The realization of one’s musical ideas at the keyboard is dependent on the ability to transform sound into movement, a process called audiomotor transformation. Using fMRI, we investigated cerebral activations while classically‐trained improvising and non‐improvising musicians imagined playing along …

Three topics are discussed: audiomotor transformations in music, the aural perception of music, and procedural learning and music syntax. Biologically, the ability to make music and enjoy it is based on the innate capacities for beat induction and relative pitch (recognition of melodic contour). The …

While improvisation is considered to be an art form, particularly in jazz, but also in eighteenth-century music, it may also be seen as an didactic instrument which can be used to develop implicit knowledge of music syntax. Two types of syntax may be distinguished: finite state grammars and hierarchical …

The realization of one’s musical ideas at the keyboard is dependent on the ability to transform sound into movement, a process called audiomotor transformation. Using fMRI, we investigated cerebral activations while classically-trained improvising and non-improvising musicians imagined playing along …

of patients.

Parkinson’s disease is characterized not only by bradykinesia, rigidity, and tremor, but also by impairments of expressive and receptive linguistic prosody. The facilitating effect of music with a salient beat on patients’ gait suggests that it might have a similar effect on vocal behavior, however it …

The historically developed practice of learning to play a music instrument from notes instead of by imitation or improvisation makes it possible to contrast two types of skilled musicians characterized not only by dissimilar performance practices, but also disparate methods of audiomotor learning. In …

This essay addresses the relationship of improvisation and identity. Biographical research that was conducted by the author into professional musicians’ lifelong learning showed the huge importance of improvisation for personal expression. Musically, the concept of sound appeared to serve as a strong …