Spark Talks: Emotional Piano Project

The quest to understand music’s emotional power has long fascinated philosophers and acousticians —not to mention the composers, performers and educators entrusted with its transmission. Modern computational power is making that understanding possible. McMaster’s MAPLE Lab is working on a large-scale project combining analyses of scores and audio files with perceptual experiments, using advanced statistical techniques to “unweave” the cues for musical emotion.

Michael Schutz is an Associate Professor of Music Cognition/Percussion and “University Scholar” at McMaster. Drawing on his interdisciplinary training in music, psychology, and computer science, he directs the MAPLE Lab, while maintaining an active career as a musician.