4. Music Technology
technology
“A manner of accomplishing a task
especially using technical processes,
methods, or knowledge…”
merriam-webster.com
“Headphones” by Sascha Kohlmann / CC BY 2.0
5. “Music As Technology”
“Headphones” by Sascha Kohlmann / CC BY 2.0
technology
“A manner of accomplishing a task
especially using technical processes,
methods, or knowledge…”
merriam-webster.com
7. “Music As Technology”
(DeNora, 1999)
“Headphones” by Sascha Kohlmann / CC BY 2.0
1. vary by activity
2. change internal states
3. awareness of effects of specific
songs
8. Music as Accompaniment
1hr active listening
vs. 2-4 hrs passive listening
(Kamalzadeh, Baur & Möller, 2012)
less than 2% active listening
(Sloboda, O’Neil & Ivaldi, 2001)
11.6% active listening
(North, Hargreaves & Hargreaves, 2004)
“Paris metro line 4 at Châtelet during evening rush hour” by Minato-Ku/ CC BY-SA 4.0
9. Music as a Psychological Tool
(North, Hargreaves & Hargreaves, 2004;
Sloboda, O’Neill & Ivaldi, 2001;
DeNora 1999)
1. arousal
2. mood
3. emotion
“Portret van een man” by Gert Germeraad / CC BY-SA 3.0
10. Music as a Psychological Tool
“Portret van een man” by Gert Germeraad / CC BY-SA 3.0
Preference for tailored playlists
(Kamalzadeh, Baur & Möller, 2012)
Greater positive effects
(North, Hargreaves & Hargreaves, 2004))
Present-mindedness and arousal
(Sloboda, O’Neill & Ivaldi, 2001)
11. Music and the Brain
• Brain stem responses
• Rhythmic entrainment
• Evaluative conditioning
• Contagion
• Visual imagery
• Episodic memory
• Musical expectancy
• Aesthetic judgment
BRECVEMA model (Juslin, 2013)
“Brain Human Brain” by pixabay / CC0 1.0
12. “Flow”
• Complete focus
• Balance of skill and challenge
• Intrinsically rewarding
• Loss of sense of self
• Loss of sense of time
(see Nakamura, & Csikszentmihalyi, 2004)
“Challenge vs. skill, showing ’flow’ region” by Oliver Beatson / CC BY-SA 3.0
13. Flow and the Brain
• Synchronization of attentional
and reward networks
“Brain Human Brain” by pixabay / CC0 1.0
(Weber, Tamborini, Westcott-Baker, & Kantor 2009)
• Reducing brain stem responses
(http://www.focusatwill.com)
16. New Services & Big Data Challenges
MIR in the wild: new features, models,
metrics?
Beyond download charts: music as
means to achieve ends?
17. Beyond Love at First Listen
“Illustration of a red heart isolated on a transparent background” by
pixabella / CC0 1.0
“Ear-phones Headphone” by pixabay / CC0 1.0
18. Let’s Talk
”The Discussion” by Adrian Snood / CC BY-NC 2.0
Burning questions: fire away right now
Further discussion at Unconference?
andrew.m.demetriou@gmail.com
m.a.larson@tudelft.nl
c.c.s.liem@tudelft.nl
Notas del editor
Relate to existing work
Video examples?
THIS SLIDE WILL BE PRESENTED BY CYNTHIA
The words "music” & “technology" used together; typically devices, means to access music, or ways to produce it
This has lead to people having access to vast libraries of music at any time
we want to say that:
-leads to the use of music itself as a technology – as an aid to accomplishing tasks
A sociologist by the name of Tia DeNora published a paper in the late 90s called “Music As Technology of the Self” Where she interviewed people about how they consumed music
And observed that:
1) above and beyond general preferences, what they listened to varied by activity
2) they believed music would alter their internal states in various ways
3) they had a clear idea of what selections within their collections would affect their internal states in what way
And they would do this deliberately, using music as a resource
Social Psychology literature tells a similar story
Experience Sampling shows
Music use is frequent
Accompaniment to all manner of activities (commute, workout routine, relaxing in the evening)
Rarely the sole focus of an activity
In other words, we consume it passively, while doing other things, like walking through a mall, or during our morning commute
-44% of the surveys were completed while music listening had taken place within any 2-hour period, yet less than 2% of episodes involved listening to music as a main activity (Sloboda, O’Neil & Ivaldi, 2001)
-38.6% of text messages sent to participants randomly throughout the day occurred during music lis- tening occasions; on occasions where the participants were not listening to music, 48.6% indicated that they had listened to music since the last text message, yet only 11.6% of these episodes occurred when music listening was the main activity (North, Hargreaves & Hargreaves, 2004)
listeners report changes in arousal, mood and emotion even when consuming it passively
And, echoing Tia Denora’s observations, It appears to be that listeners use music as psychological tool to optimize internal state based on what they think is needed for a given situation and/or activity
using i.e. working out, studying, relaxing etc.
It appears to be a very deliberate practice
Listeners seem to prefer very specifically tailored playlists vs. automatically generated playlists
And report more positive effects, present mindedness and control over their arousal when the individuals had the ability to choose the desired music
- This might mean that more specific control allows us to better optimize our internal states
Another way to say this is to say that;
-within the constellation of their music preferences
-listeners choose music that has specific features that affect our brains and bodies in specific ways
-this allows this optimization based on their activity
There are many debates over the many ways that music affects the brain and the body
I discuss one briefly that suggests there may be some universal features that we select for:
e.g. The brain stem is believed to be a very old part of the brain, and has been shown to be sensitive to loud, low frequency, dissonant, suddenly changing sounds
-if there’s a sudden noise in our environment, it might signal danger
-music with lots of “events” like sudden bursts of sound is more likely to cause arousal and to draw attention to the music
-on the other hand, music that is more constant might instead serve to drown out distracting ambient sounds, and allow us to focus on a task at hand
We may be able to take this a step further and say that people are aiming to use music to create the conditions for an “optimal state”
One researcher, Csikszentmihalyi described such a state
-Flow is characterized as a mental state in which:
Complete attention focused on a task,
the task is challenging enough not to bore, but not so much that it triggers anxiety
performing the task itself is positive and rewarding
so completely that one has lost sense of self and of time,
If it sounds kind of nebulous and vauge, that’s because it is
More recently, some researchers reformulated this idea of a flow state in a more specific way;
They have suggested that flow is what happens when the attention and reward networks of the brain are both active
-they were talking about video games specifically;
But like video games, reward networks in our brains are stimulated when we listen to music
Also like video games, our day to day tasks vary in how much attention we need to pay to them based on how difficult they are
Focus@will
-with this in mind, focus@will is a website that creates playlists to assist in complex tasks
Creating playlists with music that is somewhat constant, so that it doesn’t draw attention to it,
But changing enough so as to be interesting while performing tasks that require focus, like studying
They haven’t published a formal paper to my knowledge
So, perhaps it may also be the case that when performing simpler tasks, like doing the laundry, or passing the time during a commute,
Music that is more likely to draw attention is preferred
In other words, we want to suggest that perhaps, in selecting music with specific features, we are aiming for this optimal flow state, whether or not we realize it, and this might be worth looking into
A collaboration between our fields presents us with some rather unique opportunities
-How music evoke emotions is a fascinating puzzle in psych
--learning how specific features affect our bodies and brains is valuable in understanding how music can evoke emotional responses
-A new and more precise means to examine Flow states – or whether Flow states are really a thing
-Which could lead to an understanding of the role of media in the modern world, and the reasons that we choose to consume it
Another way of saying this:
We should look beyond finding people music they are likely to enjoy the first time they hear it
Getting back to Tia Denora’s idea
-It might not yet be clear how specifically music and context may interact, or whether they to produce a flow state, enough evi- dence has been accrued for us to suggest two aspects worthy of study:
1) during tasks in which boredom is likely, more arousing, attentiong-grabbing music may be selected to induce a flow state: by diverting attentional resources to the mu- sic the challenge of the task increases, as it now requires attention to be paid to both the activity and the music
2) during tasks that are challenging or otherwise cognitively engaging music that is likely to be less arousing resulting in less brain stem activation (e.g., relatively un- changing or consonant) may be more suitable
‘Personalized features’
Personal exposure? Expertise?
And also consider what they are engaged in at the time as well
