 Photo courtesy of the BRiTE program. CMU's School of Music received a Lifting Lives grant from the Academy of Country music to study the potential effect of learning to play the marimba on the spatial skills of older adults.
Principal investigator, CMU Research Associate Jennie Dorris along with BriTE music instructor Heather DiCicco and CMU Research Assistants Dustin Grimes, Diana McLaughlin, and Casey Ferguson, completed a six-week study closely watching the effects of music classes on participants’ spatial navigation. Pedagogical exercises in reading music notation, improvisation, and composition exploited music’s abilities to challenge participants’ spatial navigation of the instrument. Initial findings show that attending marimba classes twice a week yielded positive musical results for participants -- despite the curriculum growing more difficult each week, participants could successfully perform the exercises. Comments are closed.
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