How can we study music-related body movement?

The third “track” of Music Moves is that of methodology. In this track we will explore different methods that researchers use to study music-related movement.

It is important to remember that there is never only one, correct method for carrying out research. Often, the best is to use a combination of different methods. We may often also separate between qualitative and quantitative methods.

Qualitative methods are often exploratory in nature, aiming to reveal and explain phenomena. This is often done through reasoning and writing text.

Quantitative methods, on the other hand, are often based on using measurements through some kind of technology. Then one uses numerical methods, such as statistics and machine learning, to calculate results.

The weekly videos in the methodology “track” will start by introducing some qualitative methods, and then mainly focus on describing various types of technologies used in modern research on music and movement. We will visit the labs at University of Oslo to get first-hand experience with the methods in a music research context.