Building a sense of community and social connection through spontaneous music making.Interactive 'jamming' in corners, courtyards, corridors, bedrooms and social spaces between staff, musicians and older adults with dementia has become a regular part of Monday afternoons at St Vincent’s Residential Aged …

Improvising around the world.Presentation April 7, 2014 – International Project Week ‘Improvisation’ Dept. Music Education, Prince Claus Conservatoire, Hanze University Groningen.

Recognition of action, goals and intentions has been shown to be mediated by a multimodal mirror-neuron system, not only in monkeys, but also in humans. A fronto-parietal network of brain areas has been identified where these neurons are located. We should expect musical actions, goals and intentions …

Next to the manifestation of sensori-motor transformations such as singing and dancing, the ability to play an instrument by ear must rely on a unique convergence of cerebral functions involving motor preparation and auditory perception. In this study, we aimed to gain insight into the extent to which …

Music moves us, literally. We tend to move the body in synchrony with the beat. Individuals without any professional music training are capable of singing or humming along with an unfamiliar melody or indicating the melodic contour by means of hand gestures. Musicians who play by ear are able to do the …

In this fMRI study, it was hypothesized that mirror neurons in the premotor-parietal network would be activated while improvising performers listened to music. Such activations would suggest that perception is engaging the action repertoire of the improvising musician. Recognition and understanding of …

Our conception of the brain is influenced by metaphors like the computer which grant the brain an executive function. This notion ignores the fact that the brain evolved in the context of the natural environment and functions together with it. In addition, we are frequently less aware of the action-perception …

Using fMRI, ten improvising musicians were contrasted with 10 non-musicians to explore brain activations while playing by ear. Subjects either imagined playing the music they were listening to, without moving their hands, or assessed the performance verbally without actually speaking. Half of the music …