2,558 research outputs found
âSounds good, but⊠what is it?â an introduction to outcome measurement from a music therapy perspective
âSounds good, but⊠what is it?â This is a common reaction to outcome measurement by music therapy practitioners and researchers who are less familiar with its meanings and practices. Given the prevailing evidence-based practice movement, outcome measurement does âsound goodâ. Some practitioners and researchers, however, have a limited or unclear understanding of what outcome measurement includes; particularly with respect to outcome measures and related terminology around their use. Responding to the âwhat is it?â question, this article provides an introduction to such terminology. It explores what outcome measures are and outlines characteristics related to their forms, uses and selection criteria. While pointing to some debates regarding outcome measurement, including its philosophical underpinnings, this introduction seeks to offer a useful platform for a critical and contextual understanding of the potential use of outcome measures in music therapy
What about their performance do free jazz improvisers agree upon? A case study
When musicians improvise freely togetherânot following any sort of script, predetermined harmonic structure, or âreferentââto what extent do they understand what they are doing in the same way as each other? And to what extent is their understanding privileged relative to outside listeners with similar levels of performing experience in free improvisation? In this exploratory case study, a saxophonist and a pianist of international renown who knew each other's work but who had never performed together before were recorded while improvising freely for 40 min. Immediately afterwards the performers were interviewed separately about the just-completed improvisation, first from memory and then while listening to two 5 min excerpts of the recording in order to prompt specific and detailed commentary. Two commenting listeners from the same performance community (a saxophonist and drummer) listened to, and were interviewed about, these excerpts. Some months later, all four participants rated the extent to which they endorsed 302 statements that had been extracted from the four interviews and anonymized. The findings demonstrate that these free jazz improvisers characterized the improvisation quite differently, selecting different moments to comment about and with little overlap in the content of their characterizations. The performers were not more likely to endorse statements by their performing partner than by a commenting listener from the same performance community, and their patterns of agreement with each other (endorsing or dissenting with statements) across multiple ratingsâtheir interrater reliability as measured with Cohen's kappaâwas only moderate, and not consistently higher than their agreement with the commenting listeners. These performers were more likely to endorse statements about performers' thoughts and actions than statements about the music itself, and more likely to endorse evaluatively positive than negative statements. But these kinds of statements were polarizing; the performers were more likely to agree with each other in their ratings of statements about the music itself and negative statements. As in Schober and Spiro (2014), the evidence supports a view that fully shared understanding is not needed for joint improvisation by professional musicians in this genre and that performing partners can agree with an outside listener more than with each other
Lithium Experiment on Solar Neutrinos to Weight the CNO Cycle
The measurement of the flux of beryllium neutrinos with the accuracy of about
10% and CNO neutrinos with the accuracy 30% will enable to find the flux of
pp-neutrinos in the source with the accuracy better than 1% using the
luminosity constraint. The future experiments on \nu e- scattering will enable
to measure with very good accuracy the flux of beryllium and pp-neutrinos on
the Earth. The ratio of the flux of pp-neutrinos on the Earth and in the source
will enable to find with very good accuracy a mixing angle theta solar. Lithium
detector has high sensitivity to CNO neutrinos and can find the contribution of
CNO cycle to the energy generated in the Sun. This will be a stringent test of
the theory of stellar evolution and combined with other experiments will
provide a precise determination of the flux of pp-neutrinos in the source and a
mixing angle theta solar. The work on the development of the technology of
lithium experiment is now in progress.Comment: Minor corrections, one reference added, 11 pages, 2 figures, talk
given at NANP 2003, Dubna, Russia, June 200
Neutrino oscillations in low density medium
For the case of small matter effects: , where is the
matter potential, we develop the perturbation theory using as the expansion parameter. We derive simple and physically
transparent formulas for the oscillation probabilities in the lowest order in
which are valid for arbitrary density profile. The formulas can be
applied for propagation of the solar and supernova neutrinos in matter of the
Earth, substantially simplifying numerical calculations. Using these formulas
we study sensitivity of the oscillation effects to structures of the density
profile situated at different distances from the detector . We show that for
the mass-to-flavor state transitions, {\it e.g.}, , the
sensitivity is suppressed for remote structures: ,
where is the oscillation length and is the energy
resolution of detector.Comment: discussion simplified, clarifications adde
Tracing change during music therapy for depression: toward a markers-based understanding of communicative behaviors
This article focuses on behavioral markersâchanges in communicative behaviors that reliably indicate the presence and severity of mental health conditions. We explore the potential of behavioral markers to provide new insights and approaches to diagnosis, assessment, and monitoring, with a particular focus on music therapy for depression. We propose a framework for understanding these markers that encompasses three broad functional categories fulfilled by communicative behaviors: semantic, pragmatic, and phatic. The disordered interactions observed in those with depression reflect changes in many types of communicative behavior, but much research has focused on pragmatic behaviors. However, changes in phatic behaviors also seem likely to be important, given their crucial role in facilitating interpersonal relationships. Given the strong phatic element of music-making, music represents a fertile context in which to explore these behaviors. We argue here that the uniquely multimodal and profoundly interactive environment of music therapy in particular allows for the identification of changes in pragmatic and phatic communicative behaviors that reliably indicate depression presence/severity. By identifying these behavioral markers, we open the door to new ways of assessing depression, and improving diagnosis and monitoring. Furthermore, this markers-based approach has broad implications, being applicable beyond depression and beyond music therapy
Learning from service evaluation: Identifying 'impact areas' of music therapy services.
sch_occ13pub4833pub
Score-dependency: over-reliance on performing music from notation reduces aural pitch replication skills
Background in music performance: Most music is performed or improvised by ear, but Western classical musicians primarily perform music from notated scores.
Background in music perception: Classical musicians have greater difficulties playing melodies by ear than musicians with other backgrounds (Woody & Lehman, 2010). This ties in with Harris and de Jongâs (2015) finding that non-improvising musicians exhibit less activation in the right auditory cortex than improvising musicians. The right auditory cortex is known to play a central role in pitch processing (Peretz & Zatorre, 2005).
Aims: (1) To investigate score-dependency (SD) in a behavioural study as a tendency for classical musicians to rely on notation over aural engagement in a music-learning scenario, and
quantify SD levels for research. (2) To establish whether SD affects pitch perception. (3) To establish whether SD is a result of long term engagement in a score-focussed performance culture that precludes or minimizes participation in ear-playing scenarios.
Main contribution: Through a behavioural experiment we explore how score-dependency (SD) affects aural reproduction mechanisms, especially with regards to pitch. We introduce the
SDR (score-dependency rating) measure for establishing musiciansâ individual levels of SD in relation to that of their peers. 20 notationally literate classical musicians were played a number
of melodies and were asked to reproduce them on their instruments while simultaneously referring to provided music notation. By manipulating the degree of pitch and rhythm
information shown in the music notation, we controlled the amount of pitch/rhythm information participants had to reproduce by ear alone. Counting how many times they needed to hear each melody again before task completion let us quantify their individual levels of dependence on notation. More score-dependent musicians showed a significant effect of struggling to
reproduce pitch contentâbut not rhythm contentâby ear. This effect was not found for nondependent musicians. As pitch and rhythm are likely processed separately, SD may selectively
affect aural pitch perception mechanisms, explaining reportedly limited activations in the right auditory cortex among SD musicians. Participants' age and years of music experience
correlated with their SD levels, suggesting that long-term reliance on notation may increase this effect. Our results therefore indicate that SD may be an extreme form of overlearning,
stemming from a long-term involvement in score-focussed performance practice without engaging in mitigating ear-playing scenarios. This posits SD as an effect of extreme task specialisation that creates a dependency on a specific technology (notation). We argue that this may limit a wider embodied engagement with music in favour of developing skill-specific
cognitive mechanisms.
Implications: Our data suggests that a score-specific musical focus as often found in classical music education can endanger aural reproduction skills for pitch and associated perception/action mechanisms. Consequently, results have implications for music education and performance, as well as for cognitive and neuroscientific research into perception of music
Status of the Solar Neutrino Puzzle
Using the latest results from the solar neutrino experiments and a few
standard assumptions, I show that the popular solar models are ruled out at the
3 level or at least TWO of the experiments are incorrect.
Alternatively, one of the assumptions could be in error. These assumptions are
spelled out in detail as well as how each one affects the argument.Comment: Latex, 8 pages + 4 uuencoded figures, minor changes made,
FERMILAB-PUB/273-
The views and practice of oncologists towards nutritional support in patients receiving chemotherapy
Malnutrition in patients with cancer is common and an adverse prognostic indicator. A questionnaire answered by 357 (72%) UK specialist oncological trainees suggests that they lack the ability to identify factors that place patients at risk from malnutrition. Major barriers to effective nutritional practice included lack of guidelines, knowledge and time
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