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Making music together syncs brains
When musicians play together, we always try to be “in sync,” unless, of course, we are playing Steve Reich’s Piano Phase or Violin Phase. And then we find how difficult it is, when two musicians are playing the same music, to be purposefully “out of sync” or out of phase. So are we hardwired to want to play
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Four-hand music and peripersonal space
A former student from France recently spent a weekend with us while she was in the States on vacation. We had a lot of years to catch up on, enjoyed good food and wine, and found some time to play four-hand music. Four-hand music is fun to play, but it can be notoriously awkward
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What you see is what you hear: mirror neurons and music, part VI
Robert Schumann wrote in a review of a Franz Liszt concert in Dresden in 1840: “It is unlikely that any other artist, excepting only Paganini, has the power to lift, carry and deposit an audience in such high degree. . . In a matter of seconds we have been exposed to tenderness, daring, fragrance and
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Suggestions needed
I need some input and who better to ask than my readers!! I am in the process of interviewing and writing about musicians who, after suffering a brain injury, stroke, movement disorder, physical or emotional trauma, protracted length of time when they have been unable to practice, etc. etc., have made a recovery and returned to performing