scholarly journals Computational Approaches to Music Motor Performance: Clustering of Percussion Kinematics Underlying Performance Style

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tristan Loria ◽  
Aiyun Huang ◽  
Tara Lynn Henechowicz ◽  
Michael H. Thaut
Keyword(s):  
Sound Production ◽  
Postural Sway ◽  
The Body ◽  
Motor Execution ◽  
Performance Style ◽  
Expressive Performance ◽  
Holistic Understanding ◽  
Components Analysis ◽  
Marimba Performance ◽  
Biomechanical Constraints

The present study investigated motor kinematics underlying performance-related movements in marimba performance. Participants played a marimba while motion capture equipment tracked movements of the torso, shoulders, elbows, wrists, and hands. Principal components analysis was applied to assess the movements during the performance related to sound production and sound preparation. Subsequent cluster analyses sought to identify coupling of limb segment movements that may best characterize performance styles present in the performance. The analysis revealed four clusters that were thought to reflect performance styles of expressive performance, postural sway, energy efficiency, and a blend of the former styles. More specifically, the expressive cluster was best characterized by limb movements occurring along the vertical z-axis, whereas the postural sway cluster was characterized by forwards and backwards motions of the torso and upper limbs. The energy efficient cluster was characterized by movements of the body moving left to right along the marimba, whereas the blended style demonstrated limited delineation from the alternate styles. Such findings were interpreted as evidence that performance styles occur within a framework of biomechanical constraints and hierarchical stylistic factors. Overall, the results provided a more holistic understanding of motor execution in percussion performance.

scholarly journals Men and women do not have the same relation between body composition and postural sway

2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (02) ◽  
pp. 093-097 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Alonso ◽  
L. Mochizuki ◽  
N. Luna ◽  
A. Canonica ◽  
R. Souza ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Body Composition ◽  
Body Mass ◽  
Bone Mineral ◽  
Postural Sway ◽  
Multiple Linear Regression Model ◽  
The Body ◽  
Lower Limbs ◽  
Quiet Standing ◽  
Mineral Density ◽  
Men And Women

Abstract Introduction: The aim of the present study was to evaluate the influence of body composition on the postural sway during quiet standing. Our hypothesis is that men and women do not have the same relation between body composition and postural sway during quiet standing. Materials and Methods: Participated in the study 50 men and 50 women; age range: 20-40 years old. The main outcome measures were: Body composition (bone densitometry), percentage of fat (% fat) tissue (g), fat (g), lean mass (g), bone mineral content (g) and bone mineral density (g/cm2); Anthropometry: body mass (kg), height (cm), length of the trunk-head (cm), length of lower limbs (cm). The following indices were calculated: body mass index (BMI) (kg/m2) and Postural balance test - center ofpressure displacement. Results: The correlation analysis showed low correlations between postural sway and anthropometric variables. The multiple linear regression model showed that the body composition and the anthropometry were able to explain only men's postural sway. Conclusion: The postural sway is sex type dependent. Men and women have different relations between body composition and postural sway. Only male's body composition affected the body sway.

Musicians body sway embodies musical structure and expression: A recurrence-based approach

2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 244-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander P. Demos ◽  
Roger Chaffin ◽  
Topher Logan
Keyword(s):  
Serial Position ◽  
Linear Models ◽  
Postural Sway ◽  
Statistical Tests ◽  
Body Sway ◽  
Musical Structure ◽  
Mixed Linear Models ◽  
Self Similarity ◽  
Performance Style ◽  
The Relationship

Musicians’ sway during performance seems to be related to musical structure. However, it has yet to be shown that examples of the relationship are not simply due to chance. Progress has been impeded by three problems: the assumption that musical structure is constant across performances; the complexity of the movements; and the inability of traditional statistical tests to accurately model the multilevel temporal hierarchies involved. We solved these problems in a study of the side-to-side postural sway of two trombonists as they each recorded two performances of each of two solo pieces in each of three different performance styles (normal, expressive, non-expressive). The musicians reported their phrasing immediately after each performance by marking copies of the score. We measured the rate and stability (mean line) of recurrence (self-similarity) and assessed the effect of serial position within a phrase, using mixed linear models to model the nesting of phrases within pieces, within performances, across expressive styles and musicians. Recurrence and stability of recurrence changed systematically across the course of a phrase, producing sinusoidal-like and arch-shaped phrasing contours that differed with the performance style and length of phrase. As long suspected, musicians’ expressive movements reflect musical structure.

scholarly journals The gravitational imprint on sensorimotor planning and control

2020 ◽  
Vol 124 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
O. White ◽  
J. Gaveau ◽  
L. Bringoux ◽  
F. Crevecoeur
Keyword(s):  
Internal Representation ◽  
The Body ◽  
Altered Gravity ◽  
Partial Adjustment ◽  
Gravitational Forces ◽  
Planning And Control ◽  
Biomechanical Constraints ◽  
And Control ◽  
Future Work ◽  
The Impact

Humans excel at learning complex tasks, and elite performers such as musicians or athletes develop motor skills that defy biomechanical constraints. All actions require the movement of massive bodies. Of particular interest in the process of sensorimotor learning and control is the impact of gravitational forces on the body. Indeed, efficient control and accurate internal representations of the body configuration in space depend on our ability to feel and anticipate the action of gravity. Here we review studies on perception and sensorimotor control in both normal and altered gravity. Behavioral and modeling studies together suggested that the nervous system develops efficient strategies to take advantage of gravitational forces across a wide variety of tasks. However, when the body was exposed to altered gravity, the rate and amount of adaptation exhibited substantial variation from one experiment to another and sometimes led to partial adjustment only. Overall, these results support the hypothesis that the brain uses a multimodal and flexible representation of the effect of gravity on our body and movements. Future work is necessary to better characterize the nature of this internal representation and the extent to which it can adapt to novel contexts.

scholarly journals An embodied approach to consumer experiences: the Hollister brandscape

2019 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 806-828 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorna Stevens ◽  
Pauline Maclaran ◽  
Stephen Brown
Keyword(s):  
Primary Source ◽  
The Body ◽  
Embodied Experience ◽  
Consumer Experience ◽  
Sensory Marketing ◽  
Holistic Understanding ◽  
Consumer Experiences ◽  
Embodied Experiences ◽  
On Line ◽  
Sensory Activation

Purpose This paper aims to use embodied theory to analyze consumer experience in a retail brandscape, Hollister Co. By taking a holistic, embodied approach, this study reveals how individual consumers interact with such retail environments in corporeal, instinctive and sensual ways. Design/methodology/approach The primary source of data was 97 subjective personal introspective accounts undertaken with the target age group for the store. These were supplemented with in-depth interviews with consumers, managers and employees of Hollister. Findings The authors offer a conceptualization of consumers’ embodied experience, which they term The Immersive Somascape Experience. This identifies four key touch points that evoke the Hollister store experience – each of which reveals how the body is affected by particular relational and material specificities. These are sensory activation, brand materialities, corporeal relationality and (dis)orientation. These may lead to consumer emplacement. Research limitations/implications The authors propose that taking an “intelligible embodiment” approach to consumer experiences in retail contexts provides a deeper, more holistic understanding of the embodied processes involved. They also suggest that more anthropological, body-grounded studies are needed for the unique insights they provide. Finally, they note that there is growing consumer demand for experiences, which, they argue, points to the need for more research from an embodied experience perspective in our field. Practical implications The study reveals the perils and pitfalls of adopting a sensory marketing perspective. It also offers insights into how the body leads in retail brandscapes, addressing a lack in such approaches in the current retailing literature and suggesting that embodied, experiential aspects of branding are increasingly pertinent in retailing in light of the continued growth of on-line shopping. Originality/value Overall, the study shows how an embodied approach challenges the dominance of mind and representation over body and materiality, suggesting an “intelligible embodiment” lens offers unique insights into consumers’ embodied experiences in retail environments.

Biomechanical constraints to stair negotiation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Constantinos Maganaris ◽  
Vasilios Baltzopoulos ◽  
David Jones ◽  
Irene Di Giulio ◽  
Neil Reeves ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Dynamic Stability ◽  
Ankle Joint ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
The Body ◽  
Centre Of Mass ◽  
Centre Of Pressure ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Stair Negotiation ◽  
Biomechanical Constraints

This chapter discusses strategies that older and younger people employ to negotiate stairs based on experiments performed on an instrumented staircase in lab environment aiming at identifying ways to reduce stair fall risk for the elderly. Stair negotiation was found to be more demanding for the knee and ankle joint muscles in older than younger adults, with the demand increasing further when the step-rise was higher. During descent of stairs with higher step-rises, older adults shifted the centre of mass (COM) posteriorly, behind the centre of pressure (COP) to prevent forward falling. A decreased step-going resulted in a slower descent of the centre of mass in the older adults and standing on a single leg for longer than younger adults. A greater reliance on the handrails and rotation of the body in the direction of the handrail was also observed when the step-going was decreased during descent, which allowed this task to be performed with better dynamic stability, by maintaining the COM closer to the COP. These findings have important implications for stair design and exercise programs aiming at improving safety on stairs for the elderly.

Figures of/for Voice

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Nowell Smith
Keyword(s):  
Inner Ear ◽  
Sound Production ◽  
Silent Reading ◽  
The Body ◽  
Read Aloud ◽  
Sound Recording ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Presence And Absence

The concept of “voice” has long been highly ambiguous, with the physiological-phonetic process of sound production entangled in a far more extensive cultural and metaphysical imaginary of voice. Neither purely sound nor purely signification, voice can name either a sonorous excess over signification or the point at which sounds start to signify. Neither purely of the body nor ever extricated from its body, it can figure multiple kinds of meaningful embodiment, the breakdown of meaning in brute materiality, or even a strangely disembodied emanation. Voice can be both intentional and involuntary, both singular and plural, both presence and absence, both the possession of a subject and something that possesses subjects or is uncontainable by the subject. Voices may signify immediacy and be experienced as immediate, and yet they are continually mediated—by text, by technology, by art. In literature, the status of voice is particularly fraught. Not only do literary works deploy this imaginary of voice, but voice is crucial to literature’s medium. If this is most evident in the case of works composed or transmitted orally, it also holds for written works that, while destined for silent reading, nevertheless construct a virtual soundworld destined for its reader’s inner ear, to be subvocalized rather than read aloud. Literary works have been crucial in the development and deployment of the cultural-metaphysical imaginary of voice, precisely because “voice” poses such a diverse set of questions and problems for literature. These problems change focus and force with the development of technologies of inscription and prosthesis, from printing to sound recording to automated speech.

scholarly journals Can explicit visual feedback of postural sway efface the effects of sensory manipulations on mediolateral balance performance?

2016 ◽  
Vol 115 (2) ◽  
pp. 907-914 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Eduardo Cofré Lizama ◽  
Mirjam Pijnappels ◽  
N. Peter Reeves ◽  
Sabine M. P. Verschueren ◽  
Jaap H. van Dieën
Keyword(s):  
Visual Feedback ◽  
Repeated Measures ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Postural Sway ◽  
Center Of Mass ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Center ◽  
Explicit Feedback ◽  
Dominant Frequencies ◽  
Visual Conditions

Explicit visual feedback on postural sway is often used in balance assessment and training. However, up-weighting of visual information may mask impairments of other sensory systems. We therefore aimed to determine whether the effects of somatosensory, vestibular, and proprioceptive manipulations on mediolateral balance are reduced by explicit visual feedback on mediolateral sway of the body center of mass and by the presence of visual information. We manipulated sensory inputs of the somatosensory system by transcutaneous electric nerve stimulation on the feet soles (TENS) of the vestibular system by galvanic vestibular stimulation (GVS) and of the proprioceptive system by muscle-tendon vibration (VMS) of hip abductors. The effects of these manipulations on mediolateral sway were compared with a control condition without manipulation under three visual conditions: explicit feedback of sway of the body center of mass (FB), eyes open (EO), and eyes closed (EC). Mediolateral sway was quantified as the sum of energies in the power spectrum and as the energy at the dominant frequencies in each of the manipulation signals. Repeated-measures ANOVAs were used to test effects of each of the sensory manipulations, of visual conditions and their interaction. Overall, sensory manipulations increased body sway compared with the control conditions. Absence of normal visual information had no effect on sway, while explicit feedback reduced sway. Furthermore, interactions of visual information and sensory manipulation were found at specific dominant frequencies for GVS and VMS, with explicit feedback reducing the effects of the manipulations but not effacing these.

scholarly journals Capturing the Body Live: A Framework for Technological Recognition and Extension of Physical Expression in Performance

Leonardo ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Jessop
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Performance Analysis ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Physical Performance ◽  
The Body ◽  
Emotional Content ◽  
Performing Artists ◽  
Technological Performance ◽  
Expressive Performance ◽  
New Framework

Performing artists have frequently used technology to sense and extend the body’s natural expressivity through live control of multimedia. However, the sophistication, emotional content and variety of expression possible through the original physical channels are often not captured by these technologies and thus cannot be transferred from body to digital media. In this article the author brings together research from expressive performance analysis, machine learning and technological performance extension techniques to define a new framework for recognition and extension of expressive physical performance.

scholarly journals The work of an invisible body

2014 ◽  
pp. 79-93
Author(s):  
Lucy Fife Donaldson
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Film Theory ◽  
Functional Element ◽  
The Body ◽  
Physical Work ◽  
Physical Action ◽  
Expressive Performance ◽  
Bob Fosse

On-screen bodies are central to our engagement with film. As sensory film theory seeks to remind us, this engagement is sensuous and embodied: our physicality forms sympathetic, kinetic and empathetic responses to the bodies we see and hear. We see a body jump, run and crash and in response we tense, twitch and flinch. But whose effort are we responding to? The character’s? The actor’s? This article explores the contribution of an invisible body in shaping our responsiveness to on-screen effort, that of the foley artist. Foley artists recreate a range of sounds made by the body, including footsteps, breath, face punches, falls, and the sound clothing makes as actors walk or run. Foley is a functional element of the filmmaking process, yet accounts of foley work note the creativity involved in these performances, which add to characterisation and expressivity. Drawing on detailed analysis of sequences in Cabaret (Bob Fosse, 1972) and Die Hard (John McTiernan, 1988) which foreground exertion and kinetic movement through dance and physical action, this article considers the affective contribution of foley to the physical work depicted on-screen. In doing so, I seek to highlight the extent to which foley constitutes an expressive performance that furthers our sensuous perception and appreciation of film.

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