Visiting RITMO
I am so happy that I spent three great months at RITMO. While learning a lot in a dynamic research environment, I also had the opportunity to make good friends, play music, eat together and get to know Oslo in a wonderful winter.
Right after completing my bachelor's degree in computer science, I was so excited to come to see RITMO's activity up close. While at RITMO, taking part in a research project before starting my master's studies at the University of Oslo helped me with the scientific research and getting used to the atmosphere.
A Concert Study
In October 2021, MusicLab hosted the well-known classical music ensemble Danish String Quartet for a science concert. In that concert, various experiments took place to picture how the mind and body are engaged in musicians and audience members in intense states of shared musical absorption. One of the experiments was recording the body movement of both remote and live audience members while they were experiencing the 2.5-hour-long concert.
After the Danish String Quartet performed their last piece, the audience clapped continuously for nearly two minutes, shifting in texture and rate as members moved in and out of synchrony. The accelerometer signal of individual participants shows their clapping behaviour along with the music. Moreover, it helped us research how individuals' clapping contributed to the collective effect shared with the musicians.
Working on this thrilling project with a team of great researchers was so satisfying. Under the mentorship of brilliant people, I had the chance to take the lead in signal processing and learn many things about body movement analysis. After collecting all the data and having it synchronised, I extracted the features of clapping motion. This detailed signal allowed me to access each clap and apply detailed analysis. That said, this work was as challenging as it was thrilling for me. I had to learn new methods while coping with many research-related difficulties that were completely new to me.
One of the most interesting findings so far is that the clapping synchrony of people gets affected by the events on the stage. For example, when the musicians leave the stage to come back, people skip some claps or go out of synchrony with the rest of the audience.
Returning to RITMO
Despite the hardships of the pandemic, I had a wonderful winter in Oslo with the RITMO people. I want to thank all the researchers and the administrative staff at RITMO for making this happen, especially Professor Alexander Refsum Jensenius for considering me for this training and Finn Upham for their great mentorship. While at RITMO, I realised how much I enjoy being in this dynamic and fun environment. I am looking forward to spending more time there during my master's studies next year.
I will never forget my RITMO days!