Figure - available from: Frontiers in Psychology
This content is subject to copyright.
Source publication
To what extent and in what arenas do collaborating musicians need to understand what they are doing in the same way? Two experienced jazz musicians who had never previously played together played three improvisations on a jazz standard (“It Could Happen to You”) on either side of a visual barrier. They were then immediately interviewed separately a...
Citations
... Ethnographic research has provided some insight into the strategies that proficient improvisers claim to use when coordinating joint action (e.g., Berliner, 1994;Monson, 1996). However, musicians' own self-reported perspectives on their interactions with others are rarely unbiased (Schober & Spiro, 2014) and require support from large-scale modelling and objective analysis of real performances. ...
Music and color are stimuli known for evoking emotions. Research by Palmer et al. (2013) revealed an
emotional link between these stimuli, showing that people often associate music that evokes a particular
emotion with colors that elicit similar emotions. Given the emotional link between music and color, this study aimed to explore emotional responses to
combined music-color stimuli that induce positive (joy) and negative (sad) emotions, in both congruent
(same emotion) and incongruent (different emotion) situations. To determine positive and negative colors, a study was conducted with 32 Mexican participants (19
females; M = 21.4 years, SD = 3.3), utilizing 37 colors from the Berkeley Color Project, adapted by
Valdés-Alemán et al. (2022), along with two control images emotionally validated as positive and negative.
Each color was displayed for 15 seconds in random order, and participants evaluated them using three
bipolar continuous scales: Valence, Arousal, and Pleasure. The scores per stimulus for the three scales
were averaged (VAP index), characterizing joyful and pleasurable colors with positive indexes, and sad
and unpleasant colors with negative ones. A second study involved 33 Mexican participants (20 females; M = 20.3 years, SD = 2.4). Joyful and
sad music, previously evaluated emotionally (Valdés-Alemán et al., 2022), were assessed alongside the
joyful and sad colors selected from the first study. The stimuli were evaluated individually (music or coloronly)
and in combination (congruent or incongruent in emotion), using four bipolar continuous scales:
Valence, Arousal, Pleasure, and Predominance. The last scale applied only to the combined conditions,
inquiring about the stimulus (music or color) that predominantly conveyed the reported emotion. The
VAP index was also calculated. In the first study, the colors with the highest and lowest VAP index were selected. After comparing VAP
index scores between these colors and controls, considering stimulus type (color and control) and
emotion (positive and negative), significant differences were found only in emotion (p <.001), indicating
that positive and negative colors were as emotionally contrasting as the control stimuli. The second study's results showed a significant main effect in emotion (p < .001) when comparing
VAP index scores for both joyful and sad stimuli (music and colors) presented individually, confirming an
emotional distinction between them. However, a significant main effect in stimulus type (color and music;
p = .004) revealed that both types of stimuli conveyed emotions differently. VAP index scores for the
stimuli presented together differed significantly (p < .001) among all conditions, except between
congruent and incongruent stimuli when music shared the same emotion. The Predominance scale
showed no significant differences, with all scores being negative (towards music), indicating that, within
the combined stimuli conditions, music predominantly conveyed the reported emotion. While music and color could individually evoke opposite emotions (joy and sadness), when combined,
music played a more substantial role in conveying emotions. Even in cases of incongruent stimuli, music's
emotion predominated over the color's emotion. Furthermore, music was more emotionally engaging
than color when assessed individually, potentially elucidating this phenomenon.
... Music performance research has been mostly dichotomus (but see Schober & Spiro, 2014;: on the one side, studying the variables influencing the listener's perception of musical outputs; on the other side, the effects of MPA on the performer's musical output. Yet, a music performance is a social interaction comprised of the musician-listener dyad, and so connecting both social actors seem like a logical next step. ...
We constantly attempt to know what someone else may be thinking or feeling, what kind of personality they have, what their believes are, etc. Despite how common this "mind reading" process is to us we are surprisingly inaccurate when inferring someone else's mental states. The correct understanding of others' mental states – interpersonal accuracy – is key for successful social interactions and its scientific study demands a complex balance between controlled experimental and naturalistic conditions. Design and music performance are two contexts yet unexplored through the lenses of interpersonal accuracy.
In design, being interpersonally accurate towards users is deemed important for design outcomes. User-understanding is broadly referred to as empathy in design. Yet, empathy is not clearly defined. We expose this problem and suggest some conceptual clarity. In music performance, interpersonal accuracy allows us to better understand the complex communication between musician-listener. A musician experiences emotions while performing, but it is not known whether listeners can detect these accurately. We adapt two interpersonal accuracy methodologies, empathic accuracy, and emotional recognition accuracy. Empathic accuracy allows measuring the similarity between remembered and inferred mental contents of interacting dyads. Emotional recognition accuracy allows to measure the accurate judgment of someone's non-verbal emotional expressions.
Through adapting empathic accuracy in design cases, it was observed that designers obtained approximately 50% accuracy, and showed higher accuracy when inferring design-related mental contents than mental contents irrelevant to design. In comparison to previous empathic accuracy literature, designers obtained higher empathic accuracy scores. We attribute these to contextual cues such as awareness of the conversation topic, and the demonstration of concrete objects. Although the causal link between designers' empathic accuracy and design outcomes remains unestablished. Through adapting emotional recognition accuracy into music performance, it was observed that listeners perceived lower anxiety than that reported by the musician across experimental conditions. Furthermore, the listener's emotional recognition accuracy is a complex skill affected by variables such as multimodal perception, and the listener's musical background. Altogether, inaccuracy was observed across the context of design and music. Interpersonal accuracy can also be affected by multimodal perception and the perceiver's background. We conclude suggesting some ideas to improve interpersonal accuracy.
... La capacidad de la improvisación para fomentar el desarrollo de relaciones sociales entre los músicos ha sido evidenciada por diversas investigaciones (Kenny, 2014;Schober y Spiro, 2014;Wilson y MacDonald, 2017). Junto a esto, es posible encontrar diferentes trabajos que ponen de manifiesto el poder de la práctica improvisadora para desarrollar capacidades comunicativas y expresivas (Chappell, 1999) y cultivar la auto-expresión (Boyce-Tillman, 2000;MacDonald et al., 2002). ...
... La capacidad de la improvisación para fomentar el desarrollo de relaciones sociales entre los músicos ha sido evidenciada por diversas investigaciones (Kenny, 2014;Schober y Spiro, 2014;Wilson y MacDonald, 2017). Junto a esto, es posible encontrar diferentes trabajos que ponen de manifiesto el poder de la práctica improvisadora para desarrollar capacidades comunicativas y expresivas (Chappell, 1999) y cultivar la auto-expresión (Boyce-Tillman, 2000;MacDonald et al., 2002). ...
El objetivo de este trabajo es conocer el pensamiento de los/as intérpretes de música clásica acerca del papel que juega la improvisación musical en su formación inicial. La muestra está formada por 59 sujetos titulados superiores en interpretación de música clásica o que están en el último curso de estas enseñanzas musicales y tres especialistas en improvisación. La metodología de la investigación empleada es cuantitativa y cualitativa, y utiliza el cuestionario y la entrevista en profundidad como herramientas para la recogida de datos. Los resultados obtenidos nos han permitido precisar algunas de las aportaciones más beneficiosas de la práctica de la improvisación al desarrollo de habilidades y destrezas interpretativas y organizarlas en tres categorías: cognitivas, musicales y psicológicas. Así, por su importancia, destacamos el desarrollo de la creatividad, el aprendizaje de la armonía, la mejora de la expresividad musical, la memoria musical y la presencia escénica. La conclusión a la que se llega es que la improvisación puede resultar una práctica muy útil, que debe acompañar a los estudiantes de interpretación de música clásica durante todo su proceso formativo.
... However, in jazz or popular music, these expressive cues are often only tacitly implied and the performer is given room for interpretation. For example, the performer may often seek to perform a unique or characteristic rendition of a familiar song by changing the tempo, groove, dynamic, or articulation to help communicate their emotional intent [7,8]. The leeway and capacity that performers have to use expressive cues differs between musical genres and performance environments. ...
The neural correlates of intentional emotion transfer by the music performer are not well investigated as the present-day research mainly focuses on the assessment of emotions evoked by music. In this study, we aim to determine whether EEG connectivity patterns can reflect differences in information exchange during emotional playing. The EEG data were recorded while subjects were performing a simple piano score with contrasting emotional intentions and evaluated the subjectively experienced success of emotion transfer. The brain connectivity patterns were assessed from the EEG data using the Granger Causality approach. The effective connectivity was analyzed in different frequency bands—delta, theta, alpha, beta, and gamma. The features that (1) were able to discriminate between the neutral baseline and the emotional playing and (2) were shared across conditions, were used for further comparison. The low frequency bands—delta, theta, alpha—showed a limited number of connections (4 to 6) contributing to the discrimination between the emotional playing conditions. In contrast, a dense pattern of connections between regions that was able to discriminate between conditions (30 to 38) was observed in beta and gamma frequency ranges. The current study demonstrates that EEG-based connectivity in beta and gamma frequency ranges can effectively reflect the state of the networks involved in the emotional transfer through musical performance, whereas utility of the low frequency bands (delta, theta, alpha) remains questionable.
... In one study (Wöllner, 2013), string quartet members did not necessarily agree with each other's ratings of their own and each other's expressivity in a joint performance they watched on video. Although it is not in a classical genre, in a previous case study on jazz standard improvisation (Schober & Spiro, 2014) the performers (a saxophonist and pianist) did not fully agree with their partner's characterisations of what occurred in the improvisations -music-analytically, collaboratively and evaluatively -and they agreed with more of a commenting listener's characterisations than their partner's. In a subsequent study of a large set of musically experienced listeners, far fewer listeners agreed with the original performers' judgements than with the commenting listener's judgements (Schober & Spiro, 2016). ...
... Our strategy in this case study, as in the previous case studies Schober & Spiro, 2014, 2016, was to start with what a pair of experienced classical chamber performers and their listeners independently thought worth articulating about their performance immediately afterwards, and then to assess (a) the extent to which they endorsed each other's comments and (b) the extent to which their patterns of judgment across multiple statements agreed with each other. Unlike in the previous case studies, this time the performance context was a conservatory studio class in which advanced students present works in progress for collective critique. ...
... This pattern of findings in a classroom-based classical chamber duo performance echoes those in our prior case studies in other genres, where we saw no evidence that professional musicians had privileged understanding relative to nonperforming listeners in improvising jazz standards (Schober & Spiro, 2014) or free jazz -and if anything, potential evidence for greater shared interpretation by nonperforming listeners. The evidence that prior listeners with greater experience with a piece may have greater overlap in their endorsement of each other's characterisations also resonates with the results from Schober and Spiro's (2016) study that included a much larger set of 239 online listeners. ...
To what extent do classical chamber musicians converge in their characterisations of what just happened in their live duo performance, and to what extent do audience members agree with the performers’ characterisations? In this study a cello-piano duo performed Schumann’s Phantasiestücke, Op. 73, no. 1 as part of their conservatory studio class in which members critique performances in development. Immediately after, the listeners and players individually characterised what had most struck them about the performance, first writing comments from memory and then marking scores while listening to a recording on their personal devices. They all then rated (on a 5-point scale) their agreement with comments by two other class members. Findings demonstrate that classical chamber performers can characterise the performance quite differently than their partner does and that they can disagree with a number of their partner’s characterisations, corroborating previous findings in case studies of jazz performance. Performers’ characterisations can overlap less in which moments strike them as worthy of comment and in their content than their listeners’ characterisations do, and they can agree with a non-partner’s characterisations more than with their partner’s characterisations. At the same time, the data show that listeners who have played the piece before—though not necessarily those who play the same kind of instrument (strings vs. piano)—can be more likely to endorse comments by others who have also played the piece before, even if the comments they make don’t overlap with each other more in timing, content or theme.
... Looking at the improvisation as a form of creative socio-cultural praxis, learning through improvisation should be an integral characteristic of participation in communities of improvisational practice [14]. From the very beginning of music education, it is important to encourage and develop collaboration, playing, and making music together in groups, through chamber music, playing in the orchestra, singing in the choir, etc. Improvisation represents an interpersonal action that is developed through cooperation among performers who create a musical piece extemporaneously [15][16][17][18][19][20], simultaneously developing complex non-verbal communication skills for working together and collaboration [5]. One of the basic characteristics of the improvisational process is respecting the musical and collective norms [21]. ...
... Interviews have often been utilised for gaining insight into improvisational processes. From the opening forays of Jost (1974) and Bailey (1980), through the work of Berliner (1994) and Monson (1997) and up to recent work conducted by Wilson and Macdonald (2006), Norgaard (2011), Schober and Spiro (2014 and many more, interviews with performers have functioned as an invaluable tool for gleaning insight into musical artistry. The research conducted here follows this established technique as it aims "to capture, in the participants' own words, their thoughts, perceptions, feelings and experiences" (Liamputtong, 2013, p43). ...
... Whilst composition and improvisation can be seen as paradigmatic generative processes (Lothwesen & Lehmann, 2017, p. 342), reproductive and perceptive activities like performing music (Clarke, 2012;Rink, 2002) and listening to music (Hargreaves, Hargreaves, & North, 2012;Webster, 2002) are also considered to be creative (Hargreaves, MacDonald, & Miell, 2012, p. 3). Musical performance research has shown that a creative process might be shared among the members of an ensemble (Payne, 2016;Sawyer, 2006;Schober & Spiro, 2014). Moreover, elements of the creative process might also be distributed according to the typical characteristics of musical genres. ...
Concepts of creativity in music usually focus on explicit theoretical assumptions based on models from psychology research. In recent years, the fields of psychology and education have become increasingly interested in research on laypersons’ attitudes and assumptions about creativity. These implicit theories may complement or even contradict scholarly conceptualisations of creativity and its domain specificity. As a conceptual replication of the work by Runco and Bahleda (1986), this study aims to explore the dimensionality of subjective conceptions of creativity in different domains (arts, science, everyday life, music) by means of an open-ended questionnaire in an online survey (N = 106). A content analysis of the data yielded 27 meta-categories; a correspondence analysis of their distribution across domains revealed differences between domain-specific conceptions. This indicates stereotypical structures regarding creativity in different domains, as expressed in the associations generated by the participants. Unlike science and the arts, music is described as having distinct aesthetic and emotional qualities. The participants’ musical expertise did not appear to significantly influence the generation of associations. With respect to these characterisations cited by the participants, the domain of everyday life seems to be antipodal to other domains and may therefore have served as a point of reference for the participants’ subjective experience of creativity and creative behaviour. These results confirm the findings of Runco and Bahleda (1986), perhaps even furthering them in terms of the analytical methods applied and the findings on the comparison of domains. Nevertheless, the potential of implicit theories (i.e. laypersons’ mindsets concerning the theoretical conceptualisation of musical creativity and its implications for music education) requires further study.
... Musical coordination does not require much shared thought. For example, Schober and Spiro (2014) found that for jazz musicians, full understanding of what was going on was not essential for successful improvisation. Schiavio and Høffding (2015) found that members of a string quartet did not rely on conscious thought, shared goals, and not even attention to the other ensemble members. ...
Organisations evolve and leadership processes unfold in time. However, the role of temporality has traditionally been a wanting aspect of leadership theory. The concept of sensemaking in organisations does take time into account through two of its properties. First, sensemaking is assumed to be ongoing, with no clear beginnings or ends. Second, it is retrospective, by how we make sense in the present moment by selectively attending to cues in the past: we retrofit our narrative to the actions we have already taken. The present moment is the ever-evolving frontier of such retrospection. Music is a special meaning domain, and at the same time, ubiquitous in human life. This paper explores the experiential qualities of the musical moment, within the context of ensemble music-making, in order to shed new light on the temporality of organising. (Full abstract and text available)
