The whole song is greater than the sum of its parts: Local and structural features in music listening

Four experiments reported here demonstrate the importance of structural as well as local features in listening to contemporary popular music. Experiment 1 established that listeners without formal musical training regard as salient the formal structure that links individual sections of songs. When asked to listen to and assemble the individual sections of unfamiliar contemporary songs to form new compositions, participants positioned the sections in ways consistent with the true structure of the music. In Experiment 2, participants were provided with only the song lyrics with which to arrange the individual sections of contemporary songs. It was found that in addition to musical features
studied in Experiment 1, lyrical content of contemporary music also acts as a strong cue to a song’s formal structure. Experiments 3 and 4 revealed that listeners’ enjoyment of music is influenced both by structural features and local features of music, which were carried by the individual song sections.
The influence of structural features on music listening was most apparent over repeated hearings. In Experiment 4, listeners’ liking for contemporary music followed an inverted U-shape trend with repeated exposure, in which liking for music took a downward turn after just four repeated hearings. In contrast, liking for restructured music increased with repeated hearings and almost eliminated an initial negative effect of restructuring by the sixth hearing. In sum, our findings demonstrate that structural features as well as local features of contemporary music are salient and important to
listeners.

Music, rhythm, rise time perception and developmental dyslexia: Perception of musical meter predicts reading and phonology

Introduction: Rhythm organises musical events into patterns and forms, and rhythm perception in music is usually studied by using metrical tasks. Metrical structure also plays an organisational function in the phonology of language, via speech prosody, and there is evidence for rhythmic perceptual difficulties in developmental dyslexia. Here we investigate the hypothesis that the accurate perception of musical metrical structure is related to basic auditory perception of rise time, and also to phonological and literacy development in children. Methods: A battery of behavioural tasks was devised to explore relations between musical metrical perception, auditory perception of amplitude envelope structure, phonological awareness (PA) and reading in a sample of 64 typically-developing children and children with developmental dyslexia. Results: We show that individual differences in the perception of amplitude envelope rise time are linked to musical metrical sensitivity, and that musical metrical sensitivity predicts PA and reading development, accounting for over 60% of variance in reading along with age and I.Q. Even the simplest metrical task, based on a duple metrical structure, was performed significantly more poorly by the children with dyslexia. Conclusions: The accurate perception of metrical structure may be critical for phonological development and consequently for the development of literacy. Difficulties in metrical processing are associated with basic auditory rise time processing difficulties, suggesting a primary sensory impairment in developmental dyslexia in tracking the lower-frequency modulations in the speech envelope. © 2010 Elsevier.

Perception of patterns of musical beat distribution in phonological developmental dyslexia:significant longitudinal relations with word reading and reading comprehension

In a recent study, we reported that the accurate perception of beat structure in music ('perception of musical meter') accounted for over 40% of the variance in single word reading in children with and without dyslexia (Huss et al., 2011). Performance in the musical task was most strongly associated with the auditory processing of rise time, even though beat structure was varied by manipulating the duration of the musical notes.

Recruiting Participants for Randomized Controlled Trials of Music Therapy: A Practical Illustration

Background: Failure to recruit sufficient numbers of participants to randomized controlled trials is a common and serious problem. This problem may be additionally acute in music therapy research.

Objective: To use the experience of conducting a large randomized controlled trial of music therapy for young people with emotional and behavioral difficulties to illustrate the strategies that can be used to optimize recruitment; to report on the success or otherwise of those strategies; and to draw general conclusions about the most effective approaches.

Methods: Review of the methodological literature, and a narrative account and realist analysis of the recruitment process.

Results: The strategies adopted led to the achievement of the recruitment target of 250 subjects, but only with an extension to the recruitment period. In the pre-protocol stage of the research, these strategies included the engagement of non-music therapy clinical investigators, and extensive consultation with clinical stakeholders. In the protocol development and initial recruitment stages, they involved a search of systematic reviews of factors leading to under-recruitment and of interventions to promote recruitment, and the incorporation of their insights into the research protocol and practices. In the latter stages of recruitment, various stakeholders including clinicians, senior managers and participant representatives were consulted in an attempt to uncover the reasons for the low recruitment levels that the research was experiencing.

Conclusions: The primary mechanisms to promote recruitment are education, facilitation, audit and feedback, and time allowed. The primary contextual factors affecting the effectiveness of these mechanisms are professional culture and organizational support.

Free Improvisation in Europe:Lecture and Hands-on Workshop, given at 5 different universities in Brazil during February - June 2014

The lecture traces the beginnings of the free improvisation scene in Europe, commencing in the 1960. I present a multitude of video and audio examples of some of the most prominent improvisers of the time.
I focus specifically on the scene that developed around John Stevens and his SME (Spontaneous Music Ensemble). The work of Derek Bailey, specifically his writings in “Improvisation: its nature and practice in music��� (1980), will feature.

The practical workshop invites improvisers (beginners to advanced with any instruments) to work with me on several listening and improvisation exercises.
Many of the exercises will be based on the innovative methods as developed by John Stevens in his work “Search and Reflect”. Participants will be able to experiment with a few essential ‘sound/listening’ exercises, guided by myself.
It is envisaged that a small ensemble is formed which will explore several improvisatory strategies. This part is open to all skill levels, all ages and any instrumental groupings.

Increase in microbial contamination risk with compression of the lid margin in eyes having cataract surgery

Purpose: To assess the bacterial contamination risk in cataract surgery associated with mechanical compression of the lid margin immediately after sterilization of the ocular surface.

Setting: Department of Cataract, Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.

Design: Prospective randomized controlled double-masked trial.

Methods: Patients with age-related cataract were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 groups. In Group A (153 eyes), the lid margin was compressed and scrubbed for 360 degrees 5 times with a dry sterile cotton-tipped applicator immediately after ocular sterilization and before povidone-iodine irrigation of the conjunctival sac. Group B (153 eyes) had identical sterilization but no lid scrubbing. Samples from the lid margin, liquid in the collecting bag, and aqueous humor were collected for bacterial culture. Primary outcome measures included the rate of positive bacterial culture for the above samples. The species of bacteria isolated were recorded.

Results: Group A and Group B each comprised 153 eyes. The positive rate of lid margin cultures was 54.24%. The positive rate of cultures for liquid in the collecting bag was significantly higher in Group A (23.53%) than in Group B (9.80%) (P=.001).The bacterial species cultured from the collecting bag in Group B were the same as those from the lid margin in Group A. The positive culture rate of aqueous humor in both groups was 0%.

Conclusion: Mechanical compression of the lid margin immediately before and during cataract surgery increased the risk for bacterial contamination of the surgical field, perhaps due to secretions from the lid margin glands.

Financial Disclosure: No author has a financial or proprietary interest in any material or method mentioned.

Music therapy for end-of-life care: an updated systematic review

Background: Music therapy during palliative and end-of-life care is well established and positive benefits for patients have been reported.
Aim: Assess the effectiveness of music therapy versus standard care alone or standard care in combination with other therapies for improving psychological, physiological and social outcomes among adult patients in any palliative care setting.
Data sources: In order to update an existing Cochrane systematic review, we searched MEDLINE, CINAHL, EMBASE, PsycINFO, CENTRAL, ClinicalTrials.gov register, and Current Controlled Trials register to identify randomised or quasi-randomised controlled trails published between 2009 and April 2015. Nine electronic music therapy journals were searched from 2009 until April 2015, along with reference lists and contact was made with key experts in music therapy. Only studies published in English were eligible for inclusion. Two reviewers independently screened titles, abstracts, assessed relevant studies for eligibility, extracted data and judged risk of bias for included studies. Disagreements were resolved through discussion with a third reviewer. Data were synthesised in Revman using the random effects model. Heterogeneity was assessed using l2.
Results: Three studies were included in the review. Findings suggest music therapy may be effective for helping to reduce pain in palliative care patients (standard mean deviation (SMD) = -0.42, 95% CI -0.68 to -0.17, P = 0.001).
Conclusions: Available evidence did not support the use of music therapy to improve overall quality-of-life in palliative care. While this review suggests music therapy may be effective for reducing pain, this is based on studies with a high risk of bias. Further high quality research is required.

Medium as message: Making an 'emancipating' film on mental health and distress

This article will be a reflective report, made by participants, facilitators and tutors on the first stage of a project entitled ‘Mentalentity’ which, had as it brief, the promotion of positive attitudes to mental health among men in rural areas. The arts ‘product’ is a 25 minute film made by a group of men in South Armagh using an action learning and action research approach.. The project is a paradigm of ‘action research’ using arts based methods also in that none of the men had ever been involved in filmmaking and had to learn a wide range of skills to convert the knowledge they were reflecting on into an arts product; avoiding the sensationalising of a very complex subject and, equally, the earnestness sometimes associated with ‘awareness raising’ projects. The project is funded by a statutory agency, the Southern Investing for Health Partnership, and is being implemented by two voluntary groups, Men Aware (South Armagh) and a pan-disability group, Out and About, working with Queen’s University, School of Education, Open Learning Programme, which facilitated and accredited the project and the Nerve Centre, an internationally renowned independent arts organisation which specialises in music, multimedia, and the moving image. The article will relate the project to a range of arts based projects undertaken by the contributors and will contextualize this work within the research in such fields as inclusive participative and emancipatory research, qualitative research methodologies, active learning pedagogy, arts based pedagogy, Social/ Relational model disability and cutting edge ‘psychosocial’ models in mental health.

Merula

Merula is a thirty-minute work for bass flute and electronics, commissioned by Icelandic flautist Kolbeinn Bjarnason. The premiere took place in the Belfast Festival at Queen’s in November 2012. A recording will be made in 2014. Further performances in Iceland, Norway and Poland are anticipated in 2014-15. I have given a research seminar on this work at Queen’s and will deliver it again at the University of Oxford during 2013-14.

Research Goals
1) To develop an effective means of notating live electronics in a manner that would sustain the work's performance history beyond the current generation of software
2) To apply the techniques of transcription and spectralism used in my composition, Perseid, using birdsongs as source material
3) To explore the problem of sustaining large-scale form in music that is primarily fast
4) To facilitate the emergence of the solo bass flute as an important solo instrument through the completion of a new large-scale work

Methodology
• Methodologies employed in this project included sound recording, sound analysis and transcription, extensive precompositional sketching, electroacoustic techniques of sound manipulation, designing complex live processes of sound transformation and spatialisation
• A considerable part of this work was collaboration with the flautist, both in SARC and Iceland. Mr. Bjarnason was involved all stages of the work, frequently recording source materials and helping to ensure the idiomatic nature of the flute writing.
• Developing a means of notating the live electronics. Building on a model suggested by Pierre Boulez in Anthemes 2 (1998), the score of this work includes a technical manual that describes electronic processes in a manner that can be reprogrammed in subsequent generations of software. Combined with a system of notations employed in the full score, the technical manual will enable this composition to be performed by a wide range of performers and technical teams, with appropriately identical results.

The Musical Body: Devising a choreo-musical interpretation for the work Tierkreis (1974-75) by Karlheinz Stockhausen

In this chapter the authors explore a practice-led approach to understanding the role of the body in music performance.

Many writers have discussed the body in music performance, in improvised music, as well as in electronic music. In this chapter the authors offer new modalities of reflection on the musical body in the interpretation of existing contemporary repertoire. Specifically, the authors discuss a re-interpretation of German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen's musical work 'Tierkreis'. Through the development of a specifically physical approach to the performance, the authors investigate the intrinsic relationship between the body and the music and point to an under-explored modality, which is not a musical choreography, but a choreography that is shaped through the musical body itself. It is a modality in which music itself propels forward choreographic ideas, the body becoming the driving force behind musical interpretation. The authors' thinking is influenced by Susan Kozel’s understanding of performance as an ecosystem (Kozel 2007) and framed within a subjective account of musical embodiment.

By merging theory with praxis the authors offer a deeper understanding of the role of the body in music performance and consider how such contributions might lead to new and exciting interpretive frameworks for existing musical repertoires.

A Hamiltonian approach to simulation of acoustic systems involving nonlinear interactions

Nonlinear interactions take place in most systems that arise in music acoustics, usually as a result of player-instrument coupling. Several time-stepping methods exist for the numerical simulation of such systems. These methods generally involve the discretization of the Newtonian description of the system. However, it is not always possible to prove the stability of the resulting algorithms, especially when dealing with systems where the underlying force is a non-analytic function of the phase space variables. On the other hand, if the discretization is carried out on the Hamiltonian description of the system, it is possible to prove the stability of the derived numerical schemes. This Hamiltonian approach is applied to a series of test models of single or multiple nonlinear collisions and the energetic properties of the derived schemes are discussed. After establishing that the schemes respect the principle of conservation of energy, a nonlinear single-reed model is formulated and coupled to a digital bore, in order to synthesize clarinet-like sounds.