Description:
Preceding Carol Krumhansl's Distinguished Lecture on November 7th 2022, this workshop brings together graduate students and researchers investigating the cognitive foundations of pitch, time and timbre in music. It also welcomes composers, sound artists and performers who incorporate into their art and practice knowledge drawn from the field of music cognition. The workshop will be an opportunity to exchange with our guest on the design of experiments in music cognition.
We invite you to share this event via Facebook.
Registration and Call for Presentations:
Registration is required by Tuesday, Nov. 1, at 12:00 p.m.
Please fill out the registration form for this event indicating whether you will be a presenter or a participant.
Lunch will be provided for those who register in advance.
Schedule:
12:00 : Lunch
13:00 : introduction
13:05 : A few thoughts on methods
— Carol Krumhansl, Professor of Psychology, Cornell University
PART 1 : Perception of Emotions in Music
13:20 : Investigation of the Complexity of Emotions Evoked by Lullaby Characteristics in Contemporary Music
— Danaë Ménard-Bélanger (PhD student, composer/researcher), Université de Montréal
What musical characteristics in art music cause the perception of a lullaby-like character? What emotions can be evoked by the juxtaposition of lullaby characteristics and art music? Do lullabies have a greater potential to evoke complex emotions or create cognitive dissonance with other musical materials? Lullabies are fascinating for their prevalence, function, and universality, as well as their implicit complexity. They are meant to be reassuring and comforting. Yet from an adult’s perspective, they evoke the vulnerability of infancy, a potential distress calling for the lullaby, memories or nostalgia, as well as complex emotions caregivers might have.
13:55 : Functional Data and Time Series Analyses of Continuous Responses Reveals the Effect of Musical Training and Culture on the Perception of Musical Affect
— Lena Heng (PhD student, performer/researcher) and Stephen McAdams, McGill University
This study aims to explore the continuous response of listeners when listening to a piece of music, and how their musical backgrounds might influence their perception of musical affect. Three groups of listeners from Singapore with different musical backgrounds were presented with a Chinese orchestral work and responded continuously on a two-dimensional interface of valence and arousal. Functional data and time series analyses are used to explore the relationship between acoustic and musical features with listeners perceptual responses. Valence responses diverged more than arousal responses between listener groups, suggesting that perceived valence might be more learned through musical training.
14:30 : coffee break
PART 2 : Perception and Description of Instrumental Timbre
14:50 : A Perceptual Study on Analogies Between Guitar Timbres and Spoken vowels
In the context of an FRQSC-funded postdoctoral research-creation project, I am investigating the perceptual robustness of analogies between spoken vowels and the timbres of the guitar. These timbres may be varied by changing pluck position and angle of attack. As acoustician Caroline Traube has shown, the resulting spectral variations map loosely on to the formant structures of some spoken vowels. I am developing an experiment to test the extent to which listeners respond to these analogies, and applying the findings in a major compositional project, an album of music for guitar and electronics.
15:25 : Systematization of the oboist's heuristic process for the characterization of timbre and articulation through acoustic and psychoacoustic parameters
— Ravi Shankar Magno Viana Domingues (CIRMMT visiting researcher, performer/researcher), Federal University of Paraíba/Brazil
During his training process the oboist develops a series of cognitive and metacognitive skills that contribute to the construction of musical performances. The technical and artistic development is shaped according to their context where a diverse vocabulary of words and images as heuristics are presented and developed. This heuristic vocabulary facilitates the grouping of many technical and interactive habits into concepts but its decontextualized use contributes little to the development of the performer. This presentation explores the oboist's heuristic process related to the metaphors used for the characterization of timbre and articulation through a cross-sectional descriptive study carried out in Brazil.
16:00 End