Two University faculty members have been awarded a $45,000 grant from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, the group that organizes the Grammy Awards.
Music Professor Steven Pologe and exercise and movement science Professor Marjorie Woollacott will use the grant money to continue their research on how musicians use senses to play specific notes on stringed instruments.
“Playing a stringed instrument is one of the most complex things we do as humans,” Pologe said. “It requires minute accuracy, large simultaneous variables and a highly demanding physiology.”
The researchers will use highly sophisticated technology and computer analysis to determine how accurately cellists play notes and scales. Certain senses musicians use to play their instruments, such as vision, will be blocked to evaluate how the absence of sensory inputs affects a musicians’ ability to correctly find notes.
“We are trying to investigate what cognitive elements are most involved in accurate performance,” Pologe said. “We want to determine how vision, auditory information and tactile sensation are involved in playing a stringed instrument.”
Woollacott, who controls the more technical scientific aspects of the
research, is enthusiastic about the potential that the new study has to help researchers understand how musicians create their art.
“This will be a pioneering study of musicians at all levels and ability,” Woollacott said in a press release. “We hope to document and study the most precise and rapid movements of which humans are capable.”
The research began when Woollacott started taking cello lessons from Pologe about two years ago. Pologe said Woollacott was interested in the complicated motions, the synergy of various senses and the muscle groups required in playing a stringed instrument.
Sophomore general science major Ava Asher said the new study will provide musicians insight into their art.
“The study is relevant for musicians to see where their skill comes from,” she said. “You can take it on faith that you’re talented, or you can boil it down to a science.”
While the researchers are still gathering data, Pologe said he hopes the study will ultimately provide a more objective method for teaching aspiring musicians how to play stringed instruments and helping experienced musicians hone their techniques.
“Those of us who are responsible for training young musicians have always had to rely entirely on our subjective visual and acoustic perceptions of their performance,” Pologe said. “This will allow us to more exactly detect, diagnose and correct problems.”