This work is part of a formal initiative to strengthen and enhance the ties among re- searchers in the language sciences and music by the University of Rochester. It involves a series of collaborations between researchers in the College of Arts, Sciences and Engineer- ing (in Linguistics, Computer Science, EE, and Brain and Cognitive Sciences (experimental psychology) and faculty at the Eastman School of Music.
Students interested in doing research on the relationships between Music and Language should contact, Joyce McDonough, Elizabeth Marvin or Harold Danko.
Courses
EMS 581, Fall 2010 withwith Elizabeth Marvin (Professor of Music Theory, EMS),
LIN227, Spring 2008, with composer Harold Danko, Jazz Studies, Eastman. We investigatied the connection between music and speech prosody, including pitch and rhythm. Rhythm and meter in oral performance
Work with jazz pianist and composer Harold Danko on rhythm and meter in speech. and oral performances, scat, freestyling.
Research
Variability in speech rhythm, rhythm as gesture. Collaboration with Jazz composer and pianist, Harold Danko (Eastman) investigating the relationship between speech and music.
Publications, conference papers, presentations
- McDonough, J., H. Danko, J. Zentz. 2007. ``Rhythmic structure of music and language: an empirical investigation of American jazz masters Louis Armstrong and Jelly Roll Morton''. University of Rochester Working Papers in the Language Sciences (WPLS: UR) Volume 3:1. P 45-56.
- Joyce McDonough, Harold Danko, Jason Zentz. Workshop on Speech Rhythm, UCLondon March 2008
- Joyce McDonough, Harold Danko, Mannes Institute, 2009
Students:
Jason Zentz
Kate Ernst
These collaborations are part of the larger Sound and Music Initiative under development at the University, involving College faculty in Engineering, BCS, Linguistics, Music and faculty from the Eastman School of Music, with the intent of developing curriculum and facilitating research among faculty and students in Music Cognition, Music Engineering, Language and Music.
Music Congition Symposium : We meet 4 times a year on a Saturday afternoon, topics determined by the interests of the participants. The Music Cognition Symposium was founded as an interdisciplinary collaboration between faculty in the music theory department of the Eastman School, Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Linguistics departments in the College, and the Psychology Department of Cornell University. Our mission is to promote interdisciplinary study of music cognition through many lenses: music theory, linguistics, cognition, computation, brain imaging, learning and development, sound component analysis and synthesis, statistics and probability, ethnographic research, and others. We do so by gathering as a community four times per year for an afternoon symposium of papers and discussion around a topic and an informal exchange of ideas. We combine outside guest speakers with presentations by our own participating faculty and students. Symposia are organized around a theme: topics have included probabilistic modeling of musical structure, musical expectation, musical development, absolute pitch, music and evolution, music and the brain, musical dysfunction (amusia), cognitive aspects of performance expression, music information retrieval, perception of music latency on the internet, and music-language connections including the pitch and rhythmic contours of speech and music. Over the years, the Music Cognition Symposium has co-sponsored speakers with the Neurosciences Cluster, and with the departments of Electrical Engineering, Linguistics, Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Music Education, and Music Theory.