Music Participation Research Articles

Multi-Voiced Music Bypasses Attentional Limitations in the Brain.

Attentional limits make it difficult to comprehend concurrent speech streams. However, multiple musical streams are processed comparatively easily. Coherence may be a key difference between music and stimuli like speech, which does not rely on the integration of multiple streams for comprehension. The musical organization between melodies in a composition may provide a cognitive scaffold to overcome attentional limitations when perceiving multiple lines of music concurrently. We investigated how listeners attend to multi–voiced music, examining biological indices associated with processing structured versus unstructured music. We predicted that musical structure provides coherence across distinct musical lines, allowing listeners to attend to simultaneous melodies, and that a lack of organization causes simultaneous melodies to be heard as separate streams. Musician participants attended to melodies in a Coherent music condition featuring flute duets and a Jumbled condition where those duets were manipulated to eliminate coherence between the parts. Auditory–evoked cortical potentials were collected to a tone probe. Analysis focused on the N100 response which is primarily generated within the auditory cortex and is larger for attended versus ignored stimuli. Results suggest that participants did not attend to one line over the other when listening to Coherent music, instead perceptually integrating the streams. Yet, for the Jumbled music, effects indicate that participants attended to one line while ignoring the other, abandoning their integration. Our findings lend support for the theory that musical organization aids attention when perceiving multi–voiced music.

Evaluation of Central Auditory Processing in Musicians and Non-Musicians.

Auditory processing is the analysis of sounds' attributions such as localization, lateralization, temporality, frequency, loudness, phase, auditory memory and auditory attention through primer and secondar central auditory paths. This study aims to show that music contributes on auditory processing by applying central auditory tests on two groups who are musicians and nonmusicians. The participants in this study are aged between 20 and 40. The mean age of the musician participants is 24.40±3.811, when the mean age of non-musician participants is 26.07±4.525. Each group has 30 participants. All participants got examined for otorhinolaryngology and they were tested for pure tone audiometry and immitansmetric measurement. For musician participants, this study included people who have professional music career for at least 5 years and for non-musician participants, it has been included those who are capable of normal hearing. All participants tested for Frequency Patterns Test (FPT), Duration Patterns Test (DPT), Random Gap Detection Test (RGDT) and Staggered Spondaic Word Test (SSWT). The results of the FPT, DPT, RGDT and SSWT tests applied to musician and non-musician participants indicate that there is a statistical significance on auditory processing between these two groups (p<0.05). It is founded that there is a considerable difference as a result of statistical significance between the tests from right to left and from left to right (p<0.05). In addition, it is founded that musician participants have much more comprehension ability in the tests from left to right than the tests from right to lefts. This study indicates that people who are interested in music professionally have developed auditory processing skills and senses than people who does not show any professional interest in music.

Exploring Relationships Between Electronic Dance Music Event Participation and Well-being

While an increasing amount of literature highlights the psychological well-being benefits of musical participation, research focusing on electronic dance music (EDM) event contexts remains scarce. This exploratory mixed methods research draws influence from interdisciplinary research on EDM culture and psychological well-being research on music festivals that suggest EDM event attendance may have a positive influence on well-being. Two studies were implemented. Semistructured interviews with regular attendees of EDM events were undertaken and analyzed thematically (Study 1, n = 7). Four main themes were identified, namely the importance of social, musical, and emotional experiences, and shared values at EDM event. These themes were then used as a basis for developing a questionnaire which explored relationships between scores on facets of EDM event attendance and measures of subjective, social, and psychological well-being (Study 2, n = 103). Results showed that all four EDM event facets were positively associated with psychological and social well-being measures. Principal component analysis was utilized to elucidate nuanced aspects of the four themes and their links to well-being scores. A four-factor model (SMEV) that encapsulates the key psychological beneficial aspects of EDM event attendance has been suggested, and the implications of this model and findings are discussed within the context of future research avenues.

Music Therapy Clinical Trials in Cross-Cultural Settings

Music therapy in clinical trials has shown efficacy as a nonpharmacological intervention for multiple medical conditions and procedures. Every culture has music and virtually everyone on this globe enjoys music suggesting the universality of music therapy. However, in the US, most music therapy clinical trials participants are English-speaking Caucasians. That narrow pool limits our understanding of the benefits of music in an ethnically and culturally heterogeneous nation. This study looks to the international clinical trials for lessons and information that can advance U.S. studies by expanding the methodology and clinical reach to benefit a more extensive population of patients. A review of 449 studies in 48 countries from clinical trials registries supports an effort to expand music therapy studies and interventions by incorporating a cross-cultural perspective. Researchers and clinicians using international resources can increase their understanding and capacity. Globally, many standardized measures have been translated, including self-report measures of behavioral and mental health, pain, sleep, medical conditions, and symptom severity used for outcome measures, as well as music therapy measures and intervention checklists. Scientifically accepted physiological outcome measures have shown the benefits of music interventions for older adults regardless of cultural or ethnic differences. For example, neuroimaging research supports the clinically derived notion that music can address needs of people with dementia. The future will require new standards for multi-cultural research. To expand studies and methodologies, we need to include more diverse populations. This paper proposes that to do that, we must look to the global scientific community.

Music and Brain Health: Recommendations From the Global Council on Brain Health, an AARP Collaborative

Music is a complex auditory stimulus that resonates on a physiological, psychological, and spiritual level for people around the world. This symposium will provide highlights from the Global Council on Brain Health consensus report aimed at helping the public to understand the potential that music holds for supporting and enriching brain health. The Global Council on Brain Health (GCBH) is an independent collaborative of scientists, clinicians, scholars, and policy experts convened by AARP to provide evidence-based advice on what people and professionals can do to maintain and improve brain health. The Council translates scientific research into actionable recommendations for the public that will help drive behavior change in individuals across communities and cultures. Issue specialists from around the world were brought together to build consensus, issue recommendations, and offer practical tips. Moreover, we will feature research from our issue experts and provide an overview of the impact of music participation on older adults, including those with dementia. Data from surveys fielded by AARP research, developed in consultation with the GCBH, will also be featured. In sum, this presentation will highlight the work of the Council at the forefront of this international effort to translate advancements in brain health research to the wider public, with an emphasis on individuals aged50 and older.

Liberation on the Dance Floor: Collective Dance and Queer Politics in Canada

In this article, I consider Black Lives Matter—Toronto’s (BLM-TO) protest at the 2016 Toronto Pride Parade and reflect on the demands—the majority of which relate to the (re-)establishment and support of spaces for collective music participation. Following BLM-TO’s lead, I contend that music participation is vital for forging a sense of community and collective agency for queer individuals in Canada. I read BLM-TO’s protest alongside two specific examples of community organizing in Canadian lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, Two-Spirited + history that privilege the dance floor as an integral space of politics: the Gay Alliance for Equality (GAE) in Halifax and the Gay Community Dance Committee (GCDC) in Toronto. I claim that the dance spaces of the GAE and the GCDC were transformative for Canadian gay and lesbian liberation politics in the 1970s and 1980s. Ultimately, by reading the historical efforts of the GAE and the GCDC alongside the contemporary demands of BLM-TO, I argue that music and dance spaces in which queer individuals can come together—spaces animated by the musical and collective dance traditions of communities of colour—have long been integral to queer formation in this country.

Music and mindfulness meditation: Comparing four music stimuli composed under similar principles

Mindfulness meditation has frequently used sound and music as an important component. However, research on effective music stimuli is scarce. After a series of studies evaluating the most effective, useful, and preferred auditory stimuli, we were interested in exploring whether these effective musical features were transferred to new music. In this study, we evaluate our original music stimuli with three new stimuli composed under similar principles. Non-musician and musician participants ( N = 114) in a multisite study evaluated their mindfulness state after listening to four music stimuli, and rated their usefulness and preference. Results from a repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) at each site indicated no significant difference in mindfulness effectiveness. Friedman’s ANOVAs for the usefulness of the music stimuli showed similar non-significant results in both sites. A mixed model among sites did not show significant differences among groups. Preference rankings were not significantly different for non-musicians, but musicians did show a statistically significant preference of the Original stimuli over Stimulus 2, probably due to sound quality. These results indicate the feasibility of transferring previously researched and effective musical features to new stimuli. Identifying the effective “active ingredients” of music interventions may be one way of supporting evidence-based practice in music therapy.

From dropping out to dropping in: Exploring why individuals cease participation in musical activities and the support needed to reengage them.

Continued participation in music has been associated with well-being outcomes, yet many either fail to begin or cease musical participation after limited exposure. The current research examined why individuals cease participating, focusing on identifying barriers to participation and the support needed to re-engage in musical activities. A sample of 190 Australian residents (Mage = 26.87; 75.80% female) who had ceased previous musical participation completed an online questionnaire in which they rated the degree to which 15 items reflected their reasons for ceasing musical participation and answered an open-ended question regarding their requirements for re-engagement. An exploratory factor analysis of the quantitative responses identified four components relating to cessation: “Access and Opportunity,” “Activity Experience,” “Obligations,” and “Difficulty with Practicing.” A Grounded Theory analysis concerning the support required for re-engagement indicated four key themes: “Personal Investment,” “Requirements of the Musical Activity,” “Personal Qualities,” and “No Interest in Re-Engagement.” Collectively, these results provide an indepth understanding of factors external to music itself as influences on continued musical participation. With implications for facilitators and educators, these results suggest a need for collaboration and interaction between music facilitators and participants.

Is cultural taste in Finland acquired from mother, father or both

The main goal of this paper is to address the importance of parental cultural taste in explaining cultural participation among older adults in Finland. The study considers the intergenerational transfer hypothesis and asks: Do middle-aged or older consumers inherit cultural tastes from their parents? How stable are these intergenerational transfer effects? Which parental hobbies are the most influential? A constant elasticity of substitution (CES) utility function is used to describe the structure of consumer preferences. The linear demand system to be estimated uses the seemingly unrelated systems (SUR) method with two equations. If the intergenerational transfer hypothesis is valid, parental interest in movies, pop music, classical music and visual arts should have a positive impact on their children’s demand for movies, rock or jazz music, classical music and art gallery visits, respectively. The results indicate that the intergenerational transfer hypothesis is valid. Children do indeed inherit their cultural habits and taste from their parents. We seem to visit similar cultural events to those that our parents do or did. The youngest age cohort is by far the most influenced by parental interest in classical music. The visual arts and pop music interests of parents seem to be second and third most influential hobbies but only when the youngest age cohorts are considered. Parental pop music and sport hobbies are the most influential sources when the cultural and sports participation of the middle-aged are studied. A mother’s visual arts interests and father’s sports interests are most important determinants of the cultural and sports participation decisions of the oldest age cohort. In general age, gender and education are important determinants of cultural participation. The youngest, who have less family constraints, are more active than the middle-aged and those over 55 are more active participants – except for filmgoing or rock music. Theatre attendance, arts gallery visits and classical music concert visits increase after age 45. Attending musicals is not dependent on education while all other cultural events are elite in terms of education, except rock music concerts, which well-educated parents, attend less than the reference group, which is students. Women are more active in all cultural activities studied here. Most of the intergenerational transfer effects are not stable throughout the child’s age. Only a mother’s classical music or visual art habits seem to have a stable and positive effect on the classical music concert participation and on the art gallery visits of the child regardless of age. However, a father’s corresponding classical music or visual art habits have a positive effect on their children, when they are aged between 15 and 35, attending classical music concerts and going to art galleries. Keywords : Intergenerational transfer, Cultural participation, Finland, CES. DOI: 10.7176/JCSD/62-07 Publication date: November 30 th 2020

Activating gender: How identity affects students’ perceptions of music activities

In adolescence, many students align their music participation choices with the expectations for their gender group. While cultural norms may explain gender disparities in music activities, there is no empirical evidence of how gender salience may influence students’ perceptions of music activities. The purpose of this study was to experimentally test the influence of gender salience on adolescents’ perceptions of music activities. Using a quasi-experimental design, middle school participants ( N = 246) were assigned to either a primed condition where students were asked to consider their gender identity or a control condition; all participants took a survey on interest in music activities. Participants in the experimental condition rated music activities, including stereotypical masculine and feminine activities, significantly more positively than the control group. Music students rated music activities significantly higher than their non-music peers. Gender was only identified as having a significant relationship with feminine music activities, as ratings of stereotypical masculine activities were statistically similar between boys and girls. This experiment provides evidence that gender salience can impact students’ perceptions of music activities. With a more complete understanding of how gender operates within the environment, music educators can understand how gendered messages within the environment may impact perceptions of music activities.

Do changes in psychosocial factors, lifestyle factors and sitting posture influence the likelihood of musculoskeletal pain in high school computer users?

Adolescents regularly engage in screen-based activities. Complex factors influence adolescents' growth, and habitual sitting posture. The association between over-time changes in their sitting posture, and upper quadrant musculoskeletal pain (UQMP) is poorly understood. This study tested the association between change over 12 months in seated posture angles (neck flexion [NF]; craniocervical angle [CCA] into flexion and extension; and thoracic flexion [TF]), UQMP, and predictor variables (anxiety and depression; sport activity, music participation; computer use). A one-year prospective longitudinal study enrolled 211 asymptomatic 15-18-year students. 3D motion analysis captured postural angles while students worked on desktop computers, at baseline and 12 months later. Height, weight, computing time, sport and music participation, and depression and anxiety were measured at both time periods. UQMP in the previous month was captured at 12 months. The association between over-time change in sitting posture angles and predictor variables was determined using linear regression analysis (r2 ; p-values). The association between predictor variables with UQMP, and predictor variables on the association between postural angles and UQMP was assessed using logistic regression models (Odds Ratios [95%CI]). Significant confounding effects were determined when the addition of a predictor variable to the posture-UQMP model significantly changed the Likelihood Ratio chi square value. N = 153 students (72%) completed the study (48 with UQMP). Significant associations occurred between head flexion (HF) and body mass index (BMI) (r2= 4.20, p = .01); NF and computer use (r2= 2.87, p = .036) and CCA and music participation (r2= 9.99, p = .047). Music participants and non-participants in sport or music had increased risk of UQMP with CCA changes into flexion (OR 12.0) and TF changes into extension (OR 7.6) respectively. The association between over-time-change in sitting posture angles and UQMP is not influenced by anthropometrics, psychosocial factors or time spent computing. Music students, and students not participating in sport, require further postural analysis.

Söngleikur sem félagslegur vettvangur

Markmið þessarar rannsóknar er tvíþætt: Annars vegar að skoða félagslegan ávinning söngleikjaþátttöku og mikilvægi söngleikjaforms sem óhefðbundins náms og hins vegar að skoða hvaða áhrif söngleikjaþátttaka hefur á félagskvíða hjá nemendum með frammistöðukvíða. Rannsóknin var eigindleg viðtalsrannsókn þar sem viðtöl voru tekin við unglinga í grunnskóla sem tóku þátt í söngleik. Þá voru dagbókarfærslur rannsakanda einnig hluti af gögnum sem og reynsla hans á vettvangi. Niðurstöður sýna að óhefðbundið nám í söngleiksuppfærslu er mikilvægur vettvangur til að efla félagsfærni nemenda. Jafnframt hefur söngleikjaþátttaka góð áhrif á félagskvíða og eflir samskiptafærni nemenda. Þá sýndu niðurstöðurnar að söngleikur er mikilvægur vettvangur fyrir nemendur til að kynnast og losa um hömlur. Jafnframt hefur þátttakan jákvæð áhrif á félagsfærni og minnkar félagskvíða en margir nemendur upplifðu aukið öryggi í félagslegum samskiptum í gegnum söngleikjaferlið. Niðurstöðurnar eru mikilvægar til að sýna fram á hversu nauðsynlegt er að efla óhefðbundið nám og listgreinar og til að styrkja félagsfærni og sjálfstraust nemenda. Jafnframt skipta þær máli til að hjálpa félagskvíðnum nemendum þar sem félagskvíði byggir meðal annars á félagslegri fullkomnunaráráttu sem lýsir sér helst á þann veg að nemendur eru hræddir við að gera „samskiptamistök“. Söngleikur, þar sem eiga sér stað mikil samskipti, er því gagnlegur jafnt sem krefjandi vettvangur fyrir þá félagskvíðnu.

Concerted cultivation in early childhood and social inequalities in cognitive skills: Evidence from a German panel study

According to Lareau’s (2003) concept of concerted cultivation, upper and middle-class parents aim more systematically to promote their children’s skills in various ways in comparison with lower class parents. These differences in parenting are assumed to affect children’s skill development. Whereas Lareau developed her concept for families with elementary school children, and much of the subsequent literature has focused on this age group or older, we argue that concerted cultivation is likely to be visible already during early childhood. Therefore, we investigated if participation in organized leisure activities and parents’ promotion of cognitive stimulation during early childhood—as two indicators of concerted cultivation—explain later differences in cognitive skills. We furthermore examined if concerted cultivation mediates the association between social background and cognitive skills of children. We drew on longitudinal data from 1,632 children in the Starting Cohort 2 of the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS). We show that parents with high socio-economic status are more likely to enroll their 5-year-old children in organized leisure activities and to read to them daily. Results from lagged dependent variable regressions indicate that only enrollment in music mediates the relationship between parental socio-economic status and children’s skill development in math and reasoning. Our study highlights the prevalence of concerted cultivation as a parenting style of the German middle-class already during early childhood. Nevertheless, it only moderately contributes to children’s cognitive skill development. Our mediation analysis showed that only music participation explained a modest portion of the background-specific differences in math and reasoning skills.

A Study on the Adults' Music Learning in Learning Society

This study aimed to contribute to enabling spontaneous and continuous adult music participation and learning in a learning society. For this purpose, this study discussed learning society, explored the meaning of music learning in the learning society, and analyzed and interpreted qualitative data on two cases in the form of spontaneous adults' music learning. This study proposed the creation of a social environment for the continuous adult music participation and learning, and the experts's role as an facilitator.

Book Review: Music, Health and Wellbeing: Exploring Music for Health Equity and Social Justice Eds. Sunderland N., Bendrups, D. and Bartleet B-L.

This article is a book review of the the text Music, Health and Wellbeing: Exploring Music for Health Equity and Social Justice edited by Naomi Sunderland, Dan Bendrups and Bridie-Leigh Bartleet. The book explores the use of music participation as a means of addressing health inequalities. Touching on arts therapies, the book also offers a wider contextualisation of this area of work in a variety of services and settings. Considerations such as inclusion, accessibility and the global remit of music-based projects are described and discussed.&#x0D;

Neural and Behavioral Evidence for Frequency-Selective Context Effects in Rhythm Processing in Humans.

When listening to music, people often perceive and move along with a periodic meter. However, the dynamics of mapping between meter perception and the acoustic cues to meter periodicities in the sensory input remain largely unknown. To capture these dynamics, we recorded the electroencephalography while nonmusician and musician participants listened to nonrepeating rhythmic sequences, where acoustic cues to meter frequencies either gradually decreased (from regular to degraded) or increased (from degraded to regular). The results revealed greater neural activity selectively elicited at meter frequencies when the sequence gradually changed from regular to degraded compared with the opposite. Importantly, this effect was unlikely to arise from overall gain, or low-level auditory processing, as revealed by physiological modeling. Moreover, the context effect was more pronounced in nonmusicians, who also demonstrated facilitated sensory-motor synchronization with the meter for sequences that started as regular. In contrast, musicians showed weaker effects of recent context in their neural responses and robust ability to move along with the meter irrespective of stimulus degradation. Together, our results demonstrate that brain activity elicited by rhythm does not only reflect passive tracking of stimulus features, but represents continuous integration of sensory input with recent context.

An Artistic Virtue? Student Perceptions of Humility in Music Participation

Humility is considered to be an important social virtue, particularly in interpersonal contexts. Given the highly social nature of music participation, researchers have begun exploring the potential role that humility might play in music education. The purpose of this study was to examine how middle school, high school, and undergraduate band students ( N = 116) perceived the virtue of humility, including whether they viewed it to be a social strength among various types of musicians. Results indicated that students viewed humility to be a positive quality and a social strength for different types of musicians (i.e., band directors, section leaders, famous musicians). However, middle schoolers struggled to articulate a meaning of humility consistent with accepted definitions put forth by social scientists. Based on these findings, I offer recommendations for music educators to model and promote humility as a positive and necessary virtue in their ensembles and classrooms.

Beneficial Effects of Musicality on the Development of Productive Phonology Skills in Second Language Acquisition.

Previous studies show beneficial effects of musicality on the acquisition of a second language (L2). While most research focused on perceptual aspects, only few studies investigated the effects of musicality on productive phonology. The present study tested if musicality can predict productive phonological skills in L2 acquisition. Sixty-three students with no previous exposure to Arabic were asked to repeatedly listen to and immediately reproduce short sentences in standard Arabic. Before the sentence reproduction task, they completed an auditory discrimination task in three different between-subjects condition: attentive, in which participants were asked to discriminate phonological variations in the same Arabic sentence that they were asked to reproduce later; non-attentive, in which participants were asked to detect beeps in the same Arabic sentences without paying attention to their phonological content; and no-exposure, in which participants performed the discrimination task in another language (Serbian). The first, third and seventh reproductions of each participant were rated for intelligibility, accent, and syllabic errors by two independent evaluators, both native speakers of Arabic. Primary results showed that the intelligibility of the reproduced sentences was higher in participants with high musicality scores in the Advanced Measures of Music Audiation. Moreover, the intelligibility of sentences produced by highly musical participants improved more over time than the intelligibility of participants with lower musicality scores. Previous exposure to the Arabic sentence was beneficial in both the attentive and non-attentive conditions. Our results support the idea that musicality can have effects on productive skills even in the very first stages of L2 acquisition.

Secondary Students’ Preferences for Various Learning Conditions and Music Courses: A Comparison of School Music, Out-of-School Music, and Nonmusic Participants

This study was an investigation of middle and high school students’ preferences for various music learning conditions and secondary music course offerings. The stratified random sample included students who were and were not enrolled in school music classes ( N = 827). Participants represented secondary school music students ( n = 369), students who only participate in music outside of school ( n = 254), and nonparticipants in music ( n = 204). The research questions for this study concerned students’ preferences for teacher role, group size, and repertoire in the music classroom as well as interest in six different secondary music courses. Findings showed out-of-school music participants and nonparticipants had a stronger preference for small group learning environments and repertoire choice when compared to school music participants. In-school and out-of-school music participants expressed similar levels of interest in four music course offerings and ranked them as follows: (1) piano/guitar class, (2) music composition with technology class, (3) popular music groups, and (4) music history/theory class. In-school and out-of-school music participants differed on only two course offerings: large ensembles and world music groups. In-school music participants expressed high interest in large ensembles, whereas out-of-school music participants conveyed a lower interest in large ensembles.

The impact of participatory arts in promoting social relationships for older people within care homes.

Aims:Loneliness and social isolation negatively affect wellbeing and quality of life. Despite the proximity of others, older people living in care homes often experience loneliness and social isolation. The impact of participatory arts on wellbeing is widely acknowledged; however, relational impacts have received less attention. This article explores the impact of participatory arts in care homes on the social relationships between older people and older people and care staff.Methods:‘Creative Journeys’, an initiative led by Essex County Council, provides opportunities for older people living in care homes to participate in arts activities. In this study, three arts organisations (reminiscence arts, seated dance, and orchestral music participation) delivered participatory arts in three homes. Stage 1 of the research comprised mixed-methods case studies in each home. Stage 2 involved an online survey across care homes in Essex to provide a broader perspective, with follow-up interviews in three further homes, and a focus group with the arts organisations. Findings presented here focus on the qualitative data around the impact of participatory arts on the social relationships in care homes between older people and older people and care staff.Results:Participatory arts enhanced social relationships between older people and between older people and care staff in care homes. Through engagement in shared experiences leading to increased communication and interaction, participatory arts facilitated social connectedness between residents, and changed the relationship dynamics between older people and care staff, thus promoting reciprocity.Conclusion:Participatory arts enable older people to express themselves creatively, and make meaningful contributions to their social relationships. Policy makers and those working in the care sector should consider including participatory arts as an integral and necessary component of quality care for older people living in care homes.