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Cognitive and behavioral studies ranging from biomechanics to motor functions and neural mirroring explorations have extensively investigated the communication of emotions in music and dance. Recognized for their ability to convey and elicit emotions, various studies aim to validate the extent to which auditory expressive cues and embodied expressive movements are able to convey emotions. However, is expressing and evoking emotions a generalized intention of music and dance? Although much data exists based on audience responses (decoders), composers' and choreographers' (encoders) intentions beyond experimental instructions are still being determined. This paper reports two studies investigating the intention of composers and choreographers when creating new works. Results revealed that expressing emotions is not a primary goal yet a significant underlying intention. Furthermore, composers and choreographers aimed for their expressed emotions to be perceived rather than felt. Moreover, the genre conventions determined by stylistic and cultural factors influenced emotion expression, with some genres allowing more expressive cues than others, likely affecting the extent to which emotions are meaningfully conveyed. These findings point to potential cue variance between actual intentions and experiment-intended stimuli to express and thus communicate emotions. An argument for the importance of ecological validity in laboratory-based experiments is presented.

Music Education is changing rapidly worldwide. What effective and promising practices in music teaching and learning are available and can be cross-culturally applied? Using Finland as a case study, this exploratory research highlights promising current endeavors in primary and secondary school music education. In light of these undertakings, data were collected from interviews with students and teachers in Australia and England (N = 25) to investigate if these practices would be considered promising in both Australia and England. The results revealed four key areas of promising music teaching and learning: (1) Allocated Time for Music Teaching and Learning; (2) Teacher Training and Expertise; (3) A Diverse, Collaborative and Interdisciplinary Curriculum, and; (4) Transition to Tertiary Education. A number of practical recommendations are proposed and their pedagogical significance discussed.

Informal care-givers play an important role, with health-care systems relying on the billions of hours of care they provide. Care-givers experience high levels of psychological distress and isolation; however, the efficacy of what support is the best for care-givers is unclear. The primary aim of this systematic review is to determine the effect of group creative arts interventions on informal care-givers of adults. The secondary aim is to understand the impact of group type, the primary outcomes and how they are measured. Given the heterogeneous nature of the included studies, a narrative synthesis approach was taken. Database searches identified 2,587 studies, 25 of which met the full inclusion criteria. Studies included group creative arts interventions for either care-givers only (N = 8) or for care-giver/cared-for dyads (N = 17). The majority of the participants in the studies were older Caucasian females. Group creative arts interventions are beneficial for care-givers and for the person being cared for; however, benefits differ depending on whether the group is for care-givers only or for care-giver/cared-for dyads. Future research will benefit from care-givers being involved in the design of the creative arts intervention to provide input regarding group type and relevant outcome measures. Future research should consider targeting their intervention to care-givers with a low baseline score to increase the ability of the study to demonstrate a significant difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Music Education is changing rapidly worldwide. What effective and promising practices in music teaching and learning are available and can be cross-culturally applied? Using Finland as a case study, this exploratory research highlights promising current endeavors in primary and secondary school music education. In light of these undertakings, data were collected from interviews with students and teachers in Australia and England (N = 25) to investigate if these practices would be considered promising in both Australia and England. The results revealed four key areas of promising music teaching and learning: (1) Allocated Time for Music Teaching and Learning; (2) Teacher Training and Expertise; (3) A Diverse, Collaborative and Interdisciplinary Curriculum, and; (4) Transition to Tertiary Education. A number of practical recommendations are proposed and their pedagogical significance discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper was to investigate if a general consensus could be established for the term "musician." Research papers (N = 730) published between 2011 and 2017 were searched. Of these, 95 papers were identified as investigating relationships of any sort connected with a musician-like category (e.g., comparison of musically trained vs. non-musically trained people), of which 39 papers detailing comparative studies exclusively between musicians and non-musicians were analyzed. Within this literature, a variety of musical expertise criteria were used to define musicians, with years of music training (51% of papers) and years of music lessons (13% of papers) being the most commonly used criteria. Findings confirm a general consensus in the literature, namely, that a musician, whether or not selected a priori, has at least six years of musical expertise (IQR = 4.0–10.0 years). Other factors such as practice time and recruiting location of musicians were also analyzed, as well as the implications of how this definition fits in relation to the complexities surrounding the construct of the musician. The "six-year rule," however, was robust overall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated whether emotional responses to a music genre could be predicted by stereotypes of the culture with which the music genre is associated. A two-part study was conducted. Participants listened to music samples from eight distinct genres: Fado, Koto, Heavy Metal, Hip Hop, Pop, Samba, Bolero, and Western Classical. They also described their spontaneous associations with the music and their spontaneous associations with the music's related cultures: Portuguese, Japanese, Heavy Metal, Hip Hop, Pop, Brazilian, Cuban, and Western culture, respectively. Results indicated that a small number of specific emotions reported for a music genre were the same as stereotypical emotional associations of the corresponding culture. These include peace and calm for Koto music and Japanese culture, and anger and aggression for Heavy Metal music and culture. We explain these results through the stereotype theory of emotion in music (STEM), where an emotion filter is activated that simplifies the assessment process for a music genre that is not very familiar to the listener. Listeners familiar with a genre reported fewer stereotyped emotions than less familiar listeners. The study suggests that stereotyping competes with the psychoacoustic cues in the expression of emotion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anger perception in music was investigated to determine if this emotion is cross-culturally decoded. A literature review of studies which investigated anger cross-culturally revealed variance between encoders and decoders. In an attempt to explain this variance, these data were examined using existing cross-cultural theories in music psychology, but each was poor in explaining some of the variance observed. For example, none were able to explain explicitly why anger expressed in Japanese music was poorly decoded by Indian, Japanese, and Swedish listeners. New interpretations of the published data were conducted through Hofstede’s cross-cultural dimensions theory and the theory of musical fit. Building on these theories, the Stereotype Theory of Emotion in Music (STEM) was proposed. According to STEM, listeners filter the emotion they perceive according to stereotypes of the encoding culture. For example, Japanese culture is stereotyped as an anger-reticent culture, explaining the low anger decoder ratings for ‘anger-encoded’ music. STEM suggests that anger perception is culturally influenced by a stereotyping process. The theory predicts that anger will be perceived if the decoding culture has no stereotype associated with the culture the music is believed to be from, leaving the music free to be interpreted through psychophysical or culture-specific cues. STEM presents a new way forward in understanding the cognitive processing of emotion in music. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]