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Bij het bepalen van leerdoelen voor het muziekonderwijs is het belangrijk om niet alleen in cultureel, maar vooral in biologisch perspectief, de betekenis van muziek voor de ontwikkeling van het kind te bezien. De evolutionaire ontwikkeling van de muzikale aanleg blijkt o.a. uit de vondst van prehistorische muziekinstrumenten. De vele neurale en functionele overeenkomsten tussen het ‘muzikale’ en het ‘jagende’ brein kunnen de rol van het jagen bij de ontwikkeling van het muzikale brein verduidelijken, maar ook de rol van muziek in de evolutie van het jagende brein. Het verstaan van muziek als ‘spel’ (play) geeft verder inzicht in de functie van muziek bij de ontwikkeling van het kind en verduidelijkt tevens de betekenis van het muziekonderwijs bij het bevorderen van die ontwikkeling.
Verhandeling over globaliseringsprocessen en cultuur- en gemeenschapscentra.
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) was used to study the activation of cerebral motor networks during auditory perception of music in professional keyboard musicians (n=12). The activation paradigm implied that subjects listened to two-part polyphonic music, while either critically appraising the performance or imagining they were performing themselves. Two-part polyphonic audition and bimanual motor imagery circumvented a hemisphere bias associated with the convention of playing the melody with the right hand. Both tasks activated ventral premotor and auditory cortices, bilaterally, and the right anterior parietal cortex, when contrasted to 12 musically unskilled controls. Although left ventral premotor activation was increased during imagery (compared to judgment), bilateral dorsal premotor and right posterior-superior parietal activations were quite unique to motor imagery. The latter suggests that musicians not only recruited their manual motor repertoire but also performed a spatial transformation from the vertically perceived pitch axis (high and low sound) to the horizontal axis of the keyboard. Imagery-specific activations in controls were seen in left dorsal parietal-premotor and supplementary motor cortices. Although these activations were less strong compared to musicians, this overlapping distribution indicated the recruitment of a general 'mirror-neuron' circuitry. These two levels of sensori-motor transformations point towards common principles by which the brain organizes audition-driven music performance and visually guided task performance.
Using fMRI, cerebral activations were studied in 24 classically-trained keyboard performers and 12 musically unskilled control subjects. Two groups of musicians were recruited: improvising (n=12) and score-dependent (non-improvising) musicians (n=12). While listening to both familiar and unfamiliar music, subjects either (covertly) appraised the presented music performance or imagined they were playing the music themselves. We hypothesized that improvising musicians would exhibit enhanced efficiency of audiomotor transformation reflected by stronger ventral premotor activation. Statistical Parametric Mapping revealed that, while virtually 'playing along' with the music, improvising musicians exhibited activation of a right-hemisphere distribution of cerebral areas including posterior-superior parietal and dorsal premotor cortex. Involvement of these right-hemisphere dorsal stream areas suggests that improvising musicians recruited an amodal spatial processing system subserving pitch-to-space transformations to facilitate their virtual motor performance. Score-dependent musicians recruited a primarily left-hemisphere pattern of motor areas together with the posterior part of the right superior temporal sulcus, suggesting a relationship between aural discrimination and symbolic representation. Activations in bilateral auditory cortex were significantly larger for improvising musicians than for score-dependent musicians, suggesting enhanced top-down effects on aural perception. Our results suggest that learning to play a music instrument primarily from notation predisposes musicians toward aural identification and discrimination, while learning by improvisation involves audio-spatial-motor transformations, not only during performance, but also perception.
Geleide Audiomotor Exploratie (GAME) is een innovatieve lesmethode waarmee slechthorenden met een Cochleair Implantaat (CI) piano kunnen leren spelen zonder muzieknotatie. Het doel van GAME is om door actief muziek te maken, transfereffecten van muziek- naar het spraakdomein te realiseren. Hierdoor kunnen CI-gebruikers zowel muziek als spraak beter gaan verstaan. Hoewel GAME ontworpen is om in de gewone lespraktijk gebruikt te worden, vereist het lesgeven met GAME nieuwe kennis en vaardigheden van pianodocenten. Dit onderzoek is daarom gericht op het ontwikkelen van instructiemateriaal en scholing voor het lesgeven met GAME. Zes pianodocenten en een ‘critical friend’ deden mee aan dit onderwijskundig ontwerp onderzoek. Tijdens het onderzoek zijn de lesmethode en het lesmateriaal aangepast en doorontwikkeld. De uitkomsten van het onderzoek laten zien dat docenten een ‘totaalpakket’ nodig hebben: (1) een handleiding gecombineerd met (2) demonstratie video’s, (3) lesmateriaal en voorbeeld lesplannen, (4) workshops en (5) collegiaal overleg. Deelnemende docenten vonden vooral de video’s gecombineerd met uitleg belangrijk omdat GAME totaal anders is dan traditionele lesmethodes. Het onderzoek heeft geleid tot suggesties voor implementatie in lespraktijken en Hoger Beroeps Onderwijs en aanbevelingen voor mogelijke toepassingen van GAME bij andere doelgroepen, zoals leerlingen met leerproblemen.
The realization of one’s musical ideas at the keyboard is dependent on the ability to transform sound into movement, a process called audiomotor transformation. Using fMRI, we investigated cerebral activations while classically-trained improvising and non-improvising musicians imagined playing along with recordings of familiar and unfamiliar music excerpts. We hypothesized that audiomotor transformation would be associated with the recruitment of dedicated cerebral networks, facilitating aurally-cued performance. Results indicate that while all classically-trained musicians engage a left-hemisphere network involved in motor skill and action recognition, only improvising musicians additionally recruit a right dorsal frontoparietal network dedicated to spatially-driven motor control. Mobilization of this network, which plays a crucial role in the real-time transformation of imagined or perceived music into goal-directed action, may be held responsible not only for the stronger activation of auditory cortex we observed in improvising musicians in response to the aural perception of music, but also for the superior ability to play ‘by ear’ which they demonstrated in a follow-up study. The results of this study suggest that the practice of improvisation promotes the implicit acquisition of hierarchical music syntax which is then recruited in top-down manner via the dorsal stream during music performance. In a study of audiomotor transformation in Parkinson patients, we demonstrated a dissociation between dysprosody in speech and music. While patients’ speech could reliably be distinguished from that of healthy individuals, purely on the basis of aural perception, no difference was observed between patients and healthy controls in their ability to sing improvised melodies.
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The realization of one’s musical ideas at the keyboard is dependent on the ability to transform sound into movement, a process called audiomotor transformation. Using fMRI, we investigated cerebral activations while classically‐trained improvising and non‐improvising musicians imagined playing along with recordings of familiar and unfamiliar music excerpts. We hypothesized that audiomotor transformation would be associated with the recruitment of dedicated cerebral networks, facilitating aurally‐cued performance. Results indicate that while all classically‐trained musicians engage a left‐hemisphere network involved in motor skill and action recognition, only improvising musicians additionally recruit a right dorsal frontoparietal network dedicated to spatially‐driven motor control. Mobilization of this network, which plays a crucial role in the real‐time transformation of imagined or perceived music into goal‐directed action, may be held responsible not only for the stronger activation of auditory cortex we observed in improvising musicians in response to the aural perception of music, but also for the superior ability to play ‘by ear’ which they demonstrated in a follow‐up study. The results of this study suggest that the practice of improvisation promotes the implicit acquisition of hierarchical music syntax which is then recruited in top‐down manner via the dorsal stream during music performance.
The historically developed practice of learning to play a music instrument from notes instead of by imitation or improvisation makes it possible to contrast two types of skilled musicians characterized not only by dissimilar performance practices, but also disparate methods of audiomotor learning. In a recent fMRI study comparing these two groups of musicians while they either imagined playing along with a recording or covertly assessed the quality of the performance, we observed activation of a right-hemisphere network of posterior superior parietal and dorsal premotor cortices in improvising musicians, indicating more efficient audiomotor transformation. In the present study, we investigated the detailed performance characteristics underlying the ability of both groups of musicians to replicate music on the basis of aural perception alone. Twenty-two classically trained improvising and score-dependent musicians listened to short, unfamiliar two-part excerpts presented with headphones. They played along or replicated the excerpts by ear on a digital piano, either with or without aural feedback. In addition, they were asked to harmonize or transpose some of the excerpts either to a different key or to the relative minor. MIDI recordings of their performances were compared with recordings of the aural model. Concordance was expressed in an audiomotor alignment score computed with the help of music information retrieval algorithms. Significantly higher alignment scores were found when contrasting groups, voices, and tasks. The present study demonstrates the superior ability of improvising musicians to replicate both the pitch and rhythm of aurally perceived music at the keyboard, not only in the original key, but also in other tonalities. Taken together with the enhanced activation of the right dorsal frontoparietal network found in our previous fMRI study, these results underscore the conclusion that the practice of improvising music can be associated with enhanced audiomotor transformation in response to aurally perceived music.
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