Auditions form the gold standard for hiring practices in symphonic orchestras around the world. Nevertheless, research examining how auditions are evaluated by panel members remains sparse. The purpose of this brief research note is to present findings from a pilot project examining the feedback content of audition panelists during a realistic mock audition. Feedback received by 16 academy members of an internationally renowned orchestra was analyzed using inductive content analysis. A key finding of this study was that panelists tended to provide much more feedback related to improving expressivity (61.8%), compared with feedback on technique (24.5%) or other factors (e.g., tuning; 13.7%). As advancing our understanding of how orchestra auditions are evaluated may have considerable practical implications for how music educators can aid students in preparing for a successful transition to the professional circuit, we hope our pilot project might spur on future work investigating this important topic.
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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.
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Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) was used to study the cerebral underpinning of resonance behavior 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-voice audition and bimanual motor imagery circumvented a hemisphere bias associated with a main melody.Both tasks activated ventral premotor and auditory cortices, bilaterally, and the anterior parietal cortex right-dominantly, compared 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, suggesting that musicians not only recruited their manual motor repertoire but alsoperformed a spatial transformation from the vertical perceived pitch axis to the horizontal keyboard. Imagery-specific activations in controls comprised 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.
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How do we promote media literacy? How do we combat disinformation in an icnreasingly challenging environment? Join the second episode in our podcast series part of the Jean Monnet Chair EU-ACT DIGITAL, an initiative spotlighting EU digital policy. In the second episode, Patricia van Rijswijk and Julia Conemans from Beeld & Geluid (Sound & Vision) talk about media literacy, digital resilience, and the activities of Beeld & Geluid on media and disinformation while being interviewed by European Impact’s Theo Zijderveld and European Impact's Mihai Postelnicu from The Hague University of Applied Sciences. Visit https://eu-act.digital/ to find out more about the Jean Monnet Chair EU-ACT DIGITAL.
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Part III Producing and Consuming Idols, Chapter II Since the first series of Pop Idol aired in the UK just over a decade ago, Idols television shows have been broadcast in more than forty countries all over the world. In all those countries the global Idols format has been adapted to local cultures and production contexts, resulting in a plethora of different versions, ranging from the Dutch Idols to the Pan-Arab Super Star and from Nigerian Idol to the international blockbuster American Idol. Despite its worldwide success and widespread journalistic coverage, the Idols phenomenon has received only limited academic attention. Adapting Idols: Authenticity, Identity and Performance in a Global Television Format brings together original studies from scholars in different parts of the world to identify and evaluate the productive dimensions of Idols. As one of the world's most successful television formats, Idols offers a unique case for the study of cultural globalization. Chapters discuss how Idols shows address particular national or regional identity politics and how Idols is consumed by audiences in different territories. This book illustrates that even though the same television format is used in countries all over the globe, practices of adaptation can still result in the creation of unique local cultural products.
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From the article: Abstract Over the last decades, philosophers and cognitive scientists have argued that the brain constitutes only one of several contributing factors to cognition, the other factors being the body and the world. This position we refer to as Embodied Embedded Cognition (EEC). The main purpose of this paper is to consider what EEC implies for the task interpretation of the control system. We argue that the traditional view of the control system as involved in planning and decision making based on beliefs about the world runs into the problem of computational intractability. EEC views the control system as relying heavily on the naturally evolved fit between organism and environment. A ‘lazy’ control structure could be ‘ignorantly successful’ in a ‘user friendly’ world, by facilitating the transitory creation of a flexible and integrated set of behavioral layers that are constitutive of ongoing behavior. We close by discussing the types of questions this could imply for empirical research in cognitive neuroscience and robotics.
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This book seeks to communicate what we learned, what I learned, in the hope that readers (particularly musicians in training) can find ways to learn for themselves as they challenge themselves to try new, and different, things.
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Abstract The emergence of new technologies such as mp3 and music streaming, and the accompanying digital transformation of the music industry, have led to the shift and change of the entire music industry’s value chain. While music is increasingly being consumed through digital channels, the number of empirical studies, particularly in the field of music copyright in the digital music industry, is limited. Every year, rightsholders of musical works, valued 2.5 billion dollars, remain unknown. The objectives of this study are twofold: First to understand and describe the structure and process of the Dutch music copyright system including the most relevant actors within the system and their relations. Second to apply evolutionary economics approach and Values Sensitive Design method within the context of music copyright through positive-empirical perspective. For studies of technological change in existing markets, the evolutionary economics literature provides a coherent and evidence-based foundation. The actors are generally perceived as being different, for example with regard to their access to information, their ability to handle information, their capital and knowledge base (asymmetric information). Also their norms, values and roles can differ. Based on an analysis of documents and held expert interviews, we find that the collection and distribution of the music copyright money is still based on obsolete laws, neoclassical paradigm and legacy IT-system. Finally, we conclude that the rightsholders are heterogenous and have asymmetrical information and negotiating power. The outcomes of this study contribute to create a better understanding of impact of digitization of music copyright industry and empower the stakeholders to proceed from a more informed perspective on redesigning and applying the future music copyright system and pre-digital norms and values amongst actors.
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Lecture in PhD Programme Life Science Education Research UMCU. Course Methods of Life Science Education Research. Utrecht, The Netherlands. abstract Audit trail procedures are applied as a way to check the validity of qualitative research designs, qualitative analyses, and the claims that are made. Audit trail procedures can be conducted based on the three criteria of visibility, comprehensibility, and acceptability (Akkerman et al., 2008). During an audit trail procedure, all documents and materials resulting from the data gathering and the data analysis are assessed by an auditor. In this presentation, we presented a summative audit trail procedure (Agricola, Prins, Van der Schaaf & Van Tartwijk, 2021), whereas in a second study we used a formative one (Agricola, Van der Schaaf, Prins & Van Tartwijk, 2022). For both studies, two different auditors were chosen. For the study presented in Agricola et al. (2021) the auditor was one of the PhD supervisors, while in that presented Agricola et al. (2022) was a junior researcher not involved in the project. The first auditor had a high level of expertise in the study’s topic and methodology. As a result, he was able to provide a professional and critical assessment report. Although the second auditor might be considered to be more objective than the first, as she was not involved in the project, more meetings were needed to explain the aim of the study and the aim of the audit trail procedure. There are many ideas about the criteria that qualitative studies should meet (De Kleijn en Van Leeuwen, 2018). I argue that procedures of checking for interrater agreement and understanding, the triangulation, and audit trail procedures can increase the internal validity of qualitative studies. Agricola, B. T., Prins, F. J., van der Schaaf, M. F., & van Tartwijk, J. (2021). Supervisor and Student Perspectives on Undergraduate Thesis Supervision in Higher Education. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 65(5), 877-897. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/00313831.2020.1775115 Agricola, B. T., van der Schaaf, M. F., Prins, F. J., & van Tartwijk, J. (2022). The development of research supervisors’ pedagogical content knowledge in a lesson study project. Educational Action Research. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/09650792.2020.1832551 de Kleijn, R. A. M., & Van Leeuwen, A. (2018). Reflections and review on the audit procedure: Guidelines for more transparency. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 17(1), 1-8. doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406918763214 Akkerman, S., Admiraal, W., Brekelmans, M., & Oost, H. (2008). Auditing quality of research in social sciences. Quality & Quantity, 42(2), 257-274. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-006-9044-4
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What is the ‘raison d’être’ of auditing? Does auditing only exist by the grace of the legislator? Or does auditing fulfill other needs in contemporary society? For many companies, auditing has been made mandatory. This is possibly one of the reasons why researchers to date have given limited attention regarding the drivers for the demand for audit. Auditing (seen as a social control mechanism) is part of an organizational order in society. Therefore, it is essential to reflect on the (changing) demands of society. As a lack of insight why society demands an audit, accommodates the risk of not meeting the needs and expectations of society, the added value of auditing may be called into question. This dissertation deals with the question: what are drivers for the demand for audit for Dutch SME companies which are not mandatory required to have their financial statements audited.
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