Lisa Boas (Bangor University)
‘Mozart Effect’ versus the ‘Minimalist Effect’: how listening to Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians (1976) can lead to improved performance in Executive Function tasks
In 1993 Frances Rauscher published the findings of her research into music listening and enhanced spatial abilities (Rauscher 1993, 1994). Her findings were dubbed ‘The Mozart Effect’ and generated interest regarding the ability of music to potentially enhance cognitive functions. However, Rauscher’s experiments were discredited due to poor methodology, with Glenn E. Schellenberg (2012) suggesting that cognitive faculties may, in fact, be enhanced through manipulation of mood and arousal (therefore, through manipulation of mode and rhythm/tempo), rather than caused by the ‘Mozart Effect’ or complexity of the stimulus, as initially claimed by Rauscher.
In line with phenomenological accounts of meditative and focussed states of consciousness from both audience members and performers of Music for 18 Musicians, we ask whether listening to Minimalist music in a major mode, with rapid repetition, may positively affect listeners’ mood and arousal levels, leading to an increase in focus and concentration and consequently resulting in heightened abilities in tests of executive functions. Positive findings may also confirm a psychological basis for some of the applicable tropes of minimalism set out by Rebecca Leydon (2002). This may have implications for therapeutic uses of Minimalist music.
This paper forms part of my PhD research, which investigates the effects of minimalist music on the brain in a multi-disciplinary project. My research combines musicology with Cognitive Neuroscience, investigating the potential psychological effects of listening to and/or performing minimalist music. This paper will consider upcoming EEG/ERP experiments forming part of this study, which will test the effects of listening to Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians (1976) against Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major (K448), before an ERP trial measuring Executive Functions between musicians and non-musicians (using a Go/No Go paradigm). EEG/ERP data acquisition will be starting in March 2024; this paper will consequently outline some of the hypotheses and anticipated results.
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Anastasia Zaponidou (Bangor University)
The Side-saddle Cello: Embodying A Gendered Historical Performance Practice
The study of historical performance practices has had a significant impact on how cellists interpret music of the past, allowing performers to seek a more accurate representation of such musical works in performance. Yet much of the research examining historical cello performance practice focuses on the male experience, and existing scholarship on gendered practices, such as the side-saddle technique in particular, fails to assess these from a practical perspective. This paper will delve into modern and historical sources in order to define the side-saddle technique and its variants. Drawing from embodiment and phenomenology theories as tools in this performance-practice research study, I will demonstrate my own kinaesthetic understanding of the side-saddle technique. In utilising these collective resources and processes, I will identify some practical concerns and potential drawbacks of this playing method which may have affected women cellists during the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth centuries.