Computer-aided music therapy evaluation : investigating and testing the music therapy logbook prototype 1 system

This thesis describes the investigation and testing of a prototype music therapy practice evaluation system: Music Therapy Logbook, Prototype 1. Such a system is intended to be used by music therapists as an aid to their existing evaluation techniques. The investigation of user needs, the multi-disciplinary team work, the pre-field and field recording tests, and the computational music analysis tests are each presented in turn, preceded by an in depth literature review on historical and existing music therapy evaluation methods. A final chapter presents investigative design work for proposed user interface software pages for the Music Therapy Logbook system. Four surveys are presented (n = 6, n = 10, n = 44, n =125). These gathered information on current music therapy evaluation methods, therapists‘ suggested functions for the system, and therapists‘ attitudes towards using the proposed automatic and semi-automatic music therapy evaluation functions, some of which were tested during the research period. The results indicate enthusiasm for using the system to; record individual music therapy sessions, create written notes linked to recordings and undertake automatic and/or semi-automatic computer aided music therapy analysis; the main purpose of which is to quantify changes in a therapist‘s and patient‘s use of music over time, (Streeter, 2010). Simulated music therapy improvisations were recorded and analysed. The system was then used by a music therapist working in a neuro-disability unit, to record individual therapy sessions with patients with acquired brain injuries. These recordings constitute the first music therapy audio recordings employing multi-track audio recording techniques, using existing radio microphone technology. The computational music analysis tests applied to the recordings are the first such tests to be applied to recordings of music therapy sessions in which an individual patient played acoustic, rather than MIDI, instruments. The findings prove it is possible to gather objective evidence of changes in a patient‘s and therapist‘s use of music over time, using the Music Therapy Logbook Prototype 1 system.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Paper mechanisms for sonic interaction

ABSTRACT Introducing continuous sonic interaction in augmented popup books enhances the expressive and performative qualities of movables, making the whole narrative experience more engaging and personal. The SaMPL Spring School on Sounding Popables explored the specific topic of paper-driven sonic narratives. Working groups produced several sketches of sonic interactions with movables. The most significant sketches of sounding popables are presented and analyzed

Effects of teaching intensity on sixth-grade students' general music achievements and attitudes

Understanding, delineating, and clarifying teaching behaviors contributing to desired student musical outcomes is an important concern for researchers, teachers, and teacher educators. The purpose of this study was to investigate effects of teaching intensity behaviors on sixth-grade students' general music achievement, music attitudes, and recorder performance. Subjects' gender and music background also were examined as independent variables. Two intact classes of sixth-grade general music students served as subjects. One group of twelve males and ten females (n = 22) received an operationally defined high teaching intensity treatment; nine males and twelve females in the second group (n = 21) experienced a low teaching intensity treatment. Prior to treatment, subjects' general music achievement, music attitudes, and music background were assessed using the researcher-designed Music Achievement Test, Music Attitudes Profile, and Music Background Questionnaire. During the eleven-day treatment period, subjects received 45 minutes of general music instruction focusing on developing music reading and soprano recorder performance skills. To determine effects of instructional treatment, gender, and music background, the Music Achievement Test, Music Attitudes Profile, and Recorder Performance Test were administered following the treatment period

Collaborative creativity in music education: Children's interactions in group creative music making

This study intended to develop a theoretical framework for understanding children's collaborative creativity in music. The focus was on creative interactions and on how early primary children interact when they engage in creative group music making. Related questions were on: 1) the different communicative media employed, 2) the component aspects of group work influencing children's creative endeavours, 3) the meanings that children attribute to their creative experience, and 4) the educational and ethical values of creative interactions. The study was carried out in a private music school in Rome, Italy. A group of eight 5-7-year-old children participated over eight months in 30 weekly sessions of group creative activities in music and movement. I was the teacher researcher and worked with a co-teacher. This exploratory, interpretive inquiry was framed by sociocultural perspectives on learning and creativity. A qualitative research methodology was adopted, which combined methodological elements derived from case study research, ethnographic approaches, and practitioner research. Data collection methods included participant observation, video-recording of sessions, documentation, and strategies for eliciting children's meanings. Thematic analysis, both theory-driven and data-driven, was conducted in order to identify relevant issues. The findings of the study suggest that in creative collaborative work in music bodily interactions and musical interactions have a stronger significance than verbal interactions. A conceptual distinction was made between 'cooperative' vs 'collaborative' which helped to characterise the different degrees of interactivity in the group's creative work. The study identified a range of component aspects which influenced the quality and productivity of children's collaborative interactions. These included: children's characteristics, context and setting, pedagogical approach, task design, collaboratively emergent processes, underlying tensions in creative learning, reflection on and evaluation of creative work, and time. Children actively gave meaning to their group creative music making mostly in terms of imagery and narrative, though they were gradually shifting towards more purely musical conceptualisations. Creating music in groups had the potential to enhance their sense of competence, ownership and belonging, and supported ethical values such as promoting the person, freedom, responsibility, a multiplicity of perspectives, and democracy. Three meta-themes run throughout the findings of the study, which are in line with sociocultural perspectives: i) a systems perspective as necessary to gain a more comprehensive view of collaborative creativity; ii) creativity as an inherently social phenomenon, and iii) creativity as processual and emergent. The implications for pedagogical practice highlight the importance of including creative collaborative activities in the music curriculum.College of Social Sciences & International Studies of the University of Exete

Differentiable Stripe Patterns for Inverse Design of Structured Surfaces

Stripe patterns are ubiquitous in nature and everyday life. While the synthesis of these patterns has been thoroughly studied in the literature, their potential to control the mechanics of structured materials remains largely unexplored. In this work, we introduce Differentiable Stripe Patterns -- a computational approach for automated design of physical surfaces structured with stripe-shaped bi-material distributions. Our method builds on the work by Knoppel and colleagues for generating globally-continuous and equally-spaced stripe patterns. To unlock the full potential of this design space, we propose a gradient-based optimization tool to automatically compute stripe patterns that best approximate macromechanical performance goals. Specifically, we propose a computational model that combines solid shell finite elements with XFEM for accurate and fully-differentiable modeling of elastic bi-material surfaces. To resolve non-uniqueness problems in the original method, we furthermore propose a robust formulation that yields unique and differentiable stripe patterns. %Finally, we introduce design space regularizers to avoid numerical singularities and improve stripe neatness We combine these components with equilibrium state derivatives into an end-to-end differentiable pipeline that enables inverse design of mechanical stripe patterns. We demonstrate our method on a diverse set of examples that illustrate the potential of stripe patterns as a design space for structured materials. Our simulation results are experimentally validated on physical prototypes.Comment: 14 page