Job title
University Lecturer
Expertise
Piano Performance
Accompaniment
Piano Pedagogy and Methodology
Human Movement Science
Neuroscience
Company
Prince Claus Conservatoire, Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Groningen, Netherlands
University Medical Center Groningen, Netherlands
Contact
Veemarktstraat 76,
9724 GA Groningen, Netherlands
Email r.i.harris@pl.hanze.nl
Research
1. ‘The Role of Cerebral Resonance Behavior in the Control of Music Performance’, an fMRI study currently being conducted in the course of Ph.D. studies at the Graduate School for Behavioral and Cognitive Neurosciences, University of Groningen, Netherland and takes place at the university NeuroImaging Centre under supervision of the department of Neurology of the University Medical Center Groningen. This study aims at identifying motor resonance as the neural underpinning of the non-score-dependent musician’s ability to ‘play by ear’ as well as identifying brain areas involved in score-dependent musicians’ performance. To that end, functional brain imaging (fMRI) is being employed to assess patterns of task-related activations in the brain.
2. ‘Generative music processes in Parkinson's disease: facilitation of motor behavior by internally generated stimuli’. A possible dissociation of language and speech production in patients with Parkinson’s Disease would provide insight into the possible role of music as an internally generated stimulus in cerebral motor control. In this study, generative music ability among PD patients will be compared to that of healthy controls. Subjects will be asked to whistle continuations to auditory models. Shallow statistical descriptors such as interval size, range and mean pitch will be analyzed using information retrieval methods developed at the Meertens Institute, Amsterdam.
3. ‘Generative processes in non score-dependency: oral and manual association’. In this study shallow statistical descriptors will be employed to quantify the match between oral and manual improvisations of the same non score-dependent instrumentalist. In addition, mismatch between oral and manual improvisation of score-dependent instrumentalists will be used to demonstrate that they base their manual and oral improvisations on different cognitive structures. Oral (whistling) and manual (keyboard) improvisation will be prompted by auditory models.
4. ‘A measure of non score-dependency: a test battery of audiation in instrumental performance’. A test battery will be developed to measure proficiency in non score-dependency characterized by richness of musical structure, correct syntaxis and agreement between music structure and expressivity as it is demonstrated in the context of performance during replication and manipulation of auditory models.
Teaching activities
• Piano practicum: keyboard improvisation and harmonization at the piano
• Score reading for conductors
• Piano Methodology
• The Art of Musicking (musiceerkunde): lectures on interpretation and expression in performance
• Accompanist Peter the Great Festival in Groningen, 2010.
Conferences
• Language and Music as Cognitive Systems, Cambridge University, May 2007
• Music, Language and the Mind, Tufts University, Boston, July 2008
• The Neurosciences and Music – III Disorders and plasticity, Montreal, June 2008
• ESCOM (European Society for the Cognitive Science of Music), University of Jyväskylä, Finland, August 2009
• ‘Bach and all that Jazz’, conference on non score-dependency in piano teaching, organized together with the Dutch chapter of the European Piano Teachers Association at the Prince Claus Conservatoire, Groningen, Netherlands on October 10, 2009
• 11th International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, August 2010
• The Neurosciences and Music IV – Learning and Memory, Edinburgh, June 2011
• ISPS Models of Performance, Toronto, August 24 - 27, 2011: Poster Presentations:
- The Role of Cerebral Resonance Behavior in the Control of Music Performance: an fMRI Study
- Non score-dependency: theory and assessment
• Aap, Patroon, Mies: Notenlezen in het Aanvangsonderwijs, EPTA 2010: Piano Bulletin 28 (3), 20-25.
• 'Interactie als werkvorm in de pianoles', EPTA Journal: Piano Bulletin.
• Teachers Competences in the Young Talent Class, Lectorate Lifelong Learning in Music & the Arts, Groningen.
• Piano Techniek in Beweging, Doctoral Thesis Human Movement Science, University of Groningen.