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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…
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Mirror neurons and music, part IV: mirroring vs. mimicking
Mirror neurons are imitation neurons, but does how we imitate matter? Forty years ago, long before mirror neurons were known about, psychologists Seymour Wapner and Leonard Cirillo were interested in finding out at what age children develop an understanding of right from left in terms of their spatial development. They conducted a series of experiments in which children…
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Mirror neurons and music, part III: imitation learning
Pianists seem to be used as research subjects more often than any other musicians – perhaps because there are so many of us, both amateur and professional. I once met a well-known singer who, upon finding out that I was a pianist, remarked that pianists “are a dime a dozen.” Not the most gracious comment when…