Month 1

Servus, dear reader!

Here I will be writing about different aspects of this project and how it develops. I will (try to) update this section every month, and share with you personal thoughts as well as inspirational quotes found in questionable internet sources. While the main focus of this blog will be creativity, music, and embodied cognitive science, other side topics are likely to be covered. These may include talks on NBA basketball, heavy metal, classical guitar, life in Austria, and politics.

But first, the project. In May 2019, I was awarded a "Stand Alone" grant from the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). It took me some time to have the application ready (and navigate the slightly complicated guidelines for submission), but eventually, the proposed project was approved at the first round (no revisions asked). So, starting October 2019, I am given 4 years to investigate the complex interplay between musical creativity and embodiment. Exciting times ahead!

Another wonderful thing about this is that I won't work in isolation (can anyone really do that, though?). Indeed, I have a wonderful set of collaborators for this project, located in Graz as well as the UK, Ireland, and Australia. You can read more about their work here - but probably you know them already. They are all expert scholars with backgrounds in neuroscience, psychology, computer science, music, and music education, which complement in many ways my own expertise. I am honoured to work with them and develop this research collectively.

The first month has been quite intense already, with a lot of planning, but also some 'creative' collaborative writing. The former refers to the preparation of various documents sent to the ethical committee of UniGraz (all approved already - hurray!), the design and piloting of empirical work, and discussion over some theoretical issues - e.g., hypotheses, working definitions, and so forth.

The writing part has been also highly stimulating, with a couple of papers being developed. These include work on dynamical systems and musical participation, the interplay of creativity and interaction in collaborative music pedagogy, and an observational study of toddlers engaging with various musical instruments (this involves a collaboration with Alicia Peñalba in Valladolid). More soon!

Before I go back to these studies, I just want to say a few words about the grant itself, the funding body, and my place of work. I have been working for the Austrian Science Fund for 2 years before this grant was approved - as a Lise Meitner Postdoctoral Fellow. Needless to say, my experience has been - and still is - absolutely fabulous. There are two reasons for this:

1) Since I came to Graz in 2017, I have been working at the Centre for Systematic Musicology. Here I found wonderful colleagues, high-level interdisciplinary research, and a relaxed atmosphere where you feel no pressure and have the freedom to flourish in a supportive and friendly scholarly community. And let's add that Graz in general offers wonderful opportunities for music research and teaching. Among others, I was lucky enough to collaborate with Silke Kruse-Weber at The University of Music and Performing Arts Graz, where I still teach Psychology of Music Education.

2) As a funding body, FWF is simply amazing. It offers competitive salaries and excellent working conditions. If you wish to develop your research in beautiful Austria, I strongly suggest you to look up for their grant opportunities and apply. I was put in the conditions to work without worries, and focus on my research. I had time to write and co-author papers, book chapters and a monograph (with Dylan van der Schyff and David Elliott - almost ready!), deliver keynotes, talks, and invited lectures, teach classes, organise conferences, as well as rest, read, and take some time off when needed.

And speaking of time, I think I should go back to do some work :)

All the best for this month!

Andrea

Month 2

The second month of this project has been super intense and rewarding.

As a highlight, I had the opportunity to visit the amazing Music Research team at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, and delivered a keynote at the Symposium of the Finnish Society for Music Education (FiSME), hosted by the same University. My time in Jyväskylä has been super inspiring, with many colleagues and young students with fantastic ideas and research interests. I look forward to meet them all again! Much time of this month was dedicated to reading. I familiarised with recent literature in creative cognition and neuroscience, and looked closely at many music-related contributions. Such interdisciplinary liaison inspired a number of ideas and possibilities for research, which I promptly discussed with friends and colleagues. This resulted in the preparation and development of 3 new theoretical papers (well, 2 chapters and 1 paper), and 3 new qualitative studies. I am so thankful to my co-authors Dylan van der Schyff, Nikki Moran, Michele Biasutti, Pieter-Jan Maes, Silke Kruse-Weber, Andrea Gande, Mats Küssner, Aaron Williamon, Kevin Ryan, Richard Parncutt and Michael Kimmel, who worked with me on these manuscripts.

Now, half of them have been submitted already; the plan is to finalise the remaining ones within the end of the year. Will we be able to do so?

Month 3

Short answer, no.

Month 4

Still, no, but things are moving on nicely. One new paper has been submitted, which explores processes and experiences of creative cognition in seven Western classical composers. While finalising the other manuscripts for submission, the first behavioural study of the project is being organised. This will test variability and expressivity of musical improvisations of novices who play alone or with a peer. More details soon! Additionally, a couple of abstracts for two amazing conferences were submitted: one for the Aarhus' NeuroMusic meeting, which will take place in June; the other for an exciting creativity conference happening in April @ the University of Nebraska, Omaha. Also, a call for our doctoral position has been issued. Really looking forward to welcome a new team member for the next three years! Please check out the call here if interested. All for now!

Month 5

February has been a really busy month. First, much time has been spent to pilot the behavioural study mentioned in the previous post. Technical settings, recordings, software, and all details have been tested and we are almost ready to go. Perhaps some more tweaks in the design are needed though. In terms of output, I had the pleasure to work with two colleagues from the University of New Mexico, and prepare a call for papers for a Frontiers Research Topic. The special issue will focus on (surprise, surprise) "Musical Creativity". Next month will be published online. We look forward to receive many contributions and stimulate an interdisciplinary dialogue. Two more manuscripts have also been submitted: a chapter on "The ecological dynamics of musical creativity and skill acquisition" and a paper on the "dynamics of musical participation". Always a great pleasure to do joint work with some amazing colleagues!

Month 6

So, March has started really well with 2 keynote invitations for Spring and Summer (in Norway and Italy), and a Frontiers Research Topic being published. However, the recent pandemic of COVID-19 puts much of this in jeopardy. And that's ok, as there are currently much more important things to say and do. Stay safe everyone!

Month 7

April has been a full-lockdown month here in Austria, meaning that researchers were asked to work from home. Despite the terrible situation outside, I managed to keep working on the project, establishing important collaborations with colleagues from other countries. In particular, Michele Biasutti (Padova), Roberta Antonini-Phillippe (Lausanne), and I started collecting data (e.g., via online surveys and qualitative interviews conducted through Skype) to address questions concerning the role of music during the lockdown period.

Month 8

Data collection of the first behavioural study scheduled for this month had to be postponed. Of course, we can't ask participants to come over for now. We will run the study once things will be safer, perhaps in Autumn. The good news for this month is that we can now announce a new PhD student: Adrian Kempf will join the team starting from September 2020. Adrian has a background in engineering, embodied cognitive sciences, music, and philosophy, has relevant expertise in mathematics (in particular dynamical systems), and a passion for creativity research. We look so much forward to working with Adrian!

Month 9

June is almost over and three more papers have been submitted. One of these, called "Creative pedagogy in the time of pandemic. A case study with conservatory students" is particularly well fit for the current project. It investigates how students and teachers from an Italian conservatory developed together novel pedagogical strategies to optimise their teaching and learning. Stay tuned for more news coming up in Summer!

Month 10

In July some work has been done for two publications that will soon be submitted. "Sense-making and creativity in musical entrainment" is a theoretical paper (co-authored with Maria Witek from Birmingham University) that explores the creative properties of musical entrainment, and how it affords meaning. A second paper (co-authored with Vincent Gesbert et al., from the University of Lausanne), reports on an empirical study with a team of artistic swimmers. The main aim is to explore different analytical tools to capture the richness of the swimmers' mutual interaction, and develop a framework that looks at creative performance from the perspective of "togetherness" - how people feel when being and acting together - and how this may lead to creative outcomes.

Month 11

Holiday season - see you next month!

Month 12

Good news - two papers have been published:

Schiavio, A., Moran, N., van der Schyff, D., Biasutti, M., & Parncutt, R. (2020). Processes and experiences of creative cognition in seven Western classical composers. Musicae Scientiae, online first.

Peñalba, A., Martinez, L., & Schiavio, A. (2020). The Active Musical Room. Fostering sensorimotor discoveries and musical creativity in toddlers. Journal of Research in Music Education, online first

More soon!

Month 13

Due to Covid-19, many already-designed empirical studies had to be postponed. The decision was thus made to slightly change their designs in order to have participants take part in them remotely. Great work by our PhD student Adrian Kempf working toward their implementation!

Month 14

New paper submitted - great experience to work again with Vincent Gesbert and colleagues from Lausanne. Very interesting to see commonalities between collective creativity in music and sport - let's hope the reviewers will be positive about this work too!

Month 15

Good news - new paper published:

Schiavio, A. & Benedek, M. (2020). Dimensions of musical creativity. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 14: 578932. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2020.578932

Month 16

The new year started with an invited talk at the department of cognitive science of Central European University (Vienna). Great audience, constructive comments, and inspiring questions.

Month 17

After a couple of months, five new empirical studies have been finally (re)designed. We have now submitted them to the ethical committee, and once we receive the formal approval we will start collecting data!

In the meantime, new paper published:

Schiavio, A., Biasutti, M., & Antonini Philippe, R. (2021). Creative pedagogies in the time of pandemic. A case study with conservatory students. Music Education Research. doi:_10.1080/14613808.2021.1881054.