RESEARCH

Toy frogs playing marimba

RESEARCH

The  research activities in the Center for Music Learning are designed to be broadly applicable in answering interesting questions about human learning and behavior, employing a variety of research methods and means of dissemination.

The menu below will lead you to pages with more detailed descriptions of our work. If you would like further information about any of the projects described, we invite you to contact the individual faculty members or graduate students whose names are associated with each project.

Teacher correcting student hand position on violin

Music Teaching and Learning

Our group studies the interactions between teachers and learners that lead to meaningful changes in learners' thinking, behavior, and attitudes...

DTI Brain Image

Skill Learning and Procedural Memory

Music performance engages a constellation of perceptual, cognitive, and motor processes. The goal of musicians’ practice is to coordinate these processes...

Eye Tracking Gear

Analyses of Gaze in Teaching and Learning

Over years of lived experiences, expert music teachers’ expectations regarding the components of successful learning are shaped through the refinement of...

Joined hands

Diversity and Inclusion

The principal features of learning experiences that effectively prepare children for meaningful musical lives beyond school are universal in the sense that they engage diverse groups of children in common experiences...

Presenter speaking to a group of teachers

Teacher Learning and Professional Development

Professional development (PD) is a virtually universal experience for teachers, who participate in conferences and workshops, professional learning communities, and coaching and mentoring programs...

Pianist playing in a brain scanner

Cognition in Jazz Improvisation

Given its extraordinary cognitive, perceptual, and motor sequencing demands, improvised jazz is rare among creative forms of artistic expression...

A conference badge from the 1940 MENC meeting in Los Angeles.

Senior Researcher Award Addresses

Two members of the CML faculty have been awarded the Society for Music Education's Senior Researcher Award. Judith Jellison's and Bob Duke's award talks are...

Maggie at piano small

Rehearsal Frames Explained

Observations of learning episodes in music are facilitated by viewing lessons and rehearsals in discrete time intervals (rehearsal frames) that are devoted to...