Workshop on measuring coordination between performer and audience response

This workshop is organized by CIRMMT Research Axis 2 (Musical gestures, devices and motion capture) and Research Axis 5 (Music perception and cognition). It will take place on March 14th, in A832 (New Music Building). This workshop is free and open to all. Registration is required.

Atelier ou réunion de recherche
14 Mars 2012
11:00 - 14:00
A832, New Music Building, 527 Sherbrooke St. West.
iCal

Description

The main aim of the workshop is to explore how we might proceed to work between performers, engineers and scientists to understand what exactly is coordinated between what performers are doing and experiencing when they are making music and what audiences are experiencing in watching and listening to them. Panelists will present their positions and dreams on the subject and then a general discussion will be organized around the major questions that emerge. CIRMMT members are invited to submit what they consider to be THE major pressing and urgent question that would need to be answered from their perspective for research in this field to make headway. Please send questions to smc [AT] music.mcgill.ca.

Guests/speakers

  • Matt Haimowitz, Dept. of Performance, Schulich School of Music, McGill University
  • Daniel Levitin, CIRMMT, Dept. of Psychology, McGill University
  • Fabrice Marandola, CIRMMT, Dept. of Performance, Schulich School of Music, McGill University
  • Stephen McAdams, CIRMMT, Dept. of Music Research, Schulich School of Music, McGill University
  • Caroline Palmer, CIRMMT, Dept. of Psychology, McGill University
  • Michael Schutz, McMaster Institute for Music and the Mind, School of the Arts, McMaster University
  • Petri Toiviainen, Centre for Excellence in Interdisciplinary Music Research, University of Jyväskylä
  • Marcelo Wanderley, CIRMMT, Dept. of Music Research, Schulich School of Music, McGill University

Schedule

10:00  Stephen McAdams - Introduction: What might be coordinated between performers' and audience's responses?

10:15  Fabrice Marandola - Perception of time and sound when gesture/sound coupling is not obvious

10:30  Michael Schutz - Feeling the beat: How effective gestures affect our perception of musical rhythm

10:45  Matt Haimowitz - Audience chemistry and its impact on program and performance

11:00  Caroline Palmer - Connecting movement to sound: Performer response in ensembles

11:15  Petri Toiviainen - Collective entrainment in music-related movement

11:30  Daniel Levitin - Finding objective moments in performance that are potentially transmitted from performer to audience

11:45  Marcelo Wanderley - Technologies for measuring performer and audience response

12:00  Open discussion

 

Some other questions that might be bandied about:

  • To what degree does a performer's experience of his/her own performance agree with the audience's experience/perspective?
  • What is the influence of spatialization of performers on perception by the audience (from the points of view of both the sound and the performative event)?
  • How is the perception of time by the audience influenced by visual cues from performers (whether there is a conductor or not, obvious/hidden cues, conducting passed around the performers, etc.)?
  • Can an audience detect internal emotions of the performer, the exact emotions that he/she is trying to hide ("Oh I screwed up this passage again!")
  • How do we find common, well-defined moments in the performance that can be objectively determined, and then "transmitted" from performer to audience member?
  • How do we handle individual differences in performer or audience data? Or how can we create subgroups of homogeneous "types" of audience members so that we can treat them differently in our analyses?
  • How can we understand the complex temporal dynamics of musical interaction?
  • How can we study the congruence between the expressiveness of the gesture of the musician and the expressiveness of the modification of the sound? What is the impact of this congruence on the audience's feelings? 
  • How can we optimize (or adapt) the mapping between the gestures of the musician and the control of the sounds? According to which criteria? What role do emotions play in this?

Registration

Registration is mandatory as seating is limited (27 seats): Workshop on measuring coordination between performer and audience response - registration