104 research outputs found
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The Lullaby Project: Characteristics of Change and Mechanisms of Impact – Research Report
No full textExploring lived experiences of spirituality amongst five Dalcroze teachers
Get PDFThis paper presents an interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) of the lived spiritual experiences of five Dalcroze teachers while teaching Dalcroze Eurhythmics. It responds to a recent expansion of research into spirituality within music education and also in relation to Dalcroze Eurhythmics. However, there is no study on the lived spiritual experiences of Dalcroze practitioners. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to understand how five Dalcroze teachers make sense of their spiritual experiences while teaching Dalcroze Eurhythmics. After semi-structured interviews, we interpreted the experiences of each individual participant separately before doing a cross-case analysis. A six-step, iterative and inductive data analysis cycle was followed. The superordinate themes that emerged are: Breathing is essential; Giving and receiving energy (physical and emotional); Creating connections through sound and movement; Awareness of self, other, environment and music; Growth and learning; Meaning and holism; Wellbeing; and Precious moments of transcending time and space. Participants’ spiritual experiences are discussed against the background of “A conceptual model for spirituality in music education” as well as “A conceptual study of spirituality in selected writings of Émile Jaques-Dalcroze.” Music educators’ awareness of spirituality while teaching Dalcroze Eurhythmics could be heightened to increase their “pedagogical thoughtfulness and tact.
"Valse", with a critical commentary by Nicolas Southon
No full textPiano piece by Poulenc, newly discovered by Nicolas Southo
Violin Impulse Response Length and Perceptions of Acceptability
No full textThe design, execution and analysis of a double-blind listening study is described, in which participants gave preference ratings for nine versions of the same piece of music, obtained by convolving violin impulse responses, of different length, with the original piece played on an electric instrument and stored in digital form. The original impulse response, with a length of 91.4 ms was measured from a Stradivarius violin and progressively degraded by shortening its length. The participants, who were all trained musicians, were asked to record their preferences based on personal taste, not perceived measures of quality. Analysis of the data revealed a sigmoid relationship between preference and length of impulse response. Emulated music generated using short impulse responses was the least preferred, and this aversion was reasonably constant for responses shorter than 2.7 ms. However, and perhaps surprisingly, impulse responses of only 5.78 ms were deemed acceptable. Extending the length beyond this value had little effect on the attributed preferences. Between these two values, there was a steep increase in the assigned scores, suggesting a sigmoid relationship. The findings are of theoretical interest for psychoacoustics and can be applied to the development of electronic devices that emulate stringed instruments in real time
Resounding Meaning: A PERMA Wellbeing Profile of Classical Musicians
No full textWhile music has been linked with enhanced wellbeing across a wide variety of contexts, the professional pursuit of a music career is frequently associated with poor psychological health. Most research has focused on assessing negative functioning, and to date, few studies have attempted to profile musicians’ wellbeing using a positive framework. This study aimed to generate a profile that represents indicators of optimal functioning among classical musicians. The PERMA model, which reconciles hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing, was adopted and its five elements assessed with a sample of professional classical musicians: Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning and Accomplishment. 601 participants (298 women, 303 men) engaged in careers as orchestral (n = 236), solo (n = 158), chamber (n = 112), and choral musicians (n = 36), as well as composers (n = 30) and conductors (n = 29), answered the PERMA-Profiler, a self-report questionnaire built to assess the five components of PERMA. Results point to high scores across all dimensions, with Meaning emerging as the highest rated dimension. Musicians scored significantly higher than general population indicators on Positive Emotion, Relationships and Meaning. When wellbeing is assessed as positive functioning and not the absence of illbeing, musicians show promising profiles. The reconciliation between these findings and the previous body of research pointing to the music profession as highly challenging for healthy psychological functioning is discussed.
Keywords: PERMA, wellbeing, classical musicians, positive psychology, meanin
Debussy’s Speculative Idea: Orchestration and the Substance of Jeux
Get PDFThis article seeks to determine the extent to which timbral and textural concerns inform the musical substance of Debussy’s Jeux. Of particular interest are passages in which foreground detail effaces itself in the interests of orchestral qualities, those where an overabundance of surface detail is preconfigured so as to maximize orchestral efficacy, and sections where a more traditional distinction between compositional content and orchestrational attributes seems to obtain. It is Hegelian substance ultimately that I have in mind, however, on which basis I seek to distinguish between unification and synthesis – I argue that Jeux’s immediacy is overcome through negating (orchestrational) activity, arriving thus at the objectively real (realized and posited) product. On this basis, Jeux’s substance, including its orchestral aspects, is best understood speculatively
Reciprocal auditory attenuation affects looking behaviour and playing level but not ensemble synchrony: A psychoacoustical study of violin duos
Get PDFEvidence suggests that musicians may be more susceptible to developing a hearing impairment due to
increased exposure to loud sounds over the lifespan. Hearing impairments can affect musical performance
behaviours, yet research suggests they do not significantly affect ensemble synchrony unless the hearing
loss is severe or profound. This study investigated the effect of reduced auditory feedback on ensemble
synchrony, looking behaviour and playing level. Four violinists, with self-reported normal hearing, formed
two duos in acoustically-isolated rooms separated by a glass window. Each player received feedback from
their own and their co-performer’s playing attenuated by 0, 10, 20, 30 and 40 dB. Video recordings
of their looking behaviours were coded and signed asynchronies were identified in the audio files. The
strongest effects found were bi-directional changes to playing levels as a result of auditory feedback levels,
which increased when a player’s own feedback was reduced and reduced when co-performer feedback
was attenuated. Violinists’ looking behaviour was found to increase when co-performer feedback was
attenuated by 20 dB or more relative to their own, such that they glanced more frequently and looked
for longer towards their partners. There were no effects of auditory attenuation on ensemble synchrony,
even with 40 dB attenuation. The results indicate that “self-to-other” sound level ratios are more likely to
prompt compensatory musical performance behaviours than an individual’s hearing ability
Understanding what we mean by portfolio training in music
Get PDFAlthough musicians have always had portfolio careers, the discourse in conservatoires
around training musicians specifically for portfolio careers is relatively new. This is partly
because of increasing opportunities in the workplace for entrepreneurial and multi-faceted
musicians and partly – in the UK at least – because of educational policy and practice. This
article incorporates narratives provided by professional portfolio musicians and students
and teachers at a single conservatoire in the UK, to illustrate disjunctures between the
expectations fostered by conservatoires undergoing changes in their culture and the lived
experiences of teachers and students responding, in real time, to changes both within the
conservatoire and in the wider society. One of the key findings of the research is that
teachers and students have qualitatively different conceptions of what it means for students
to be trained for portfolio careers. The paper concludes by considering the implications of
their different understandings for initiatives to reform conservatoire curricula
