News & Events

Joint Action In Music Performance

Peter Keller Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany

Abstract

Ensemble musicians coordinate their actions with remarkable precision. The ensemble cohesion that results is predicated upon group members sharing a common goal; a unified concept of the ideal sound. I will present research addressing three cognitive processes that enable musicians to realize such shared goals while engaged in musical joint action. The first process is auditory imagery; specifically, anticipating one’s own sounds and the sounds produced by other performers. The second process, prioritized integrative attending, involves dividing attention between one’s own actions (high priority) and those of others (lower priority) while monitoring the overall, integrated ensemble sound. The third process relates to adaptive timing, i.e., adjusting the timing of one’s movements in order to maintain synchrony in the face of tempo changes and other, often unpredictable, events. The results of a new study that investigated how these three cognitive processes interact to determine coordination in piano duos will be reported.

23 November 2007, 15:00 | Kriton Curi Hall

Organized by

Department of Psychology, Boğaziçi University

Department of Psychology, Uludağ University

Sponsored by

The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey