Research Catalogue

Een artistiek onderzoek naar het creative vermogen, visual arts en iets uit kunnen dragen met passie

Hvordan kan en tekst koblet til musikken bidra i både interpretasjon og fremføring?

How can one learn to improvise convincingly within the context of the nineteenth-century piano repertoire? And why is it important to improvise on this repertoire in the twenty-first century? Taking the music of Robert Schumann (1810−56) as a departure point, Playing Schumann Again for the First Time proposes an answer to these questions through methods towards a pianistic practice that is driven by experimentation and strives to continually find more layers where improvisation can take place, both in sounding musical practice and in notation. These practice-based methods are contextualized by a discussion of the presence of improvisation in Western classical musical practice in the nineteenth century. They are then substantiated by an argument to use improvisation as a tool for rethinking the current performance practice of nineteenth-century music. Improvisation itself and the concepts driving this term will also be addressed: improvisation in musical performance will be described as a process guided by a feedback loop between mimesis and morphosis with which the practitioner engages using his or her individual cognitive and embodied approach to listening, forgetting, and conceptualizing; the results of which bear his or her own sonic signature. The knowledge gained in this project lies within the realm of what will be described as improvisation as practice, a category of improvisational behavior that circumvents the need to be presented as art and is rather intended for the development of one’s own music-making.

This research will focus on comparing tasks that are used to measure the development of executive functions (EFs) and musicianship exercises according to the Kodály concept in order to find analogies and functional intersections between them. EFs are essential for our mental and physical health, for school and job success. Since these skills can be improved and early EFs training might help reduce social disparities in academic achievement and health, pinpointing activities that could develop EFs has become an important research topic in psychology, neuroscience, and education in recent years. The main direction of this research will be a close examination of the tasks used for measuring the three core components of EFs - inhibition, cognitive flexibility and working memory alongside musicianship exercises taken from Kodály methodological books and lesson observations that work in a similar way. This study has found similarities between EF tasks and Kodály musicianship exercises in all the three core components of EFs. These findings could indicate that with Kodály’s music education approach we are not only practising musicianship exercises but we might challenge our EF skills as well. This research, therefore, could be a first step that leads to a more complex investigation into the potential positive impact of music education according to the Kodály Concept on EFs.

This PhD project is a study in and through filmic conversations. The project addresses the role of conversation in philosophy education. While philosophy often is manifested in individually written form, this is a study of how filmic conversation can act as philosophical expression, mainly based on the film "Samtal om samtal" which is the principal material of this PhD project. The film begins by addressing the manner of which we speak to one another in a seminar; and by extension how that manner decides which philosophy is at all made possible: Who is speaking and who is listening? Whose experiences count and whose ideas are welcome? Yet, conversation is not only of interest as practice but also as expression. Sometimes something is said through/as conversation that could not have been expressed in any other form. What would happen if conversation, as a communal way of saying things, would constitute a form of philosophical expression in its own right, on par with the individually written text? What form would such an expression be allowed to take? Could philosophy be expressed through the medium of film? In and through the filmic conversation of this study, these queries also lead on to issues of representation and responsibility: What signifies the practice of making a film about or with someone? How are those involved in a film project affected, and how can the film act (in the world) independently? How could responsibility be understood in the process of making a film and regarding the final result? In addition to "Samtal om samtal", the text "Eftertext" is submitted. The text further explores the previously mentioned questions, but adds another layer in commenting on the filmic work of "Samtal om samtal". "Eftertext" also refers to the films "Ett jag som säger vi" and "Rehearsals", as well as the document "Transkription". These works are included as appendices, forming sub studies in the process of making "Samtal om samtal".

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