Musical Connections

This research team is part of the Nordoff-Robbins Center for Music Therapy at NYU, an active music therapy clinic that also conducts research on the creative and developmental processes of music therapy. The Musical Connection team has two subgroups, each with a distinct focus.

One group will focus on analyzing data from a recent study evaluating responses of autistic children and young adults over the course of 15 weeks of music therapy. Music engagement will be measured with the Music Engagement Scale (MES), which is scored after observation of video-recorded sessions. Social synchronization will be evaluated using data from wrist-worn sensors, including accelerometry and photoplethysmography (PPG), to evaluate social synchronization. Team members will have the opportunity to engage in several areas of research, based on their interests. This may include (1) training in the use of the MES to support reliable rating of music engagement; (2) applied use of the MES to rate music engagement after observation of video-recorded sessions; (3) signal processing; (4) time series similarity analyses; (5) statistical computing, including correlation and regression; and (6) academic writing for publishing research results.

Another group will prototype adaptive instruments for clients at the Center to support engagement in music making. This may include synth instruments accessible to visual impairment, lidar-based instruments to engage combined movement and music, and instruments tuned to frequencies most accessible to hearing-impaired individuals.

Eventually, these groups may work together to apply analysis protocols for music engagement to assess responses to the adaptive instruments.