Workshop: Introducing Mobile Brain-Computer Interfaces to Music Research in Musicology

BCMI_Koeln_posterProgram (Day 1 & Day 2)

Dates: 24 April & 06 June 2015 (10:00-18:00)
Location: R. 1.416 (Alter Seminarraum)

Workshop language: German

Neuroscientific research methods have become increasingly popular in music research. Recent developments in Neuromusicology include two directions. On one hand, music is regarded as a neurocognitive system and its functional mind/brain architecture is investigated. On the other hand, brain signals (as recorded with the electroencephalogram, EEG) are used directly to generate music or more generally artistic interactions. The latter is closely related to the new field of Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs), which were originally developed to give severely paralyzed patients the ability to communicate or control devices such as artificial limbs or wheelchairs, but are also used in New Media Art. The area with a special focus on music is called „Brain-Computer Music Interfacing” (BCMI).

In this workshop, basic concepts of Neuromusicology and BCIs are introduced, which are accompanied by practical exercises on using BCIs. The contents are:

  • Introduction to neuroscience (focus on EEG)
  • Use of EEG in Neuromusicology
  • Different approaches in BCI research
  • Overview of application areas
  • Video lecture about neuroscience and music therapy (tbc. Jörg Fachner)
  • BCIs in artistic contexts such as New Media Art (talk and demonstration by media artist Claudia Robles)
  • Hands-on sessions with Emotiv EPOC+ system

This workshop is the first step towards introducing several fields of neuroscience of music to musicology and integrating them into cognitive musicology in order to understand music as a neurocognitive system.

ATTENTION: A LIMITED NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS
PLEASE REGISTER VIA E-MAIL!

Organizers: Clemens Maidhof, Rie Asano, & Uwe Seifert
Contact: bcmi_koeln@web.de
Web: http://www.musicolinguistics.de/bcmi-koeln/

Department of Systematic Musicology
Institute of Musicology
University of Cologne
Cologne, Germany