you are required to split your attention between multiple sources of information (2018) [single-component output with contextualising information]
- Submitting institution
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Bath Spa University
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- 3416
- Type
- J - Composition
- Month
- -
- Year
- 2018
- URL
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https://doi.org/10.17870/bathspa.c.4708298
- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- The piece explores the impact of increased cognitive load and the way we remember associations between cues and responses as a compositional strategy, presenting the players with a stream of auditory cues to which they must respond with specified sounds. The cues regularly switch between different types and are directed at different sub-groups within the two ensembles, requiring the players to think and act very quickly. In the piece, moments of ordered information are disrupted by less predictable cue sequences and regular changes of cue type. It also explores the split-attention effect and its impact on cognitive load. In the piece, all the cues and responses are aural, requiring players to negotiate the stream of information in one mode. The increased cognitive load affects the speed of response by players and the variations in time required to complete sound-producing actions on the different instruments, producing an unpredictable trail of sounds after each cue.
The research underpinning the composition translates theory from behavioural psychology to music. This is explained in an extended radio interview with Marie-Therese Rudolph on zeit-ton, Ö1, 27.11.18. The role of group behaviours is explained in: Saunders, J. (2021) Group behaviours as music. In: Timmers, R., Bailes, F., and Deffern, H. (eds).Together in Music: Participation, Co-Ordination, and Creativity in Ensembles. Oxford: OUP.
Commissioned by Wien Modern. First performed by Arditti Quartet and Ensemble Modern at Wiener Konzerthaus, Vienna, 24 November 2018. Broadcast on Ö1 on 27 November 2018.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -
