Adam is Director of the Applied Music Research Centre at the University of Roehampton in London. He is a music psychologist theorist. He created 'zygonic theory', which explains how music makes sense and creates meaning, and has led the 'Sounds of Intent' research project for 20 years, which sets out how all children, including those with special needs and abilities, develop musically.
CiteSeerX - Document Details (Isaac Councill, Lee Giles): A catalogue record for this book is ava... more CiteSeerX - Document Details (Isaac Councill, Lee Giles): A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Sounds of Intent in the Early Years explores the musical development of children from birth to fi... more Sounds of Intent in the Early Years explores the musical development of children from birth to five years of age. Observational evidence has been utilised together with key literature on musical development and core concepts of zygonic theory (Ockelford, 2013) to investigate the applicability of the original Sounds of Intent framework of musical development, intended for children and young people with learning difficulties, as an assessment model for all children in the early years. One hundred and twenty five observations of 58 children (aged 10 weeks to five years) engaging with music were taken in the form of video recordings over a six-month period within an early years children’s centre. These observations were analysed using the original Sounds of Intent framework to determine whether the types and levels of engagement with music could be framed within the existing model and to identify areas of potential mismatch. A preliminary framework has been designed from which practitio...
Like all fields of human artistic endeavour, music is constrained by our cognitive processing req... more Like all fields of human artistic endeavour, music is constrained by our cognitive processing requirements and limitations (Swain, 1986; Lerdahl, 1988; Huron, 2001). This articleconsiders particular forms of constraint pertaining to the relationships that the structure-seeking mind (subconsciously) fabricates between perceived musical events. It is proposed that 2±1 may be a universal limitation pertaining to the level of relationships so ideated. That is, in terms of Lewin'S (1987) theoretical framework in which “intervals” can be intuited between the “elements” of musical “spaces”, it is posited that the cognition of musical structure occurs either through intervals (level 1), through intervals between these (level 2), or — in some circumstances — through intervals between these(level 3). This proposition is explored through the psychomusicological model developed by Ockelford (1991, 1993, 1999), which too analyses musical structure in terms of the relationships that may be co...
This is a theoretical article, building on one of Irène Deliège's major areas of interest in ... more This is a theoretical article, building on one of Irène Deliège's major areas of interest in the field of music psychology: the perception of similarity between groups of notes. Here the issue is concurrence: what are the cognitive and music-structural consequences when groups of musical sounds occur simultaneously, in whole or in part? Couched in the context of ‘zygonic’ theory, a taxonomy is presented of how musical events of discernible duration can relate in time, and what forms such relationships can take. A distinction is drawn between perceptual similarity and functional similarity. There is an extended discussion of the capacity of concurrent groups to exist within a single line of music, which entails a fresh look at the notion of hierarchy in musical structures and the Schenkerian notion of prolongation, using a phenomenological approach based on the thinking of Edmund Husserl. In this context, the music-theoretical concept of the appoggiatura is examined, and is shown...
This article investigates the possible existence and nature of a “music module” in working memory... more This article investigates the possible existence and nature of a “music module” in working memory after Baddeley (1986) and Berz (1995). Evidence is gleaned from the performance of a prodigious musical savant in hearing and playing back an unfamiliar piece. His ability to realise internalised auditory images of considerable complexity on the keyboard with immediacy and an unusual technical facility offers a rare opportunity to glean something of the workings of the musical mind in a direct and ecologically valid way — through purely musical responses. These are subject to an initial musicological analysis using “zygonic” theory (Ockelford, 2005a, 2005b), which seeks to explain how the structure and content of the savant's output is derived from the stimulus and from other sources, and how both are woven into a coherent musical whole. The underlying methodological assumption is that the perceived sonic relationships so identified offer powerful evidence of processes that are hypo...
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to set out the current status of the Sounds of Intent proj... more Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to set out the current status of the Sounds of Intent project, and explains some of the theoretical thinking that has underpinned its development over a period of 12 years. Sounds of Intent maps the musical development of children and young people with learning difficulties. It currently exists as an online resource that offers practitioners a framework for assessment (with an online recording tool), information and downloadable resources. Design/methodology/approach – The approach to the development of Sounds of Intent has been through two main phases: first, exploratory, qualitative analysis was used to inform the development of a model setting out how musical abilities and engagement are thought to develop in children and young people with learning difficulties; and second, the framework’s efficacy has been evaluated through gathering data from a number of practitioners in the field that has been analysed principally through quantitative mea...
CiteSeerX - Document Details (Isaac Councill, Lee Giles): A catalogue record for this book is ava... more CiteSeerX - Document Details (Isaac Councill, Lee Giles): A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Sounds of Intent in the Early Years explores the musical development of children from birth to fi... more Sounds of Intent in the Early Years explores the musical development of children from birth to five years of age. Observational evidence has been utilised together with key literature on musical development and core concepts of zygonic theory (Ockelford, 2013) to investigate the applicability of the original Sounds of Intent framework of musical development, intended for children and young people with learning difficulties, as an assessment model for all children in the early years. One hundred and twenty five observations of 58 children (aged 10 weeks to five years) engaging with music were taken in the form of video recordings over a six-month period within an early years children’s centre. These observations were analysed using the original Sounds of Intent framework to determine whether the types and levels of engagement with music could be framed within the existing model and to identify areas of potential mismatch. A preliminary framework has been designed from which practitio...
Like all fields of human artistic endeavour, music is constrained by our cognitive processing req... more Like all fields of human artistic endeavour, music is constrained by our cognitive processing requirements and limitations (Swain, 1986; Lerdahl, 1988; Huron, 2001). This articleconsiders particular forms of constraint pertaining to the relationships that the structure-seeking mind (subconsciously) fabricates between perceived musical events. It is proposed that 2±1 may be a universal limitation pertaining to the level of relationships so ideated. That is, in terms of Lewin'S (1987) theoretical framework in which “intervals” can be intuited between the “elements” of musical “spaces”, it is posited that the cognition of musical structure occurs either through intervals (level 1), through intervals between these (level 2), or — in some circumstances — through intervals between these(level 3). This proposition is explored through the psychomusicological model developed by Ockelford (1991, 1993, 1999), which too analyses musical structure in terms of the relationships that may be co...
This is a theoretical article, building on one of Irène Deliège's major areas of interest in ... more This is a theoretical article, building on one of Irène Deliège's major areas of interest in the field of music psychology: the perception of similarity between groups of notes. Here the issue is concurrence: what are the cognitive and music-structural consequences when groups of musical sounds occur simultaneously, in whole or in part? Couched in the context of ‘zygonic’ theory, a taxonomy is presented of how musical events of discernible duration can relate in time, and what forms such relationships can take. A distinction is drawn between perceptual similarity and functional similarity. There is an extended discussion of the capacity of concurrent groups to exist within a single line of music, which entails a fresh look at the notion of hierarchy in musical structures and the Schenkerian notion of prolongation, using a phenomenological approach based on the thinking of Edmund Husserl. In this context, the music-theoretical concept of the appoggiatura is examined, and is shown...
This article investigates the possible existence and nature of a “music module” in working memory... more This article investigates the possible existence and nature of a “music module” in working memory after Baddeley (1986) and Berz (1995). Evidence is gleaned from the performance of a prodigious musical savant in hearing and playing back an unfamiliar piece. His ability to realise internalised auditory images of considerable complexity on the keyboard with immediacy and an unusual technical facility offers a rare opportunity to glean something of the workings of the musical mind in a direct and ecologically valid way — through purely musical responses. These are subject to an initial musicological analysis using “zygonic” theory (Ockelford, 2005a, 2005b), which seeks to explain how the structure and content of the savant's output is derived from the stimulus and from other sources, and how both are woven into a coherent musical whole. The underlying methodological assumption is that the perceived sonic relationships so identified offer powerful evidence of processes that are hypo...
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to set out the current status of the Sounds of Intent proj... more Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to set out the current status of the Sounds of Intent project, and explains some of the theoretical thinking that has underpinned its development over a period of 12 years. Sounds of Intent maps the musical development of children and young people with learning difficulties. It currently exists as an online resource that offers practitioners a framework for assessment (with an online recording tool), information and downloadable resources. Design/methodology/approach – The approach to the development of Sounds of Intent has been through two main phases: first, exploratory, qualitative analysis was used to inform the development of a model setting out how musical abilities and engagement are thought to develop in children and young people with learning difficulties; and second, the framework’s efficacy has been evaluated through gathering data from a number of practitioners in the field that has been analysed principally through quantitative mea...
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