Professor Renee Timmers

MA, PhD, PGCERT

School of Languages, Arts and Societies

Professor of Music Psychology

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r.timmers@sheffield.ac.uk
1.15, Jessop Building

Full contact details

Professor Renee Timmers
School of Languages, Arts and Societies
1.15
Jessop Building
Leavygreave Road
Sheffield
S3 7RD
Profile

I am a Professor of Psychology of Music, teaching and conducting research in this area, and directing the research centre Muses, Mind, Machine. I hold degrees in Musicology (MA, Amsterdam, NL) and Psychology (PhD, Nijmegen, NL) and received interdisciplinary research experience as a postdoctoral researcher by working at music, psychology and computer science departments in Europe and the US before coming to Sheffield as a Lecturer. My work continues to be interdisciplinary and collaborative, collaborating with fellow researchers from Sheffield and the UK, but also internationally, and with non-academic partners. 

My main research and teaching expertise concerns emotional responses to music, expression and communication in music performance, multimodal experiences of music, and music for health and wellbeing. Recent developments of my research include conducting research cross-culturally, as well as investigating musical engagement for specific groups, such as people with dementia, and situations, such as for sleep. This helps to promote a deeper understanding of how musical engagement differs from person to person, and also how knowledge developed through research can be applied in real-life.   

For a number of years, I have been active in learned societies, acting as President and Vice-President of ESCOM, and international journals, acting as co-editor of Empirical Musicology Review, associate editor of Psychomusicology: Music, Mind & Brain, and editorial boards of Psychology of Music and Journal of New Music Research. Currently, my main focus is on teaching and research with a specific commitment to leading the cross-faculty research centre Muses, Mind, Machine that aims to transform our understanding of how arts can support human flourishing. It enables challenge-led research through the bringing together of expertise from across the University, whilst also building collaborations nationally and internationally with creative industry, health and technology. 

Research interests

The main research projects that I am currently working on are the following:  

  • Cross-cultural variations in expression and emotion in music, comparison between Japanese and UK performers and listeners. This project investigates what approaches and concepts performers and listeners bring to emotion and expression in western classical music. It includes formulation of Bayesian model of emotion perception in music. Collaborators include Yuko Arthurs, Makiko Sadakata and Landon Peck [with funding support from British Academy]
  • Music, dementia and technology. I am collaborator on this project, led by Jennifer MacRitchie. The project investigates affordances of musical participation for people living with dementia and their carers and how positive engagement with music making and listening can be promoted using innovative music technology. [with funding support from UKRI]
  • Music for sleep. This collaborative project with Rory Kirk and collaborators from SleepCogni, Computer Science and Engineering investigates how dynamic uses of music can be part of a biofeedback system to support sleep. We also investigate young people’s preferences for music for sleep. [with funding support from EPSRC, BA, and PBIAA]
  • Singing in balance. This PhD network with Emily Cooper and Mir Jansen is a collaboration with researchers in Leeds (Freya Bailes, Bruna Martins) and York (Helena Daffern, Dana Clemensen), and investigates ways to make singing practices more inclusive and accessible to different target groups. This project also includes singing for respiratory health conditions, and the use of video to investigate outcomes and practices of participatory music workshops.  [with funding support from WRoCAH, Sheffield Hospital Charities, QR-PSF]. 
Publications

Books

Journal articles

Chapters

Conference proceedings papers

  • Pigrem J, Christensen J, Macpherson A, Timmers R, de Witte L & Macritchie J (2024) Agency and Creativity in Musical Interaction for those living with Dementia and Cognitive Decline. Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression RIS download Bibtex download

Reports

Preprints

Research group

The research projects I supervise investigate aspects of music cognition primarily using experimental and quantitative methods, often in combination with qualitative and observational approaches. They aim to improve our understanding of the processes underlying the perception and performance of music with research conducted in the lab, online or in real-life, and often a combination of these three methods. I regularly co-supervise projects with colleagues from other departments, who have expertise in e.g. linguistics, computational modelling or neuropsychology. My main research areas concern expression and emotion in music, embodied and multimodal experiences of music, and uses of music to support health and wellbeing. They combine theories and approaches from music, psychology and computer science. 

Current PhD supervision (as first supervisor)

  • Emily Cooper – singing for respiratory health 
  • Marco Morbidelli – dual practices of voice use in musical theatre: comparing authenticity and expression in spoken and singing voice. 
  • Kexin Qi – uses of visual imagery in music performance and practice 
  • Yue You – cross-cultural perception of emotion in music performance 

Past PhD project supervision

Former PhD students who I have supervised as first supervisor and the topic of their projects include (in reverse order of graduation): Persefoni Tzanaki (relationships between empathy and synchronisation), Rory Kirk (music for sleep), Caroline Curwen (embodiment in music-colour synaesthesia), Jonathan Ayerst (learning to improvise in a classical-baroque tradition), Alexander Stamatiades (well-formedness and expectation in musical melodies), Nicola Pennill (self-organisation in musical ensembles), Shen Li (embodied concepts of piano timbre), Henrique Meissner (dialogic teaching of musical expression), Ioanna Filippidi (involuntary musical imagery as conditioned by everyday musical listening), Tim Metcalfe (perception of emotion in music and speech in cochlear implant users), Andrea Schiavio (music as (en)action). Yuko Arthurs (contextual consonance and dissonance of chords), Marilyn Blank (communication and coordination in piano duos).

Grants

Selected grants since 2020: 

  • 2025-26. British Academy, Small research grant (£10k). Co-designing music for sleep. 
  • 2023-24 British Academy Small research grant (£10k). Cross-cultural perception of emotion in music. 
  • 2023-24 QR-PSF (£20k). Evidencing outcomes of participatory music making using video. 
  • 2023-2026 WRoCAH PhD network, 3 PhD positions in Sheffield, York and Leeds. Singing in balance: investigating the sociodynamics of group singing. 
  • 2021-25 UKRI (£1M) Co-I on Music, dementia and technology project. 
  • 2020 EOI-QR UKRI funding (£25k) for survey and conference on Mapping music for health and wellbeing in Sheffield.
Professional activities and memberships

I am a member of learned societies in music psychology including ESCOM and SEMPRE. I have been Vice-President and President of ESCOM, in which capacity I organised the fully virtual ICMPC-ESCOM conference in 2021. 

I have been a member of various editorial boards for many years, including serving as co-editor and associate editor of international peer reviewed journals such as Empirical Musicology Review, Psychomusicology, Psychology of Music and Journal of New Music Research. I still regularly review for international peer reviewed journals, funding bodies, and publishers. 

Public engagements with my research include disseminations at the Festival of the Mind, Sheffield (2018 – Colourama, 2022 – Voiceworks, 2022 – Can we fly less?), and workshops targeted towards non-academic audiences, such as on ‘Sound Teaching’ (2018, 2019), families and music (2019), uses of video to evidence the outcomes of participatory music (2024), and uses of singing related techniques to support vocal confidence (2023, 2025).  

Selection of podcasts: 

Colourama – a synaesthesia experience 

Expression in music performance 

Voiceworks 
Open Book on Psychological perspectives on musical experiences and skills 

Links

Muses Mind Machine research centre  Open Book on Psychological perspectives on musical experiences and skills  Voiceworks  Colourama – a synaesthesia experience