How Live Music Moves Us: Head Movement Differences in Audiences to Live Versus Recorded Music

A live music concert is a pleasurable social event that is among the most visceral and memorable forms of musical engagement. But what inspires listeners to attend concerts, sometimes at great expense, when they could listen to recordings at home? An iconic aspect of popular concerts is engaging with other audience members through moving to the music. Head movements, in particular, reflect emotion and have social consequences when experienced with others. Previous studies have explored the affiliative social engagement experienced among people moving together to music. But live concerts have other features that might also be important, such as that during a live performance the music unfolds in a unique and not predetermined way, potentially increasing anticipation and feelings of involvement for the audience. Being in the same space as the musicians might also be exciting. Here we controlled for simply being in an audience to examine whether factors inherent to live performance contribute to the concert experience. We used motion capture to compare head movement responses at a live album release concert featuring Canadian rock star Ian Fletcher Thornley, and at a concert without the performers where the same songs were played from the recorded album. We also examined effects of a prior connection with the performers by comparing fans and neutral-listeners, while controlling for familiarity with the songs, as the album had not yet been released. Head movements were faster during the live concert than the album-playback concert. Self-reported fans moved faster and exhibited greater levels of rhythmic entrainment than neutral-listeners. These results indicate that live music engages listeners to a greater extent than pre-recorded music and that a pre-existing admiration for the performers also leads to higher engagement

Examining Factors which Affect Self-esteem of Professional Immigrants in Canada

To benefit the economy, Canada accepts thousands of professional immigrants each year. However, they often encounter unforeseen hardships in acculturation and employment pursuits which negatively impact self-esteem: a predictor of career success and life satisfaction. Since existing supports for professional immigrants have proven unsatisfactory, the current study aimed to identify and understand impacts of adjustment barriers on self-esteem to inform development of resources including career counselling protocols. Methodologies included analysis of qualitative interviews with professional immigrants who underwent retraining in Canada. Results revealed fluctuations in self-esteem throughout adjustment periods. Self-esteem was highest prior to immigration and upon initial arrival in Canada but significantly decreased during primary attempts at job searching and acculturation. During retraining and post-retraining employment, self-esteem increased but was threatened by remaining adjustment barriers. Eleven key impactors on self-esteem were revealed. By identifying challenges for professional immigrants, results can inform development of resources to encourage health and success.M.A

Work, rest and (press) play: Music consumption as an indicator of human economic development

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Acoustic Features Influence Musical Choices Across Multiple Genres

Based on a large behavioral dataset of music downloads, two analyses investigate whether the acoustic features of listeners' preferred musical genres influence their choice of tracks within non-preferred, secondary musical styles. Analysis 1 identifies feature distributions for pairs of genre-defined subgroups that are distinct. Using correlation analysis, these distributions are used to test the degree of similarity between subgroups' main genres and the other music within their download collections. Analysis 2 explores the issue of main-to-secondary genre influence through the production of 10 feature-influence matrices, one per acoustic feature, in which cell values indicate the percentage change in features for genres and subgroups compared to overall population averages. In total, 10 acoustic features and 10 genre-defined subgroups are explored within the two analyses. Results strongly indicate that the acoustic features of people's main genres influence the tracks they download within non-preferred, secondary musical styles. The nature of this influence and its possible actuating mechanisms are discussed with respect to research on musical preference, personality, and statistical learning