Papers by Erwin Schoonderwaldt
Human gestures contain certain characteristics and meanings in communication and represent a link... more Human gestures contain certain characteristics and meanings in communication and represent a link between intention and body. This paper describes a pilot study investigating the role of ancillary musical gestures in understanding musical meaning from the listener's standpoint. We conducted a perceptual experiment using motion-capture recordings of musicians. Participants were presented video recordings and reconstructed point-light displays of music performances. By asking them to rate certain musicrelated parameters we found that abstract motions of the point-light displays yielded similar ratings to those of the real recordings. This suggests that pure body motion seems to be sufficient to communicate certain musical impressions.
Quantitative imaging in medicine and surgery, 2015
This paper describes the use of high-speed real-time (RT) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in qua... more This paper describes the use of high-speed real-time (RT) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in quantifying very rapid motor function within the oropharyngeal cavity of six elite horn players. Based on simultaneous sound recordings, the efficacy of RT-MRI films at 30 and 100 frames per second (fps) was assessed for tongue movements associated with double tonguing performance. Serial images with a nominal temporal resolution of 10.0 and 33.3 ms were obtained by highly undersampled radial fast low-angle shot (FLASH) sequences (5 and 17 spokes, respectively) using complementary sets of spokes for successive acquisitions (extending over 9 and 5 frames, respectively). Reconstructions of high-speed images were obtained by temporally regularized nonlinear inversion (NLINV) as previously described. A customized MATLAB toolkit was developed for the extraction of line profiles from MRI films to quantify temporal phenomena associated with task performance. The analyses reveal that for the presen...
Human movement science, 2015
This paper describes the use of real-time MRI at 30frames/s in studying motor function within the... more This paper describes the use of real-time MRI at 30frames/s in studying motor function within the oropharyngeal cavity of a trumpet, horn, trombone, and tuba player. Using Image J and customized MB-Ruler Pro software, analyses of discrete 33.3ms snapshots of motion extracted from real-time MRI films obtained during an ascending five note sequence performed on a plastic practice device (B.E.R.P.) revealed inter-instrument differences in oropharyngeal cavity size and tongue conformation when moving from lower to higher notes. Tuba and trombone show a progressive decrease in oropharyngeal area featuring an upward and forward displacement of the tongue. Trumpet showed progressive increases in oropharyngeal area, with the posterior compartment showing the largest change, while horn essentially showed no change. A novel dynamic quantitative analysis method is also described utilizing Matlab. This method employs user-specified line profiles, aligned to the direction of the movement of inte...
J.S. Bach's Preludium of the third Partita for solo violin con-tains passages with complex pe... more J.S. Bach's Preludium of the third Partita for solo violin con-tains passages with complex periodic bowing patterns, involv-ing combinations of bow changes and string crossings across two and three strings. The recorded bow motion revealed spa-tial patterns in the form of circles and figure-of-eights. Closer inspection showed that string crossings consistently led changes in bowing direction in performances by advanced players. It is plausible that this behavior is necessary for the production of clean note transitions and attacks, and it can therefore be con-sidered as a good example of optimization in human sensori-motor learning. Comparison of performances by two advanced players, one of them familiar with the piece and the other sight reading it, as well as a performance by an amateur player re-veal clear differences in the stability and consistency of bowing patterns.
In this study, the notion of perceptual features is introduced for describing general music prope... more In this study, the notion of perceptual features is introduced for describing general music properties based on human perception. This is an attempt at rethinking the concept of features, in order to understand the underlying human perception mechanisms. Instead of using concepts from music theory such as tones, pitches, and chords, a set of nine features describing overall properties of the music was selected. They were chosen from qualitative measures used in psychology studies and motivated from an ecological approach. The selected perceptual features were rated in two listening experiments using two different data sets. They were modeled both from symbolic (MIDI) and audio data using different sets of computational features. Ratings of emotional expression were predicted using the perceptual features. The results indicate that (1) at least some of the perceptual features are reliable estimates; (2) emotion ratings could be predicted by a small combination of perceptual features ...
BACKGROUND IN MUSIC PERFORMANCE Mastery of the bow forms a key element in performing on bowed-str... more BACKGROUND IN MUSIC PERFORMANCE Mastery of the bow forms a key element in performing on bowed-string instruments. The production of a musical tone, articulation and phrasing, as well as the mastery of a variety of bowing techniques require refined skills and a high degree of coordination from the player, acquired during years of practicing (Galamian, 1962; Rasamimanana, 2008). Even though the principles of sound production are very similar among different members of the violin family, their performance practices have evolved into specialized disciplines associated with distinct repertoires and playing techniques, and performers are therefore often dedicated to a particular instrument (Chen, 2008). On the other hand, bowed-string instruments are highly versatile, and are used in a large variety of musical styles, including classical, country and jazz. Much of the diversity as well as the commonalities in performance can be related to the use of the bow, and a deepened insight in the ...
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2014
The notion of perceptual features is introduced for describing general music properties based on ... more The notion of perceptual features is introduced for describing general music properties based on human perception. This is an attempt at rethinking the concept of features, aiming to approach the underlying human perception mechanisms. Instead of using concepts from music theory such as tones, pitches, and chords, a set of nine features describing overall properties of the music was selected. They were chosen from qualitative measures used in psychology studies and motivated from an ecological approach. The perceptual features were rated in two listening experiments using two different data sets. They were modeled both from symbolic and audio data using different sets of computational features. Ratings of emotional expression were predicted using the perceptual features. The results indicate that (1) at least some of the perceptual features are reliable estimates; (2) emotion ratings could be predicted by a small combination of perceptual features with an explained variance from 75% to 93% for the emotional dimensions activity and valence; (3) the perceptual features could only to a limited extent be modeled using existing audio features. Results clearly indicated that a small number of dedicated features were superior to a "brute force" model using a large number of general audio features.
Frontiers in psychology, 2014
Evidence exists that motor dexterity is associated with a higher tremor amplitude of physiologica... more Evidence exists that motor dexterity is associated with a higher tremor amplitude of physiological tremor. Likewise, lower frequencies are associated with motor control. So far only case reports of a higher amplitude of physiological tremor in musicians exist. Moreover, no study has investigated lower frequencies during a finger movement task in musicians who can be regarded as a model of motor expertise. We developed a model and derived three hypotheses which we investigated in this study: (1) Tremor amplitude is higher in the range of physiological tremor and (2) higher for frequency ranges of dystonic tremor in musicians compared to non-musicians; (3) there is no difference in tremor amplitude at frequencies below 4 Hz. We measured tremor during a finger flexion-extension movement in 19 musicians (age 26.5 ± 8.2 years) and 24 age matched non-musicians (age 26.5 ± 8.7). By using empirical mode decomposition in combination with a Hilbert transform we obtained the instantaneous freq...
Tremor and other hyperkinetic movements (New York, N.Y.), 2014
In recent studies primary bowing tremor has been described; however, tremor frequency has never b... more In recent studies primary bowing tremor has been described; however, tremor frequency has never been quantitatively assessed. In addition to describing phenomenological aspects of tremor we thus aimed at assessing tremor frequency. Our hypothesis was that primary bowing tremor is similar to the phenomenological aspects and frequency of primary writing tremor. WE QUANTIFIED PRIMARY BOWING TREMOR IN FOUR VIOLINISTS UNDER TWO CONDITIONS: open strings and a G major scale. Data were analyzed using empirical mode decomposition because it takes into account non-stationarity and non-linearity of signals. For each patient we further described tremor phenomenology and assessed symptom onset, risk factors, medication, and family history with a structured anamnesis. We compare the findings to previous findings for primary bowing tremor and primary writing tremor. We mainly found a flexion-extension tremor of the wrist with a frequency range of 4.7-6.7 Hz. There was no significant difference bet...
Clinical neurophysiology : official journal of the International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology, 2015
Test the hypotheses that tremor amplitude in musicians with task-specific dystonia is higher at t... more Test the hypotheses that tremor amplitude in musicians with task-specific dystonia is higher at the affected finger (dystonic tremor, DT) or the adjacent finger (tremor associated with dystonia, TAD) than (1) in matched fingers of healthy musicians and non-musicians and (2) within patients in the unaffected and non-adjacent fingers of the affected side within patients. We measured 21 patients, 21 healthy musicians and 24 non-musicians. Participants exerted a flexion-extension movement. Instantaneous frequency and amplitude values were obtained with empirical mode decomposition and a Hilbert-transform, allowing to compare tremor amplitudes throughout the movement at various frequency ranges. We did not find a significant difference in tremor amplitude between patients and controls for either DT or TAD. Neither differed tremor amplitude in the within-patient comparisons. Both hypotheses were rejected and apparently neither DT nor TAD occur in musician's dystonia of the fingers. Th...
PLoS ONE, 2014
We present a study of coordination behavior in complex violin-bowing patterns involving simultane... more We present a study of coordination behavior in complex violin-bowing patterns involving simultaneous bow changes (reversal of bowing direction) and string crossings (changing from one string to another). Twenty-two violinists (8 advanced amateurs, 8 students with violin as major subject, and 6 elite professionals) participated in the experiment. We investigated the influence of a variety of performance conditions (specific bowing patterns, dynamic level, tempo, and transposition) and level of expertise on coordination behavior (a.o., relative phase and amplitude) and stability. It was found that the general coordination behavior was highly consistent, characterized by a systematic phase lead of bow inclination over bow velocity of about 15u (i.e., string crossings were consistently timed earlier than bow changes). Within similar conditions, a high individual consistency was found, whereas the inter-individual agreement was considerably less. Furthermore, systematic influences of performance conditions on coordination behavior and stability were found, which could be partly explained in terms of particular performance constraints. Concerning level of expertise, only subtle differences were found, the student and professional groups (higher level of expertise) showing a slightly higher stability than the amateur group (lower level of expertise). The general coordination behavior as observed in the current study showed a high agreement with perceptual preferences reported in an earlier study to similar bowing patterns, implying that complex bowing trajectories for an important part emerge from auditory-motor interaction.
Proceedings of the 2011 annual conference on Human factors in computing systems - CHI '11, 2011
Vibrotactile feedback offers much potential for facilitating and accelerating how people learn se... more Vibrotactile feedback offers much potential for facilitating and accelerating how people learn sensory-motor skills that typically take hundreds of hours to learn, such as learning to play a musical instrument, skiing or swimming. However, there is little evidence of this benefit materializing outside of research lab settings. We describe the findings of an in-the-wild study that explored how to integrate
A series of recent studies have shed light on coordination in complex bowing gestures involving s... more A series of recent studies have shed light on coordination in complex bowing gestures involving string crossings and bow changes, both in performance and perception. However, significant individual differences in coordination behavior were found, which puts into question the strictness of acoustical constraints. In this paper the inter-and intraindividual variance will be examined more closely. It is suggested that the acoustical constraints are (within certain limits) not very strict, and leave room for the performer to manipulate subtle quality aspects of the note transitions.
Music performance relies on fine motor skills and subtle judgements of the resulting sound in ord... more Music performance relies on fine motor skills and subtle judgements of the resulting sound in order to adjust body movements involved in playing. In this respect, fast repetitive bowing patterns in which notes are alternatively played on two adjacent strings offer an interesting case study of subtle coordination of bow movements. In recent experiments, it was shown that a particular timing relation between bow velocity and string crossing was preferred in both real performance and perceptual tests, the bow change occurring consistently after the string crossing. The aim of the present study was to identify and quantify acoustical features on which violinists may base this preference. For that purpose, we performed simulations over a wide range of coordination parameters. The results of perceptual tests were examined under the light of the simulations in order to determine significant acoustical features and the acceptance limits associated with them. c 2013 Matthias Demoucron et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
practising environment for the recorder, combining new technologies and new approaches for music ... more practising environment for the recorder, combining new technologies and new approaches for music learning. Automatic analysis and evaluation of student performances play a central role in the student-system interaction. The performance evaluation module identifies typical performance errors, and provides feedback that relates to performance skills, helping the student to improve. The performance evaluation process is based on the knowledge and experience of recorder teachers, obtained via questionnaires, interviews and structured evaluations of recorded student performances. Another important feature of the performance evaluation is that it can be guided by teachers writing the content for IMUTUS by means of annotations.
This paper presents some major results from the IMUTUS project 1 . IMUTUS was an RTD project that... more This paper presents some major results from the IMUTUS project 1 . IMUTUS was an RTD project that aimed at the development of an open platform for training students on the recorder. The paper focuses on one of the most important and innovative parts of the IMUTUS system, the practicing environment. This environment integrates technological tools for the automatic analysis and evaluation of student performances along with enhanced interaction schemes to provide an effective approach to music learning. Testing and validation activities that have been carried out indicate that the IMUTUS approach is appreciated by both students and teacher, and that it clearly has a strong potential.
IMUTUS is a European project that aims at the development of an open platform for training studen... more IMUTUS is a European project that aims at the development of an open platform for training students on non-MIDI musical instruments, as well as to acquire theoretical music knowledge. The project involves many components oriented towards a new approach of music learning. After a brief overview of the system, the performance evaluation module and the music score processing components are described to show how they enforce the pedagogical approach.
Uploads
Papers by Erwin Schoonderwaldt