thematic structure of the whole work and relate it to the opuses of Moldovan music. Thus, the abundance of sound symbols and specific elements of the „pastoral” space reveals essential aspects of the interpretative conception of the native musicians. This composition was premiered in Chisinau within the framework of the 25th edition of the International Festival The Days of New Music. In the present article the author wants to pay her respects to the late violinist Angela Molodojan who performed with remarkable artistry, originality and musical refinement the violin part in the above-mentioned creation.

The influence of musical experience on lateralisation of auditory processing.

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Spajdel, Marián; Jariabková, Katarína; Riecanský, Igor

2007-11-01

The influence of musical experience on free-recall dichotic listening to environmental sounds, two-tone sequences, and consonant-vowel (CV) syllables was investigated. A total of 60 healthy right-handed participants were divided into two groups according to their active musical competence ("musicians" and "non-musicians"). In both groups, we found a left ear advantage (LEA) for nonverbal stimuli (environmental sounds and two-tone sequences) and a right ear advantage (REA) for CV syllables. Dichotic listening to environmental sounds was uninfluenced by musical experience. The total accuracy of recall for two-tone sequences was higher in musicians than in non-musicians but the lateralisation was similar in both groups. For CV syllables a lower REA was found in male but not female musicians in comparison to non-musicians. The results indicate a specific sex-dependent effect of musical experience on lateralisation of phonological auditory processing.

The role of musical training in emergent and event-based timing

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Lawrence eBaer

2013-05-01

Full Text Available Musical performance is thought to rely predominantly on event-based timing involving a clock-like neural process and an explicit internal representation of the time interval. Some aspects of musical performance may rely on emergent timing, which is established through the optimization of movement kinematics, and can be maintained without reference to any explicit representation of the time interval. We predicted that musical training would have its largest effect on event-based timing, supporting the dissociability of these timing processes and the dominance of event-based timing in musical performance. We compared 22 musicians and 17 non-musicians on the prototypical event-based timing task of finger tapping and on the typically emergently timed task of circle drawing. For each task, participants first responded in synchrony with a metronome (Paced and then responded at the same rate without the metronome (Unpaced. Analyses of the Unpaced phase revealed that non-musicians were more variable in their inter-response intervals for finger tapping compared to circle drawing. Musicians did not differ between the two tasks. Between groups, non-musicians were more variable than musicians for tapping but not for drawing. We were able to show that the differences were due to less timer variability in musicians on the tapping task. Correlational analyses of movement jerk and inter-response interval variability revealed a negative association for tapping and a positive association for drawing in non-musicians only. These results suggest that musical training affects temporal variability in tapping but not drawing. Additionally, musicians and non-musicians may be employing different movement strategies to maintain accurate timing in the two tasks. These findings add to our understanding of how musical training affects timing and support the dissociability of event-based and emergent timing modes.

The Effects of Musician's Earplugs on Acoustic and Perceptual Measures of Choral and Solo Sound.

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Cook-Cunningham, Sheri L

2017-10-25

The purpose of this investigation was to assess the effects of earplugs on acoustical and perceptual measures of choral and solo sound. The researcher tested the effects of musician's earplugs on choral and solo timbre and singer perceptions. Members of an intact women's university choir recorded Dona Nobis Pacem under two conditions, no earplugs and with earplugs over time. Approximately half of the choir members also participated as soloists, recording Over the Rainbow under the same two conditions. All recordings were analyzed using long-term average spectra (LTAS). After participating in each recording session, the participants responded to a questionnaire about ability to hear self (solo and choral context) and ability to hear others (choral context) under two conditions, no earplugs and with earplugs. LTAS results revealed that wearing earplugs in a choral setting caused decreased mean signal energy (>1 dB), resulting in less resonant singing. LTAS results also indicated that wearing earplugs in a solo setting had less effect on mean signal energy, resulting in a mean difference solo setting. Findings from this study could provide important information when structuring hearing conservation strategies. Copyright © 2017 The Voice Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Impact of Instrument-Specific Musical Training on Rhythm Perception and Production.

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Matthews, Tomas E; Thibodeau, Joseph N L; Gunther, Brian P; Penhune, Virginia B

2016-01-01

Studies comparing musicians and non-musicians have shown that musical training can improve rhythmic perception and production. These findings tell us that training can result in rhythm processing advantages, but they do not tell us whether practicing a particular instrument could lead to specific effects on rhythm perception or production. The current study used a battery of four rhythm perception and production tasks that were designed to test both higher- and lower-level aspects of rhythm processing. Four groups of musicians (drummers, singers, pianists, string players) and a control group of non-musicians were tested. Within-task differences in performance showed that factors such as meter, metrical complexity, tempo, and beat phase significantly affected the ability to perceive and synchronize taps to a rhythm or beat. Musicians showed better performance on all rhythm tasks compared to non-musicians. Interestingly, our results revealed no significant differences between musician groups for the vast majority of task measures. This was despite the fact that all musicians were selected to have the majority of their training on the target instrument, had on average more than 10 years of experience on their instrument, and were currently practicing. These results suggest that general musical experience is more important than specialized musical experience with regards to perception and production of rhythms.

Manipulating Greek musical modes and tempo affects perceived musical emotion in musicians and nonmusicians

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D. Ramos

2011-02-01

Full Text Available The combined influence of tempo and mode on emotional responses to music was studied by crossing 7 changes in mode with 3 changes in tempo. Twenty-four musicians aged 19 to 25 years (12 males and 12 females and 24 nonmusicians aged 17 to 25 years (12 males and 12 females were required to perform two tasks: 1 listening to different musical excerpts, and 2 associating an emotion to them such as happiness, serenity, fear, anger, or sadness. ANOVA showed that increasing the tempo strongly affected the arousal (F(2,116 = 268.62, mean square error (MSE = 0.6676, P < 0.001 and, to a lesser extent, the valence of emotional responses (F(6,348 = 8.71, MSE = 0.6196, P < 0.001. Changes in modes modulated the affective valence of the perceived emotions (F(6,348 = 4.24, MSE = 0.6764, P < 0.001. Some interactive effects were found between tempo and mode (F (1,58 = 115.6, MSE = 0.6428, P < 0.001, but, in most cases, the two parameters had additive effects. This finding demonstrates that small changes in the pitch structures of modes modulate the emotions associated with the pieces, confirming the cognitive foundation of emotional responses to music.

Musical minds: attentional blink reveals modality-specific restrictions.

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Sander Martens

Full Text Available Formal musical training is known to have positive effects on attentional and executive functioning, processing speed, and working memory. Consequently, one may expect to find differences in the dynamics of temporal attention between musicians and non-musicians. Here we address the question whether that is indeed the case, and whether any beneficial effects of musical training on temporal attention are modality specific or generalize across sensory modalities.When two targets are presented in close temporal succession, most people fail to report the second target, a phenomenon known as the attentional blink (AB. We measured and compared AB magnitude for musicians and non-musicians using auditory or visually presented letters and digits. Relative to non-musicians, the auditory AB was both attenuated and delayed in musicians, whereas the visual AB was larger. Non-musicians with a large auditory AB tended to show a large visual AB. However, neither a positive nor negative correlation was found in musicians, suggesting that at least in musicians, attentional restrictions within each modality are completely separate.AB magnitude within one modality can generalize to another modality, but this turns out not to be the case for every individual. Formal musical training seems to have a domain-general, but modality-specific beneficial effect on selective attention. The results fit with the idea that a major source of attentional restriction as reflected in the AB lies in modality-specific, independent sensory systems rather than a central amodal system. The findings demonstrate that individual differences in AB magnitude can provide important information about the modular structure of human cognition.

Musical minds: attentional blink reveals modality-specific restrictions.

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Martens, Sander; Wierda, Stefan M; Dun, Mathijs; de Vries, Michal; Smid, Henderikus G O M

2015-01-01

Formal musical training is known to have positive effects on attentional and executive functioning, processing speed, and working memory. Consequently, one may expect to find differences in the dynamics of temporal attention between musicians and non-musicians. Here we address the question whether that is indeed the case, and whether any beneficial effects of musical training on temporal attention are modality specific or generalize across sensory modalities. When two targets are presented in close temporal succession, most people fail to report the second target, a phenomenon known as the attentional blink (AB). We measured and compared AB magnitude for musicians and non-musicians using auditory or visually presented letters and digits. Relative to non-musicians, the auditory AB was both attenuated and delayed in musicians, whereas the visual AB was larger. Non-musicians with a large auditory AB tended to show a large visual AB. However, neither a positive nor negative correlation was found in musicians, suggesting that at least in musicians, attentional restrictions within each modality are completely separate. AB magnitude within one modality can generalize to another modality, but this turns out not to be the case for every individual. Formal musical training seems to have a domain-general, but modality-specific beneficial effect on selective attention. The results fit with the idea that a major source of attentional restriction as reflected in the AB lies in modality-specific, independent sensory systems rather than a central amodal system. The findings demonstrate that individual differences in AB magnitude can provide important information about the modular structure of human cognition.

"If You Have to Ask, You'll Never Know": Effects of Specialised Stylistic Expertise on Predictive Processing of Music.

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Niels Chr Hansen

Full Text Available Musical expertise entails meticulous stylistic specialisation and enculturation. Even so, research on musical training effects has focused on generalised comparisons between musicians and non-musicians, and cross-cultural work addressing specialised expertise has traded cultural specificity and sensitivity for other methodological limitations. This study aimed to experimentally dissociate the effects of specialised stylistic training and general musical expertise on the perception of melodies. Non-musicians and professional musicians specialising in classical music or jazz listened to sampled renditions of saxophone solos improvised by Charlie Parker in the bebop style. Ratings of explicit uncertainty and expectedness for different continuations of each melodic excerpt were collected. An information-theoretic model of expectation enabled selection of stimuli affording highly certain continuations in the bebop style, but highly uncertain continuations in the context of general tonal expectations, and vice versa. The results showed that expert musicians have acquired probabilistic characteristics of music influencing their experience of expectedness and predictive uncertainty. While classical musicians had internalised key aspects of the bebop style implicitly, only jazz musicians' explicit uncertainty ratings reflected the computational estimates, and jazz-specific expertise modulated the relationship between explicit and inferred uncertainty data. In spite of this, there was no evidence that non-musicians and classical musicians used a stylistically irrelevant cognitive model of general tonal music providing support for the theory of cognitive firewalls between stylistic models in predictive processing of music.

Musical practice and cognitive aging: two cross-sectional studies point to phonemic fluency as a potential candidate for a use-dependent adaptation.

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Fauvel, Baptiste; Groussard, Mathilde; Mutlu, Justine; Arenaza-Urquijo, Eider M; Eustache, Francis; Desgranges, Béatrice; Platel, Hervé

2014-01-01

Because of permanent use-dependent brain plasticity, all lifelong individuals' experiences are believed to influence the cognitive aging quality. In older individuals, both former and current musical practices have been associated with better verbal skills, visual memory, processing speed, and planning function. This work sought for an interaction between musical practice and cognitive aging by comparing musician and non-musician individuals for two lifetime periods (middle and late adulthood). Long-term memory, auditory-verbal short-term memory, processing speed, non-verbal reasoning, and verbal fluencies were assessed. In Study 1, measures of processing speed and auditory-verbal short-term memory were significantly better performed by musicians compared with controls, but both groups displayed the same age-related differences. For verbal fluencies, musicians scored higher than controls and displayed different age effects. In Study 2, we found that lifetime period at training onset (childhood vs. adulthood) was associated with phonemic, but not semantic, fluency performances (musicians who had started to practice in adulthood did not perform better on phonemic fluency than non-musicians). Current frequency of training did not account for musicians' scores on either of these two measures. These patterns of results are discussed by setting the hypothesis of a transformative effect of musical practice against a non-causal explanation.

Musical training, neuroplasticity and cognition.

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Rodrigues, Ana Carolina; Loureiro, Maurício Alves; Caramelli, Paulo

2010-01-01

The influence of music on the human brain has been recently investigated in numerous studies. Several investigations have shown that structural and functional cerebral neuroplastic processes emerge as a result of long-term musical training, which in turn may produce cognitive differences between musicians and non-musicians. Musicians can be considered ideal cases for studies on brain adaptation, due to their unique and intensive training experiences. This article presents a review of recent findings showing positive effects of musical training on non-musical cognitive abilities, which probably reflect plastic changes in brains of musicians.

Exploratory factor analysis of Kenny Music Performance Anxiety Inventory (K-MPAI in a Brazilian musician sample

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Ana Elisa Medeiros Barbar

2015-10-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The Kenny Music Performance Anxiety Inventory (K-MPAI is very significant among the available instruments which measures Musical Performance Anxiety (MPA. Objective The aim of this study is to find evidence of validity of the Kenny Music Performance Anxiety Inventory (K-MPAI, in its translated and adapted Brazilian version, through the study of its factor structure. Methods A convenience sample of 230 amateur musicians completed the K-MPAI. Results The initial factor analysis yielded eight factors, explaining 62.4% of variance. However, due to the factors’ composition and internal consistency values lower than 0.50, the number of factors was later set at three, considering the internal consistency of those, the theoretical propositions and symptomatology aspects that supported the construction of scale. They were named “Worries and insecurity” (α = 0.82, “Depression and hopelessness” (α = 0.77 and “Early parental relationships” (α = 0.57. Discussion/Conclusions These results point to the scale’s construct validity, since they support the theoretical basis used for the development of the K-MPAI and the clinical manifestations of the MPA.

Melodic multi-feature paradigm reveals auditory profiles in music-sound encoding

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Tervaniemi, Mari; Huotilainen, Minna; Brattico, Elvira

2014-01-01

Musical expertise modulates preattentive neural sound discrimination. However, this evidence up to great extent originates from paradigms using very simple stimulation. Here we use a novel melody paradigm (revealing the auditory profile for six sound parameters in parallel) to compare memory......-related mismatch negativity (MMN) and attention-related P3a responses recorded from non-musicians and Finnish Folk musicians. MMN emerged in both groups of participants for all sound changes (except for rhythmic changes in non-musicians). In Folk musicians, the MMN was enlarged for mistuned sounds when compared...... with non-musicians. This is taken to reflect their familiarity with pitch information which is in key position in Finnish folk music when compared with e.g., rhythmic information. The MMN was followed by P3a after timbre changes, rhythm changes, and melody transposition. The MMN and P3a topographies...

Auditory processing in absolute pitch possessors

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McKetton, Larissa; Schneider, Keith A.

2018-05-01

Absolute pitch (AP) is a rare ability in classifying a musical pitch without a reference standard. It has been of great interest to researchers studying auditory processing and music cognition since it is seldom expressed and sheds light on influences pertaining to neurodevelopmental biological predispositions and the onset of musical training. We investigated the smallest frequency that could be detected or just noticeable difference (JND) between two pitches. Here, we report significant differences in JND thresholds in AP musicians and non-AP musicians compared to non-musician control groups at both 1000 Hz and 987.76 Hz testing frequencies. Although the AP-musicians did better than non-AP musicians, the difference was not significant. In addition, we looked at neuro-anatomical correlates of musicianship and AP using structural MRI. We report increased cortical thickness of the left Heschl's Gyrus (HG) and decreased cortical thickness of the inferior frontal opercular gyrus (IFO) and circular insular sulcus volume (CIS) in AP compared to non-AP musicians and controls. These structures may therefore be optimally enhanced and reduced to form the most efficient network for AP to emerge.

Working memory and musical competence of musicians and non-musicians

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Hansen, Mads; Wallentin, Mikkel; Vuust, Peter

2013-01-01

Musical ability has been found to be associated with an enhancement of verbal working memory. In this study, we investigated whether this effect would generalize to visual-spatial working memory as would be expected if the effect were driven by general intelligence. We administered the WAIS...

Vowel identity between note labels confuses pitch identification in non-absolute pitch possessors.

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Alfredo Brancucci

Full Text Available The simplest and likeliest assumption concerning the cognitive bases of absolute pitch (AP is that at its origin there is a particularly skilled function which matches the height of the perceived pitch to the verbal label of the musical tone. Since there is no difference in sound frequency resolution between AP and non-AP (NAP musicians, the hypothesis of the present study is that the failure of NAP musicians in pitch identification relies mainly in an inability to retrieve the correct verbal label to be assigned to the perceived musical note. The primary hypothesis is that, when asked to identify tones, NAP musicians confuse the verbal labels to be attached to the stimulus on the basis of their phonetic content. Data from two AP tests are reported, in which subjects had to respond in the presence or in the absence of visually presented verbal note labels (fixed Do solmization. Results show that NAP musicians confuse more frequently notes having a similar vowel in the note label. They tend to confuse e.g. a 261 Hz tone (Do more often with Sol than, e.g., with La. As a second goal, we wondered whether this effect is lateralized, i.e. whether one hemisphere is more responsible than the other in the confusion of notes with similar labels. This question was addressed by observing pitch identification during dichotic listening. Results showed that there is a right hemispheric disadvantage, in NAP but not AP musicians, in the retrieval of the verbal label to be assigned to the perceived pitch. The present results indicate that absolute pitch has strong verbal bases, at least from a cognitive point of view.

Keeping brains young with making music.

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Rogenmoser, Lars; Kernbach, Julius; Schlaug, Gottfried; Gaser, Christian

2018-01-01

Music-making is a widespread leisure and professional activity that has garnered interest over the years due to its effect on brain and cognitive development and its potential as a rehabilitative and restorative therapy of brain dysfunctions. We investigated whether music-making has a potential age-protecting effect on the brain. For this, we studied anatomical magnetic resonance images obtained from three matched groups of subjects who differed in their lifetime dose of music-making activities (i.e., professional musicians, amateur musicians, and non-musicians). For each subject, we calculated a so-called BrainAGE score which corresponds to the discrepancy (in years) between chronological age and the "age of the brain", with negative values reflecting an age-decelerating brain and positive values an age-accelerating brain, respectively. The index of "brain age" was estimated using a machine-learning algorithm that was trained in a large independent sample to identify anatomical correlates of brain-aging. Compared to non-musicians, musicians overall had lower BrainAGE scores, with amateur musicians having the lowest scores suggesting that music-making has an age-decelerating effect on the brain. Unlike the amateur musicians, the professional musicians showed a positive correlation between their BrainAGE scores and years of music-making, possibly indicating that engaging more intensely in just one otherwise enriching activity might not be as beneficial than if the activity is one of several that an amateur musician engages in. Intense music-making activities at a professional level could also lead to stress-related interferences and a less enriched environment than that of amateur musicians, possibly somewhat diminishing the otherwise positive effect of music-making.

Differentiation of classical music requires little learning but rhythm.

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Dalla Bella, Simone; Peretz, Isabelle

2005-06-01

Detecting distinctions between the styles of classical music (e.g. Baroque and Romantic) is often viewed as the privilege of musicians. However, this elite perspective underestimates the abilities of non-musicians. We report that Western musicians and non-musicians, and non-Westerners (i.e. Chinese participants) rated pairs of excerpts presented auditorily as more similar as their compositional styles were closer in history. Moreover, the styles were considered by all participants as more different when presented in historical order, the older style preceding the more recent style (e.g. Baroque followed by Romantic), than the reverse (e.g. Romantic followed by Baroque). This historical distance effect appears related to rhythm (or temporal variability).

Intercorrência audiológica em músicas após um show de rock Hearing incidents in musicians after a rock concert

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Marcela Pfeiffer

2007-09-01

acoustic reflex measurements, before and after the rock concert. The noise levels of the room and the stage were determined by means of a dosimeter. The results were compared and statically analyzed using the t Student test with significance criterion of p> 0.05. the noise level found in the room and stage during the concert was 98.5 dB. As for the behavioral aspects related to the noise, tinnitus was the most prevalent complaint among the subjects. In pure tone audiometry, statistically significant differences were found in the hearing thresholds, before and after exposure, mostly in the right ear for the high frequencies. The results were also statistically significant at the frequencies between 2000Hz and 6000Hz, for the right ear (p=2.7; p=2.59; p=3.7 e p=2.86, and at the frequency of 4000Hz, for the left ear (p=2.87. The right ear's acoustic reflex has shown the highest index of absence (40%; however, we found statistically significant differences in the presence of the acoustic reflex, before and after exposure, only for the left ear (p=3.64. CONCLUSION: musicians exposed to high sound pressure levels in rock concerts have shown temporary threshold shift at the pure tone audiometry and acoustic reflex measurements.

Effect of skill level on recall of visually presented patterns of musical notes.

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Kalakoski, Virpi

2007-04-01

Expertise effects in music were studied in a new task: the construction of mental representations from separate fragments. Groups of expert musicians and non-musicians were asked to recall note patterns presented visually note by note. Skill-level, musical well-formedness of the note patterns and presentation mode were varied. The musicians recalled note patterns better than the non-musicians, even though the presentation was visual and successive. Furthermore, only musicians' performance was affected by musical well-formedness of the note patterns when visual gestalt properties, verbal rehearsability, and familiarity of the stimuli were controlled. Musicians were also able to use letter names referring to notes as efficiently as visual notes, which indicates that the better recall of musicians cannot be explained by perceptual visual chunking. These results and the effect of skill level on the distribution of recall errors indicate that the ability to chunk incoming information into meaningful units does not require that complete familiar patterns are accessible to encoding processes, yet previous knowledge stored in long-term memory affects representation construction in working memory. The present method offers a new reliable tool, and its implications to the research on construction of representations and musical imagery are discussed.

The Musician as (In)Active Athlete?: Exploring the Association Between Physical Activity and Musculoskeletal Complaints in Music Students.

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Baadjou, Vera A E; Verbunt, Jeanine A M C F; van Eijsden-Besseling, Marjon D F; Huysmans, Stephanie M D; Smeets, Rob J E M

2015-12-01

Musicians are often compared to athletes because of the physical exertion required to play music. The aim of this study was to explore the physical activity level of music students and to study its relationship with musculoskeletal complaints. A second goal was to assess associations between physical activity and pain, quality of life, and disability. This cross-sectional study among third- and fourth-year music students used an electronic survey including measures for physical activity (SQUASH-Short Questionnaire to Assess Health-enhancing physical activity), musculoskeletal complaints (DMQ-Dutch Musculoskeletal Questionnaire), disability (DASH-Disability Arm, Shoulder, Hand questionnaire) and quality of life (Short Form-12). Students were classified as compliers or non-compliers with moderate- and vigorous-intensity physical activity recommendations. Statistical analysis was done using (non)parametric tests (t-test, Pearson chi-square test, Mann-Whitney U-test) and correlational testing. Participants were 132 students, 63.6% female, with a median age of 23 yrs (range 21.3-25.0). 67% reported musculoskeletal complaints in the past 7 days. Their median physical activity level was 6,390 MET-min/wk, and 62% and 10% of the students accomplished recommendations for moderate-intensity and vigorous-intensity physical activity levels, respectively. No significant differences were found in prevalence of musculoskeletal complaints between students who met moderate- or vigorous-intensity physical activity recommendations and students who did not. Physical activity level was not associated with musculoskeletal complaints (r=0.12, p=0.26). Higher pain intensity was associated with a lower quality of life (r=-0.53 pMusic students are mainly involved in light- to moderate-intensity physical activities and rarely in vigorous-intensity activities. No correlation was found between physical activity level in the past months and musculoskeletal complaints in music students.

Long-term music training tunes how the brain temporally binds signals from multiple senses

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Lee, HweeLing; Noppeney, Uta

2011-01-01

Practicing a musical instrument is a rich multisensory experience involving the integration of visual, auditory, and tactile inputs with motor responses. This combined psychophysics–fMRI study used the musician's brain to investigate how sensory-motor experience molds temporal binding of auditory and visual signals. Behaviorally, musicians exhibited a narrower temporal integration window than nonmusicians for music but not for speech. At the neural level, musicians showed increased audiovisua...

Neurophysiological Evidence That Musical Training Influences the Recruitment of Right Hemispheric Homologues for Speech Perception

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McNeel Gordon Jantzen

2014-03-01

Full Text Available Musicians have a more accurate temporal and tonal representation of auditory stimuli than their non-musician counterparts (Kraus & Chandrasekaran, 2010; Parbery-Clark, Skoe, & Kraus, 2009; Zendel & Alain, 2008; Musacchia, Sams, Skoe, & Kraus, 2007. Musicians who are adept at the production and perception of music are also more sensitive to key acoustic features of speech such as voice onset timing and pitch. Together, these data suggest that musical training may enhance the processing of acoustic information for speech sounds. In the current study, we sought to provide neural evidence that musicians process speech and music in a similar way. We hypothesized that for musicians, right hemisphere areas traditionally associated with music are also engaged for the processing of speech sounds. In contrast we predicted that in non-musicians processing of speech sounds would be localized to traditional left hemisphere language areas. Speech stimuli differing in voice onset time was presented using a dichotic listening paradigm. Subjects either indicated aural location for a specified speech sound or identified a specific speech sound from a directed aural location. Musical training effects and organization of acoustic features were reflected by activity in source generators of the P50. This included greater activation of right middle temporal gyrus (MTG and superior temporal gyrus (STG in musicians. The findings demonstrate recruitment of right hemisphere in musicians for discriminating speech sounds and a putative broadening of their language network. Musicians appear to have an increased sensitivity to acoustic features and enhanced selective attention to temporal features of speech that is facilitated by musical training and supported, in part, by right hemisphere homologues of established speech processing regions of the brain.

Melodic multi-feature paradigm reveals auditory profiles in music-sound encoding

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Mari eTervaniemi

2014-07-01

Full Text Available Musical expertise modulates preattentive neural sound discrimination. However, this evidence up to great extent originates from paradigms using very simple stimulation. Here we use a novel melody paradigm (revealing the auditory profile for six sound parameters in parallel to compare memory-related MMN and attention-related P3a responses recorded from non-musicians and Finnish Folk musicians. MMN emerged in both groups of participants for all sound changes (except for rhythmic changes in non-musicians. In Folk musicians, the MMN was enlarged for mistuned sounds when compared with non-musicians. This is taken to reflect their familiarity with pitch information which is in key position in Finnish folk music when compared with e.g., rhythmic information. The MMN was followed by P3a after timbre changes, rhythm changes, and melody transposition. The MMN and P3a topographies differentiated the groups for all sound changes. Thus, the melody paradigm offers a fast and cost-effective means for determining the auditory profile for music-sound encoding and also, importantly, for probing the effects of musical expertise on it.

Melodic multi-feature paradigm reveals auditory profiles in music-sound encoding.

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Tervaniemi, Mari; Huotilainen, Minna; Brattico, Elvira

2014-01-01

Musical expertise modulates preattentive neural sound discrimination. However, this evidence up to great extent originates from paradigms using very simple stimulation. Here we use a novel melody paradigm (revealing the auditory profile for six sound parameters in parallel) to compare memory-related mismatch negativity (MMN) and attention-related P3a responses recorded from non-musicians and Finnish Folk musicians. MMN emerged in both groups of participants for all sound changes (except for rhythmic changes in non-musicians). In Folk musicians, the MMN was enlarged for mistuned sounds when compared with non-musicians. This is taken to reflect their familiarity with pitch information which is in key position in Finnish folk music when compared with e.g., rhythmic information. The MMN was followed by P3a after timbre changes, rhythm changes, and melody transposition. The MMN and P3a topographies differentiated the groups for all sound changes. Thus, the melody paradigm offers a fast and cost-effective means for determining the auditory profile for music-sound encoding and also, importantly, for probing the effects of musical expertise on it.

Music expertise shapes audiovisual temporal integration windows for speech, sinewave speech and music

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Hwee Ling eLee

2014-08-01

Full Text Available This psychophysics study used musicians as a model to investigate whether musical expertise shapes the temporal integration window for audiovisual speech, sinewave speech or music. Musicians and non-musicians judged the audiovisual synchrony of speech, sinewave analogues of speech, and music stimuli at 13 audiovisual stimulus onset asynchronies (±360, ±300 ±240, ±180, ±120, ±60, and 0 ms. Further, we manipulated the duration of the stimuli by presenting sentences/melodies or syllables/tones. Critically, musicians relative to non-musicians exhibited significantly narrower temporal integration windows for both music and sinewave speech. Further, the temporal integration window for music decreased with the amount of music practice, but not with age of acquisition. In other words, the more musicians practiced piano in the past three years, the more sensitive they became to the temporal misalignment of visual and auditory signals. Collectively, our findings demonstrate that music practicing fine-tunes the audiovisual temporal integration window to various extents depending on the stimulus class. While the effect of piano practicing was most pronounced for music, it also generalized to other stimulus classes such as sinewave speech and to a marginally significant degree to natural speech.

Keeping an eye on the conductor: neural correlates of visuo-motor synchronization and musical experience

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Ono, Kentaro; Nakamura, Akinori; Maess, Burkhard

2015-01-01

For orchestra musicians, synchronized playing under a conductor’s direction is necessary to achieve optimal performance. Previous studies using simple auditory/visual stimuli have reported cortico-subcortical networks underlying synchronization and that training improves the accuracy of synchronization. However, it is unclear whether people who played regularly under a conductor and non-musicians activate the same networks when synchronizing with a conductor’s gestures. We conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment testing nonmusicians and musicians who regularly play music under a conductor. Participants were required to tap the rhythm they perceived from silent movies displaying either conductor’s gestures or a swinging metronome. Musicians performed tapping under a conductor with more precision than nonmusicians. Results from fMRI measurement showed greater activity in the anterior part of the left superior frontal gyrus (SFG) in musicians with more frequent practice under a conductor. Conversely, tapping with the metronome did not show any difference between musicians and nonmusicians, indicating that the expertize effect in tapping under the conductor does not result in a general increase in tapping performance for musicians. These results suggest that orchestra musicians have developed an advanced ability to predict conductor’s next action from the gestures. PMID:25883561

Keeping an Eye on the Conductor: Neural Correlates of Visuo-motor Synchronization and Musical Experience

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Kentaro eOno

2015-04-01

Full Text Available For orchestra musicians, synchronized playing under a conductor’s direction is necessary to achieve optimal performance. Previous studies using simple auditory/visual stimuli have reported cortico-subcortical networks underlying synchronization and that training improves the accuracy of synchronization. However, it is unclear whether people who played regularly under a conductor and non-musicians activate the same networks when synchronizing with a conductor’s gestures. We conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI experiment testing nonmusicians and musicians who regularly play music under a conductor. Participants were required to tap the rhythm they perceived from silent movies displaying either conductor’s gestures or a swinging metronome. Musicians performed tapping under a conductor with more precision than nonmusicians. Results from fMRI measurement showed greater activity in the anterior part of the left superior frontal gyrus (SFG in musicians with more frequent practice under a conductor. Conversely, tapping with the metronome did not show any difference between musicians and nonmusicians, indicating that the expertise effect in tapping under the conductor does not result in a general increase in tapping performance for musicians. These results suggest that orchestra musicians have developed an advanced ability to predict conductor’s next action from the gestures.

An assessment of threshold shifts in nonprofessional pop/rock musicians using conventional and extended high-frequency audiometry.

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Schmuziger, Nicolas; Patscheke, Jochen; Probst, Rudolf

2007-09-01

The clinical value of extended high-frequency audiometry for the detection of noise-induced hearing loss has not been established conclusively. The purpose of this study was to assess the relative temporary threshold shift (TTS) in two frequency regions (conventional versus extended high frequency). In this exploratory study, pure-tone thresholds from 0.5 to 14 kHz were measured in both ears of 16 nonprofessional pop/rock musicians (mean age, 35 yr; range, 27 to 49 yr), before and after a 90-minute rehearsal session. All had experienced repeated exposures to intense sound levels during at least 5 yr of their musical careers. After the rehearsal, median threshold levels were found to be significantly poorer for frequencies from 0.5 to 8 kHz (Wilcoxon signed rank test, p

Experience Playing a Musical Instrument and Overnight Sleep Enhance Performance on a Sequential Typing Task.

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Tucker, Matthew A; Nguyen, Nam; Stickgold, Robert

2016-01-01

The smooth, coordinated fine motor movements required to play a musical instrument are not only highly valued in our society; they also predict academic success in areas that generalize beyond the motor domain, including reading and math readiness, and verbal abilities. Interestingly, motor skills that overlap with those required to play a musical instrument (e.g., sequential finger tapping) markedly improve (get faster) over a night of sleep, but not after a day spent awake. Here we studied whether individuals who play musical instruments that require fine finger motor skill are better able to learn and consolidate a simple motor skill task compared to those who do not play an instrument, and whether sleep-specific motor skill benefits interact with those imparted by musical experience. We used the motor sequence task (MST), which taps into a core skill learned and used by musicians, namely, the repetition of learned sequences of key presses. Not surprisingly, we found that musicians were faster than non-musicians throughout the learning session, typing more correct sequences per 30-sec trial. In the 12hrs that followed learning we found that sleep and musical experience both led to greater improvement in performance. Surprisingly, musicians retested after a day of wake performed slightly better than non-musicians who had slept between training and retest, suggesting that musicians have the capacity to consolidate a motor skill across waking hours, while non-musicians appear to lack this capacity. These findings suggest that the musically trained brain is optimized for motor skill consolidation across both wake and sleep, and that sleep may simply promote a more effective use of this machinery. In sum, there may be something special about musicians, perhaps a neurophysiological advantage, that leads to both the expected-greater motor speed at learning-and the surprising-greater motor skill improvement over time.

Experience Playing a Musical Instrument and Overnight Sleep Enhance Performance on a Sequential Typing Task.

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Matthew A Tucker

Full Text Available The smooth, coordinated fine motor movements required to play a musical instrument are not only highly valued in our society; they also predict academic success in areas that generalize beyond the motor domain, including reading and math readiness, and verbal abilities. Interestingly, motor skills that overlap with those required to play a musical instrument (e.g., sequential finger tapping markedly improve (get faster over a night of sleep, but not after a day spent awake. Here we studied whether individuals who play musical instruments that require fine finger motor skill are better able to learn and consolidate a simple motor skill task compared to those who do not play an instrument, and whether sleep-specific motor skill benefits interact with those imparted by musical experience. We used the motor sequence task (MST, which taps into a core skill learned and used by musicians, namely, the repetition of learned sequences of key presses. Not surprisingly, we found that musicians were faster than non-musicians throughout the learning session, typing more correct sequences per 30-sec trial. In the 12hrs that followed learning we found that sleep and musical experience both led to greater improvement in performance. Surprisingly, musicians retested after a day of wake performed slightly better than non-musicians who had slept between training and retest, suggesting that musicians have the capacity to consolidate a motor skill across waking hours, while non-musicians appear to lack this capacity. These findings suggest that the musically trained brain is optimized for motor skill consolidation across both wake and sleep, and that sleep may simply promote a more effective use of this machinery. In sum, there may be something special about musicians, perhaps a neurophysiological advantage, that leads to both the expected-greater motor speed at learning-and the surprising-greater motor skill improvement over time.

Effects of musical expertise on oscillatory brain activity in response to emotional sounds.

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Nolden, Sophie; Rigoulot, Simon; Jolicoeur, Pierre; Armony, Jorge L

2017-08-01

Emotions can be conveyed through a variety of channels in the auditory domain, be it via music, non-linguistic vocalizations, or speech prosody. Moreover, recent studies suggest that expertise in one sound category can impact the processing of emotional sounds in other sound categories as they found that musicians process more efficiently emotional musical and vocal sounds than non-musicians. However, the neural correlates of these modulations, especially their time course, are not very well understood. Consequently, we focused here on how the neural processing of emotional information varies as a function of sound category and expertise of participants. Electroencephalogram (EEG) of 20 non-musicians and 17 musicians was recorded while they listened to vocal (speech and vocalizations) and musical sounds. The amplitude of EEG-oscillatory activity in the theta, alpha, beta, and gamma band was quantified and Independent Component Analysis (ICA) was used to identify underlying components of brain activity in each band. Category differences were found in theta and alpha bands, due to larger responses to music and speech than to vocalizations, and in posterior beta, mainly due to differential processing of speech. In addition, we observed greater activation in frontal theta and alpha for musicians than for non-musicians, as well as an interaction between expertise and emotional content of sounds in frontal alpha. The results reflect musicians' expertise in recognition of emotion-conveying music, which seems to also generalize to emotional expressions conveyed by the human voice, in line with previous accounts of effects of expertise on musical and vocal sounds processing. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Functional and structural aspects of tinnitus-related enhancement and suppression of auditory cortex activity.

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Diesch, Eugen; Andermann, Martin; Flor, Herta; Rupp, Andre

2010-05-01

The steady-state auditory evoked magnetic field was recorded in tinnitus patients and controls, both either musicians or non-musicians, all of them with high-frequency hearing loss. Stimuli were AM-tones with two modulation frequencies and three carrier frequencies matching the "audiometric edge", i.e. the frequency above which hearing loss increases more rapidly, the tinnitus frequency or the frequency 1 1/2 octaves above the audiometric edge in controls, and a frequency 1 1/2 octaves below the audiometric edge. Stimuli equated in carrier frequency, but differing in modulation frequency, were simultaneously presented to the two ears. The modulation frequency-specific components of the dual steady-state response were recovered by bandpass filtering. In both hemispheres, the source amplitude of the response was larger for contralateral than ipsilateral input. In non-musicians with tinnitus, this laterality effect was enhanced in the hemisphere contralateral and reduced in the hemisphere ipsilateral to the tinnitus ear, especially for the tinnitus frequency. The hemisphere-by-input laterality dominance effect was smaller in musicians than in non-musicians. In both patient groups, source amplitude change over time, i.e. amplitude slope, was increasing with tonal frequency for contralateral input and decreasing for ipsilateral input. However, slope was smaller for musicians than non-musicians. In patients, source amplitude was negatively correlated with the MRI-determined volume of the medial partition of Heschl's gyrus. Tinnitus patients show an altered excitatory-inhibitory balance reflecting the downregulation of inhibition and resulting in a steeper dominance hierarchy among simultaneous processes in auditory cortex. Direction and extent of this alteration are modulated by musicality and auditory cortex volume. 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Perceiving individuality in harpsichord performance.

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Koren, Réka; Gingras, Bruno

2014-01-01

Can listeners recognize the individual characteristics of unfamiliar performers playing two different musical pieces on the harpsichord? Six professional harpsichordists, three prize-winners and three non prize-winners, made two recordings of two pieces from the Baroque period (a variation on a Partita by Frescobaldi and a rondo by François Couperin) on an instrument equipped with a MIDI console. Short (8 to 15 s) excerpts from these 24 recordings were subsequently used in a sorting task in which 20 musicians and 20 non-musicians, balanced for gender, listened to these excerpts and grouped together those that they thought had been played by the same performer. Twenty-six participants, including 17 musicians and nine non-musicians, performed significantly better than chance, demonstrating that the excerpts contained sufficient information to enable listeners to recognize the individual characteristics of the performers. The grouping accuracy of musicians was significantly higher than that observed for non-musicians. No significant difference in grouping accuracy was found between prize-winning performers and non-winners or between genders. However, the grouping accuracy was significantly higher for the rondo than for the variation, suggesting that the features of the two pieces differed in a way that affected the listeners' ability to sort them accurately. Furthermore, only musicians performed above chance level when matching variation excerpts with rondo excerpts, suggesting that accurately assigning recordings of different pieces to their performer may require musical training. Comparisons between the MIDI performance data and the results of the sorting task revealed that tempo and, to a lesser extent, note onset asynchrony were the most important predictors of the perceived distance between performers, and that listeners appeared to rely mostly on a holistic percept of the excerpts rather than on a comparison of note-by-note expressive patterns.

Perceiving individuality in harpsichord performance

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Koren, Réka; Gingras, Bruno

2014-01-01

Can listeners recognize the individual characteristics of unfamiliar performers playing two different musical pieces on the harpsichord? Six professional harpsichordists, three prize-winners and three non prize-winners, made two recordings of two pieces from the Baroque period (a variation on a Partita by Frescobaldi and a rondo by François Couperin) on an instrument equipped with a MIDI console. Short (8 to 15 s) excerpts from these 24 recordings were subsequently used in a sorting task in which 20 musicians and 20 non-musicians, balanced for gender, listened to these excerpts and grouped together those that they thought had been played by the same performer. Twenty-six participants, including 17 musicians and nine non-musicians, performed significantly better than chance, demonstrating that the excerpts contained sufficient information to enable listeners to recognize the individual characteristics of the performers. The grouping accuracy of musicians was significantly higher than that observed for non-musicians. No significant difference in grouping accuracy was found between prize-winning performers and non-winners or between genders. However, the grouping accuracy was significantly higher for the rondo than for the variation, suggesting that the features of the two pieces differed in a way that affected the listeners’ ability to sort them accurately. Furthermore, only musicians performed above chance level when matching variation excerpts with rondo excerpts, suggesting that accurately assigning recordings of different pieces to their performer may require musical training. Comparisons between the MIDI performance data and the results of the sorting task revealed that tempo and, to a lesser extent, note onset asynchrony were the most important predictors of the perceived distance between performers, and that listeners appeared to rely mostly on a holistic percept of the excerpts rather than on a comparison of note-by-note expressive patterns. PMID:24605104

Expertise-related deactivation of the right temporoparietal junction during musical improvisation.

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Berkowitz, Aaron L; Ansari, Daniel

2010-01-01

Musical training has been associated with structural changes in the brain as well as functional differences in brain activity when musicians are compared to nonmusicians on both perceptual and motor tasks. Previous neuroimaging comparisons of musicians and nonmusicians in the motor domain have used tasks involving prelearned motor sequences or synchronization with an auditorily presented sequence during the experiment. Here we use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine expertise-related differences in brain activity between musicians and nonmusicians during improvisation--the generation of novel musical-motor sequences--using a paradigm that we previously used in musicians alone. Despite behaviorally matched performance, the two groups showed significant differences in functional brain activity during improvisation. Specifically, musicians deactivated the right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) during melodic improvisation, while nonmusicians showed no change in activity in this region. The rTPJ is thought to be part of a ventral attentional network for bottom-up stimulus-driven processing, and it has been postulated that deactivation of this region occurs in order to inhibit attentional shifts toward task-irrelevant stimuli during top-down, goal-driven behavior. We propose that the musicians' deactivation of the rTPJ during melodic improvisation may represent a training-induced shift toward inhibition of stimulus-driven attention, allowing for a more goal-directed performance state that aids in creative thought.

Art and Health: Frequency of Musculoskeletal Symptoms in Musicians of the Symphonic Orchestra of the State University of Londrina Arte e Saúde: Frequência de Sintomas Músculo-Esqueléticos em Músicos da Orquestra Sinfônica da Universidade Estadual de Londrina

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Thiago Zoratti Abelha

2004-10-01

Full Text Available This study had the purpose of determining the frequency of musculoskeletal symptoms in musicians of the Symphonic Orchestra of the State University of Londrina. 45 musicians took part in this study answering a self-administered questionnaire with the following aspects: personal data, job-factor survey, symptom related to work, treatment and its consequences. As for the analysis of the variables the quisquare Test was used with Yates correction and the Test of Fisher. Of the 45 musicians studied, 82,2% were men and with an average age of 39,56 years old. Of all the researched musicians, 77,8% reported the presence of musculoskeletal symptoms during the last twelve months and 71,1% in the last seven days. The highest prevalence was in the following anatomical areas: shoulders, neck, spine, hands and wrists. The present study found a high prevalence of musculoskeletal symptoms in musicians who play string and wind instruments. Due to the symptoms, 33,3% of the professionals lost days of work. The present study found a high prevalence of musculoskeletal symptoms not only during the last twelve months but also during the last seven days that preceded the answering of the questionnaire, mainly in the spine and shoulders area. These symptoms can be related to physical and emotional loads. Taking the results into account, the elaboration and implantation of strategies to soften the workload and to avoid disorders are necessary. Este estudo teve o propósito de verificar a freqüência de sintomas músculo-esqueléticos em músicos da Orquestra Sinfônica da Universidade Estadual de Londrina. Participaram do estudo 45 músicos que responderam um questionário auto-aplicável, que trata dos seguintes aspectos: dados pessoais, atividades profissionais, sintomatologia relacionada ao trabalho, tratamento realizado e conseqüências da sintomatologia. Para a análise das variáveis, foram utilizados o Teste de qui-quadrado com correção de Yates e o Teste de

"That's cool, you're a musician and you drink": Exploring entertainers' accounts of their unique workplace relationship with alcohol.

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Forsyth, Alasdair J M; Lennox, Jemma C; Emslie, Carol

2016-10-01

This qualitative research investigates the alcohol experiences of entertainers who perform within licensed premises. Previous, mainly quantitative, studies have found that entertainers, specifically musicians, are an occupational group who drink excessively. This qualitative study draws on a wider sample of entertainers to examine their accounts of drinking in the workplace and the explanations they provide for this. We conducted individual semi-structured interviews (n=24) with band-members, variety acts and DJs in Glasgow, Scotland. This revealed a workplace characterised by continual opportunities for often free alcohol consumption. Unlike most occupations, for entertainers 'drinking-on-the-job' was normative, expected, and sometimes encouraged by peers, the public, employers or sponsors. Entertainers also experienced performance-related incentives to drink before, during and/or after a show; including anxiety, matching their intoxication level to the audience's, and 'reward-drinking'. This qualitative research confirms the unique nature of the entertainer-alcohol link, even in comparison to that found within other leisure industry occupations. While providing some explanation as to why entertainers might drink excessively, participants' accounts also suggested potential strategies for avoiding the negative outcomes of workplace drinking. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The impact of instrument-specific musical training on rhythm perception and production

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Tomas Edward Matthews

2016-02-01

Full Text Available Various studies have shown that musical training can improve rhythmic perception and production. These findings tell us that music training can result in rhythm processing advantages but they do not tell us whether practicing a particular instrument could lead to specific effects on rhythm perception or production. The current study used a battery of four rhythm perception and production tasks that were designed to test both higher- and lower-level aspects of rhythm processing. Four groups of musicians (drummers, singers, pianists, string players and a control group of non-musicians were tested. Within-task differences in performance showed that factors such as meter, metrical complexity, tempo and beat phase significantly affected the ability to perceive and synchronize taps to a rhythm or beat. Musicians showed better performance on all rhythm tasks compared to non-musicians. Interestingly, our results revealed no significant differences between musician groups for the vast majority of task measures. This is despite the fact that all musicians were selected to have the majority of their training on the target instrument, had on average more than ten years of experience on their instrument, and were currently practicing. These results suggest that general musical experience is more important than specialized musical experience with regards to perception and production of rhythms.

Long-term music training modulates the recalibration of audiovisual simultaneity.

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Jicol, Crescent; Proulx, Michael J; Pollick, Frank E; Petrini, Karin

2018-07-01

To overcome differences in physical transmission time and neural processing, the brain adaptively recalibrates the point of simultaneity between auditory and visual signals by adapting to audiovisual asynchronies. Here, we examine whether the prolonged recalibration process of passively sensed visual and auditory signals is affected by naturally occurring multisensory training known to enhance audiovisual perceptual accuracy. Hence, we asked a group of drummers, of non-drummer musicians and of non-musicians to judge the audiovisual simultaneity of musical and non-musical audiovisual events, before and after adaptation with two fixed audiovisual asynchronies. We found that the recalibration for the musicians and drummers was in the opposite direction (sound leading vision) to that of non-musicians (vision leading sound), and change together with both increased music training and increased perceptual accuracy (i.e. ability to detect asynchrony). Our findings demonstrate that long-term musical training reshapes the way humans adaptively recalibrate simultaneity between auditory and visual signals.

Perceiving individuality in harpsichord performance

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Réka eKoren

2014-02-01

Full Text Available Can listeners recognize the individual characteristics of unfamiliar performers playing two different musical pieces on the harpsichord? Six professional harpsichordists, three prize-winners and three non prize-winners, made two recordings of two pieces from the Baroque period (a variation on a partita by Frescobaldi and a rondo by François Couperin on an instrument equipped with a MIDI console. Short (8 to 15 seconds excerpts from these 24 recordings were subsequently used in a sorting task in which twenty musicians and twenty non-musicians, balanced for gender, listened to these excerpts and grouped together those that they thought had been played by the same performer. Twenty-six participants, including 17 musicians and 9 non-musicians, performed significantly better than chance, demonstrating that the excerpts contained sufficient information to enable listeners to recognize the individual characteristics of the performers. The grouping accuracy of musicians was significantly higher than that observed for non‐musicians. No significant difference in grouping accuracy was found between prize-winning performers and non-winners or between genders. However, the grouping accuracy was significantly higher for the rondo than for the variation, suggesting that the features of the two pieces differed in a way that affected the listeners’ ability to sort them accurately. Furthermore, only musicians performed above chance level when matching variation excerpts with rondo excerpts, suggesting that accurately assigning recordings of different pieces to their performer may require musical training. Comparisons between the MIDI performance data and the results of the sorting task revealed that tempo and, to a lesser extent, note onset asynchrony were the most important predictors of the perceived distance between performers, and that listeners appeared to rely mostly on a holistic percept of the excerpts rather than on a comparison of note

The effects of musical training on movement pre-programming and re-programming abilities: an event-related potential investigation.

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Anatürk, Melis; Jentzsch, Ines

2015-03-01

Two response precuing experiments were conducted to investigate effects of musical skill level on the ability to pre- and re-programme simple movements. Participants successfully used advance information to prepare forthcoming responses and showed response slowing when precue information was invalid rather than valid. This slowing was, however, only observed for partially invalid but not fully invalid precues. Musicians were generally faster than non-musicians, but no group differences in the efficiency of movement pre-programming or re-programming were observed. Interestingly, only musicians exhibited a significant foreperiod lateralized readiness potential (LRP) when response hand was pre-specified or full advance information was provided. These LRP findings suggest increased effector-specific motor preparation in musicians than non-musicians. However, here the levels of effector-specific preparation did not predict preparatory advantages observed in behaviour. In sum, combining the response precuing and ERP paradigms serves a valuable tool to examine influences of musical training on movement pre- or re-programming processes. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

An Observational Study of Intermediate Band Students' Self-Regulated Practice Behaviors

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Miksza, Peter; Prichard, Stephanie; Sorbo, Diana

2012-01-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate intermediate musicians' self-regulated practice behaviors. Thirty sixth- through eighth-grade students were observed practicing band repertoire individually for 20 min. Practice sessions were coded according to practice frame frequency and duration, length of musical passage selected, most prominent…

Music reading expertise modulates hemispheric lateralization in English word processing but not in Chinese character processing.

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Li, Sara Tze Kwan; Hsiao, Janet Hui-Wen

2018-07-01

Music notation and English word reading both involve mapping horizontally arranged visual components to components in sound, in contrast to reading in logographic languages such as Chinese. Accordingly, music-reading expertise may influence English word processing more than Chinese character processing. Here we showed that musicians named English words significantly faster than non-musicians when words were presented in the left visual field/right hemisphere (RH) or the center position, suggesting an advantage of RH processing due to music reading experience. This effect was not observed in Chinese character naming. A follow-up ERP study showed that in a sequential matching task, musicians had reduced RH N170 responses to English non-words under the processing of musical segments as compared with non-musicians, suggesting a shared visual processing mechanism in the RH between music notation and English non-word reading. This shared mechanism may be related to the letter-by-letter, serial visual processing that characterizes RH English word recognition (e.g., Lavidor & Ellis, 2001), which may consequently facilitate English word processing in the RH in musicians. Thus, music reading experience may have differential influences on the processing of different languages, depending on their similarities in the cognitive processes involved. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Psychometric Properties of the Pain Numeric Rating Scale When Applied to Multiple Body Regions among Professional Musicians

Science.gov (United States)

2016-01-01

Background Despite the broad popularity of a numeric rating scale (NRS) its psychometric properties are not well known. The objective was to determine if there is any difference in the discrimination ability of the NRS when used for measuring pain severity separately in different body regions. Methods Cross-sectional survey study of 630 professional musicians. Item Response Theory (IRT) was used to define the psychometric properties of the NRS. Results The discrimination ability of the pain NRS was dependent on the body area to which it was applied. The discrimination was low 0.5 (95% CI 0.4. to 0.7) for the hand region and perfect for the shoulder and upper part of the neck– 3.2 (95% CI 1.2 to 5.2) and 10.5 (95% CI 10.0 to 10.9), respectively. Both shoulder and neck NRSs showed a great shift towards higher levels of pain severity meaning that the ability of the NRS to discriminate low levels of pain is poor. NRS scores obtained from all other regions did not demonstrate any discrimination ability. Conclusions The pain NRS might have different psychometric properties depending on the body area to which it is applied. Overall, the modest discrimination ability of the pain NRS implies that it should be used in screening questionnaires with some reservations. PMID:27603011

Improvisation and the self-organization of multiple musical bodies.

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Ashley eWalton

2015-04-01

Full Text Available Understanding everyday behavior relies heavily upon understanding our ability to improvise, how we are able to continuously anticipate and adapt in order to coordinate with our environment and others. Here we consider the ability of musicians to improvise, where they must spontaneously coordinate their actions with co-performers in order to produce novel musical expressions. Investigations of this behavior have traditionally focused on describing the organization of cognitive structures. The focus, here, however, is on the ability of the time-evolving patterns of inter-musician movement coordination as revealed by the mathematical tools of complex dynamical systems to provide a new understanding of what potentiates the novelty of spontaneous musical action. We demonstrate this approach through the application of cross wavelet spectral analysis, which isolates the strength and patterning of the behavioral coordination that occurs between improvising musicians across a range of nested time-scales. Revealing the sophistication of the previously unexplored dynamics of movement coordination between improvising musicians is an important step towards understanding how creative musical expressions emerge from the spontaneous coordination of multiple musical bodies.

Improvisation and the self-organization of multiple musical bodies.

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Walton, Ashley E; Richardson, Michael J; Langland-Hassan, Peter; Chemero, Anthony

2015-01-01

Understanding everyday behavior relies heavily upon understanding our ability to improvise, how we are able to continuously anticipate and adapt in order to coordinate with our environment and others. Here we consider the ability of musicians to improvise, where they must spontaneously coordinate their actions with co-performers in order to produce novel musical expressions. Investigations of this behavior have traditionally focused on describing the organization of cognitive structures. The focus, here, however, is on the ability of the time-evolving patterns of inter-musician movement coordination as revealed by the mathematical tools of complex dynamical systems to provide a new understanding of what potentiates the novelty of spontaneous musical action. We demonstrate this approach through the application of cross wavelet spectral analysis, which isolates the strength and patterning of the behavioral coordination that occurs between improvising musicians across a range of nested time-scales. Revealing the sophistication of the previously unexplored dynamics of movement coordination between improvising musicians is an important step toward understanding how creative musical expressions emerge from the spontaneous coordination of multiple musical bodies.

Attention to affective audio-visual information: Comparison between musicians and non-musicians

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Weijkamp, J.; Sadakata, M.

2017-01-01

Individuals with more musical training repeatedly demonstrate enhanced auditory perception abilities. The current study examined how these enhanced auditory skills interact with attention to affective audio-visual stimuli. A total of 16 participants with more than 5 years of musical training

Generality and specificity in the effects of musical expertise on perception and cognition.

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Carey, Daniel; Rosen, Stuart; Krishnan, Saloni; Pearce, Marcus T; Shepherd, Alex; Aydelott, Jennifer; Dick, Frederic

2015-04-01

Performing musicians invest thousands of hours becoming experts in a range of perceptual, attentional, and cognitive skills. The duration and intensity of musicians' training - far greater than that of most educational or rehabilitation programs - provides a useful model to test the extent to which skills acquired in one particular context (music) generalize to different domains. Here, we asked whether the instrument-specific and more instrument-general skills acquired during professional violinists' and pianists' training would generalize to superior performance on a wide range of analogous (largely non-musical) skills, when compared to closely matched non-musicians. Violinists and pianists outperformed non-musicians on fine-grained auditory psychophysical measures, but surprisingly did not differ from each other, despite the different demands of their instruments. Musician groups did differ on a tuning system perception task: violinists showed clearest biases towards the tuning system specific to their instrument, suggesting that long-term experience leads to selective perceptual benefits given a training-relevant context. However, we found only weak evidence of group differences in non-musical skills, with musicians differing marginally in one measure of sustained auditory attention, but not significantly on auditory scene analysis or multi-modal sequencing measures. Further, regression analyses showed that this sustained auditory attention metric predicted more variance in one auditory psychophysical measure than did musical expertise. Our findings suggest that specific musical expertise may yield distinct perceptual outcomes within contexts close to the area of training. Generalization of expertise to relevant cognitive domains may be less clear, particularly where the task context is non-musical. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Detecting scale violations in absence of mismatch requires music-syntactic analysis: a further look at the early right anterior negativity (ERAN).

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Kalda, Tiina; Minati, Ludovico

2012-07-01

The purpose of this study was to determine whether infrequent scale violations in a sequence of in-key notes are detected when the deviants are matched for frequency of occurrence and preceding intervals with the control notes. We further investigated whether the detectability of scale violations is modulated by the presence of melodic context and by the level of musical training. Event related potentials were recorded from 14 musicians and 13 non-musicians. In non-musicians, the out-of-key notes elicited an early right anterior negativity (ERAN), which appeared prominently over right frontal sites only when presented within structured sequences; no effects were found when the out-of-key notes were presented within scrambled sequences. In musicians, the out-of-key notes elicited a similar bilateral ERAN in structured and scrambled sequences. Our findings suggest that scale information is processed at the level of music-syntactic analysis, and that the detection of deviants does not require activation of auditory sensory memory by mismatch effects. Scales are perceived as a broader context, not just as online interval relations. Additional melodic context information appears necessary to support the representation of scale deviants in non-musicians, but not in musically-trained individuals, likely as a consequence of stronger pre-existing representations.

Effects of test method and participant musical training on preference ratings of stimuli with different reverberation times.

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Lawless, Martin S; Vigeant, Michelle C

2017-10-01

Selecting an appropriate listening test design for concert hall research depends on several factors, including listening test method and participant critical-listening experience. Although expert listeners afford more reliable data, their perceptions may not be broadly representative. The present paper contains two studies that examined the validity and reliability of the data obtained from two listening test methods, a successive and a comparative method, and two types of participants, musicians and non-musicians. Participants rated their overall preference of auralizations generated from eight concert hall conditions with a range of reverberation times (0.0-7.2 s). Study 1, with 34 participants, assessed the two methods. The comparative method yielded similar results and reliability as the successive method. Additionally, the comparative method was rated as less difficult and more preferable. For study 2, an additional 37 participants rated the stimuli using the comparative method only. An analysis of variance of the responses from both studies revealed that musicians are better than non-musicians at discerning their preferences across stimuli. This result was confirmed with a k-means clustering analysis on the entire dataset that revealed five preference groups. Four groups exhibited clear preferences to the stimuli, while the fifth group, predominantly comprising non-musicians, demonstrated no clear preference.

Perceiving pitch absolutely: Comparing absolute and relative pitch possessors in a pitch memory task

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Schlaug Gottfried

2009-08-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The perceptual-cognitive mechanisms and neural correlates of Absolute Pitch (AP are not fully understood. The aim of this fMRI study was to examine the neural network underlying AP using a pitch memory experiment and contrasting two groups of musicians with each other, those that have AP and those that do not. Results We found a common activation pattern for both groups that included the superior temporal gyrus (STG extending into the adjacent superior temporal sulcus (STS, the inferior parietal lobule (IPL extending into the adjacent intraparietal sulcus (IPS, the posterior part of the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG, the pre-supplementary motor area (pre-SMA, and superior lateral cerebellar regions. Significant between-group differences were seen in the left STS during the early encoding phase of the pitch memory task (more activation in AP musicians and in the right superior parietal lobule (SPL/intraparietal sulcus (IPS during the early perceptual phase (ITP 0–3 and later working memory/multimodal encoding phase of the pitch memory task (more activation in non-AP musicians. Non-significant between-group trends were seen in the posterior IFG (more in AP musicians and the IPL (more anterior activations in the non-AP group and more posterior activations in the AP group. Conclusion Since the increased activation of the left STS in AP musicians was observed during the early perceptual encoding phase and since the STS has been shown to be involved in categorization tasks, its activation might suggest that AP musicians involve categorization regions in tonal tasks. The increased activation of the right SPL/IPS in non-AP musicians indicates either an increased use of regions that are part of a tonal working memory (WM network, or the use of a multimodal encoding strategy such as the utilization of a visual-spatial mapping scheme (i.e., imagining notes on a staff or using a spatial coding for their relative pitch height for pitch

Why noise-induced hearing loss of industrial workers is dramatic while that of similarly assessed musicians has been described as trivial

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Bies, David

2005-09-01

Criteria for noise exposure considered acceptable for hearing protection are based upon industrial experience, yet these same criteria do not describe the experience of musicians. Investigation of the physics of the human ear reveals a basic design compromise that explains this anomaly. Acoustic stimulation is encoded in the velocity response of the basilar membrane, which makes possible the use of damping control to achieve the dynamic range of the ear. The use of damping control for this purpose without unacceptable distortions is possible if damping is slowly varying. The ear is free running and guided by previous instruction, making it vulnerable to loud impulsive sounds. To protect the ear the aural reflex is provided, but this protection is limited to frequencies below about 1 to 2 kHz. In the natural environment this design compromise is satisfactory, but in the industrial environment loud impulsive sounds are common and the compromise fails. It is to be noted that impulsive sounds of high frequency and level for which the ear has no defense, and which are not characteristic of music, are averaged to zero using standard assessment procedures.

Musical training, bilingualism, and executive function: working memory and inhibitory control.

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D'Souza, Annalise A; Moradzadeh, Linda; Wiseheart, Melody

2018-01-01

The current study investigated whether long-term experience in music or a second language is associated with enhanced cognitive functioning. Early studies suggested the possibility of a cognitive advantage from musical training and bilingualism but have failed to be replicated by recent findings. Further, each form of expertise has been independently investigated leaving it unclear whether any benefits are specifically caused by each skill or are a result of skill learning in general. To assess whether cognitive benefits from training exist, and how unique they are to each training domain, the current study compared musicians and bilinguals to each other, plus to individuals who had expertise in both skills, or neither. Young adults ( n = 153) were categorized into one of four groups: monolingual musician; bilingual musician; bilingual non-musician; and monolingual non-musician. Multiple tasks per cognitive ability were used to examine the coherency of any training effects. Results revealed that musically trained individuals, but not bilinguals, had enhanced working memory. Neither skill had enhanced inhibitory control. The findings confirm previous associations between musicians and improved cognition and extend existing evidence to show that benefits are narrower than expected but can be uniquely attributed to music compared to another specialized auditory skill domain. The null bilingual effect despite a music effect in the same group of individuals challenges the proposition that young adults are at a performance ceiling and adds to increasing evidence on the lack of a bilingual advantage on cognition.

How musical expertise shapes speech perception: evidence from auditory classification images.

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Varnet, Léo; Wang, Tianyun; Peter, Chloe; Meunier, Fanny; Hoen, Michel

2015-09-24

It is now well established that extensive musical training percolates to higher levels of cognition, such as speech processing. However, the lack of a precise technique to investigate the specific listening strategy involved in speech comprehension has made it difficult to determine how musicians' higher performance in non-speech tasks contributes to their enhanced speech comprehension. The recently developed Auditory Classification Image approach reveals the precise time-frequency regions used by participants when performing phonemic categorizations in noise. Here we used this technique on 19 non-musicians and 19 professional musicians. We found that both groups used very similar listening strategies, but the musicians relied more heavily on the two main acoustic cues, at the first formant onset and at the onsets of the second and third formants onsets. Additionally, they responded more consistently to stimuli. These observations provide a direct visualization of auditory plasticity resulting from extensive musical training and shed light on the level of functional transfer between auditory processing and speech perception.

Time course of the influence of musical expertise on the processing of vocal and musical sounds.

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Rigoulot, S; Pell, M D; Armony, J L

2015-04-02

Previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have suggested that different cerebral regions preferentially process human voice and music. Yet, little is known on the temporal course of the brain processes that decode the category of sounds and how the expertise in one sound category can impact these processes. To address this question, we recorded the electroencephalogram (EEG) of 15 musicians and 18 non-musicians while they were listening to short musical excerpts (piano and violin) and vocal stimuli (speech and non-linguistic vocalizations). The task of the participants was to detect noise targets embedded within the stream of sounds. Event-related potentials revealed an early differentiation of sound category, within the first 100 ms after the onset of the sound, with mostly increased responses to musical sounds. Importantly, this effect was modulated by the musical background of participants, as musicians were more responsive to music sounds than non-musicians, consistent with the notion that musical training increases sensitivity to music. In late temporal windows, brain responses were enhanced in response to vocal stimuli, but musicians were still more responsive to music. These results shed new light on the temporal course of neural dynamics of auditory processing and reveal how it is impacted by the stimulus category and the expertise of participants. Copyright © 2015 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A voxel-based approach to gray matter asymmetries.

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Luders, E; Gaser, C; Jancke, L; Schlaug, G

2004-06-01

Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) was used to analyze gray matter (GM) asymmetries in a large sample (n = 60) of male and female professional musicians with and without absolute pitch (AP). We chose to examine these particular groups because previous studies using traditional region-of-interest (ROI) analyses have shown differences in hemispheric asymmetry related to AP and gender. Voxel-based methods may have advantages over traditional ROI-based methods since the analysis can be performed across the whole brain with minimal user bias. After determining that the VBM method was sufficiently sensitive for the detection of differences in GM asymmetries between groups, we found that male AP musicians were more leftward lateralized in the anterior region of the planum temporale (PT) than male non-AP musicians. This confirmed the results of previous studies using ROI-based methods that showed an association between PT asymmetry and the AP phenotype. We further observed that male non-AP musicians revealed an increased leftward GM asymmetry in the postcentral gyrus compared to female non-AP musicians, again corroborating results of a previously published study using ROI-based methods. By analyzing hemispheric GM differences across our entire sample, we were able to partially confirm findings of previous studies using traditional morphometric techniques, as well as more recent, voxel-based analyses. In addition, we found some unusually pronounced GM asymmetries in our musician sample not previously detected in subjects unselected for musical training. Since we were able to validate gender- and AP-related brain asymmetries previously described using traditional ROI-based morphometric techniques, the results of our analyses support the use of VBM for examinations of GM asymmetries.

Effects of musicianship and experimental task on perceptual segmentation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hartmann, Martin; Lartillot, Olivier; Toiviainen, Petri

2015-01-01

-linear fuzzy integration of basic and interaction descriptors of local musical novelty. We found that musicianship of listeners and segmentation task had an effect on model prediction rate, dimensionality and components. Changes in tonality and rhythm, as well as simultaneous change of these aspects were......The perceptual structure of music is a fundamental issue in music psychology that can be systematically addressed via computational models. This study estimated the contribution of spectral, rhythmic and tonal descriptors for prediction of perceptual segmentation across stimuli. In a real-time task......, 18 musicians and 18 non-musicians indicated perceived instants of significant change for six ongoing musical stimuli. In a second task, 18 musicians parsed the same stimuli using audio editing software to provide non-real-time segmentation annotations. We built computational models based on a non...

A Mozart is not a Pavarotti: singers outperform instrumentalists on foreign accent imitation.

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Christiner, Markus; Reiterer, Susanne Maria

2015-01-01

Recent findings have shown that people with higher musical aptitude were also better in oral language imitation tasks. However, whether singing capacity and instrument playing contribute differently to the imitation of speech has been ignored so far. Research has just recently started to understand that instrumentalists develop quite distinct skills when compared to vocalists. In the same vein the role of the vocal motor system in language acquisition processes has poorly been investigated as most investigations (neurobiological and behavioral) favor to examine speech perception. We set out to test whether the vocal motor system can influence an ability to learn, produce and perceive new languages by contrasting instrumentalists and vocalists. Therefore, we investigated 96 participants, 27 instrumentalists, 33 vocalists and 36 non-musicians/non-singers. They were tested for their abilities to imitate foreign speech: unknown language (Hindi), second language (English) and their musical aptitude. Results revealed that both instrumentalists and vocalists have a higher ability to imitate unintelligible speech and foreign accents than non-musicians/non-singers. Within the musician group, vocalists outperformed instrumentalists significantly. First, adaptive plasticity for speech imitation is not reliant on audition alone but also on vocal-motor induced processes. Second, vocal flexibility of singers goes together with higher speech imitation aptitude. Third, vocal motor training, as of singers, may speed up foreign language acquisition processes.

The effects of context and musical training on auditory temporal-interval discrimination.

Science.gov (United States)

Banai, Karen; Fisher, Shirley; Ganot, Ron

2012-02-01

Non sensory factors such as stimulus context and musical experience are known to influence auditory frequency discrimination, but whether the context effect extends to auditory temporal processing remains unknown. Whether individual experiences such as musical training alter the context effect is also unknown. The goal of the present study was therefore to investigate the effects of stimulus context and musical experience on auditory temporal-interval discrimination. In experiment 1, temporal-interval discrimination was compared between fixed context conditions in which a single base temporal interval was presented repeatedly across all trials and variable context conditions in which one of two base intervals was randomly presented on each trial. Discrimination was significantly better in the fixed than in the variable context conditions. In experiment 2 temporal discrimination thresholds of musicians and non-musicians were compared across 3 conditions: a fixed context condition in which the target interval was presented repeatedly across trials, and two variable context conditions differing in the frequencies used for the tones marking the temporal intervals. Musicians outperformed non-musicians on all 3 conditions, but the effects of context were similar for the two groups. Overall, it appears that, like frequency discrimination, temporal-interval discrimination benefits from having a fixed reference. Musical experience, while improving performance, did not alter the context effect, suggesting that improved discrimination skills among musicians are probably not an outcome of more sensitive contextual facilitation or predictive coding mechanisms. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

How Different Are Our Perceptions of Equal-Tempered and Microtonal Intervals? A Behavioural and EEG Survey.

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Freya Bailes

Full Text Available For listeners familiar with Western twelve-tone equal-tempered (12-TET music, a novel microtonal tuning system is expected to present additional processing challenges. We aimed to determine whether this was the case, focusing on the extent to which our perceptions can be considered bottom-up (psychoacoustic and primarily perceptual and top-down (dependent on familiarity and cognitive processing. We elicited both overt response ratings, and covert event-related potentials (ERPs, so as to compare subjective impressions of sounds with the neurophysiological processing of the acoustic signal. We hypothesised that microtonal intervals are perceived differently from 12-TET intervals, and that the responses of musicians (n = 10 and non-musicians (n = 10 are distinct. Two-note chords were presented comprising 12-TET intervals (consonant and dissonant or microtonal (quarter tone intervals, and ERP, subjective roughness ratings, and liking ratings were recorded successively. Musical experience mediated the perception of differences between dissonant and microtone intervals, with non-musicians giving similar ratings for each, and musicians preferring dissonant over the less commonly used microtonal intervals, rating them as less rough. ERP response amplitude was greater for consonant intervals than other intervals. Musical experience interacted with interval type, suggesting that musical expertise facilitates the sensory and perceptual discrimination of microtonal intervals from 12-TET intervals, and an increased ability to categorize such intervals. Non-musicians appear to have perceived microtonal intervals as instances of neighbouring 12-TET intervals.

Electromagnetic correlates of musical expertise in processing of tone patterns.

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Kuchenbuch, Anja; Paraskevopoulos, Evangelos; Herholz, Sibylle C; Pantev, Christo

2012-01-01

Using magnetoencephalography (MEG), we investigated the influence of long term musical training on the processing of partly imagined tone patterns (imagery condition) compared to the same perceived patterns (perceptual condition). The magnetic counterpart of the mismatch negativity (MMNm) was recorded and compared between musicians and non-musicians in order to assess the effect of musical training on the detection of deviants to tone patterns. The results indicated a clear MMNm in the perceptual condition as well as in a simple pitch oddball (control) condition in both groups. However, there was no significant mismatch response in either group in the imagery condition despite above chance behavioral performance in the task of detecting deviant tones. The latency and the laterality of the MMNm in the perceptual condition differed significantly between groups, with an earlier MMNm in musicians, especially in the left hemisphere. In contrast the MMNm amplitudes did not differ significantly between groups. The behavioral results revealed a clear effect of long-term musical training in both experimental conditions. The obtained results represent new evidence that the processing of tone patterns is faster and more strongly lateralized in musically trained subjects, which is consistent with other findings in different paradigms of enhanced auditory neural system functioning due to long-term musical training.

Sensitive periods in human development: evidence from musical training.

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Penhune, Virginia B

2011-10-01

One of the primary goals of cognitive neuroscience is to understand the interaction between genes, development and specific experience. A particularly fascinating example of this interaction is a sensitive period - a time during development when experience has a differential effect on behavior and the brain. Behavioral and brain imaging studies in musicians have provided suggestive evidence for a possible sensitive period for musical training; showing that musicians who began training early show better task performance and greater changes in auditory and motor regions of the brain. However, these studies have not controlled for likely differences between early- (ET) and late-trained (LT) musicians in the number of years of musical experience. This review presents behavioral work from our laboratory comparing the performance of ET (before age seven) and LT musicians who were matched for years of experience on the ability to tap in synchrony with auditory and visual rhythms. The results demonstrate the existence of a possible sensitive period for musical training that has its greatest impact on measures of sensorimotor integration. Work on motor learning in children and how this might relate to the observed sensitive period effect is also reviewed. These studies are described in the context of what is currently known about sensitive periods in animals and humans; drawing on evidence from anatomy and physiology, studies of deafness, as well as structural and functional neuroimaging studies in trained musicians. The possible mechanisms underlying sensitive periods for musical training are discussed based on current theories describing the influence of both low-level features of sensory experience and higher-level cognitive processing. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Srl. All rights reserved.

Absence of modulatory action on haptic height perception with musical pitch

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Michele eGeronazzo

2015-09-01

Full Text Available Although acoustic frequency is not a spatial property of physical objects, in common language, pitch, i.e., the psychological correlated of frequency, is often labeled spatially (i.e., high in pitch or low in pitch. Pitch-height is known to modulate (and interact with the response of participants when they are asked to judge spatial properties of non-auditory stimuli (e.g., visual in a variety of behavioral tasks. In the current study we investigated whether the modulatory action of pitch-height extended to the haptic estimation of height of a virtual step.We implemented a HW/SW setup which is able to render virtual 3D objects (stair-steps haptically through a PHANTOM device, and to provide real-time continuous auditory feedback depending on the user interaction with the object. The haptic exploration was associated with a sinusoidal tone whose pitch varied as a function of the interaction point’s height within (i a narrower and (ii a wider pitch range, or (iii a random pitch variation acting as a control audio condition. Explorations were also performed with no sound (haptic only. Participants were instructed to explore the virtual step freely, and to communicate height estimation by opening their thumb and index finger to mimic the step riser height, or verbally by reporting the height in centimeters of the step riser. We analyzed the role of musical expertise by dividing participants into non musicians and musicians. Results showed no effects of musical pitch on high-realistic haptic feedback. Overall there is no difference between the two groups in the proposed multimodal conditions. Additionally, we observed a different haptic response distribution between musicians and non musicians when estimations of the auditory conditions are matched with estimations in the no sound condition.

Health promotion and prevention in higher music education: results of a longitudinal study.

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Zander, Mark F; Voltmer, Edgar; Spahn, Claudia

2010-06-01

Music-related symptoms can already be found among student musicians during their years of university training. The goals of the present study were to ascertain the state and developmental course of the student musicians' health and to test the effectiveness of a preventive curriculum given to student musicians during their first two semesters at university. Within a longitudinal, observational study, we assessed students' psychological and physical health during the first 2 years of university training. We compared data from the group of students who had followed the prevention program (intervention group, IG, n = 144) with data of a comparison group (CG, n = 103) of students who had not followed the program. Using standardized questionnaires, we measured physical and psychological symptoms as well as health behavior in a sequential plan (duration, 3.5 yrs). Student musicians (n = 247) showed elevated ratings in psychological and physical health in comparison with nonmusicians of the same age. These ratings decreased at the end of the students' second year. The prevention program had a preventive effect on the students' psychological health: while IG students remained stable in their performance and powers of concentration, CG students got worse in those same areas. However, the prevention program did not reduce physical symptoms. In comparison with their younger colleagues, upper-level students took more courses in body-oriented methods, relaxation, and mental techniques, which focus on preventive measures for musicians. At present, the study offers evidence supporting the use of the prevention curriculum for young musicians. In higher music education, preventive education has a positive impact on students' performance and their attitude toward health. The preventive curriculum does not have an effect on preexisting physical symptoms, and those symptoms related to the students musicians' activity should rather be treated in an additional therapeutic setting.

Recent and past musical activity predicts cognitive aging variability: direct comparison with general lifestyle activities.

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Hanna-Pladdy, Brenda; Gajewski, Byron

2012-01-01

Studies evaluating the impact of modifiable lifestyle factors on cognition offer potential insights into sources of cognitive aging variability. Recently, we reported an association between extent of musical instrumental practice throughout the life span (greater than 10 years) on preserved cognitive functioning in advanced age. These findings raise the question of whether there are training-induced brain changes in musicians that can transfer to non-musical cognitive abilities to allow for compensation of age-related cognitive declines. However, because of the relationship between engagement in general lifestyle activities and preserved cognition, it remains unclear whether these findings are specifically driven by musical training or the types of individuals likely to engage in greater activities in general. The current study controlled for general activity level in evaluating cognition between musicians and nomusicians. Also, the timing of engagement (age of acquisition, past versus recent) was assessed in predictive models of successful cognitive aging. Seventy age and education matched older musicians (>10 years) and non-musicians (ages 59-80) were evaluated on neuropsychological tests and general lifestyle activities. Musicians scored higher on tests of phonemic fluency, verbal working memory, verbal immediate recall, visuospatial judgment, and motor dexterity, but did not differ in other general leisure activities. Partition analyses were conducted on significant cognitive measures to determine aspects of musical training predictive of enhanced cognition. The first partition analysis revealed education best predicted visuospatial functions in musicians, followed by recent musical engagement which offset low education. In the second partition analysis, early age of musical acquisition (memory in musicians, while analyses for other measures were not predictive. Recent and past musical activity, but not general lifestyle activities, predicted variability

"If You Have to Ask, You'll Never Know": Effects of Specialised Stylistic Expertise on Predictive Processing of Music

OpenAIRE

Hansen, Niels Chr.; Vuust, Peter; Pearce, Marcus

2016-01-01

Musical expertise entails meticulous stylistic specialisation and enculturation. Even so, research on musical training effects has focused on generalised comparisons between musicians and non-musicians, and cross-cultural work addressing specialised expertise has traded cultural specificity and sensitivity for other methodological limitations. This study aimed to experimentally dissociate the effects of specialised stylistic training and general musical expertise on the perception of melodies...

Expertise in musical improvisation and creativity: the mediation of idea evaluation.

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Oded M Kleinmintz

Full Text Available The current study explored the influence of musical expertise, and specifically training in improvisation on creativity, using the framework of the twofold model, according to which creativity involves a process of idea generation and idea evaluation. Based on the hypothesis that a strict evaluation phase may have an inhibiting effect over the generation phase, we predicted that training in improvisation may have a "releasing effect" on the evaluation system, leading to greater creativity. To examine this hypothesis, we compared performance among three groups--musicians trained in improvisation, musicians not trained in improvisation, and non-musicians--on divergent thinking tasks and on their evaluation of creativity. The improvisation group scored higher on fluency and originality compared to the other two groups. Among the musicians, evaluation of creativity mediated how experience in improvisation was related to originality and fluency scores. It is concluded that deliberate practice of improvisation may have a "releasing effect" on creativity.

Expertise in musical improvisation and creativity: the mediation of idea evaluation.

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Kleinmintz, Oded M; Goldstein, Pavel; Mayseless, Naama; Abecasis, Donna; Shamay-Tsoory, Simone G

2014-01-01

The current study explored the influence of musical expertise, and specifically training in improvisation on creativity, using the framework of the twofold model, according to which creativity involves a process of idea generation and idea evaluation. Based on the hypothesis that a strict evaluation phase may have an inhibiting effect over the generation phase, we predicted that training in improvisation may have a "releasing effect" on the evaluation system, leading to greater creativity. To examine this hypothesis, we compared performance among three groups--musicians trained in improvisation, musicians not trained in improvisation, and non-musicians--on divergent thinking tasks and on their evaluation of creativity. The improvisation group scored higher on fluency and originality compared to the other two groups. Among the musicians, evaluation of creativity mediated how experience in improvisation was related to originality and fluency scores. It is concluded that deliberate practice of improvisation may have a "releasing effect" on creativity.

Expertise in Musical Improvisation and Creativity: The Mediation of Idea Evaluation

Science.gov (United States)

Kleinmintz, Oded M.; Goldstein, Pavel; Mayseless, Naama; Abecasis, Donna; Shamay-Tsoory, Simone G.

2014-01-01

The current study explored the influence of musical expertise, and specifically training in improvisation on creativity, using the framework of the twofold model, according to which creativity involves a process of idea generation and idea evaluation. Based on the hypothesis that a strict evaluation phase may have an inhibiting effect over the generation phase, we predicted that training in improvisation may have a “releasing effect” on the evaluation system, leading to greater creativity. To examine this hypothesis, we compared performance among three groups - musicians trained in improvisation, musicians not trained in improvisation, and non-musicians - on divergent thinking tasks and on their evaluation of creativity. The improvisation group scored higher on fluency and originality compared to the other two groups. Among the musicians, evaluation of creativity mediated how experience in improvisation was related to originality and fluency scores. It is concluded that deliberate practice of improvisation may have a “releasing effect” on creativity. PMID:25010334

Pianists exhibit enhanced memory for vocal melodies but not piano melodies.

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Weiss, Michael W; Vanzella, Patrícia; Schellenberg, E Glenn; Trehub, Sandra E

2015-01-01

Nonmusicians remember vocal melodies (i.e., sung to la la) better than instrumental melodies. If greater exposure to the voice contributes to those effects, then long-term experience with instrumental timbres should elicit instrument-specific advantages. Here we evaluate this hypothesis by comparing pianists with other musicians and nonmusicians. We also evaluate the possibility that absolute pitch (AP), which involves exceptional memory for isolated pitches, influences melodic memory. Participants heard 24 melodies played in four timbres (voice, piano, banjo, marimba) and were subsequently required to distinguish the melodies heard previously from 24 novel melodies presented in the same timbres. Musicians performed better than nonmusicians, but both groups showed a comparable memory advantage for vocal melodies. Moreover, pianists performed no better on melodies played on piano than on other instruments, and AP musicians performed no differently than non-AP musicians. The findings confirm the robust nature of the voice advantage and rule out explanations based on familiarity, practice, and motor representations.

Rhythm and Melody Tasks for School-Aged Children With and Without Musical Training: Age-Equivalent Scores and Reliability

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Kierla Ireland

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Measuring musical abilities in childhood can be challenging. When music training and maturation occur simultaneously, it is difficult to separate the effects of specific experience from age-based changes in cognitive and motor abilities. The goal of this study was to develop age-equivalent scores for two measures of musical ability that could be reliably used with school-aged children (7–13 with and without musical training. The children's Rhythm Synchronization Task (c-RST and the children's Melody Discrimination Task (c-MDT were adapted from adult tasks developed and used in our laboratories. The c-RST is a motor task in which children listen and then try to synchronize their taps with the notes of a woodblock rhythm while it plays twice in a row. The c-MDT is a perceptual task in which the child listens to two melodies and decides if the second was the same or different. We administered these tasks to 213 children in music camps (musicians, n = 130 and science camps (non-musicians, n = 83. We also measured children's paced tapping, non-paced tapping, and phonemic discrimination as baseline motor and auditory abilities We estimated internal-consistency reliability for both tasks, and compared children's performance to results from studies with adults. As expected, musically trained children outperformed those without music lessons, scores decreased as difficulty increased, and older children performed the best. Using non-musicians as a reference group, we generated a set of age-based z-scores, and used them to predict task performance with additional years of training. Years of lessons significantly predicted performance on both tasks, over and above the effect of age. We also assessed the relation between musician's scores on music tasks, baseline tasks, auditory working memory, and non-verbal reasoning. Unexpectedly, musician children outperformed non-musicians in two of three baseline tasks. The c-RST and c-MDT fill an important need for

Rhythm and Melody Tasks for School-Aged Children With and Without Musical Training: Age-Equivalent Scores and Reliability.

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Ireland, Kierla; Parker, Averil; Foster, Nicholas; Penhune, Virginia

2018-01-01

Measuring musical abilities in childhood can be challenging. When music training and maturation occur simultaneously, it is difficult to separate the effects of specific experience from age-based changes in cognitive and motor abilities. The goal of this study was to develop age-equivalent scores for two measures of musical ability that could be reliably used with school-aged children (7-13) with and without musical training. The children's Rhythm Synchronization Task (c-RST) and the children's Melody Discrimination Task (c-MDT) were adapted from adult tasks developed and used in our laboratories. The c-RST is a motor task in which children listen and then try to synchronize their taps with the notes of a woodblock rhythm while it plays twice in a row. The c-MDT is a perceptual task in which the child listens to two melodies and decides if the second was the same or different. We administered these tasks to 213 children in music camps (musicians, n = 130) and science camps (non-musicians, n = 83). We also measured children's paced tapping, non-paced tapping, and phonemic discrimination as baseline motor and auditory abilities We estimated internal-consistency reliability for both tasks, and compared children's performance to results from studies with adults. As expected, musically trained children outperformed those without music lessons, scores decreased as difficulty increased, and older children performed the best. Using non-musicians as a reference group, we generated a set of age-based z-scores, and used them to predict task performance with additional years of training. Years of lessons significantly predicted performance on both tasks, over and above the effect of age. We also assessed the relation between musician's scores on music tasks, baseline tasks, auditory working memory, and non-verbal reasoning. Unexpectedly, musician children outperformed non-musicians in two of three baseline tasks. The c-RST and c-MDT fill an important need for researchers

A Novel Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Paradigm for the Preoperative Assessment of Auditory Perception in a Musician Undergoing Temporal Lobe Surgery.

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Hale, Matthew D; Zaman, Arshad; Morrall, Matthew C H J; Chumas, Paul; Maguire, Melissa J

2018-03-01

Presurgical evaluation for temporal lobe epilepsy routinely assesses speech and memory lateralization and anatomic localization of the motor and visual areas but not baseline musical processing. This is paramount in a musician. Although validated tools exist to assess musical ability, there are no reported functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) paradigms to assess musical processing. We examined the utility of a novel fMRI paradigm in an 18-year-old left-handed pianist who underwent surgery for a left temporal low-grade ganglioglioma. Preoperative evaluation consisted of neuropsychological evaluation, T1-weighted and T2-weighted magnetic resonance imaging, and fMRI. Auditory blood oxygen level-dependent fMRI was performed using a dedicated auditory scanning sequence. Three separate auditory investigations were conducted: listening to, humming, and thinking about a musical piece. All auditory fMRI paradigms activated the primary auditory cortex with varying degrees of auditory lateralization. Thinking about the piece additionally activated the primary visual cortices (bilaterally) and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Humming demonstrated left-sided predominance of auditory cortex activation with activity observed in close proximity to the tumor. This study demonstrated an fMRI paradigm for evaluating musical processing that could form part of preoperative assessment for patients undergoing temporal lobe surgery for epilepsy. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

[Donatori di Musica: when oncology meets music].

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Graiff, Claudio

2014-10-01

Donatori di Musica is a network of musicians - both physicians and volunteers - that was initially founded in 2009 with the aim to set up and coordinate classical music concerts in hospitals. This activity was initially started and led by the Oncology Departments at Carrara and Bolzano Hospitals, where high profile professional musicians make themselves available for concerts in support of Oncological in/out-patients of that specific Hospital. A live classical music performance is a deeply touching experience - particularly for those who live a critical condition like cancer. Main characteristics of Donatori di Musica concerts are: continuity (concerts are part of a regular and non-stopping music season); quality (concerts are held by well-established professional musicians); philanthropic attitude (musicians do not wear a suit and usually chat with patients; they also select an easy-to-listen program; a convivial event is usually organized after the performance with the aim of overcoming distinctions and barriers between physician and patient); no profit: musicians perform for free - travel expenses and/or overnight staying only can be claimed; concerts have free access for patients, their families and hospital staff.Patients and musicians therefore do get in close contact and music is able to merge each other experiences - with patients being treated by the beauty of music and musicians being treated theirselves by patients daily-life feedback. The Donatori di Musica experience is therefore able to help Medicine to retrieve its very first significance - the medical act regain that human and cultural dimension that seems to be abandoned in the last decades in favour of a mere technicism. This is the spirit and the deep significance of Donatori di Musica - «[…] the hope that Music can become a key support to medical treatments in every Oncology department» (by Gian Andrea Lodovici).

INFLUENCE OF DANCE TRAINING ON SACCULOCOLLIC PATHWAY: VESTIBULAR EVOKED MYOGENIC POTENTIALS (VEMP) AS AN OBJECTIVE TOOL

OpenAIRE

Swathi; Sathish Kumar

2013-01-01

ABSTRACT : Auditory system is shaped by experience and training. Training (s ensory experience) induces neurophysiologic changes & plasticity in normal hearing individuals, hearing loss patients, hearing aid users and cochlear implanted subjects. Not only speech stimulus, but music also brings about functional and structural organi zation of the brain in musician compared to non - musicians. The Vestibular evoked myogenic potentials (VEMP) are a biphasic in...

Eating Disorders in Non-Dance Performing Artists: A Systematic Literature Review.

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Kapsetaki, Marianna E; Easmon, Charlie

2017-12-01

Previous literature on dancers and athletes has shown a large impact of eating disorders (EDs) on these individuals, but there is limited research on EDs affecting non-dance performing artists (i.e., musicians, actors, etc.). This systematic review aimed to identify and evaluate the literature on EDs in non-dance performing artists. A systematic review of the literature was performed on 24 databases, using search terms related to EDs and non-dance performing artists. All results from the databases were systematically screened for inclusion and exclusion criteria. The initial search returned 86,383 total articles, which after screening and removal of duplicates and irrelevant papers yielded 129 results. After screening the 129 full-text results for eligibility, 10 studies met criteria for inclusion: 6 papers addressed EDs in musicians, and 4 papers addressed EDs in theatre performers. Most studies used questionnaires and body mass index (BMI) as diagnostic tools for EDs. Most were small-scale studies and participants were mostly students. Because of the studies' heterogeneity and varying quality, the results obtained were often contradictory and questionable. Although there has been a lot of literature in dancers, we found relatively few studies associating EDs with other performing artists, and most were inconsistent in their information.

Art and Science: How Musical Training Shapes the Brain

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Karen Chan Barrett

2013-10-01

Full Text Available What makes a musician? In this review, we discuss innate and experience-dependent factors that mold the musician brain in addition to presenting new data in children that indicate that some neural enhancements in musicians unfold with continued training over development. We begin by addressing effects of training on musical expertise, presenting neural, perceptual and cognitive evidence to support the claim that musicians are shaped by their musical training regimes. For example, many musician-advantages in the neural encoding of sound, auditory perception, and auditory-cognitive skills correlate with their extent of musical training, are not observed in young children just initiating musical training, and differ based on the type of training pursued. Even amidst innate characteristics that contribute to the biological building blocks that make up the musician, musicians demonstrate further training-related enhancements through extensive education and practice. We conclude by reviewing evidence from neurobiological and epigenetic approaches to frame biological markers of musicianship in the context of interactions between genetic and experience-related factors.

Bilingualism and Musicianship Enhance Cognitive Control

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Scott R. Schroeder

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Learning how to speak a second language (i.e., becoming a bilingual and learning how to play a musical instrument (i.e., becoming a musician are both thought to increase executive control through experience-dependent plasticity. However, evidence supporting this effect is mixed for bilingualism and limited for musicianship. In addition, the combined effects of bilingualism and musicianship on executive control are unknown. To determine whether bilingualism, musicianship, and combined bilingualism and musicianship improve executive control, we tested 219 young adults belonging to one of four groups (bilinguals, musicians, bilingual musicians, and controls on a nonlinguistic, nonmusical, visual-spatial Simon task that measured the ability to ignore an irrelevant and misinformative cue. Results revealed that bilinguals, musicians, and bilingual musicians showed an enhanced ability to ignore a distracting cue relative to controls, with similar levels of superior performance among bilinguals, musicians, and bilingual musicians. These results indicate that bilingualism and musicianship improve executive control and have implications for educational and rehabilitation programs that use music and foreign language instruction to boost cognitive performance.

Bilingualism and Musicianship Enhance Cognitive Control.

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Schroeder, Scott R; Marian, Viorica; Shook, Anthony; Bartolotti, James

2016-01-01

Learning how to speak a second language (i.e., becoming a bilingual) and learning how to play a musical instrument (i.e., becoming a musician) are both thought to increase executive control through experience-dependent plasticity. However, evidence supporting this effect is mixed for bilingualism and limited for musicianship. In addition, the combined effects of bilingualism and musicianship on executive control are unknown. To determine whether bilingualism, musicianship, and combined bilingualism and musicianship improve executive control, we tested 219 young adults belonging to one of four groups (bilinguals, musicians, bilingual musicians, and controls) on a nonlinguistic, nonmusical, visual-spatial Simon task that measured the ability to ignore an irrelevant and misinformative cue. Results revealed that bilinguals, musicians, and bilingual musicians showed an enhanced ability to ignore a distracting cue relative to controls, with similar levels of superior performance among bilinguals, musicians, and bilingual musicians. These results indicate that bilingualism and musicianship improve executive control and have implications for educational and rehabilitation programs that use music and foreign language instruction to boost cognitive performance.

Impact of sound production by wind instruments on the temporomandibular system of male instrumentalists.

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Pampel, Michael; Jakstat, Holger A; Ahlers, Oliver M

2014-01-01

Playing a wind instrument can be either a reason for overuse or a protecting factor against certain diseases. Some individuals have many findings but low morbidity while others have few findings but high morbidity. This contradictory phenomenon should be researched. The temporomandibular system (TMS) is a functional unit which comprises the mandible, associated muscles and bilateral joints with the temporal bone. The TMS is responsible for the generation of sound when wind instruments are played. Over the long-term and with intensive usage, this causes changes in the musculature and in the temporomandibular joint (TMJ) of wind musicians, often resulting in temporomandibular disorders (TMD). The aim of this study is to examine evidence that TMD constitute an occupational disease in wind musicians. TMD patients and wind musicians were examined by dental clinical functional analysis. 102 male subjects were divided into three groups: "healthy" individuals, wind musicians, and patients with TMD. Dental Examination was carried out based on focused inclusion of the research diagnostic criteria - TMD [1,7]. Findings were evaluated for statistical significance by first transferring data into a digital database [2,15], then generating T-Test und Wilcoxon-Test when non-Gaussian distribution appears and applying the Mann-Whitney rank sum test using Sigmaplot Version 1.1 software (Systat Software Inc, Washington, USA). The evaluation revealed that wind instrument musicians show a high incidence of developing TMD as the researchers found almost 100% morbidity regarding parafunctional habits and preauricular muscle pain of each adult and highly active musician. The result is highly significant (pTMS.

Decision Making Strategy and the Simultaneous Processing of Syntactic Dependencies in Language and Music

OpenAIRE

Roncaglia-Denissen, M. P.; Bouwer, Fleur L.; Honing, Henkjan

2018-01-01

Despite differences in their function and domain-specific elements, syntactic processing in music and language is believed to share cognitive resources. This study aims to investigate whether the simultaneous processing of language and music share the use of a common syntactic processor or more general attentional resources. To investigate this matter we tested musicians and non-musicians using visually presented sentences and aurally presented melodies containing syntactic local and long-dis...

Questionnaire investigation of musicians’ use of hearing protectors, self reported hearing disorders and their experience of their working environment

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Laitinen, Heli; Poulsen, Torben

2008-01-01

Musicians in symphony orchestras are exposed to harmful sound levels. Although research shows that industrial workers have a higher propensity to noise induced hearing loss, musicians can also develop a hearing loss from noise exposure. Furthermore, musicians can suffer from tinnitus, hyperacusis...

Maximum Acceptable Vibrato Excursion as a Function of Vibrato Rate in Musicians and Non-musicians

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Vatti, Marianna; Santurette, Sébastien; Pontoppidan, Niels H.

2014-01-01

and, in most listeners, exhibited a peak at medium vibrato rates (5–7 Hz). Large across-subject variability was observed, and no significant effect of musical experience was found. Overall, most listeners were not solely sensitive to the vibrato excursion and there was a listener-dependent rate...... for which larger vibrato excursions were favored. The observed interaction between maximum excursion thresholds and vibrato rate may be due to the listeners’ judgments relying on cues provided by the rate of frequency changes (RFC) rather than excursion per se. Further studies are needed to evaluate......Human vibrato is mainly characterized by two parameters: vibrato extent and vibrato rate. These parameters have been found to exhibit an interaction both in physical recordings of singers’ voices and in listener’s preference ratings. This study was concerned with the way in which the maximum...

Mirror neuron activation of musicians and non-musicians in response to motion captured piano performances

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hou, Jiancheng; Rajmohan, Ravi; Fang, Dan

2017-01-01

Mirror neurons (MNs) activate when performing an action and when an observer witnesses the same action performed by another individual. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and presentation of motion captured piano performances were used to identify differences in MN activation...... pronounced in the “Enjoyment” mode. Our findings suggest that activation of MNs is not only initiated by the imagined action of an observed movement, but such activation is modulated by the level of musical expertise and knowledge of associated motor movements that the observer brings to the viewing...

Neck muscle function in violinists/violists with and without neck pain.

Science.gov (United States)

Steinmetz, Anke; Claus, Andrew; Hodges, Paul W; Jull, Gwendolen A

2016-04-01

Neck pain is associated with changes in neuromuscular control of cervical muscles. Violin and viola playing requires good function of the flexor muscles to stabilize the instrument. This study investigated the flexor muscle behaviour in violin/viola players with and without neck pain using the craniocervical flexion test (CCFT). In total, 12 violin/viola players with neck pain, 21 violin/viola players without neck pain in the preceding 12 weeks and 21 pain-free non-musicians were included. Activity of the sternocleidomastoid muscles (SCM) was measured with surface electromyography (EMG) during the CCFT. Violin/viola players with neck pain displayed greater normalised SCM EMG amplitudes during CCFT than the pain-free musicians and non-musicians (P neck pain in violinists/violists is associated with altered behaviour of the superficial neck flexor muscles consistent with neck pain, despite the specific use of the deep and superficial neck flexors during violin playing.

Top-Down Modulation on the Perception and Categorization of Identical Pitch Contours in Speech and Music

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Joey L. Weidema

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Whether pitch in language and music is governed by domain-specific or domain-general cognitive mechanisms is contentiously debated. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether mechanisms governing pitch contour perception operate differently when pitch information is interpreted as either speech or music. By modulating listening mode, this study aspired to demonstrate that pitch contour perception relies on domain-specific cognitive mechanisms, which are regulated by top-down influences from language and music. Three groups of participants (Mandarin speakers, Dutch speaking non-musicians, and Dutch musicians were exposed to identical pitch contours, and tested on their ability to identify these contours in a language and musical context. Stimuli consisted of disyllabic words spoken in Mandarin, and melodic tonal analogues, embedded in a linguistic and melodic carrier phrase, respectively. Participants classified identical pitch contours as significantly different depending on listening mode. Top-down influences from language appeared to alter the perception of pitch contour in speakers of Mandarin. This was not the case for non-musician speakers of Dutch. Moreover, this effect was lacking in Dutch speaking musicians. The classification patterns of pitch contours in language and music seem to suggest that domain-specific categorization is modulated by top-down influences from language and music.

Musical Sight-Reading Expertise: Cross Modality Investigations

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Drai-Zerbib Veronique

2011-05-01

Full Text Available It is often said that expert musicians are capable of hearing what they read and vice versa. This suggests that they are able to process and to integrate multimodal information. The study investigates this issue with an eye-tracking technique. Two groups of musicians chosen on the basis of their level of expertise (expert and non-experts had to read excerpts of classical piano music and play them on a keyboard. In half the conditions, the participants heard the music before the reading phases. The excerpts contained suggested fingering of variable difficulty (difficult, easy, or no fingering. Analyses of first-pass fixation duration, second-pass fixation duration, probability of refixations, and playing mistakes validated the hypothesized modal independence of information among expert musicians as compared to non-experts. The results are discussed in terms of amodal memory for expert musicians, and they extend clearly our previous findings (Drai-Zerbib & Baccino, 2005. The talk will demonstrate that more experienced performers are better able to transfer learning from one modality to another, which can be in support of theoretical work by Ericsson and Kintsch (1995: more experienced performers better integrate knowledge across modalities. This view relies on the general flexibility shown in the experts' behaviour.

What musicians do to induce the sensation of groove in simple and complex melodies, and how listeners perceive it

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Guy eMadison

2014-08-01

Full Text Available Groove is the experience of wanting to move when hearing music, such as snapping fingers or tapping feet. This is a central aspect of much music, in particular of music intended for dancing. While previous research has found considerable consistency in ratings of groove across individuals, it remains unclear how groove is induced, that is, what are the physical properties of the acoustic signal that differ between more and less groove-inducing versions. Here, we examined this issue with a performance experiment, in which 4 musicians performed 6 simple and 6 complex melodies in two conditions with the intention of minimizing and maximizing groove. Analyses of rhythmical and temporal properties from the performances demonstrated some general effects. For example, more groove was associated with more notes on faster metrical levels and syncopation, and less groove was associated with deadpan timing and destruction of the regular pulse. We did not observe that deviations from the metrical grid (i.e. micro-timing were a predictor of groove. A listener experiment confirmed that the musicians’ manipulations had the intended effects on the experience of groove. A Brunswikian lens model was applied, which estimates the performer-perceiver communication across the two experiments. It showed that the communication achievement for simple melodies was 0.62, and that the matching of performers’ and listeners’ use of 9 rhythmical cues was 0.83. For complex melodies with an already high level of groove, the corresponding values were 0.39 and 0.34, showing that it was much more difficult to take out groove from musical structures designed to induce groove.

Practiced musical style shapes auditory skills.

Science.gov (United States)

Vuust, Peter; Brattico, Elvira; Seppänen, Miia; Näätänen, Risto; Tervaniemi, Mari

2012-04-01

Musicians' processing of sounds depends highly on instrument, performance practice, and level of expertise. Here, we measured the mismatch negativity (MMN), a preattentive brain response, to six types of musical feature change in musicians playing three distinct styles of music (classical, jazz, and rock/pop) and in nonmusicians using a novel, fast, and musical sounding multifeature MMN paradigm. We found MMN to all six deviants, showing that MMN paradigms can be adapted to resemble a musical context. Furthermore, we found that jazz musicians had larger MMN amplitude than all other experimental groups across all sound features, indicating greater overall sensitivity to auditory outliers. Furthermore, we observed a tendency toward shorter latency of the MMN to all feature changes in jazz musicians compared to band musicians. These findings indicate that the characteristics of the style of music played by musicians influence their perceptual skills and the brain processing of sound features embedded in music. © 2012 New York Academy of Sciences.

Music and memory

OpenAIRE

Haefliger, Anna Berenika

2013-01-01

Abstract: Music and its different forms of use seem to benefit people in a number of ways. Research has suggested that extensive musical practice and musical listening enhances mental functioning in healthy adults and patients with neurodegenerative disease. Yet, the findings presented have not yet examined the effects both musical training and stimuli enhancement have on episodic memory recognition. 20 musicians and 20 non-musicians took part in an episodic memory task which evaluated m...

Brain morphometry shows effects of long-term musical practice in middle-aged keyboard players

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Hanna eGärtner

2013-09-01

Full Text Available To what extent does musical practice change the structure of the brain? In order to understand how long-lasting musical training changes brain structure, 20 male right-handed, middle-aged professional musicians and 19 matched controls were investigated. Among the musicians, 13 were pianists or organists with intensive practice regimes. The others were either music teachers at schools or string instrumentalists, who had studied the piano at least as a subsidiary subject, and practiced less intensively. The study was based on T1-weighted MR images, which were analyzed using Deformation Field Morphometry. Cytoarchitectonic probabilistic maps of cortical areas and subcortical nuclei as well as myeloarchitectonic maps of fiber tracts were used as regions of interest to compare volume differences in the brains of musicians and controls. In addition, maps of voxel-wise volume differences were computed and analyzed.Musicians showed a significantly better symmetric motor performance as well as a greater capability of controlling hand independence than controls. Structural MRI-data revealed significant volumetric differences between the brains of keyboard players, who practiced intensively and controls in right sensorimotor areas and the corticospinal tract as well as in the entorhinal cortex and the left superior parietal lobule. Moreover, they showed also larger volumes in a comparable set of regions than the less intensively practicing musicians. The structural changes in the sensory and motor systems correspond well to the behavioral results, and can be interpreted in terms of plasticity as a result of intensive motor training. Areas of the superior parietal lobule and the entorhinal cortex might be enlarged in musicians due to their special skills in sight-playing and memorizing of scores. In conclusion, intensive and specific musical training seems to have an impact on brain structure, not only during the sensitive period of childhood but throughout

Application of Infrared Thermal Imaging in a Violinist with Temporomandibular Disorder.

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Clemente, M; Coimbra, D; Silva, A; Aguiar Branco, C; Pinho, J C

2015-12-01

Temporomandibular disorders (TMD) consist of a group of pathologies that affect the masticatory muscles, temporomandibular joints (TMJ), and/or related structures. String instrumentalists, like many orchestra musicians, can spend hours with head postures that may influence the biomechanical behavior of the TMJ and the muscles of the craniocervicomandibular complex (CCMC). The adoption of abnormal postures acquired during performance by musicians can lead to muscular hyperactivity of the head and cervical muscles, with the possible appearance of TMD. Medical infrared thermography is a non-invasive procedure that can monitor the changes in the superficial tissue related to blood circulation and may serve as a complement to the clinical examination. The objective of this study was to use infrared thermography to evaluate, in one subject, the cutaneous thermal changes adjacent to the CCMC that occur before, during, and after playing a string instrument.

A motivação para o desenvolvimento do trabalho de músicos de orquestra The motivation for developing the work of orchestra musicians

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Fausto Kothe

2012-06-01

Full Text Available A motivação pode interferir na profissão musical, principalmente, pela necessidade constante da prática instrumental. No entanto, a literatura especializada não apresenta com clareza os principais fatores motivacionais para esta atividade profissional. Assim, buscou-se identificar os fatores relacionados à motivação para o desenvolvimento do trabalho de 22 instrumentistas de uma orquestra semi-profissional da região Sul do Brasil. A motivação foi avaliada por meio do questionário de FERREIRA et al. (2006 que apresenta 28 questões que buscam avaliar a motivação para o desenvolvimento das atividades profissionais relacionadas com a organização do trabalho, com realização e poder, com o desempenho e motivação associada ao envolvimento. Para a análise dos dados foi realizada a estatística descritiva por meio de média e desvio padrão e análise fatorial. Os resultados demonstraram que os fatores com a maior pontuação estão associados à motivação para a realização profissional e ao poder dentro da orquestra e com a motivação para o desenvolvimento das atividades profissionais relacionadas com a organização do trabalho. Essas informações se refletem nos resultados da análise fatorial que também indicou ambos os domínios como maior poder de explicação para se ter motivação para o desenvolvimento da prática junto ao instrumento. De forma geral, pode-se dizer que os instrumentistas encontram-se motivados para a realização do trabalho.Motivation can interfere with the music profession, especially by the constant need for instrumental practice. However, the literature does not show clearly the main motivating factors for this professional activity. Thus, we sought to identify the factors related to motivation for developing the work of 22 musicians from an unprofessional orchestra in southern Brazil. The motivation was assessed by questionnaire FERREIRA et al. (2006 with 28 questions that seek to assess the

Connecting Music Education and Virtual Performance Practices from YouTube

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Cayari, Christopher

2018-01-01

The Internet has inspired musicians to explore technologies to produce recorded music performances. Social media sites like YouTube provide spaces for musicians to share their works, and the advances of technologies that afford venues and opportunities for performers to share their crafts. As amateur Internet musicians develop practices to create…

Spiking the expectancy profiles

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hansen, Niels Chr.; Loui, Psyche; Vuust, Peter

Melodic expectations have long been quantified using expectedness ratings. Motivated by statistical learning and sharper key profiles in musicians, we model musical learning as a process of reducing the relative entropy between listeners' prior expectancy profiles and probability distributions...... of a given musical style or of stimuli used in short-term experiments. Five previous probe-tone experiments with musicians and non-musicians are revisited. Exp. 1-2 used jazz, classical and hymn melodies. Exp. 3-5 collected ratings before and after exposure to 5, 15 or 400 novel melodies generated from...... a finite-state grammar using the Bohlen-Pierce scale. We find group differences in entropy corresponding to degree and relevance of musical training and within-participant decreases after short-term exposure. Thus, whereas inexperienced listeners make high-entropy predictions by default, statistical...

Treatment and prevention of music performance anxiety.

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Spahn, Claudia

2015-01-01

Music performance anxiety (MPA) regularly occurs when musicians present themselves before an audience in performance situations, and thus, it plays an important role in the careers of professional musicians. MPA is expressed on the emotional and physical level, as well as on the levels of thinking and behavior, and extends along a continuum of varying severity. Its performance-impairing, afflicting form is considered to be a specific type of social phobia, which requires therapy. There are different psychological theories, which contribute to the understanding of the phenomenon of MPA and provide basic principles for the various treatment approaches. Current "best practice," in our clinical experience, is a personal- and problem-oriented approach within a multimodal therapy model, including the range of psychoanalytic and cognitive behavioral therapies, body-oriented methods, and mental techniques. In order to avoid severe MPA, prevention in the field of music pedagogic is very important. Thus, the concepts of dealing positively with MPA should be implemented very early into the instrumental and vocal education of musicians. © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Ulnar nerve entrapment in a French horn player.

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Hoppmann, R A

1997-10-01

Nerve entrapment syndromes are frequent among musicians. Because of the demands on the musculoskeletal system and the great agility needed to per-form, musicians often present with vague complaints early in the course of entrapment, which makes the diagnosis a challenge for the clinician. Presented here is such a case of ulnar nerve entrapment at the left elbow of a French horn player. This case points out some of the difficulties in establishing a diagnosis of nerve entrapment in musicians. It also supports the theory that prolonged elbow flexion and repetitive finger movement contribute to the development of ulnar entrapment at the elbow. Although surgery is not required for most of the musculoskeletal problems of musicians, release of an entrapped nerve refractory to conservative therapy may be career-saving for the musician.

Face Recognition, Musical Appraisal, and Emotional Crossmodal Bias.

Science.gov (United States)

Invitto, Sara; Calcagnì, Antonio; Mignozzi, Arianna; Scardino, Rosanna; Piraino, Giulia; Turchi, Daniele; De Feudis, Irio; Brunetti, Antonio; Bevilacqua, Vitoantonio; de Tommaso, Marina

2017-01-01

Recent research on the crossmodal integration of visual and auditory perception suggests that evaluations of emotional information in one sensory modality may tend toward the emotional value generated in another sensory modality. This implies that the emotions elicited by musical stimuli can influence the perception of emotional stimuli presented in other sensory modalities, through a top-down process. The aim of this work was to investigate how crossmodal perceptual processing influences emotional face recognition and how potential modulation of this processing induced by music could be influenced by the subject's musical competence. We investigated how emotional face recognition processing could be modulated by listening to music and how this modulation varies according to the subjective emotional salience of the music and the listener's musical competence. The sample consisted of 24 participants: 12 professional musicians and 12 university students (non-musicians). Participants performed an emotional go/no-go task whilst listening to music by Albeniz, Chopin, or Mozart. The target stimuli were emotionally neutral facial expressions. We examined the N170 Event-Related Potential (ERP) and behavioral responses (i.e., motor reaction time to target recognition and musical emotional judgment). A linear mixed-effects model and a decision-tree learning technique were applied to N170 amplitudes and latencies. The main findings of the study were that musicians' behavioral responses and N170 is more affected by the emotional value of music administered in the emotional go/no-go task and this bias is also apparent in responses to the non-target emotional face. This suggests that emotional information, coming from multiple sensory channels, activates a crossmodal integration process that depends upon the stimuli emotional salience and the listener's appraisal.

Importance of the left auditory areas in chord discrimination in music experts as demonstrated by MEG.

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Tervaniemi, Mari; Sannemann, Christian; Noyranen, Maiju; Salonen, Johanna; Pihko, Elina

2011-08-01

The brain basis behind musical competence in its various forms is not yet known. To determine the pattern of hemispheric lateralization during sound-change discrimination, we recorded the magnetic counterpart of the electrical mismatch negativity (MMNm) responses in professional musicians, musical participants (with high scores in the musicality tests but without professional training in music) and non-musicians. While watching a silenced video, they were presented with short sounds with frequency and duration deviants and C major chords with C minor chords as deviants. MMNm to chord deviants was stronger in both musicians and musical participants than in non-musicians, particularly in their left hemisphere. No group differences were obtained in the MMNm strength in the right hemisphere in any of the conditions or in the left hemisphere in the case of frequency or duration deviants. Thus, in addition to professional training in music, musical aptitude (combined with lower-level musical training) is also reflected in brain functioning related to sound discrimination. The present magnetoencephalographic evidence therefore indicates that the sound discrimination abilities may be differentially distributed in the brain in musically competent and naïve participants, especially in a musical context established by chord stimuli: the higher forms of musical competence engage both auditory cortices in an integrative manner. © 2011 The Authors. European Journal of Neuroscience © 2011 Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

How the degree of instrumental practice in music increases perceptual sensitivity.

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Proverbio, Alice Mado; Bellini, Eleonora

2018-04-20

Literature has shown that playing a musical instrument is associated with the formation of multimodal audio visuomotor representations that are strongly instrument-specific. Here, we investigated the effect of increased motor practice on perceptual sensitivity in 32 professional musicians of comparable expertise but with different amounts of instrumental practice with piano (10,000 vs. 3,000 estimated hours). Stimuli consisted of images of pianists' hands and piano arpeggio sounds. In half of the cases, the piano fingering and piano sounds were congruent, while they were incongruent in the other cases. ERPs were recorded from 128 sites while musicians performed a congruent vs. incongruent discrimination task. A fronto-central error-related negativity (ERN), mainly generated within the anterior cingulate cortex, was observed in response to incongruent videos only in pianists. Non-pianist musicians were able to carry out the task (with a worse performance) but exhibited a smaller response-related N400 to incongruent stimuli. Source reconstruction applied to ERP responses to incongruent stimuli indicated a less automatic mechanism for detecting sensory-motor deviance and a greater emphasis on visual rather than on acoustic features in non-pianists. Overall the data suggest a profound difference between the two populations of musicians and advise against considering "expert" populations to include those that undertook only a few weeks/months of training in a new discipline. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Music students: conventional hearing thresholds and at high frequencies

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Débora Lüders

2014-07-01

Full Text Available INTRODUCTION: Research has shown that hearing loss in musicians may cause difficulty in timbre recognition and tuning of instruments. AIM: To analyze the hearing thresholds from 250 Hz to 16,000 Hz in a group of music students and compare them to a non-musician group in order to determine whether high-frequency audiometry is a useful tool in the early detection of hearing impairment. METHODS: Study design was a retrospective observational cohort. Conventional and high-frequency audiometry was performed in 42 music students (Madsen Itera II audiometer and TDH39P headphones for conventional audiometry, and HDA 200 headphones for high-frequency audiometry. RESULTS: Of the 42 students, 38.1% were female students and 61.9% were male students, with a mean age of 26 years. At conventional audiometry, 92.85% had hearing thresholds within normal limits; but even within the normal limits, the worst results were observed in the left ear for all frequencies, except for 4000 Hz; compared to the non-musician group, the worst results occurred at 500 Hz in the left ear, and at 250 Hz, 6000 Hz, 9000 Hz, 10,000 Hz, and 11,200 Hz in both the ears. CONCLUSION: The periodic evaluation of high-frequency thresholds may be useful in the early detection of hearing loss in musicians.

Does timbre affect pitch?: Estimations by musicians and non-musicians / Allan Vurma, Marju Raju, Annika Kuuda

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Vurma, Allan, 1955-

2011-01-01

Muusikutel ja mittemuusikutel lasti kuulata lindilt inimhääle, vioola ja trompetihelisid ning hinnata järgmisena kõlanud helikatket võrreldes eelmisega kas "madalaks", "kõrgeks" või "hääles". Leiti, et tämbrist mõjutatud helikõrguse muutused võivad tekitada konflikti subjektiivse tunnetamise ja fundamentaalsel võnkesagedusel põhineva heli hindamise vahel

Reducing Risk of Noise-Induced Hearing Loss in Collegiate Music Ensembles Using Ambient Technology.

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Powell, Jason; Chesky, Kris

2017-09-01

Student musicians are at risk for noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) as they develop skills and perform during instructional activities. Studies using longitudinal dosimeter data show that pedagogical procedures and instructor behaviors are highly predictive of NIHL risk, thus implying the need for innovative approaches to increase instructor competency in managing instructional activities without interfering with artistic and academic freedom. Ambient information systems, an emerging trend in human-computer interaction that infuses psychological behavioral theories into technologies, can help construct informative risk-regulating systems. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of introducing an ambient information system into the ensemble setting. The system used two ambient displays and a counterbalanced within-subjects treatment study design with six jazz ensemble instructors to determine if the system could induce a behavior change that alters trends in measures resulting from dosimeter data. This study assessed efficacy using time series analysis to determine changes in eight statistical measures of behavior over a 9-wk period. Analysis showed that the system was effective, as all instructors showed changes in a combination of measures. This study is in an important step in developing non-interfering technology to reduce NIHL among academic musicians.

Transfer of Training between Music and Speech: Common Processing, Attention, and Memory

OpenAIRE

Besson, Mireille; Chobert, Julie; Marie, Céline

2011-01-01

After a brief historical perspective of the relationship between language and music, we review our work on transfer of training from music to speech that aimed at testing the general hypothesis that musicians should be more sensitive than non-musicians to speech sounds. In light of recent results in the literature, we argue that when long-term experience in one domain influences acoustic processing in the other domain, results can be interpreted as common acoustic processing. But when long-te...

How do musical tonality and experience affect visual working memory?

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Hua; Lu, Jing; Gong, Diankun; Yao, Dezhong

2016-01-20

The influence of music on the human brain has continued to attract increasing attention from neuroscientists and musicologists. Currently, tonal music is widely present in people's daily lives; however, atonal music has gradually become an important part of modern music. In this study, we conducted two experiments: the first one tested for differences in perception of distractibility between tonal music and atonal music. The second experiment tested how tonal music and atonal music affect visual working memory by comparing musicians and nonmusicians who were placed in contexts with background tonal music, atonal music, and silence. They were instructed to complete a delay matching memory task. The results show that musicians and nonmusicians have different evaluations of the distractibility of tonal music and atonal music, possibly indicating that long-term training may lead to a higher auditory perception threshold among musicians. For the working memory task, musicians reacted faster than nonmusicians in all background music cases, and musicians took more time to respond in the tonal background music condition than in the other conditions. Therefore, our results suggest that for a visual memory task, background tonal music may occupy more cognitive resources than atonal music or silence for musicians, leaving few resources left for the memory task. Moreover, the musicians outperformed the nonmusicians because of the higher sensitivity to background music, which also needs a further longitudinal study to be confirmed.

Psychoacoustic Assessment to Improve Tinnitus Diagnosis

Science.gov (United States)

Hutchins, Sean; Hébert, Sylvie

2013-01-01

The diagnosis of tinnitus relies on self-report. Psychoacoustic measurements of tinnitus pitch and loudness are essential for assessing claims and discriminating true from false ones. For this reason, the quantification of tinnitus remains a challenging research goal. We aimed to: (1) assess the precision of a new tinnitus likeness rating procedure with a continuous-pitch presentation method, controlling for music training, and (2) test whether tinnitus psychoacoustic measurements have the sensitivity and specificity required to detect people faking tinnitus. Musicians and non-musicians with tinnitus, as well as simulated malingerers without tinnitus, were tested. Most were retested several weeks later. Tinnitus pitch matching was first assessed using the likeness rating method: pure tones from 0.25 to 16 kHz were presented randomly to participants, who had to rate the likeness of each tone to their tinnitus, and to adjust its level from 0 to 100 dB SPL. Tinnitus pitch matching was then assessed with a continuous-pitch method: participants had to match the pitch of their tinnitus to an external tone by moving their finger across a touch-sensitive strip, which generated a continuous pure tone from 0.5 to 20 kHz in 1-Hz steps. The predominant tinnitus pitch was consistent across both methods for both musicians and non-musicians, although musicians displayed better external tone pitch matching abilities. Simulated malingerers rated loudness much higher than did the other groups with a high degree of specificity (94.4%) and were unreliable in loudness (not pitch) matching from one session to the other. Retest data showed similar pitch matching responses for both methods for all participants. In conclusion, tinnitus pitch and loudness reliably correspond to the tinnitus percept, and psychoacoustic loudness matches are sensitive and specific to the presence of tinnitus. PMID:24349414

Impairments in musical abilities reflected in the auditory brainstem: evidence from congenital amusia.

Science.gov (United States)

Lehmann, Alexandre; Skoe, Erika; Moreau, Patricia; Peretz, Isabelle; Kraus, Nina

2015-07-01

Congenital amusia is a neurogenetic condition, characterized by a deficit in music perception and production, not explained by hearing loss, brain damage or lack of exposure to music. Despite inferior musical performance, amusics exhibit normal auditory cortical responses, with abnormal neural correlates suggested to lie beyond auditory cortices. Here we show, using auditory brainstem responses to complex sounds in humans, that fine-grained automatic processing of sounds is impoverished in amusia. Compared with matched non-musician controls, spectral amplitude was decreased in amusics for higher harmonic components of the auditory brainstem response. We also found a delayed response to the early transient aspects of the auditory stimulus in amusics. Neural measures of spectral amplitude and response timing correlated with participants' behavioral assessments of music processing. We demonstrate, for the first time, that amusia affects how complex acoustic signals are processed in the auditory brainstem. This neural signature of amusia mirrors what is observed in musicians, such that the aspects of the auditory brainstem responses that are enhanced in musicians are degraded in amusics. By showing that gradients of music abilities are reflected in the auditory brainstem, our findings have implications not only for current models of amusia but also for auditory functioning in general. © 2015 Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Instrument specific use-dependent plasticity shapes the anatomical properties of the corpus callosum

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Vollmann, Henning; Ragert, Patrick; Conde, Virginia

2014-01-01

Long-term musical expertise has been shown to be associated with a number of functional and structural brain changes, making it an attractive model for investigating use-dependent plasticity in humans. Physiological interhemispheric inhibition (IHI) as examined by transcranial magnetic stimulation......, the amount of IHI in pianists was comparable to that of non-musicians and there was no significant structure-function relationship. Our findings indicate instrument specific use-dependent plasticity in both functional (IHI) and structural (FA) connectivity of motor related brain regions in musicians....

Early musical training is linked to gray matter structure in the ventral premotor cortex and auditory-motor rhythm synchronization performance.

Science.gov (United States)

Bailey, Jennifer Anne; Zatorre, Robert J; Penhune, Virginia B

2014-04-01

Evidence in animals and humans indicates that there are sensitive periods during development, times when experience or stimulation has a greater influence on behavior and brain structure. Sensitive periods are the result of an interaction between maturational processes and experience-dependent plasticity mechanisms. Previous work from our laboratory has shown that adult musicians who begin training before the age of 7 show enhancements in behavior and white matter structure compared with those who begin later. Plastic changes in white matter and gray matter are hypothesized to co-occur; therefore, the current study investigated possible differences in gray matter structure between early-trained (ET; 7) musicians, matched for years of experience. Gray matter structure was assessed using voxel-wise analysis techniques (optimized voxel-based morphometry, traditional voxel-based morphometry, and deformation-based morphometry) and surface-based measures (cortical thickness, surface area and mean curvature). Deformation-based morphometry analyses identified group differences between ET and LT musicians in right ventral premotor cortex (vPMC), which correlated with performance on an auditory motor synchronization task and with age of onset of musical training. In addition, cortical surface area in vPMC was greater for ET musicians. These results are consistent with evidence that premotor cortex shows greatest maturational change between the ages of 6-9 years and that this region is important for integrating auditory and motor information. We propose that the auditory and motor interactions required by musical practice drive plasticity in vPMC and that this plasticity is greatest when maturation is near its peak.

Face Recognition, Musical Appraisal, and Emotional Crossmodal Bias

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sara Invitto

2017-08-01

Full Text Available Recent research on the crossmodal integration of visual and auditory perception suggests that evaluations of emotional information in one sensory modality may tend toward the emotional value generated in another sensory modality. This implies that the emotions elicited by musical stimuli can influence the perception of emotional stimuli presented in other sensory modalities, through a top-down process. The aim of this work was to investigate how crossmodal perceptual processing influences emotional face recognition and how potential modulation of this processing induced by music could be influenced by the subject's musical competence. We investigated how emotional face recognition processing could be modulated by listening to music and how this modulation varies according to the subjective emotional salience of the music and the listener's musical competence. The sample consisted of 24 participants: 12 professional musicians and 12 university students (non-musicians. Participants performed an emotional go/no-go task whilst listening to music by Albeniz, Chopin, or Mozart. The target stimuli were emotionally neutral facial expressions. We examined the N170 Event-Related Potential (ERP and behavioral responses (i.e., motor reaction time to target recognition and musical emotional judgment. A linear mixed-effects model and a decision-tree learning technique were applied to N170 amplitudes and latencies. The main findings of the study were that musicians' behavioral responses and N170 is more affected by the emotional value of music administered in the emotional go/no-go task and this bias is also apparent in responses to the non-target emotional face. This suggests that emotional information, coming from multiple sensory channels, activates a crossmodal integration process that depends upon the stimuli emotional salience and the listener's appraisal.

The influence of linguistic and musical experience on Cantonese word learning.

Science.gov (United States)

Cooper, Angela; Wang, Yue

2012-06-01

Adult non-native speech perception is subject to influence from multiple factors, including linguistic and extralinguistic experience such as musical training. The present research examines how linguistic and musical factors influence non-native word identification and lexical tone perception. Groups of native tone language (Thai) and non-tone language listeners (English), each subdivided into musician and non-musician groups, engaged in Cantonese tone word training. Participants learned to identify words minimally distinguished by five Cantonese tones during training, also completing musical aptitude and phonemic tone identification tasks. First, the findings suggest that either musical experience or a tone language background leads to significantly better non-native word learning proficiency, as compared to those with neither musical training nor tone language experience. Moreover, the combination of tone language and musical experience did not provide an additional advantage for Thai musicians above and beyond either experience alone. Musicianship was found to be more advantageous than a tone language background for tone identification. Finally, tone identification and musical aptitude scores were significantly correlated with word learning success for English but not Thai listeners. These findings point to a dynamic influence of musical and linguistic experience, both at the tone dentification level and at the word learning stage.

Music students: conventional hearing thresholds and at high frequencies.

Science.gov (United States)

Lüders, Débora; Gonçalves, Cláudia Giglio de Oliveira; Lacerda, Adriana Bender de Moreira; Ribas, Ângela; Conto, Juliana de

2014-01-01

Research has shown that hearing loss in musicians may cause difficulty in timbre recognition and tuning of instruments. To analyze the hearing thresholds from 250 Hz to 16,000 Hz in a group of music students and compare them to a non-musician group in order to determine whether high-frequency audiometry is a useful tool in the early detection of hearing impairment. Study design was a retrospective observational cohort. Conventional and high-frequency audiometry was performed in 42 music students (Madsen Itera II audiometer and TDH39P headphones for conventional audiometry, and HDA 200 headphones for high-frequency audiometry). Of the 42 students, 38.1% were female students and 61.9% were male students, with a mean age of 26 years. At conventional audiometry, 92.85% had hearing thresholds within normal limits; but even within the normal limits, the worst results were observed in the left ear for all frequencies, except for 4000 Hz; compared to the non-musician group, the worst results occurred at 500 Hz in the left ear, and at 250 Hz, 6000 Hz, 9000 Hz, 10,000 Hz, and 11,200 Hz in both the ears. The periodic evaluation of high-frequency thresholds may be useful in the early detection of hearing loss in musicians. Copyright © 2014 Associação Brasileira de Otorrinolaringologia e Cirurgia Cérvico-Facial. Published by Elsevier Editora Ltda. All rights reserved.

Music and speech distractors disrupt sensorimotor synchronization: effects of musical training.

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Białuńska, Anita; Dalla Bella, Simone

2017-12-01

Humans display a natural tendency to move to the beat of music, more than to the rhythm of any other auditory stimulus. We typically move with music, but rarely with speech. This proclivity is apparent early during development and can be further developed over the years via joint dancing, singing, or instrument playing. Synchronization of movement to the beat can thus improve with age, but also with musical experience. In a previous study, we found that music perturbed synchronization with a metronome more than speech fragments; music superiority disappeared when distractors shared isochrony and the same meter (Dalla Bella et al., PLoS One 8(8):e71945, 2013). Here, we examined if the interfering effect of music and speech distractors in a synchronization task is influenced by musical training. Musicians and non-musicians synchronized by producing finger force pulses to the sounds of a metronome while music and speech distractors were presented at one of various phase relationships with respect to the target. Distractors were familiar musical excerpts and fragments of children poetry comparable in terms of beat/stress isochrony. Music perturbed synchronization with the metronome more than speech did in both groups. However, the difference in synchronization error between music and speech distractors was smaller for musicians than for non-musicians, especially when the peak force of movement is reached. These findings point to a link between musical training and timing of sensorimotor synchronization when reacting to music and speech distractors.

Organizational Design for Institutional Change: the case of MPB Festivals, 1960 to 1968

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Charles Kirschbaum

2006-07-01

Full Text Available A central concern in neo-institutional research is the genesis of new organizational fields. This article explores the emergence of the MPB (Brazilian Popular Music field in tandem with the organization of music festivals in the sixties. The festivals were instrumental in combining musicians, critics and the audience in a forum relatively buffered from the music industry influence. This interaction supported the introduction and diffusion of newinfluences in the popular music field, and at the same time, it consecrated the category MPB as a high-brow art form. The festivals’ design provoked two unintended consequences: the conflict between musicians and the audience, and between musicians and the jury. While several musicians strived to conquer autonomy for theircreative activity, the audience claimed its supremacy. As a result, musicians exerted pressure on the jury to buffer the aesthetical criteria from the audience. It concludes with a critical appraisal of the role of festivals in the evolution of the MPB field.

Musical practice and cognitive aging: two cross-sectional studies point phonemic fluency as a potential candidate for a use-dependent adaptation

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Baptiste eFAUVEL

2014-10-01

Full Text Available Because of permanent use-dependent cerebral plasticity, all lifelong individuals’ experiences are believed to influence the cognitive aging quality. In old individuals, both former and current musical practices have been associated with better verbal skills, visual memory, processing speed, and planning function. This work sought for an interaction between musical practice and cognitive aging by comparing musician and nonmusician individuals for two periods of life (late adulthood and old age. Long-term memory, auditory verbal short-term memory, processing speed, nonverbal reasoning, and verbal fluencies were assessed. In study 1, measures of processing speed and auditory verbal short-term memory showed significant better performances for musicians compared with controls, but both groups displayed the same age-related difference. For verbal fluencies, musician individuals scored higher and displayed different age effects compared with controls. In study 2, we revealed that the life period at training onset (childhood versus adulthood was associated with phonemic, but not semantic fluency performances (musicians who had started practice in adulthood did not perform better on phonemic fluency compared with nonmusicians. For these two measures, current frequency of training did not account for musicians’ scores. These patterns of results are discussed by confronting the hypothesis of a transformative effect of musical practice with non-causal explanation.

With or without a conductor: Comparative analysis of leadership models in the musical ensemble

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Kovačević Mia

2016-01-01

Full Text Available In search of innovative models of work organization and therefore the artistic process of one musical ensemble, in the last ten years musical ensembles have developed examples of non-traditional artistic-performing decisions and organizational practice. The paper is conceived as a research and analysis of the dominant models of leadership (i.e. organizing, conducting business applicable on the music ensembles and experiences of the musicians. The aim is to recognize and define leadership styles that encourage the increase of motivation and productivity of musicians within the musical ensemble. The paper will specifically investigate the relationship and differences between the two dominant models of leadership, leadership of conductor and collaborative leadership. At the same time, the paper describes and analyses an experiment that was conducted by the Ensemble Metamorphosis, which applied into their work two dominant models of leadership. In an effort to increase the motivation and productivity of musicians, Ensemble Metamorphosis also searched for a new management model of work organization and a new model of leadership. The aim of this paper was therefore to investigate the effects of leadership models that improve the artistic quality, motivation of the musicians, psychological climate and overall increase productivity of musical organization.

The impact of musicianship on the cortical mechanisms related to separating speech from background noise.

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Zendel, Benjamin Rich; Tremblay, Charles-David; Belleville, Sylvie; Peretz, Isabelle

2015-05-01

Musicians have enhanced auditory processing abilities. In some studies, these abilities are paralleled by an improved understanding of speech in noisy environments, partially due to more robust encoding of speech signals in noise at the level of the brainstem. Little is known about the impact of musicianship on attention-dependent cortical activity related to lexical access during a speech-in-noise task. To address this issue, we presented musicians and nonmusicians with single words mixed with three levels of background noise, across two conditions, while monitoring electrical brain activity. In the active condition, listeners repeated the words aloud, and in the passive condition, they ignored the words and watched a silent film. When background noise was most intense, musicians repeated more words correctly compared with nonmusicians. Auditory evoked responses were attenuated and delayed with the addition of background noise. In musicians, P1 amplitude was marginally enhanced during active listening and was related to task performance in the most difficult listening condition. By comparing ERPs from the active and passive conditions, we isolated an N400 related to lexical access. The amplitude of the N400 was not influenced by the level of background noise in musicians, whereas N400 amplitude increased with the level of background noise in nonmusicians. In nonmusicians, the increase in N400 amplitude was related to a reduction in task performance. In musicians only, there was a rightward shift of the sources contributing to the N400 as the level of background noise increased. This pattern of results supports the hypothesis that encoding of speech in noise is more robust in musicians and suggests that this facilitates lexical access. Moreover, the shift in sources suggests that musicians, to a greater extent than nonmusicians, may increasingly rely on acoustic cues to understand speech in noise.

A Longitudinal Study on Children's Music Training Experience and Academic Development

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Yang, Hua; Ma, Weiyi; Gong, Diankun; Hu, Jiehui; Yao, Dezhong

2014-01-01

This study examined the relation between long-term music training and child development based on 250 Chinese elementary school students' academic development of first language (L1), second language (L2), and mathematics. We found that musician children outperformed non-musician children only on musical achievement and second language development. Additionally, although music training appeared to be correlated with children's final academic development of L1, L2, and mathematics, it did not independently contribute to the development of L1 or mathematical skills. Our findings suggest caution in interpreting the positive findings on the non-musical cognitive benefits of music learning. PMID:25068398

Kinesthetic imagery of musical performance.

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Lotze, Martin

2013-01-01

Musicians use different kinds of imagery. This review focuses on kinesthetic imagery, which has been shown to be an effective complement to actively playing an instrument. However, experience in actual movement performance seems to be a requirement for a recruitment of those brain areas representing movement ideation during imagery. An internal model of movement performance might be more differentiated when training has been more intense or simply performed more often. Therefore, with respect to kinesthetic imagery, these strategies are predominantly found in professional musicians. There are a few possible reasons as to why kinesthetic imagery is used in addition to active training; one example is the need for mental rehearsal of the technically most difficult passages. Another reason for mental practice is that mental rehearsal of the piece helps to improve performance if the instrument is not available for actual training as is the case for professional musicians when they are traveling to various appearances. Overall, mental imagery in musicians is not necessarily specific to motor, somatosensory, auditory, or visual aspects of imagery, but integrates them all. In particular, the audiomotor loop is highly important, since auditory aspects are crucial for guiding motor performance. All these aspects result in a distinctive representation map for the mental imagery of musical performance. This review summarizes behavioral data, and findings from functional brain imaging studies of mental imagery of musical performance.

Musicians' Attitudes to Musical Influence

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Nick Collins

2011-12-01

Full Text Available This article discusses responses to an online survey on the topic of musical influence. 119 participants took part, answering both quantitative (five point Likert scale and qualitative questions. A rich set of data was collected, which is summarized and analyzed in this paper. The primary research aim was to discover a good opinion base concerning issues of musical influence, to help illuminate some existing theories of influence, and in turn to inform further research directions. General trends observed included variation in attitudes to influences over time, the role of non- musical influences, and a usually positive attitude towards influences amongst participants.

The art of practice. Understanding the process of musical maturation through reflection

OpenAIRE

Esslin-Peard, Monica; Shorrocks, Tony; Welch, Graham F.

2015-01-01

Much has been written in the last 30 years about musical practice and performance, but there is little consensus over what practice really means, or how musicians progress by practising. Researchers tend to focus on specific elements in practice rather than maintaining a more holistic perspective. Whilst academics historically focused on (primarily Western) classical musicians, more recent research has encompassed popular, jazz and folk musicians. The current research project at the Universit...

Student's music exposure: Full-day personal dose measurements.

Science.gov (United States)

Washnik, Nilesh Jeevandas; Phillips, Susan L; Teglas, Sandra

2016-01-01

Previous studies have shown that collegiate level music students are exposed to potentially hazardous sound levels. Compared to professional musicians, collegiate level music students typically do not perform as frequently, but they are exposed to intense sounds during practice and rehearsal sessions. The purpose of the study was to determine the full-day exposure dose including individual practice and ensemble rehearsals for collegiate student musicians. Sixty-seven college students of classical music were recruited representing 17 primary instruments. Of these students, 57 completed 2 days of noise dose measurements using Cirrus doseBadge programed according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health criterion. Sound exposure was measured for 2 days from morning to evening, ranging from 7 to 9 h. Twenty-eight out of 57 (49%) student musicians exceeded a 100% daily noise dose on at least 1 day of the two measurement days. Eleven student musicians (19%) exceeded 100% daily noise dose on both days. Fourteen students exceeded 100% dose during large ensemble rehearsals and eight students exceeded 100% dose during individual practice sessions. Approximately, half of the student musicians exceeded 100% noise dose on a typical college schedule. This finding indicates that a large proportion of collegiate student musicians are at risk of developing noise-induced hearing loss due to hazardous sound levels. Considering the current finding, there is a need to conduct hearing conservation programs in all music schools, and to educate student musicians about the use and importance of hearing protection devices for their hearing.

The role of long-term familiarity and attentional maintenance in short-term memory for timbre.

Science.gov (United States)

Siedenburg, Kai; McAdams, Stephen

2017-04-01

We study short-term recognition of timbre using familiar recorded tones from acoustic instruments and unfamiliar transformed tones that do not readily evoke sound-source categories. Participants indicated whether the timbre of a probe sound matched with one of three previously presented sounds (item recognition). In Exp. 1, musicians better recognised familiar acoustic compared to unfamiliar synthetic sounds, and this advantage was particularly large in the medial serial position. There was a strong correlation between correct rejection rate and the mean perceptual dissimilarity of the probe to the tones from the sequence. Exp. 2 compared musicians' and non-musicians' performance with concurrent articulatory suppression, visual interference, and with a silent control condition. Both suppression tasks disrupted performance by a similar margin, regardless of musical training of participants or type of sounds. Our results suggest that familiarity with sound source categories and attention play important roles in short-term memory for timbre, which rules out accounts solely based on sensory persistence.

Music to the inner ears: exploring individual differences in musical imagery.

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Beaty, Roger E; Burgin, Chris J; Nusbaum, Emily C; Kwapil, Thomas R; Hodges, Donald A; Silvia, Paul J

2013-12-01

In two studies, we explored the frequency and phenomenology of musical imagery. Study 1 used retrospective reports of musical imagery to assess the contribution of individual differences to imagery characteristics. Study 2 used an experience sampling design to assess the phenomenology of musical imagery over the course of one week in a sample of musicians and non-musicians. Both studies found episodes of musical imagery to be common and positive: people rarely wanted such experiences to end and often heard music that was personally meaningful. Several variables predicted musical imagery, including personality, musical preferences, and positive mood. Musicians tended to hear musical imagery more often, but they reported less frequent episodes of deliberately-generated imagery. Taken together, the present research provides new insights into individual differences in musical imagery, and it supports the emerging view that such experiences are common, positive, and more voluntary than previously recognized. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Perfect pitch reconsidered.

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Moulton, Calum

2014-10-01

Perfect pitch, or absolute pitch (AP), is defined as the ability to identify or produce the pitch of a sound without need for a reference pitch, and is generally regarded as a valuable asset to the musician. However, there has been no recent review of the literature examining its aetiology and its utility taking into account emerging scientific advances in AP research, notably in functional imaging. This review analyses the key empirical research on AP, focusing on genetic and neuroimaging studies. The review concludes that: AP probably has a genetic predisposition, although this is based on limited evidence; early musical training is almost certainly essential for AP acquisition; and, although there is evidence that it may be relevant to speech processing, AP can interfere with relative pitch, an ability on which humans rely to communicate effectively. The review calls into question the value of AP to musicians and non-musicians alike. © 2014 Royal College of Physicians.

Practice is performance: a study of the musical development of popular music undergraduates

OpenAIRE

Esslin-Peard, Monica

2016-01-01

Much has been written in the last 30 years about musical practice and performance, but there is little consensus over what practice really means, or how musicians progress by practising. Whilst academics historically focused primarily on the experiences of Western classical musicians and on individual learning in the conservatoire, more recent research has been devoted to popular, jazz and folk musicians. Informal behaviours, such as aural learning, self-teaching and jamming out in the band a...

Emoções de uma escuta musical afetam a percepção subjetiva de tempo Emotions from listening to music affect the subjective perception of time

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Danilo Ramos

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Este estudo verificou se emoções percebidas durante uma escuta musical influenciam a percepção temporal. Músicos e não músicos foram submetidos a tarefas de escuta de trechos musicais do repertório erudito ocidental com 20 segundos de duração cada um e tarefas de associação temporal de cada trecho ouvido a durações padrões, que variavam de 16 a 24 segundos. Os trechos musicais empregados eram representativos de uma dentre as categorias emocionais Alegria, Tristeza, Serenidade ou Medo / Raiva. Uma análise de variância mostrou que, enquanto os não músicos apresentaram subestimações temporais associadas a pelo menos um trecho musical de cada uma das categorias emocionais, os músicos subestimaram todos os trechos musicais tristes, relacionados às características de baixo arousal e valência afetiva negativa.This study examined whether perceived emotions during music listening tasks influence time perception. Musicians and non-musicians were submitted to tasks of listening to musical excerpts from Western classical repertoire of 20 seconds and tasks of temporal association of each piece of music to standard durations, ranging from 16 to 24 seconds. Musical excerpts were representative from one of the following emotional categories: Happiness, Sadness, Threat and Peacefulness. An analysis of variance showed that, while non-musicians showed temporal underestimations associated with, at least, one piece of music from each emotional category, musicians underestimated all sad musical excerpts, related to low arousal and negative valence features.

Musical experience shapes top-down auditory mechanisms: evidence from masking and auditory attention performance.

Science.gov (United States)

Strait, Dana L; Kraus, Nina; Parbery-Clark, Alexandra; Ashley, Richard

2010-03-01

A growing body of research suggests that cognitive functions, such as attention and memory, drive perception by tuning sensory mechanisms to relevant acoustic features. Long-term musical experience also modulates lower-level auditory function, although the mechanisms by which this occurs remain uncertain. In order to tease apart the mechanisms that drive perceptual enhancements in musicians, we posed the question: do well-developed cognitive abilities fine-tune auditory perception in a top-down fashion? We administered a standardized battery of perceptual and cognitive tests to adult musicians and non-musicians, including tasks either more or less susceptible to cognitive control (e.g., backward versus simultaneous masking) and more or less dependent on auditory or visual processing (e.g., auditory versus visual attention). Outcomes indicate lower perceptual thresholds in musicians specifically for auditory tasks that relate with cognitive abilities, such as backward masking and auditory attention. These enhancements were observed in the absence of group differences for the simultaneous masking and visual attention tasks. Our results suggest that long-term musical practice strengthens cognitive functions and that these functions benefit auditory skills. Musical training bolsters higher-level mechanisms that, when impaired, relate to language and literacy deficits. Thus, musical training may serve to lessen the impact of these deficits by strengthening the corticofugal system for hearing. 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Does tonality boost short-term memory in congenital amusia?

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Albouy, Philippe; Schulze, Katrin; Caclin, Anne; Tillmann, Barbara

2013-11-06

Congenital amusia is a neuro-developmental disorder of music perception and production. Recent findings have demonstrated that this deficit is linked to an impaired short-term memory for tone sequences. As it has been shown before that non-musicians' implicit knowledge of musical regularities can improve short-term memory for tone information, the present study investigated if this type of implicit knowledge could also influence amusics' short-term memory performance. Congenital amusics and their matched controls, who were non-musicians, had to indicate whether sequences of five tones, presented in pairs, were the same or different; half of the pairs respected musical regularities (tonal sequences) and the other half did not (atonal sequences). As previously reported for non-musician participants, the control participants showed better performance (as measured with d') for tonal sequences than for atonal ones. While this improvement was not observed in amusics, both control and amusic participants showed faster response times for tonal sequences than for atonal sequences. These findings suggest that some implicit processing of tonal structures is potentially preserved in congenital amusia. This observation is encouraging as it strengthens the perspective to exploit implicit knowledge to help reducing pitch perception and memory deficits in amusia. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Percepção e o impacto da música na audição de integrantes de banda militar Perception and the impact of music in the hearing of military band musicians

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Cláudia Giglio de Oliveira Gonçalves

2009-01-01

Full Text Available OBJETIVO: Avaliar a exposição à música elevada, a percepção da sua intensidade e seu impacto na audição em integrantes de uma banda militar. MÉTODOS: Investigou-se os níveis de pressão sonora no local de ensaio da banda, aplicou-se um questionário e efetuou-se a avaliação auditiva (medidas de imitância acústica e audiometria tonal. Participaram da pesquisa 50 integrantes da banda militar do exército do Paraná, todos do sexo masculino, com média de idade de 34,9 anos e tempo médio de atuação na banda de 14,2 anos. RESULTADOS: Quarenta e dois por cento dos sujeitos consideraram que os sons nos ensaios são de intensidade elevada; 76% apresentaram zumbido e 54% dificuldade para ouvir; 58% consideram que a música intensa pode prejudicar a audição; 32% apresentaram alteração auditiva. Os níveis de pressão sonora no ensaio variaram de 90,1 a 110,3 dB(A. CONCLUSÃO: Os músicos estudados eram expostos diariamente a NPS elevados, que podem desencadear problemas na sua saúde, tais como zumbido e alterações auditivas. Apesar de considerarem a intensidade da música como elevada, não se protegiam dela nos ensaios.PURPOSE: To evaluate the exposition to loud music, the perception of its intensity and its impact in the hearing of integrants of a military band. METHODS: Sound pressure levels (SPL at the place where the band rehearsed were measured, a questionnaire was applied, and an audiological assessment was carried out (acoustic immittance measures and pure-tone audiometry. The participants were 50 musicians of the military band of the Paraná (Brazil army, all male, with mean age of 34.9 years and mean exposure duration of 14.2 years. RESULTS: Forty two percent of the participants considered that the sound pressure levels at rehearsals are very high; 76% reported to have experienced tinnitus and 54% had had hearing difficulties; 58% consider that intense music might harm hearing abilities; 32% had hearing loss. The sound

Från digitalt till analogt : En kvalitativ studie av överföringsprocesserna från MIDI till notskrift i symfonisk musik

OpenAIRE

Tibell, Patrik

2009-01-01

This study examines how to translate digitally composed symphonic music to note script and how it gets readable and playable. With the help of professional musicians from the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, teachers from Kulturskolan in Norrköping as well as other musicians, I have learned how I can improve each individual stem in my composition. I also learned how to write for a real musician. My score have been analyzed by composers and a conductor which have given me a more in depth insight...

The neuroscience of musical improvisation.

Science.gov (United States)

Beaty, Roger E

2015-04-01

Researchers have recently begun to examine the neural basis of musical improvisation, one of the most complex forms of creative behavior. The emerging field of improvisation neuroscience has implications not only for the study of artistic expertise, but also for understanding the neural underpinnings of domain-general processes such as motor control and language production. This review synthesizes functional magnetic resonance imagining (fMRI) studies of musical improvisation, including vocal and instrumental improvisation, with samples of jazz pianists, classical musicians, freestyle rap artists, and non-musicians. A network of prefrontal brain regions commonly linked to improvisatory behavior is highlighted, including the pre-supplementary motor area, medial prefrontal cortex, inferior frontal gyrus, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and dorsal premotor cortex. Activation of premotor and lateral prefrontal regions suggests that a seemingly unconstrained behavior may actually benefit from motor planning and cognitive control. Yet activation of cortical midline regions points to a role of spontaneous cognition characteristic of the default network. Together, such results may reflect cooperation between large-scale brain networks associated with cognitive control and spontaneous thought. The improvisation literature is integrated with Pressing's theoretical model, and discussed within the broader context of research on the brain basis of creative cognition. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A Limiting Feature of the Mozart Effect: Listening Enhances Mental Rotation Abilities in Non-Musicians but Not Musicians

Science.gov (United States)

Aheadi, Afshin; Dixon, Peter; Glover, Scott

2010-01-01

The "Mozart effect" occurs when performance on spatial cognitive tasks improves following exposure to Mozart. It is hypothesized that the Mozart effect arises because listening to complex music activates similar regions of the right cerebral hemisphere as are involved in spatial cognition. A counter-intuitive prediction of this hypothesis (and one…

Perspectives on gesture from music informatics, performance and aesthetics

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jensen, Kristoffer; Frimodt-Møller, Søren; Grund, Cynthia

2014-01-01

This article chronicles the research of the Nordic Network of Music Informatics, Performance and Aesthetics (NNIMIPA), and shows how the milieux bridge the gap between the disciplines involved. As examples, three projects within NNIMIPA involving performance interaction examine the role of audio...... and gestures in emotional musical expression using motion capture, the visual and auditive cues musicians provide each other in an ensemble when rehearsing, and the decision processes involved when a musician coordinates with other musicians. These projects seek to combine and compare intuitions derived from...... low-tech instructional music workshops that rely heavily on the use of whole-body gestures with the insights provided by high-tech studies and formal logic models of the performing musician, not only with respect to the sound, but also with regard to the movements of the performer and the mechanisms...

mixiTUI

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Pedersen, Esben Warming; Hornbæk, Kasper

2009-01-01

Tangible user interfaces for manipulating audio and music focus mostly on generating music on the spot, but rarely on how electronic musicians balance preparation and improvisation in staging live performances or on how the audience perceives the performances. We present mixiTUI, a tangible...... sequencer that allows electronic musicians to import and perform electronic music. mixiTUI is developed in collaboration with electronic musicians, with a focus on live arranging, on visualizations of music, on tokens that represent key elements in live performances, and on how the audience experiences...

Designing for group music improvisation: a case for jamming with your emotions

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ostos Rios, G.A.; Funk, M.; Hengeveld, B.J.

2016-01-01

During improvisation, musicians express themselves through live music. This project looks at the relationship between musicians during music improvisation, the processes of expression and communication taking place during performance and possible ways to use musicians’ emotions, to influence a

Predictive uncertainty in auditory sequence processing

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Niels Chr. eHansen

2014-09-01

Full Text Available Previous studies of auditory expectation have focused on the expectedness perceived by listeners retrospectively in response to events. In contrast, this research examines predictive uncertainty - a property of listeners’ prospective state of expectation prior to the onset of an event. We examine the information-theoretic concept of Shannon entropy as a model of predictive uncertainty in music cognition. This is motivated by the Statistical Learning Hypothesis, which proposes that schematic expectations reflect probabilistic relationships between sensory events learned implicitly through exposure.Using probability estimates from an unsupervised, variable-order Markov model, 12 melodic contexts high in entropy and 12 melodic contexts low in entropy were selected from two musical repertoires differing in structural complexity (simple and complex. Musicians and non-musicians listened to the stimuli and provided explicit judgments of perceived uncertainty (explicit uncertainty. We also examined an indirect measure of uncertainty computed as the entropy of expectedness distributions obtained using a classical probe-tone paradigm where listeners rated the perceived expectedness of the final note in a melodic sequence (inferred uncertainty. Finally, we simulate listeners’ perception of expectedness and uncertainty using computational models of auditory expectation. A detailed model comparison indicates which model parameters maximize fit to the data and how they compare to existing models in the literature.The results show that listeners experience greater uncertainty in high-entropy musical contexts than low-entropy contexts. This effect is particularly apparent for inferred uncertainty and is stronger in musicians than non-musicians. Consistent with the Statistical Learning Hypothesis, the results suggest that increased domain-relevant training is associated with an increasingly accurate cognitive model of probabilistic structure in music.

Temporal discrimination thresholds in adult-onset primary torsion dystonia: an analysis by task type and by dystonia phenotype.

LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

Bradley, D

2012-01-01

Adult-onset primary torsion dystonia (AOPTD) is an autosomal dominant disorder with markedly reduced penetrance. Sensory abnormalities are present in AOPTD and also in unaffected relatives, possibly indicating non-manifesting gene carriage (acting as an endophenotype). The temporal discrimination threshold (TDT) is the shortest time interval at which two stimuli are detected to be asynchronous. We aimed to compare the sensitivity and specificity of three different TDT tasks (visual, tactile and mixed\\/visual-tactile). We also aimed to examine the sensitivity of TDTs in different AOPTD phenotypes. To examine tasks, we tested TDT in 41 patients and 51 controls using visual (2 lights), tactile (non-painful electrical stimulation) and mixed (1 light, 1 electrical) stimuli. To investigate phenotypes, we examined 71 AOPTD patients (37 cervical dystonia, 14 writer\\'s cramp, 9 blepharospasm, 11 spasmodic dysphonia) and 8 musician\\'s dystonia patients. The upper limit of normal was defined as control mean +2.5 SD. In dystonia patients, the visual task detected abnormalities in 35\\/41 (85%), the tactile task in 35\\/41 (85%) and the mixed task in 26\\/41 (63%); the mixed task was less sensitive than the other two (p = 0.04). Specificity was 100% for the visual and tactile tasks. Abnormal TDTs were found in 36 of 37 (97.3%) cervical dystonia, 12 of 14 (85.7%) writer\\'s cramp, 8 of 9 (88.8%) blepharospasm, 10 of 11 (90.1%) spasmodic dysphonia patients and 5 of 8 (62.5%) musicians. The visual and tactile tasks were found to be more sensitive than the mixed task. Temporal discrimination threshold results were comparable across common adult-onset primary torsion dystonia phenotypes, with lower sensitivity in the musicians.

Musical Sight-Reading Expertise: Cross-Modality Investigations

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Veronique Drai-Zerbib

2011-10-01

Full Text Available It is often said that experienced musicians are capable of hearing what they read (and vice versa. This suggests that they are able to process and to integrate multimodal information. The study investigates this issue with an eye-tracking technique. Two groups of musicians chosen on the basis of their level of expertise (experts, non-experts had to read excerpts of poorly-known classical piano music and play them on a keyboard. The experiment was run in two consecutive phases during which each excerpt was (1 read without playing and (2 sight-read (read and played. In half the conditions, the participants heard the music before the reading phases. The excerpts contained suggested fingering of variable difficulty (difficult, easy, or no fingering. Analyses of first-pass fixation duration, second-pass fixation duration, probability of refixations, and playing mistakes validated the hypothesized modal independence of information among expert musicians as compared to non-experts. The results are discussed in terms of amodal memory for expert musicians, and they extend clearly our previous findings (Drai-Zerbib & Baccino, 2005. The paper will demonstrate that more experienced performers are better able to transfer learning from one modality to another, which can be in support of theoretical work by Ericsson and Kintsch (1995: more experienced performers better integrate knowledge across modalities. This view relies on the general flexibility shown in the experts' behaviour. The paper will show the correspondence between our results and issues recently obtained in ERPs researches and brain imaging studies (fMRI, MEG, where cerebral structures generally associated with different perceptual modalities were shown to be interconnected or overlap.

Predictive uncertainty in auditory sequence processing.

Science.gov (United States)

Hansen, Niels Chr; Pearce, Marcus T

2014-01-01

Previous studies of auditory expectation have focused on the expectedness perceived by listeners retrospectively in response to events. In contrast, this research examines predictive uncertainty-a property of listeners' prospective state of expectation prior to the onset of an event. We examine the information-theoretic concept of Shannon entropy as a model of predictive uncertainty in music cognition. This is motivated by the Statistical Learning Hypothesis, which proposes that schematic expectations reflect probabilistic relationships between sensory events learned implicitly through exposure. Using probability estimates from an unsupervised, variable-order Markov model, 12 melodic contexts high in entropy and 12 melodic contexts low in entropy were selected from two musical repertoires differing in structural complexity (simple and complex). Musicians and non-musicians listened to the stimuli and provided explicit judgments of perceived uncertainty (explicit uncertainty). We also examined an indirect measure of uncertainty computed as the entropy of expectedness distributions obtained using a classical probe-tone paradigm where listeners rated the perceived expectedness of the final note in a melodic sequence (inferred uncertainty). Finally, we simulate listeners' perception of expectedness and uncertainty using computational models of auditory expectation. A detailed model comparison indicates which model parameters maximize fit to the data and how they compare to existing models in the literature. The results show that listeners experience greater uncertainty in high-entropy musical contexts than low-entropy contexts. This effect is particularly apparent for inferred uncertainty and is stronger in musicians than non-musicians. Consistent with the Statistical Learning Hypothesis, the results suggest that increased domain-relevant training is associated with an increasingly accurate cognitive model of probabilistic structure in music.

Music and health. Phenomenological investigation of a medical humanity.

Science.gov (United States)

McLellan, Lucy; McLachlan, Emma; Perkins, Laurence; Dornan, Tim

2013-05-01

In response to the tendency for music to be under-represented in the discourse of medical humanities, we framed the question 'how can music heal?' We answered it by exploring the lived experiences of musicians with lay or professional interests in health. Two medical students and a medically qualified educationalist, all musicians, conducted a co-operative inquiry with a professional musician interested in health. All researchers and six respondents kept audio or written diaries. Three respondents were interviewed in depth. A medical school head (and experienced musician) critiqued the phenomenological analysis of respondents' accounts of music, health, and its relationship with undergraduate medical education. Respondents experienced music as promoting health, even in seriously diseased people. Music affected people's identity and emotions. Through the medium of structure and harmony, it provided a means of self-expression that adapted to whatever condition people were in. Music was a communication medium, which could make people feel less isolated. Immersion in music could change negative states of mind to more positive ones. A transport metaphor was commonly used; music 'taking people to better places'. Exercising control by becoming physically involved in music enhanced diseased people's self-esteem. Music was able to bring the spiritual, mental, and physical elements of their lives into balance, to the benefit of their wellbeing. Music could help medical students appreciate holistically that the state of health of people who are either well or diseased can be enhanced by a 'non-technical' intervention.

Preattentive cortical-evoked responses to pure tones, harmonic tones, and speech: influence of music training.

Science.gov (United States)

Nikjeh, Dee A; Lister, Jennifer J; Frisch, Stefan A

2009-08-01

Cortical auditory evoked potentials, including mismatch negativity (MMN) and P3a to pure tones, harmonic complexes, and speech syllables, were examined across groups of trained musicians and nonmusicians. Because of the extensive formal and informal auditory training received by musicians throughout their lifespan, it was predicted that these electrophysiological indicators of preattentive pitch discrimination and involuntary attention change would distinguish musicians from nonmusicians and provide insight regarding the influence of auditory training and experience on central auditory function. A total of 102 (67 trained musicians, 35 nonmusicians) right-handed young women with normal hearing participated in three auditory stimulus conditions: pure tones (25 musicians/15 nonmusicians), harmonic tones (42 musicians/20 nonmusicians), and speech syllables (26 musicians/15 nonmusicians). Pure tone and harmonic tone stimuli were presented in multideviant oddball paradigms designed to elicit MMN and P3a. Each paradigm included one standard and two infrequently occurring deviants. For the pure tone condition, the standard pure tone was 1000 Hz, and the two deviant tones differed in frequency from the standard by either 1.5% (1015 Hz) or 6% (1060 Hz). The harmonic tone complexes were digitally created and contained a fundamental frequency (F0) and three harmonics. The amplitude of each harmonic was divided by its harmonic number to create a natural amplitude contour in the frequency spectrum. The standard tone was G4 (F0 = 392 Hz), and the two deviant tones differed in fundamental frequency from the standard by 1.5% (F0 = 386 Hz) or 6% (F0 = 370 Hz). The fundamental frequencies of the harmonic tones occur within the average female vocal range. The third condition to elicit MMN and P3a was designed for the presentation of speech syllables (/ba/ and /da/) and was structured as a traditional oddball paradigm (one standard/one infrequent deviant). Each speech stimulus was

Musical expertise and the ability to imagine loudness.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Laura Bishop

Full Text Available Most perceived parameters of sound (e.g. pitch, duration, timbre can also be imagined in the absence of sound. These parameters are imagined more veridically by expert musicians than non-experts. Evidence for whether loudness is imagined, however, is conflicting. In music, the question of whether loudness is imagined is particularly relevant due to its role as a principal parameter of performance expression. This study addressed the hypothesis that the veridicality of imagined loudness improves with increasing musical expertise. Experts, novices and non-musicians imagined short passages of well-known classical music under two counterbalanced conditions: 1 while adjusting a slider to indicate imagined loudness of the music and 2 while tapping out the rhythm to indicate imagined timing. Subtests assessed music listening abilities and working memory span to determine whether these factors, also hypothesised to improve with increasing musical expertise, could account for imagery task performance. Similarity between each participant's imagined and listening loudness profiles and reference recording intensity profiles was assessed using time series analysis and dynamic time warping. The results suggest a widespread ability to imagine the loudness of familiar music. The veridicality of imagined loudness tended to be greatest for the expert musicians, supporting the predicted relationship between musical expertise and musical imagery ability.

Musical expertise and the ability to imagine loudness.

Science.gov (United States)

Bishop, Laura; Bailes, Freya; Dean, Roger T

2013-01-01

Most perceived parameters of sound (e.g. pitch, duration, timbre) can also be imagined in the absence of sound. These parameters are imagined more veridically by expert musicians than non-experts. Evidence for whether loudness is imagined, however, is conflicting. In music, the question of whether loudness is imagined is particularly relevant due to its role as a principal parameter of performance expression. This study addressed the hypothesis that the veridicality of imagined loudness improves with increasing musical expertise. Experts, novices and non-musicians imagined short passages of well-known classical music under two counterbalanced conditions: 1) while adjusting a slider to indicate imagined loudness of the music and 2) while tapping out the rhythm to indicate imagined timing. Subtests assessed music listening abilities and working memory span to determine whether these factors, also hypothesised to improve with increasing musical expertise, could account for imagery task performance. Similarity between each participant's imagined and listening loudness profiles and reference recording intensity profiles was assessed using time series analysis and dynamic time warping. The results suggest a widespread ability to imagine the loudness of familiar music. The veridicality of imagined loudness tended to be greatest for the expert musicians, supporting the predicted relationship between musical expertise and musical imagery ability.

The Status of the Traditional Musican in Asia.

Science.gov (United States)

Khe, Tran Van

1982-01-01

Over the past ten years, the inferior social status of musicians in several Asian countries has improved. The social history and contemporary status of musicians and the impact of the mass media on the social role of music in Asian countries are described. (AM)

Leadership and empathy : looking through the eyes of another

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Smilde, Rineke

2015-01-01

Blog: Having a career with overlapping activities in today’s multi-faceted professional music practice requires musicians to exercise many roles at the same time, roles which extend beyond their artistic skills. Musicians need to be innovative, entrepreneurial and communicative, they need to be able

Hearing Protection and Hearing Symptoms in Danish Symphony Orchestras

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Laitinen, Heli; Poulsen, Torben

2006-01-01

A study about hearing protectors, problems involving hearing protector usage, hearing problems and working surroundings of classical musicians was made in three Danish symphony orchestras. The questionnaire used in the study was based on a previous study, a study made in Sweden to rock musicians,...

Reflective Practice at the Heart of Higher Music Education

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Smilde, Rineke

2014-01-01

The main challenge of today’s musicians and music educators trained in our conservatoires and music academies is navigating in a rapidly changing cultural landscape. In short, these changes are helping to shape a very different workplace for musicians and music educators. Flexible portfolio careers

The effect of conditional probability of chord progression on brain response: an MEG study.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Seung-Goo Kim

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Recent electrophysiological and neuroimaging studies have explored how and where musical syntax in Western music is processed in the human brain. An inappropriate chord progression elicits an event-related potential (ERP component called an early right anterior negativity (ERAN or simply an early anterior negativity (EAN in an early stage of processing the musical syntax. Though the possible underlying mechanism of the EAN is assumed to be probabilistic learning, the effect of the probability of chord progressions on the EAN response has not been previously explored explicitly. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: In the present study, the empirical conditional probabilities in a Western music corpus were employed as an approximation of the frequencies in previous exposure of participants. Three types of chord progression were presented to musicians and non-musicians in order to examine the correlation between the probability of chord progression and the neuromagnetic response using magnetoencephalography (MEG. Chord progressions were found to elicit early responses in a negatively correlating fashion with the conditional probability. Observed EANm (as a magnetic counterpart of the EAN component responses were consistent with the previously reported EAN responses in terms of latency and location. The effect of conditional probability interacted with the effect of musical training. In addition, the neural response also correlated with the behavioral measures in the non-musicians. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Our study is the first to reveal the correlation between the probability of chord progression and the corresponding neuromagnetic response. The current results suggest that the physiological response is a reflection of the probabilistic representations of the musical syntax. Moreover, the results indicate that the probabilistic representation is related to the musical training as well as the sensitivity of an individual.

Universal and culture-specific factors in the recognition and performance of musical affect expressions.

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Laukka, Petri; Eerola, Tuomas; Thingujam, Nutankumar S; Yamasaki, Teruo; Beller, Grégory

2013-06-01

We present a cross-cultural study on the performance and perception of affective expression in music. Professional bowed-string musicians from different musical traditions (Swedish folk music, Hindustani classical music, Japanese traditional music, and Western classical music) were instructed to perform short pieces of music to convey 11 emotions and related states to listeners. All musical stimuli were judged by Swedish, Indian, and Japanese participants in a balanced design, and a variety of acoustic and musical cues were extracted. Results first showed that the musicians' expressive intentions could be recognized with accuracy above chance both within and across musical cultures, but communication was, in general, more accurate for culturally familiar versus unfamiliar music, and for basic emotions versus nonbasic affective states. We further used a lens-model approach to describe the relations between the strategies that musicians use to convey various expressions and listeners' perceptions of the affective content of the music. Many acoustic and musical cues were similarly correlated with both the musicians' expressive intentions and the listeners' affective judgments across musical cultures, but the match between musicians' and listeners' uses of cues was better in within-cultural versus cross-cultural conditions. We conclude that affective expression in music may depend on a combination of universal and culture-specific factors.

From Music Student to Professional: The Process of Transition

Science.gov (United States)

Creech, Andrea; Papageorgi, Ioulia; Duffy, Celia; Morton, Frances; Haddon, Elizabeth; Potter, John; de Bezenac, Christophe; Whyton, Tony; Himonides, Evangelos; Welch, Graham

2008-01-01

This article addresses the question of whether higher education music courses adequately prepare young musicians for the critical transition from music undergraduate to professional. Thematic analyses of interviews with 27 undergraduate and portfolio career musicians representing four musical genres were compared. The evidence suggests that the…

While the music lasts : on music and dementia

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Smilde, Rineke; Page, Kate; Alheit, Peter

2014-01-01

This book has been written for musicians who want to engage with audiences beyond the concert hall and other traditional venues. The study is equally worthwhile for conservatoires and music academies aiming to change the increasingly unrealistic goal of training young musicians solely for the stage.

The Effect of Speed Alterations on Tempo Note Selection.

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Madsen, Clifford K.; And Others

1986-01-01

Investigated the tempo note preferences of 100 randomly selected college-level musicians using familiar orchestral music as stimuli. Subjects heard selections at increased, decreased, and unaltered tempi. Results showed musicians were not accurate in estimating original tempo and showed consistent preference for faster than actual tempo.…

Musical training during early childhood enhances the neural encoding of speech in noise.

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Strait, Dana L; Parbery-Clark, Alexandra; Hittner, Emily; Kraus, Nina

2012-12-01

For children, learning often occurs in the presence of background noise. As such, there is growing desire to improve a child's access to a target signal in noise. Given adult musicians' perceptual and neural speech-in-noise enhancements, we asked whether similar effects are present in musically-trained children. We assessed the perception and subcortical processing of speech in noise and related cognitive abilities in musician and nonmusician children that were matched for a variety of overarching factors. Outcomes reveal that musicians' advantages for processing speech in noise are present during pivotal developmental years. Supported by correlations between auditory working memory and attention and auditory brainstem response properties, we propose that musicians' perceptual and neural enhancements are driven in a top-down manner by strengthened cognitive abilities with training. Our results may be considered by professionals involved in the remediation of language-based learning deficits, which are often characterized by poor speech perception in noise. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Mexican and Cuban Composers in New York City circa 1880-1920

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

John Koegel

2006-10-01

Full Text Available Cuban musicians active in New  York in the 1860s through the 1890s such as Ignacio Cervantes, Emilio Agramonte, and Rosalia Chalia assisted in the struggle for Cuban independence from Spain from the vantage point of New York's Cuban émigré community, and they also established  a strong  presence in the city's musical life.  Important Mexican musicians such as Miguel Lerdo  de Tejada and Carlos Curti intermittently visited New York or were long-term residents there. This was especially true during the late- nineteenth century, when the forced political stability during the Porfiriato made possible the extended visits of Mexican musicians and ensembles to North American cities such as New York. The Mexican Revolution also sent Mexican musicians to the United States in search of political freedom as well as economic and artistic opportunities that were temporarily closed to them in Mexico.

Musical training generalises across modalities and reveals efficient and adaptive mechanisms for reproducing temporal intervals.

Science.gov (United States)

Aagten-Murphy, David; Cappagli, Giulia; Burr, David

2014-03-01

Expert musicians are able to time their actions accurately and consistently during a musical performance. We investigated how musical expertise influences the ability to reproduce auditory intervals and how this generalises across different techniques and sensory modalities. We first compared various reproduction strategies and interval length, to examine the effects in general and to optimise experimental conditions for testing the effect of music, and found that the effects were robust and consistent across different paradigms. Focussing on a 'ready-set-go' paradigm subjects reproduced time intervals drawn from distributions varying in total length (176, 352 or 704 ms) or in the number of discrete intervals within the total length (3, 5, 11 or 21 discrete intervals). Overall, Musicians performed more veridical than Non-Musicians, and all subjects reproduced auditory-defined intervals more accurately than visually-defined intervals. However, Non-Musicians, particularly with visual stimuli, consistently exhibited a substantial and systematic regression towards the mean interval. When subjects judged intervals from distributions of longer total length they tended to regress more towards the mean, while the ability to discriminate between discrete intervals within the distribution had little influence on subject error. These results are consistent with a Bayesian model that minimizes reproduction errors by incorporating a central tendency prior weighted by the subject's own temporal precision relative to the current distribution of intervals. Finally a strong correlation was observed between all durations of formal musical training and total reproduction errors in both modalities (accounting for 30% of the variance). Taken together these results demonstrate that formal musical training improves temporal reproduction, and that this improvement transfers from audition to vision. They further demonstrate the flexibility of sensorimotor mechanisms in adapting to

Common ground: 1970s improvised music as part of a cross-genre Dutch ensemble culture

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Rusch, L.

2011-01-01

This article focuses on the way in which jazz and Western art music in the Netherlands during the 1970s were intertwined, both social and musically, and how alliances between their avant-gardes (Improvising Musicians and Contemporary Musicians) contributed to what came to be known as Dutch ensemble

Interacting with a Virtual Conductor

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bos, Pieter; Reidsma, Dennis; Ruttkay, Zsófia; Nijholt, Anton; Harper, Richard; Rauterberg, Matthias; Combetto, Marco

This paper presents a virtual embodied agent that can conduct musicians in a live performance. The virtual conductor conducts music specified by a MIDI file and uses input from a microphone to react to the tempo of the musicians. The current implementation of the virtual conductor can interact with

A sound level distribution model for symphony orchestras: possibilities and limitations

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Wenmaekers, R.H.C.; Hak, C.C.J.M.

2015-01-01

Musicians in a symphony orchestra rely on the direct and reflected sound on a concert hall stage to be able to hear each other. Besides ensemble conditions, members and directors of symphony orchestras are concerned about the noise levels musicians are exposed to. However, the actual contribution of

Understanding Your Band, Orchestra, and Choir Students: Personality Similarities and Differences and What They Mean for You

Science.gov (United States)

MacLellan, Christin Reardon

2011-01-01

Stereotypes about the personalities of musicians, which have evolved over time, seem to direct our perception of musical experiences that take place in different ensembles. This article presents the stereotypes often associated with musicians' personalities and examines eight personality trends of high school band, orchestra, and choir students…

The more I teach, the more I think the only thing that has any value is integrating skills : Interview with David Berkman

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Harris, Robert; Smids, Annejoke; Kors, Ninja

2007-01-01

In this interview David Berkman talks about many subjects, among them improvisation, and why classical musicians should improvise more. David Berkman: ‘I would say most Jazz musicians have a certain level of theoretical understanding of what they’re doing, and it’s probably higher than that of the

The Effects of Stretching Exercises during Rehearsals on String Students' Self-Reported Perceptions of Discomfort

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Cooper, Shelly C.; Hamann, Donald L.; Frost, Robert

2012-01-01

Musicians have recognized that physical problems often accompany playing, yet examinations of performance-related injuries and medical problems remain relatively new. The type of instrument played can affect musicians' pain-related problems as well as physical stature. The focus of this study was to determine whether physical intervention--easily…

Injury and the orchestral environment: part II. Organisational culture, behavioural norms, and attitudes to injury.

Science.gov (United States)

Rickert, Dale Ll; Barrett, Margaret S; Ackermann, Bronwen J

2014-06-01

The organisational culture, behavioural norms, and attitudes of a workplace have a profound influence on levels of injury and illness amongst its workers. While this is well established in Work Health and Safety literature, very little research has attempted to understand the influence of organisational culture on injury risk in the orchestral profession. To address this, the current study aimed to investigate the influence of organisational culture on injury outcomes for orchestral musicians. Using a qualitative case study methodology, in-depth semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 10 professional orchestral cellists (2 freelance and 8 fulltime members) from a single Australian orchestra. After initial data analysis, further interviews were undertaken with a set of 5 orchestral management staff as a means of data triangulation. All data were analysed using a themes-based "analysis of narrative" approach. The findings indicate that an orchestral culture exists in which musicians see injury as a sign of weakness, failure, and poor musicianship. Such negative perceptions of injury influence musicians to play through considerable levels of pain and continue performing with injuries. Because of perceived judgment from the orchestral group, musicians were found to conceal injuries from colleagues and management staff. Freelance musicians felt that disclosing injuries may lead to decreased work opportunities, and both full-time and casual musicians felt that "opening up" about injury may subject them to group judgment about their technique or musicianship. The study suggests education measures which may be effective at influencing individual behaviours and attitudes as well as cultural change initiatives which could lead to long-term positive health outcomes in the orchestral workplace.

Degree of chronic orofacial pain associated to the practice of musical instruments in orchestra's participants.

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de Queiroz, José Renato Cavalcanti; Mollica, Fernanda Brandão; Benetti, Paula; de Araujo, Maria Amélia Maximo; Valera, Márcia Carneiro

2014-01-01

The practice of playing musical instruments can affect structures of the head, neck, mouth, and the masticatory system. The aim of this study was to obtain information regarding the prevalence of orofacial pain in musicians according to the type of instrument they play, by applying a specific questionnaire. One hundred and seventeen musicians of Sao Paulo state's orchestras participated in this study. They answered an anamnesis questionnaire with 20 questions regarding their personal data, type of instrument played, hours of daily practice, and presence or absence of orofacial pain according to the Chronic Pain Grade Classification (CPGC). Musicians were divided into two groups in accordance with the risk of affecting TMJ: RG (risk group, including violin, viola, vocalist, trombone, tuba, clarinet and saxophone); CG (control group, other instruments). They received an informative brochure about the subject. Data obtained from the questionnaire were submitted to descriptive statistics, Pearson's correlation analysis and Z-test for difference between two proportions. The participants were from 15 to 62 years old. Pain degree showed positive correlation for reported symptoms (P = 0.002) and hour/day practice (P = 0.030). Regarding the prevalence of pain degree, data were, for RG: Grade 0 (54.5%), Grade 1 (30.3%), and Grade ≥2 (15.1%). For CG, Grade 0 (84.4%), Grade 1 (8.9%), and Grade ≥2 (6.6%). Z-test showed positive difference between groups (P = 0.0001). It was concluded that the musicians of risk group presented higher prevalence of orofacial pain than control (non-risk) group.

Electrical Brain Responses to an Auditory Illusion and the Impact of Musical Expertise.

Science.gov (United States)

Ioannou, Christos I; Pereda, Ernesto; Lindsen, Job P; Bhattacharya, Joydeep

2015-01-01

The presentation of two sinusoidal tones, one to each ear, with a slight frequency mismatch yields an auditory illusion of a beating frequency equal to the frequency difference between the two tones; this is known as binaural beat (BB). The effect of brief BB stimulation on scalp EEG is not conclusively demonstrated. Further, no studies have examined the impact of musical training associated with BB stimulation, yet musicians' brains are often associated with enhanced auditory processing. In this study, we analysed EEG brain responses from two groups, musicians and non-musicians, when stimulated by short presentation (1 min) of binaural beats with beat frequency varying from 1 Hz to 48 Hz. We focused our analysis on alpha and gamma band EEG signals, and they were analysed in terms of spectral power, and functional connectivity as measured by two phase synchrony based measures, phase locking value and phase lag index. Finally, these measures were used to characterize the degree of centrality, segregation and integration of the functional brain network. We found that beat frequencies belonging to alpha band produced the most significant steady-state responses across groups. Further, processing of low frequency (delta, theta, alpha) binaural beats had significant impact on cortical network patterns in the alpha band oscillations. Altogether these results provide a neurophysiological account of cortical responses to BB stimulation at varying frequencies, and demonstrate a modulation of cortico-cortical connectivity in musicians' brains, and further suggest a kind of neuronal entrainment of a linear and nonlinear relationship to the beating frequencies.

Electrical Brain Responses to an Auditory Illusion and the Impact of Musical Expertise.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Christos I Ioannou

Full Text Available The presentation of two sinusoidal tones, one to each ear, with a slight frequency mismatch yields an auditory illusion of a beating frequency equal to the frequency difference between the two tones; this is known as binaural beat (BB. The effect of brief BB stimulation on scalp EEG is not conclusively demonstrated. Further, no studies have examined the impact of musical training associated with BB stimulation, yet musicians' brains are often associated with enhanced auditory processing. In this study, we analysed EEG brain responses from two groups, musicians and non-musicians, when stimulated by short presentation (1 min of binaural beats with beat frequency varying from 1 Hz to 48 Hz. We focused our analysis on alpha and gamma band EEG signals, and they were analysed in terms of spectral power, and functional connectivity as measured by two phase synchrony based measures, phase locking value and phase lag index. Finally, these measures were used to characterize the degree of centrality, segregation and integration of the functional brain network. We found that beat frequencies belonging to alpha band produced the most significant steady-state responses across groups. Further, processing of low frequency (delta, theta, alpha binaural beats had significant impact on cortical network patterns in the alpha band oscillations. Altogether these results provide a neurophysiological account of cortical responses to BB stimulation at varying frequencies, and demonstrate a modulation of cortico-cortical connectivity in musicians' brains, and further suggest a kind of neuronal entrainment of a linear and nonlinear relationship to the beating frequencies.

Using Baroque Techniques to Teach Improvisation in Your Classroom

Science.gov (United States)

Yoo, Hyesoo

2015-01-01

Before our current notation system was widely adopted by musicians, improvisation was a key component of music throughout the Western world. One of the fundamental elements of the baroque style, namely, using improvised embellishment, offered musicians great artist liberty. During the baroque period, improvisation spread across Europe and beyond.…

A Discourse on the Creative Output of Contemporary Nigerian ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

It discusses such issues as the musicians, the medium of communication, musical output of Nigerian musicians and Nigerian music in the context of meeting global standards and other important concepts. It also gives a comprehensive list of current music practitioners in Nigeria, covering the popular genres, art music and ...

Perceptions and Predictions of Expertise in Advanced Musical Learners

Science.gov (United States)

Papageorgi, Ioulia; Creech, Andrea; Haddon, Elizabeth; Morton, Frances; De Bezenac, Christophe; Himonides, Evangelos; Potter, John; Duffy, Celia; Whyton, Tony; Welch, Graham

2010-01-01

The aim of this article was to compare musicians' views on (a) the importance of musical skills and (b) the nature of expertise. Data were obtained from a specially devised web-based questionnaire completed by advanced musicians representing four musical genres (classical, popular, jazz, Scottish traditional) and varying degrees of professional…

Music training relates to the development of neural mechanisms of selective auditory attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Strait, Dana L; Slater, Jessica; O'Connell, Samantha; Kraus, Nina

2015-04-01

Selective attention decreases trial-to-trial variability in cortical auditory-evoked activity. This effect increases over the course of maturation, potentially reflecting the gradual development of selective attention and inhibitory control. Work in adults indicates that music training may alter the development of this neural response characteristic, especially over brain regions associated with executive control: in adult musicians, attention decreases variability in auditory-evoked responses recorded over prefrontal cortex to a greater extent than in nonmusicians. We aimed to determine whether this musician-associated effect emerges during childhood, when selective attention and inhibitory control are under development. We compared cortical auditory-evoked variability to attended and ignored speech streams in musicians and nonmusicians across three age groups: preschoolers, school-aged children and young adults. Results reveal that childhood music training is associated with reduced auditory-evoked response variability recorded over prefrontal cortex during selective auditory attention in school-aged child and adult musicians. Preschoolers, on the other hand, demonstrate no impact of selective attention on cortical response variability and no musician distinctions. This finding is consistent with the gradual emergence of attention during this period and may suggest no pre-existing differences in this attention-related cortical metric between children who undergo music training and those who do not. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Seeking creativity: A case study on information problem solving in professional music

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Wopereis, Iwan; Derix, Egbert

2017-01-01

This study explored the information seeking behavior of a professional jazz musician during creative work. It aimed at revealing information seeking activities necessary to execute present-day musical projects. A single case was studied in depth. First, a narrative interview was conducted to reveal

Toka Boot/The Big Jam: Making Music in Rural East Timor

Science.gov (United States)

Howell, Gillian; Dunphy, Kim

2012-01-01

This article discusses a community music project in rural East Timor. Australian musician Gillian Howell lived for three months in the isolated town of Lospalos as an Asialink artist-in-residence, where she worked with local community members and visiting Australian musicians to share music and ideas, and to communicate across cultures. Three…

Les McCann, Elvis Presley, Linda Ronstadt, and Buddy Holly: Focusing on the Lives of Contemporary Singers.

Science.gov (United States)

Cooper, B. Lee

1980-01-01

Recommends that high school social studies teachers exploit student interest in contemporary musicians to teach techniques of biographical construction. Maintains that innovative classroom practices involving non-traditional subject matter can foster intellectual growth and historical understanding. (Author/DB)

Recent and Past Musical Activity Predicts Cognitive Aging Variability: Direct Comparison with Leisure Activities

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Brenda eHanna-Pladdy

2012-07-01

Full Text Available Studies evaluating the impact of modifiable lifestyle factors on cognition offer potential insights into sources of cognitive aging variability. Recently, we reported an association between extent of musical instrumental practice throughout the life span (greater than 10 years on preserved cognitive functioning in advanced age . These findings raise the question of whether there are training-induced brain changes in musicians that can transfer to nonmusical cognitive abilities to allow for compensation of age-related cognitive declines. However, because of the relationship between engagement in lifestyle activities and preserved cognition, it remains unclear whether these findings are specifically driven by musical training or the types of individuals likely to engage in greater activities in general. The current study examined the type of leisure activity (musical versus other as well as the timing of engagement (age of acquisition, past versus recent in predictive models of successful cognitive aging. Seventy age and education matched older musicians (> 10 years and nonmusicians (ages 59-80 were evaluated on neuropsychological tests and life-style activities (AAP. Partition analyses were conducted on significant cognitive measures to explain performance variance in musicians. Musicians scored higher on tests of phonemic fluency, verbal immediate recall, judgment of line orientation (JLO, and Letter Number Sequencing (LNS, but not the AAP. The first partition analysis revealed education best predicted JLO in musicians, followed by recent musical engagement which offset low education. In the second partition analysis, early age of musical acquisition (< 9 years predicted enhanced LNS in musicians, while analyses for AAP, verbal recall and fluency were not predictive. Recent and past musical activity, but not leisure activity, predicted variability across verbal and visuospatial domains in aging. Early musical acquisition predicted auditory

Imagining the Music: Methods for Assessing Musical Imagery Ability

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Clark, Terry; Williamon, Aaron

2012-01-01

Timing profiles of live and imagined performances were compared with the aim of creating a context-specific measure of musicians' imagery ability. Thirty-two advanced musicians completed imagery use and vividness surveys, and then gave two live and two mental performances of a two-minute musical excerpt, tapping along with the beat of the mental…

Creativity as a distinct trainable mental state: An EEG study of musical improvisation.

Science.gov (United States)

Lopata, Joel A; Nowicki, Elizabeth A; Joanisse, Marc F

2017-05-01

Alpha-band EEG was used to index how creative mental states relate to the creation of artistic works in skilled musicians. We contrasted differences in frontal upper alpha-band activity between tasks with high and low creativity demands by recording EEGs while skilled musicians listened to, played back, and improvised jazz melodies. Neural responses were compared for skilled musicians with training in musical improvisation versus those who had no formal improvisation training. Consistent with our hypotheses, individuals showed increased frontal upper alpha-band activity during more creative tasks (i.e., improvisation) compared to during less creative tasks (i.e., rote playback). Moreover, this effect was greatest for musicians with formal improvisation training. The strength of this effect also appeared to modulate the quality of these improvisations, as evidenced by significant correlations between upper alpha EEG power and objective post-hoc ratings of individuals' performances. These findings support a conceptualization of creativity as a distinct mental state and suggest spontaneous processing capacity is better nurtured through formal institutional training than informal. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The effects of music exposure and own genre preference on conscious and unconscious cognitive processes: a pilot ERP study.

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Caldwell, George N; Riby, Leigh M

2007-12-01

Did Beethoven and Mozart have more in common with each other than Clapton and Hendrix? The current research demonstrated the widely reported Mozart Effect as only partly significant. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 16 professional classical and rock musicians during a standard 2 stimulus visual oddball task, while listening to classical and rock music. During the oddball task participants were required to discriminate between an infrequent target stimulus randomly embedded in a train of repetitive background or standard stimuli. Consistent with previous research, the P3 and N2 ERPs were elicited in response to the infrequent target stimuli. Own genre preference resulted in a reduction in amplitude of the P3 for classical musicians exposed to classical music and rock musicians exposed to rock music. Notably, at the pre-attentive stage of processing (N2) beneficial effects of exposure to classical music were observed for both groups of musicians. These data are discussed in terms of short and long-term music benefits on both conscious and unconscious cognitive processes.

Using spatial manipulation to examine interactions between visual and auditory encoding of pitch and time

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Neil M McLachlan

2010-12-01

Full Text Available Music notations use both symbolic and spatial representation systems. Novice musicians do not have the training to associate symbolic information with musical identities, such as chords or rhythmic and melodic patterns. They provide an opportunity to explore the mechanisms underpinning multimodal learning when spatial encoding strategies of feature dimensions might be expected to dominate. In this study, we applied a range of transformations (such as time reversal to short melodies and rhythms and asked novice musicians to identify them with or without the aid of notation. Performance using a purely spatial (graphic notation was contrasted with the more symbolic, traditional western notation over a series of weekly sessions. The results showed learning effects for both notation types, but performance improved more for graphic notation. This points to greater compatibility of auditory and visual neural codes for novice musicians when using spatial notation, suggesting that pitch and time may be spatially encoded in multimodal associative memory. The findings also point to new strategies for training novice musicians.

Between Two Worlds: Concert-giving and Rioting in the Post-Yugoslav Area

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Ana Petrov

2015-04-01

Full Text Available Starting in the late 1990s, some musicians from the territory of former Yugoslavia gradually embarked on the project of giving concerts in Belgrade, the capital of the former country. Others refused to perform in Serbia after the wars, which fuelled a negative attitude toward these musicians. In this paper I deal with the reception of those concerts, pointing to the ways they have become specific affective sites of memory. I focus on two major issues: the discourse produced in the concerts by the performers themselves and members of the audience and the discourse produced by various protest groups (which resulted in the organization of protests in Belgrade against performances by musicians who ‘hate Serbs’.

A review of neurological abnormalities associated with the practise of music.

LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

O'Connor, G

2009-05-01

A number of neurological abnormalities associated with the playing of musical instruments have been described which can cause great difficulty for performers. However, there has been no attempt to consider this in an Irish context, a cultural setting which encompasses an unusual range of playing styles and musical instruments. We performed a retrospective assessment of musicians referred to our service for neurophysiological testing. In this series of 17 musicians, most (59%) had more than one abnormality on testing. We discovered fifteen cases of carpal tunnel syndrome, eleven cases of ulnar neuropathy, and four cases of focal dystonia. Compared to previously published reports, our series contains a greater proportion of amateur musicians, a group not well studied in the literature.

A profissão de músico conforme apresentada em jornais paraibanos The profession of musician in the paraíba state newspapers

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Sandra Souza

2010-04-01

Full Text Available O artigo relata estudo sobre a profissão dos músicos na Paraíba, realizado por meio da aplicação da análise de conteúdo de dois jornais diários do Estado. A referida análise foi desenvolvida com uma amostra de números referentes aos anos de 2001 e 2003. Identificaram-se quatro categorias (papel social da música; incentivo à música; profissão e organização político-associativas. Tal estudo empírico resultou na identificação de aspectos centrais e importantes na construção da identidade profissional, como: o profissionalismo versus amadorismo; o mito da fama versus o anonimato; desvalorização da chamada prata da casa versus valorização do estrangeiro, etc. Embora não esgotem o tema, situam o lugar que a profissão ocupa na sociedade e pode se constituir em fonte para a elaboração de novas questões e hipóteses para os pesquisadores que se interessarem pela temática.The article reports study on the profession of musicians in the State of Paraíba, conducted by applying the analysis of contents of two daily newspapers of the State. The analysis itself was developed with a sample of issues of the years 2001 and 2003. Four categories were identified (social role of the music; encouraging the music; profession and associative political organization. Such empirical study resulted in the identification of key and important aspects, in the construction of a professional identity, as, professionalism versus amateurism; the myth of fame versus the anonymity; the depreciation of the so-called home talent versus the value of the foreign ones, and so on. Even though this type of media does not exhaust the subject, it establishes the position that the profession occupies in the society and may constitute itself a source for the development of new questions and hypotheses for the researchers interested in the topic.

Informal Music Learning, Improvisation and Teacher Education

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Wright, Ruth; Kanellopoulos, Panagiotis

2010-01-01

This paper explores firstly the sense in which improvisation might be conceived of as an informal music education process and, secondly, the effects of a course in free improvisation on student teachers' perceptions in relation to themselves as musicians, music as a school subject and children as musicians. The results of a study conducted in two…

Teen Bands to Battle on a National Stage: NAMM Expands Its SchoolJam Showcase with a Little Help from MENC

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Giordano, Geoff

2009-01-01

SchoolJam, a popular teen musicians' showcase in Texas that provides recognition for young performers as well as funding for their school music programs, is about to go nationwide. The competition, which NAMM, the International Music Products Association, brought to the United States from Germany in 2007, allows groups of musicians age 13 to 18 to…

The Effect of Concurrent Music Reading and Performance on the Ability to Detect Tempo Change.

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Ellis, Mark Carlton

1989-01-01

Measures the ability of three groups of musicians to detect tempo change while reading and performing music. Compares this ability with that of the same musicians to detect tempo change while listening only. Found that for all groups the ability to detect tempo changes was inhibited by the playing task, although to different degrees for each…

Portfolio career

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Harris, Robert

2017-01-01

Performance opportunities for classical musicians seem to be declining. Nevertheless, the growth of creative industries is larger than that of the economy. Current emphasis is more on touring, Internet, and non-live performance. Financial viability depends on advertising, social media,

How automatic is the musical stroop effect? Commentary on “the musical stroop effect: opening a new avenue to research on automatisms” by l. Grégoire, P. Perruchet, and B. Poulin-Charronnat (Experimental Psychology, 2013, vol. 60, pp. 269–278).

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Moeller, Birte; Frings, Christian

2014-01-01

Grégoire, Perruchet, and Poulin-Charronnat (2013) investigated a musical variant of the reversed Stroop effect. According to the authors, one big advantage of this variant is that the automaticity of note naming can be better controlled than in other Stroop variants as musicians are very practiced in note reading whereas non-musicians are not. In this comment we argue that at present the exact impact of automaticity in this Stroop variant remains somewhat unclear for at least three reasons, namely due to the type of information that is automatically retrieved when notes are encountered, due to the possible influence of object-based attention, and finally due to the fact that the exact influence of expertise on interference cannot be pinpointed with an extreme group design.

Exploring Cognitive Relations Between Prediction in Language and Music.

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Patel, Aniruddh D; Morgan, Emily

2017-03-01

The online processing of both music and language involves making predictions about upcoming material, but the relationship between prediction in these two domains is not well understood. Electrophysiological methods for studying individual differences in prediction in language processing have opened the door to new questions. Specifically, we ask whether individuals with musical training predict upcoming linguistic material more strongly and/or more accurately than non-musicians. We propose two reasons why prediction in these two domains might be linked: (a) Musicians may have greater verbal short-term/working memory; (b) music may specifically reward predictions based on hierarchical structure. We provide suggestions as to how to expand upon recent work on individual differences in language processing to test these hypotheses. Copyright © 2016 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Effects of musicality and motivational orientation on auditory category learning: a test of a regulatory-fit hypothesis.

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McAuley, J Devin; Henry, Molly J; Wedd, Alan; Pleskac, Timothy J; Cesario, Joseph

2012-02-01

Two experiments investigated the effects of musicality and motivational orientation on auditory category learning. In both experiments, participants learned to classify tone stimuli that varied in frequency and duration according to an initially unknown disjunctive rule; feedback involved gaining points for correct responses (a gains reward structure) or losing points for incorrect responses (a losses reward structure). For Experiment 1, participants were told at the start that musicians typically outperform nonmusicians on the task, and then they were asked to identify themselves as either a "musician" or a "nonmusician." For Experiment 2, participants were given either a promotion focus prime (a performance-based opportunity to gain entry into a raffle) or a prevention focus prime (a performance-based criterion that needed to be maintained to avoid losing an entry into a raffle) at the start of the experiment. Consistent with a regulatory-fit hypothesis, self-identified musicians and promotion-primed participants given a gains reward structure made more correct tone classifications and were more likely to discover the optimal disjunctive rule than were musicians and promotion-primed participants experiencing losses. Reward structure (gains vs. losses) had inconsistent effects on the performance of nonmusicians, and a weaker regulatory-fit effect was found for the prevention focus prime. Overall, the findings from this study demonstrate a regulatory-fit effect in the domain of auditory category learning and show that motivational orientation may contribute to musician performance advantages in auditory perception.

Playing-Related Health Problems Among Instrumental Music Students at a University in Malaysia.

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Lonsdale, Karen; Boon, Ong Kuan

2016-09-01

Musicians from a wide range of backgrounds experience playing-related health problems including musculoskeletal disorders, hearing loss, and performance anxiety. Few studies have focused specifically on the health concerns of musicians in Malaysia. This study aimed to investigate playing-related health problems among student musicians at a university in Malaysia as well as their knowledge and awareness of playing-related health problems. Instrumental music students enrolled in undergraduate and post-graduate university music courses (n=98) participated in a self-report online survey which addressed aspects such as educational background, playing experience, knowledge and awareness of musicians' health issues, history of physical problems, lifestyle factors, and prevention and management strategies. Of the total participants, 28.9% reported that they were currently experiencing playing-related pain in a body part, and 46.4% had experienced playing-related pain at some time. More than half (56.7%) felt that they have not received enough information or advice on playing-related health during their current studies. Musicians who experienced playing-related pain, tension, and discomfort reported the main problem sites to be the fingers and hands, arms, neck, and shoulders. The study results demonstrate that Malaysian university music students are affected by similar types of playing-related physical problems as their counterparts around the world. A greater awareness and knowledge of injury prevention and management strategies is needed so that these music students can sustain healthy playing careers.

Neurosurgery and Music; Effect of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

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Gasenzer, Elena Romana; Kanat, Ayhan; Neugebauer, Edmund

2017-06-01

The nervous system works like a great orchestra. Specifically, the music of Mozart with its "Mozart effect" is appropriate to use in neurosurgery. We investigated the relationship between Mozart's music and neurosurgery. We used digital catalogs like "PubMed" and the libraries of universities. Key words were "Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart" and "neurosurgery and music." In the first half of the 20th century, performing neurosurgery on some musicians, such as Maurice Ravel, Josef Hassid, and George Gershwin, resulted in a fatal outcome. The cause of this is probably that neurosurgery had not been developed yet in the first half of the 20th century. In the past 3 decades, the neurosurgical operations of musicians show that musicians have rich associations among auditory, somatic, and sensorial systems. It is clear that we have much to learn from studies about music and brain function that derive from our surgical experiences with patients. The neuronal plasticity of musicians' brains may be different from that of nonmusicians' brains. Musicians with enhanced motor skills have greater capacity for plasticity because of enriched interhemispheric connections. Listening to music and the effect of Mozart in neurosurgical practice, intensive care, or rehabilitation were documented in many studies. As authors, we mean something different: Its effectiveness should be studied. We concluded that in current neurosurgical practice, Mozart has an effect. More research and clinical studies are needed. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

On Being and Becoming a Jazz Musician: Perceptions of Young Scottish Musicians

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Black, Pauline

2017-01-01

This paper examines what goes on in an improvising jazz combo in a secondary school in Scotland, where teaching follows Rogoff's three-stage sociocultural process, moving from an initial apprenticeship model through one of guided participation to one of participatory appropriation. Using a case study research design and interpretative…

Effects of musical training on sound pattern processing in high-school students.

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Wang, Wenjung; Staffaroni, Laura; Reid, Errold; Steinschneider, Mitchell; Sussman, Elyse

2009-05-01

Recognizing melody in music involves detection of both the pitch intervals and the silence between sequentially presented sounds. This study tested the hypothesis that active musical training in adolescents facilitates the ability to passively detect sequential sound patterns compared to musically non-trained age-matched peers. Twenty adolescents, aged 15-18 years, were divided into groups according to their musical training and current experience. A fixed order tone pattern was presented at various stimulus rates while electroencephalogram was recorded. The influence of musical training on passive auditory processing of the sound patterns was assessed using components of event-related brain potentials (ERPs). The mismatch negativity (MMN) ERP component was elicited in different stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) conditions in non-musicians than musicians, indicating that musically active adolescents were able to detect sound patterns across longer time intervals than age-matched peers. Musical training facilitates detection of auditory patterns, allowing the ability to automatically recognize sequential sound patterns over longer time periods than non-musical counterparts.