Motor Variability in Complex Gesture Learning: Effects of Movement Sonification and Musical Background

With the increasing interest in movement sonification and expressive gesture-based interaction, it is important to understand which factors contribute to movement learning and how. We explore the effects of movement sonification and users’ musical background on motor variability in complex gesture learning. We contribute an empirical study in which musicians and non-musicians learn two gesture sequences over three days, with and without movement sonification. Results show the interlaced interaction effects of these factors and how they unfold in the three-day learning process. For gesture 1, which is fast and dynamic with a direct “action-sound” sonification, movement sonification induces higher variability for both musicians and non-musicians on day 1. While musicians reduce this variability to a similar level as no auditory feedback condition on day 2 and day 3, non-musicians remain to have significantly higher variability. Across three days, musicians also have significantly lower variability than non-musicians. For gesture 2, which is slow and smooth with an “action-music” metaphor, there are virtually no effects. Based on these findings, we recommend future studies to take into account participants’ musical background, consider longitudinal study to examine these effects on complex gestures, and use awareness when interpreting the results given a specific design of gesture and sound.

Sirojul Ummah: Music in Social Interaction

This article describes music’s role in social interactions carried out by female members of the Marawis group Sirojul Ummah. The Marawis music is the medium they use in their efforts to convey Islamic knowledge and understanding, both for this group itself and for the surrounding community. The research method used is qualitative, in which data are collected from observations, interviews, and literature review, while the technique in analyzing data is done through a contextual approach. Social interaction in this study is viewed from the associative and dissociative aspects in the form of actions that include rational instrumental action, value rational action, effective action, and traditional action. Music is present in each of these actions. Music is both a subject and an object in social interaction, both in-groups, and out-groups. The associative and dissociative aspects of in-groups can be seen from how musical ideas and performances are developed and honed through practice activities. This activity is carried out because good musical performance is supported by techniques and methods of singing, playing, and presenting musical articulation, ornamentation, and harmonization. At the same time, the associative and dissociative aspects of out-groups can be seen from their activities in filling out events in society. The interaction process is built-in pleasant and informal situations which are shaped by an interest in music and family relationships. Since childhood, they have known each other; thus, they understand the characteristics of each person. Maturity, the maturity of thinking, and acting tend to avoid emotional conflicts that may occur. In this context, music is not only a medium for interaction, but can be a motivation in building these interactions.

The Value of a Psychological Approach

Psychology is commonly defined as the study of mental processes and behaviour. The main focus is on describing and explaining how people sense the world (perception), how they think (cognition), feel (emotion), and behave (action). Music psychology focuses on mental processes and behaviours that occur in connection with music: it aims to observe, and develop theories about, the processes involved in composing, performing, and listening to music. This chapter argues that at its core, the study of music and emotion is concerned with relationships between ‘musical events’ and ‘emotional responses’.The interface between them consists of psychological processes in the human mind. Thus, psychology is key to understanding how and why a listener goes from ‘sound’ to ‘significance’.

Creating a Framework for Music Making and Leisure

This chapter revisits the writings of music sociologist and educator Max Kaplan (1911–1998) to inform efforts to bring together the domains of leisure and music making in the twenty-first century. The chapter begins with a brief description of Max Kaplan’s life that explains his orientation to the social functions of music, sociology, and leisure studies, and that situates his contributions in the context of his time—the mid and late twentieth century. Following the introduction, the chapter is organized around themes from Kaplan’s published works and projects: patterns of development in leisure and recreation, 1900–1960; changing conceptions of leisure and recreation in the mid-twentieth century; a theory of recreational music; community as fertile ground for observing leisure in action; music making in the context of leisure; and moving forward with Kaplan’s vision.

In Between as a Permanent Status: Milan Adamčiak's Version of Intermedia

Milan Adamčiak is a Slovak composer, cellist and musicologist; creator of acoustic objects, installations and unconventional musical instruments; a performer, visual artist and experimental poet. Traditionally trained but influenced by Cagean and Fluxus poetics, he created from the late 1960s until the mid-1990s a large body of work that transgressed the conventional definitions of art creativity and quickly moved toward the concepts of opera aperta, action music and various intermedia forms. At the same time he was experimenting with electronic media, he created several pieces of electroacoustic music and musique concrète, but it was primarily live electronics that fit the principles of his radical poetics. The author considers Adamčiak's intermedia in the context of philosophical and aesthetical thought, revealing mutual correspondences, apparent as well as hidden.