Category: Journal (Page 1 of 2)

Hello again research friends, enthusiasts, and those who would like to become one!

I would also like to wish you all a happy new year in Hertfordshire, UK!

Shortly before Christmas we had got ethical clearance for doing the Songlines course in the UK 2023, so I, once again, visited the UK to start getting people enthusiastic about our project. For this reason, we organized two talks at local Parkinson’s groups in Hertfordshire.

The first one took place at the Hampson Park Community Centre in Stevenage, which is the same venue as for our course Songlines. Lovely Jane invited me to give the talk, and I have to admit that I have been quite nervous, but luckily Penny, who is another PhD student at UH, was there to support me, thank you very much! 🙂

We decided it would be nice to go to the talk together and introduce ourselves properly because besides our brilliant facilitator, Maria, Penny and I will be helping to run the course. As all of you know that music is quite a crucial part of our research project, and for Songlines is going to be a music and movement course, we thought it might be funny to introduce ourselves via a favorite piece of music. Here are the two pieces, and I leave it to you to guess which one belongs to who 😉

I think the attendees liked our tunes, immediately the ice was broken, and my nervousness was gone. It really was a great experience, and I felt like everybody enjoyed themselves. It was also fantastic to see that the people liked what we are doing, and they would very much like to be a part of it. I think they especially liked our little dance exercise…oh sorry, I meant to write “moving to music” exercise 😉

On Thursday 19^th of January, Penny and I went to the West Herts branch of Parkinson’s UK to give the talk again. This time my supervisor, Lucy, was joining us because she knows most of the attendees. The second talk was also a wonderful experience, and the people were just as lovely as the Big Movers. The response to our project and the Songlines course was amazing and I hope some of the attendees will take part in it.

I’m flying back home today, but I will be back in the UK by the end of February. That is when my year abroad starts officially and I’m very much looking forward to it! 🙂

Thank you for reading this blog, and please feel free to leave some comments. I am very interested in your opinion. I can’t wait to keep you posted with all the exciting things going to happen.

Take care and see you for the next read!

On 1 January, Dawn and Sabrina travelled to Lille to present our project in France and create new collaborations. Sabrina was able to talk about our Motion Capture Lab and present her first data to the REBOOT team (University of Lille).

It was incredibly exciting to see the innovative team and their lab. The research team is known for their work, which deals in particular with the interaction between humans and robots. Emotions play a central role in this. We were able to gain an exciting insight into their work. Even more exciting, however, was their input on our data and the exchange of ideas on how we can optimise and expand the measurement of people with Parkinson’s disease.

On our third day in Lille, Dawn presented our project in detail to a wide audience. Enthusiasm was clearly visible in the faces and the project aroused great interest.

We look forward to continuing to work with the whole team in Lille and to presenting you with new insights soon!

Author: Sabrina

Hello dear research friends, interested and those who would like to be!

Yay, it’s done! The last of the 15 workshops took place yesterday at HSLU Music and was also a great success. Can you imagine 15 workshops? In the almost six months I’ve been involved, a lot has happened and we’ve accomplished a lot more. Don’t forget the 20 interviews with the workshop participants from all three locations, because they weren’t without their share either.

But that shouldn’t sound negative now, because I really enjoy the work a lot and I got the impression that the participants also enjoyed it a lot. It was great that all the people with Parkinson’s who had already participated in the workshops in June were also present this time. And we even got a new member, because Jane joined us. Since last Wednesday she is on a trip to Switzerland and because she speaks excellent German, she gave us the honor of her presence. It was wonderful that our Lucerne participants had the chance to speak with one of our British collaborators.

I also tried to make the workshop a bit more active compared to the other two and to lead exercises on and with the music to really test out what is possible and what is not. For Jane it was therefore certainly also exciting to take part in the workshop again in a different way. So there was a lot of dancing again, including salsa, African and line dancing. It was really great! 😀

After the workshop we had lunch together again, which must have lasted 1 1/2 hours because there was so much to talk about. It was really great to see how the participants were happy about the reunion. I really hope they felt comfortable with us and I look forward to working with them again.

Now that the data collection of the consultation phase is complete, it is time to finalize the course program. Fortunately, the feedback from most has been very positive, so we don’t have to completely rewrite it but just tweak the details.

So wish us luck and keep your fingers crossed that the ethics committees will be as enthusiastic about the program as our hard-working collaborators from England, Lucerne and Ticino! 😉

Thanks for reading this blog and feel very free to leave comments. I can’t wait to tell you about all the other exciting things and experiences.

Best wishes and see you next time you read!

Ciao cari amici della scienza,  persona interessate e che vorrebbe esserlo!

Last Monday Dawn and I went to the beautiful Ticino again to hold the fifth and final workshop at the Clinica Hildebrand. Well, Dawn had a very early start on Monday, because I arrived on Sunday and had a great day in sunny Brissago. Oh, it’s wonderful to be under palm trees like that! 😀

And the trip over the Nufenen, which connects the Valais with the Ticino, was not lacking in scenic eye-catchers either:

Well, enough about my private highlights for now, after all, this was a business trip and we came to work 😉

Just like in England or in Ticino in spring, the final workshop in Brissago was a complete success and that of course gives us hope for the next workshop in Lucerne. Paolo did a great job again by constantly stimulating the exchange about our course programme. Again, not only the people with Parkinson’s were enthusiastic about the programme, but also the therapists, Daniele, Amanda and Daria, the head of neurology at the clinic. Dawn and I also had great fun performing a little line dance choreography that we would like to teach to the participants of our course. I had the impression that this went down very well with everyone and there was even applause at the end!

The only downer from the Parkinson’s sufferers was that the course would not start in Switzerland until 2024, so they would have to wait over a year to try it out. But we assured them that even if they have to wait now, there will definitely be an opportunity for them to participate in the Ticino course if they want to.

After the workshop ended, Dawn and I went out for lunch with Paolo and Daniele to celebrate the success of the final workshop as well as to discuss the way forward. It was a lovely day and we enjoyed the business lunch on a sunny terrace in Locarno. Truly a successful conclusion!

Grazie mille for reading this blog and feel very welcome to leave comments. I can’t wait to tell you about all the other exciting things and experiences.

Ciao and see you next time!

Hello dear research friends, enthusiasts and those who would like to become one!

Dawn and I have been back in the UK to do the final workshop two weeks ago and the trip has been just as brilliant as the last one. It was so nice seeing all those great and lovely people again and working together on the programme for next year’s course. Once again, I can only say how much I’m looking forward to spending the next year  in the UK 🙂

The final workshop went really well and it was so great seeing that the people with Parkinson’s liked the programme we co-developed during spring time. Also, it was amazing that almost everybody had returned to join the workshop to give us their feedback. They were genuinely interessted it what we had done and I felt like they really appreciated to be treaten like the experts they are, and without their feedback it would be impossible to design the holistic programme we are aiming for.

Besides the work related stuff as well as meeting kind and lovely people, I had to do some very important PhD work at the UH like for example collecting my GO HERTS! hoodie.

And doesn’t it look great?! Thank you very much again, Dawn, for buying me the second purple hoodie from the sports village.

I also had to finish my Induction Checklist with my other supervisor Lucy, which meant meeting important and helpful people of the UH as well as geeting some adminstrational stuff done like collecting my UH member card. Dawn and Lucy gave me a tour on the campus and pointed out major buildings like the Science Building. It has been a lot of fun and I feel confident now to find my way on campus next year.

On the last day, we had a lovely lunch with Lucy and our collaborator Ruth at a pub called the crooked chimney. I guess you can see where the name comes from, can’t you? 😉

Thank you for reading this blog, and please feel free to leave some comments. I am very interested in your opinion. I can’t wait to keep you posted with all the exciting things going to happen.

Take care and see you for the next read!

Hello dear research friends, interested people and those who would like to become one!

It’s that time again, finally a new blog post! Last weekend I was at the 38th annual conference of the German Society for Music Psychology – affectionately known by everyone as the DGM – on the topic of “The Psychology of Popular Music” and now I would like to tell you about this further adventure.

It was my first conference that I was allowed to attend in presence. I had already been to the DGM conference last year, but unfortunately it was still online, and I can now understand and confirm that even though they are well done and you meet nice people, they are nowhere near the real thing. I was accordingly thrilled and am already looking forward to the next conference! 🙂 It was also very nice that I was not the only representative of the team or the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, besides Sabrina, Valèrie and Olivier also attended the conference. Valèrie was supposed to present a poster for Dawn, as she had to be at the Sempre Society conference in England, while Olivier was supposed to give a talk on his new groove model.

The conference was held at the university in Würzburg. A beautiful city that is certainly worth a visit, and not only because of the excellent Franconian wine, as I was told 😉 but of course mainly because of the Residenz, which is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

In any case, the conference started for me on Thursday in the form of the annual PhD workshop, where we talked about hybrid conference formats, communication with journals and presentation techniques with great speakers like Felix Thiesen and Klaus Frieler. Of course, the social aspect was not to be missed either, which is why we ordered pizza in the evening and had a picnic outside. That was a really nice way to start the conference, because I already met old faces again, but also new people, and I don’t know about you, but it always puts me at ease when I see familiar faces at such large events.

The conference programme opened on Friday afternoon with a welcome from the board and immediately went into full swing with two talks on unloved music and listener usage motives. Very exciting!

The event had a very tight programme, but in between there were always enough coffee breaks, which I learned are ideal for networking. Fortunately, the DGM is very informal and does not organise overlapping lectures, so I actually had the pleasure of enjoying all the panels in full.

After the first day of the conference, there was a nice get-together in a quaint Franconian restaurant, the Alte Mainmühle, which we could use to refresh old acquaintances and make new ones. The ambience of the restaurant was just as pleasant as the company, which is why it was a very successful evening for everyone. The second day of the conference was very intensive with eight lectures on a wide variety of topics and many coffee breaks, which were no less exciting. In addition, the annual general meeting of the DGM took place later in the afternoon, which Olivier and I, as new members, were of course delighted to attend. During this general meeting, the poster prize was also awarded for the best poster by a young scientist who is still studying for a doctorate. And now look who won the prize 🙂 :

You can’t imagine how surprised and thrilled I was, because I hadn’t really expected it. The speech of praise by Claudia Bullerjahn, who had represented the commission for the selection of the poster prize winner, was incredibly beautiful and I was incredibly pleased. And the poster looks really great too, doesn’t it? Of course, this meant that the poster presentation the next day would be well attended 😀

First, however, we attended Olivier’s lecture on his groove model on Sunday morning, which went down very well with the visitors.

And also the second lecture on the topic of Fremdschämen bei deutschen Casting-Shows was great and very entertaining. Especially the sound and video examples!

Our poster presentation was then of course a complete success. Everyone wanted to look at the award-winning poster and learn more about our project. People were really excited, unsurprisingly of course, as it is truly a grandiose project. I also think that our presentation went down very well with the visitors. There were many interested questions and I think we made a professional impression.

Of course, it was also very nice that I already knew a few of our poster visitors from my student days in Hamburg. They were of course very interested to hear what had become of me since I graduated and wanted to express their admiration.

All in all, my first live conference was a complete success, not only for me but also for the project that everyone in the DGM now knows and loves. I enjoyed the presentation and the conference in general so much that I can’t wait to go to my next one. I sincerely hope that this one will not be too long in coming.

Thank you so much for reading this blog and feel very welcome to leave comments. I can’t wait to tell you about all the other exciting things and experiences.

Best wishes and see you next time!

Hello dear research friends, interested people and those who would like to become one!

The time has finally come: we have our laboratory! And doesn’t it just look wonderful?

We can’t wait to get started with the measurements! Now we can rightly call ourselves MoCap Girls 😀

On 29 thand 30th June we had a visit from Erwin, the motion capture expert from Vicon Systems, who installed the lab for us and gave us some training. Many thanks, Erwin!

Especially he and Sabrina seemed to have fun at work:

During the training on the second day, we were even able to convince our dear colleague Olivier to act as guinea pig this time, so that I could concentrate on observing this time. But I think Olivier also had fun watching his movements on the big screen 😉

The technology is incredibly elaborate and it is fascinating to see and learn what all is behind it and what you can do with it. Already during the trainings, we all had many crazy ideas for projects that we could implement after the four years of the Parkinson’s project.  For example, studying the movement patterns of pianists and other musicians, or, as we are all very fond of animals, we had the idea of having dogs or cats run across the aisle mat. The possibilities seem endless and we never tire of thinking of new ones.

Of course, we still have a lot of work ahead of us to get to know the system better and to develop the exact procedure with which we will carry out the motion capture examinations and gait analyses with the Parkinson’s patients, but we are very much looking forward to it and are convinced that we can create something great together! 😀

Thank you so much for reading this blog and feel very welcome to leave comments. I can’t wait to tell you about all the other exciting things and experiences.

Best wishes and see you next time!

Hello dear research friends, interested people and those who would like to become one!

On 21 and 23 June, the last workshops for the time being took place with us at the Lucerne School of Music. Just like the workshops in England and Brissago, they were a very positive and wonderful experience for all participants, I hope, but also had their own individual charm. For me, it was really amazingly fascinating to observe how the different cultural backgrounds not only reflect musical tastes, but also make for a unique atmosphere during the workshops.

As in England, the four workshops took place over two days and a joint lunch was organised, which everyone appreciated for the social exchange. I had provided a 1½ metre long sand dab for this, which I think everyone found very funny. It really looks delicious, doesn’t it?

Besides, this time it was my job to lead the workshops, as I was the only one at all the others and of course it is important for my dis to be in charge for once. At first I was terribly nervous, but after the ice was broken and I could feel the pleasant group dynamic, my nervousness flew away.

As at the other two locations, we and the participants enjoyed the fourth workshop the most. It is always great to observe what a positive effect making music and dancing together can have.

One of the Parkinson’s sufferers who took part even brought his accordion and gave us a little performance.

It was fascinating to see how the others immediately adapted musically to him and followed his example. In the end, some even sang along! It was a wonderful atmosphere and we were able to learn a lot in relation to the planned intervention.

It was also great that we were able to hold the workshops in our lab, which gave us a first impression of what the work there will look like in the coming years.

The workshops are now over for the time being. We have collected some data to develop programming for the intervention over the summer before returning to the three sites for a final workshop. I am very excited about the analysis and development and wonder what the participants will say about the programme for the intervention. I really hope and believe that together with the therapists and people with PD we can develop something that can have a positive impact on the quality of life of people with PD.

So, but now I’ll get to work on the evaluation, wish me luck 😉

Thank you for reading this blog and feel free to leave comments. I can’t wait to tell you about all the other exciting things and experiences.

Best wishes and see you next time!