We have been investigating how people spontaneously react to and engage with music when they are asked to listen and move. We have learned that they not only embody various features of the music and musical structure itself, but that factors such as emotions, mood, and personality play a role in shaping people’s movements to music. Furthermore, synchronization – or beat attuning – abilities differ among people.
Recently, we have started to explore how people may entrain their movements to each other while dancing to different types of music. We will look at the effects of shared musical preferences, musical genre, personality, and trait empathy on these interactions (video 1). We are also studying movement in music performance. Studies range from investigating how musicians convey expressivity and emotions via their play to how they play together with other musicians and synchronize their movements to reach desired musical outcomes (video 2). Additionally, we explore body and movement aspects of music therapy. An ongoing study explores the effects of active music therapy (i.e., active music making) on rehabilitation and recovery of motor function after stroke (video 3).
We use our Qualisys system to investigate music-related movement in order to understand how people bodily respond to and interact with music.
Birgitta Burger