Did the University of Amsterdam win?

No. Nevertheless, we had some great fun in preparing and presenting our ideas and plans. The University of Groningen and Maastricht won first and second prize in last night's finals of the Dutch Academic Year Prize. Congratulations to the teams of Peter Barthel and Eric Postma. Great work!

Below some fragments from our presentation and the jury response. We, unfortunately, did not get a prize, but nevertheless got many supportive reactions.*

A big thanks to Olivia Ladinig, Vivienne Aerts, Shane Burmania, and Leigh M. Smith for all their energy, and great ideas, they put in preparing for this event!

Jury response:



Impression of the finals (made by Bas Broertjes, Campus Tv):


Fragments of the presentation (part 1):


Fragments of the presentation (part 2):


For all video material of the finals, see here.

* I’m quite sure there will be alternative ways of realizing our plans promoting the field of music cognition (cf. AJP proposal)

Follow the Battle of the Universities live?

Want to join the finals?

Next week the final of the Academische Jaarpijs will be held in Leiden, The Netherlands. The UvA-team aims to show that we all have a talent for music, and that the listener actually plays an active role in what makes music special. This will be communicated to a larger audience by a website and a tv-show, made by the UvA-team in collaboration with five partners from the creative industry.
Below, a sneak preview of one of our rehearsals (the enthousiastic 'voice-over' is by group member Leigh M. Smith :-)

Een luisterende machine? [Dutch]

This week another fragment of the video that was directed by Bob van Gijzel (AVC/UvA) as part of a series of short films with the title De Fascinatie: Scholars and scientists from the Universiteit van Amsterdam talk about their fascination in research:



Click here for the full episode.

Amsterdam Weekly reader?

Today a short entry for readers of the Amsterdam Weekly that have been referred to this blog: The test mentioned in the article by Laura Bruun can be found here.

"Zonder luisteraar geen muziek" [Part 3]

Today our team finalized an elaborate communication plan to promote music cognition research to a larger audience. It is part of the demands for university research teams that are nominated for the Dutch Academische Jaarprijs (an initiative of NRC Handelsblad in cooperation with NWO, KNAW and Shell; see earlier blog-entries with the same tag).

We will have to defend our plan on June 11th in the Leidse Schouwburg (photo above), when also the winner of the Battle of the Universities 07/08 will be announced. We can't say too much about our plans (it's supposed to be a 'battle' :-) but see below some snippets of the opening and ending of an interactive dvd that accompanies our ambitious plans. We hope the jury will like it.

What should a listening machine be able to do?

This week we'll have a kick-off meeting preparing for our project Zonder luisteraar geen muziek [No music without a listener] that has been nominated for the Dutch Academic Year Prize.

One of the questions the UvA-team (consisting of Vivienne Aerts, Shane Burmania, Olivia Ladinig, and me) will brainstorm about is: Imagine what a listening machine would look like, a machine that is able to listen and react in a human and musical way. What should such a machine know, what should it listen for, how could it respond, and how can we compare and evaluate such machines? One of the challenges is how to turn such a question into a compelling and fun problem to think about, aimed at students that want to combine their interest in music with a liberal arts and sciences education.

While it might look like a simple question, the design of a 'listening machine' that embodies the musical and listening skills common to most humans turns out to be a full-fledged research program, and it is part of the scientific enterprise generally known as music cognition. In this field of research computational modeling (formalizing a theory in the form of a computer program and relating it to human behavior) is an influential methodology that has contributed to a further understanding of music as a process in which the performer and the listener play a central role.

While for a long time music was a topic hidden away under subject headings like 'pitch' and 'time perception' in scientific reference books, in recent years several disciplines, ranging from the humanities to the social and natural sciences, show a growing interest in the scientific study of music. A recent example is Robert Zatorre who promotes music as “the food of neuroscience” (see Nature). It looks like the beginning of something ...

'Zonder luisteraar geen muziek?'

This weekend the music cognition group from the University of Amsterdam (UvA) will be officially nominated for the Academische Jaarprijs, an initiative of the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad and two scientific organizations (NWO and KNAW) to promote the dissemination and popularization of science. The UvA-team will participate with the project proposal ‘Zonder luisteraar geen muziek’ ['No Music without a listener'].*

The aim of the UvA-project is to show that we all have a talent for music. While some people might think they have no sense for rhythm or claim not to be able to sing a melody in tune, most of us do appreciate music and are perfectly capable of distinguishing between one performance or another. In other words, we will stress the musical competence of the average listener (as opposed to musical competence associated with musicianship).

The nominated communication plan aims to design an interactive website that allows listeners to test their musical listening capabilities (based on research by our group and that of authors like Bigand, Dalla Bella, Hannon, Peretz and Schellenberg). Participants might be surprised of what they are able to hear!

* See special issue of NRC Handelsblad

[Dutch] Doe je mee?

[This item is in Dutch. Next week it will be in English again.]

Muziekcognitie krijgt de laatste jaren meer en meer aandacht in wetenschappelijk onderzoek. In dit vakgebied staan vragen centraal als: Waarom raakt muziek ons zo direct? Wat maakt een ritme spannend, sloom of saai? Waarom blijven sommige liedjes in je hoofd steken? Of, kan je een machine leren luisteren? Kortom: muziek bekeken vanuit het gezichtspunt van de luisteraar.

Half januari wordt bekend of MCG door mag naar de tweede ronde van de Academische Jaarprijs, onder het motto 'zonder luisteraar geen muziek'.

Gezocht: twee master, of gevorderde bachelor studenten die ons team willen versterken.

Ben je geïnteresseerd? Stuur dan voor 10 januari a.s. een e-mail naar battle@musiccognition.nl met een korte motivatie en een prikkelende onderzoeksvraag die volgens jou iets duidelijk maakt over het luisteren naar muziek. Je wordt dan in ieder geval uitgenodigd voor de kick-off bijeenkomst in de laatste week van januari. De twee geselecteerde studenten krijgen —behalve eeuwige roem— een deel van het vrij te besteden prijzengeld.

We kijken uit naar jullie reactie!

Henkjan Honing & Olivia Ladinig