Tools for Music Education
Participate in a Survey for music performers
This short survey that takes max 10 minutes is designed to improve our insight into the use of technology in music performance contexts. To participate, please go to: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/VFB
Practice Space: visual feedback system to assist performance Brandmeyer, A., Timmers, R., Sadakata, M., & Desain, P. (2011). Learning expressive percussion performance under different visual feedback conditions. Psychological Research-Psychologische Forschung, 75 (2), 107-121.
A study was conducted to test the effect of two different forms of real-time visual feedback on expressive percussion performance. Conservatory percussion students performed imitations of recorded teacher performances while receiving either high-level feedback on the expressive style of their performances, low-level feedback on the timing and dynamics of the performed notes, or no feedback. The high-level feedback was based on a Bayesian analysis of the performances, while the low-level feedback was based on the raw participant timing and dynamics data. Results indicated that neither form of feedback led to significantly smaller timing and dynamics errors. However, high-level feedback did lead to a higher proficiency in imitating the expressive style of the target performances, as indicated by a probabilistic measure of expressive style. We conclude that, while potentially disruptive to timing processes involved in music performance due to extraneous cognitive load, high-level visual feedback can improve participant imitations of expressive performance features.
Timmers, R., Sadakata, M., & Desain, P. (under revision). The role of visual feedback and creative exploration for the improvement of timing accuracy in performing musical ornaments.
In developing a visual feedback system for a creative activity as music performance, the visual feedback may not only increase precision, but also enhance flexibility and originality. In an experimental study focused on the timing of a musical ornament, we examined whether exploration training with and without visual feedback leads to improved temporal precision in imitating target performances of the ornament, and whether visual feedback enhances the performance diversity during training. The study uncovered distinct strategies of exploration of the performance of the musical ornament and highlighted the dynamics of exploration behavior during training. Visual feedback enhanced exploration of temporal characteristics and influenced imitation accuracy. This study opens educational possibilities for training performance skills as well as providing a direction for wider investigation of creative processes in performance.
Sadakata, M., Brandmeyer, A., Timmers, R. Miezlaiskyte, A., & Desain, P. (in preparation). Learning to tap rhythms with real-time visual feedback: a longitudinal study. In general, the use of multimedia adjuncts has been shown to result in enhanced learning. In order to obtain more insight into this general idea of helpfulness, case studies of learning diverse skills using multimedia are needed. The current study looks into the effect of real-time visual feedback (VFB) on the improvement of timing control in music performance. Finger-tapping and imitation of timing patterns were used to study the following issues in particular: 1) the time course over which the accuracy of the imitations improves, 2) the maximum performance reached, and 3) the transfer of the acquired skills to the imitation of novel stimuli. Twenty-four non-musicians participated in 9 experimental sessions over three weeks. Twelve participants of the experimental group received visual feedback during training. The twelve participants of the control group practiced without receiving visual feedback, but they did receive an overall score of improvement at the end of a session. The VFB was beneficial for several aspects of learning, but did not assist transfer of learning. It did facilitate to maximize performance, it assisted in faster improvement at the beginning stages, and, most importantly, it seemed to bring participants to a more advanced level of temporal control, distinguishing between sub-categories in timing, rather than distinguishing only between main rhythmical categories. This suggests that visual feedback can be especially helpful to conceptually learn aspects of expressive timing that are slower to learn by auditory exposure only.