Melbourne Conservatorium of Music - Research Publications
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ItemMusical Empathy, from Simulation to 4E Interaction(Brazilian Association of Cognition and Musical Arts, 2019-04-01)The term “empathy” refers to the ability to understand or feel the experience of another person. In folk psychology, this is often thought to involve a kind of mind reading, whereby we access the thoughts and intentions of others. For example, empathy might involve inferring the logical thought processes of an individual, allowing us to see how and why they make the choices they do. This includes some awareness of that person’s history, of their beliefs and background. As such, empathy can entail complex imaginative and deductive processes where, in a sense, we place ourselves in their position or “enter into” their mental processes. However, empathy may also involve a more basic awareness of bodily and emotional-affective states. This appears to be rooted in a fundamental capacity to associate the bodily movements, gestures, expressions, and vocal inflections we perceive in others with states we experience ourselves. This chapter considers such phenomena in the context of human musicality. We first offer a brief overview of relevant research and discuss some problematic theoretical issues. Following this, we introduce two contrasting perspectives that appear to offer a way forward — Simulation Theory (ST) and Interaction Theory (IT), respectively. Building on the resulting insights, we then outline a provisional framework for musical empathy based in a relational “4E” approach to cognition — one that sees mental life as primarily embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended. Here we introduce two core concepts that are helpful for understanding musical empathy from this more embodied and ecological perspective, “musical scaffolding” and “empathic space.”
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ItemFocal Practices and the Ontologically Educated Citizen(Routledege, 2020-07-01)This chapter examines the relationship between phenomenology, critical pedagogy, and arts education, showing how they support one another in pedagogical contexts. Examples are offered that illustrate how creative praxis in the arts can provide experiences and critical insights that may help teachers and students look beyond prescriptive attitudes towards life and education; and therefore, explore their potential as creative, world-making beings. Such possibilities are then considered in connection with the critique of modern and postmodern technology provided by phenomenological thinkers such as Heidegger and Borgmann. To conclude, it is argued that a revised understanding of arts education in light of the idea of ‘focal practices’ can help teachers and students recognize and better understand the kinds of activities and relationships that imbue life with meaning, and that this could help them lead fuller lives as ‘ontologically educated’ citizens.
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ItemImprovisation, Enaction, and Self-Assessment(Oxford University Press, 2019-09)This chapter explores the challenging question of curriculum and assessment for music improvisation pedagogy. It begins by offering a critical review of standard approaches to improvisation pedagogy, arguing that they often neglect the processes of discovery and collaboration that more open or “free” approaches afford. It then discusses the challenges that free improvisation poses to traditional modes of practice and assessment in music education. The chapter considers the argument that improvisation, in its fullest sense, cannot be taught and assessed according to standardized models; it is not something to be inculcated in students, but rather is a fundamental disposition that should be nurtured. This perspective is then developed in light of recent advances in enactive cognitive science, in which living cognition is explored as a fundamentally embodied, embedded, enactive, and extended (4E) phenomenon. The suggestion is made that because the ways living agents engage with these dimensions are not pre-given but rather reflect the adaptive processes associated with survival and well-being in contingent sociomaterial environments, there is a very strong sense in which cognition may be understood as an improvisational process even at the most fundamental levels. Following this, the chapter explores how a 4E cognition model might help guide curriculum development and offer a framework for forms of self-assessment involving collaborative processes of creative action and reflection. In conclusion, the chapter offers a few final thoughts drawn from existing musical communities and the author’s experience as an improvising musician.