Last week we had the pleasure to present on HIGH-M under the title "From Assessment Profile to Process Assessment: Challenges in Automating Music Therapy Analysis" at the Second International Conference on Computational and Cognitive Musicology (CCCM2024) at Utrecht University.

It was an inspiring event with interesting talks on Early Music Computing, Computational Music Analysis, and Computational Ethnomusicology, alongside a great poster session (see program). I was honoured to be part of the Music Information Computing for Health and Wellbeing section and grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this interdisciplinary exchange.

Thanks to the organisers (especially Frans Wiering), presenters and participants for making it a special experience!

In July this year, the HIGH-M project had the opportunity to present itself with a poster at the 7. Netzwerktreffen des BayWISS-Verbundkollegs Gesundheit at OTH Regensburg. As a partner of the HIGH-M project and the associated dissertation, we are grateful for the support of the BayWISS-Verbundkolleg Gesundheit, which makes conference participation, publications and support with workshops possible for us.

The event featured exciting presentations by BayWISS Gesundheit doctoral students, including Luisa Falkenstörfer from the Würzburg-Schweinfurt University of Applied Sciences with her dissertation project ‘Autonomy Digital’. A particular highlight was the panel discussion on the role of ethics committees in Bavaria in between research and ethics. The work of the Gemeinsamen Ethikkommission der Hochschulen Bayerns (GEHBa) was emphasised, which acts free of charge as a central contact point for universities without an own ethics committee.

To the poster

Last week the International Conference on Improvisation in Music Therapy (ICIMT) took place and HIGH-M had the pleasure to present itself!

As the first of its kind, the ICIMT presented a wide range of developments in research, training and practice of improvisation in music therapy at the beautiful, historic Campus Lemmens of the LUCA School of Arts in Leuven, Belgium. In addition to numerous keynotes by internationally renowned music therapists (Jan Van Camp, Jos De Backer, Karette Stensaeth, Helen Shoemark, Viggo Krüger, Jörg Fachner, Stine Lindahl Jacobsen, Felicity Baker and Jaakko Erkkilä), various facets of music therapy improvisation were represented in a range of presentations and workshops. 

The HIGH-M team, represented by Bastian Vobig, offered the opportunity to visit a presentation on "A Computational Approach to Interaction Type Analysis of Clinical Improvisations. From Assessment Profile to Process Assessment" and to ask critical questions.

Many thanks to all participants and the opportunity to be present at ICIMT! 

Last January, it was possible to visit our cooperation partners at the Centre of Excellence in Music, Mind, Body and Brain (CoEMMBB) at the University of Jyväskylä together with students from the Würzburg-Schweinfurt University of Applied Sciences (music therapy specialisation) as part of the HIGH-M project.

In addition to the intensive exchange on the clinical relevance of the HIGH-M project, Prof. Jaakko Erkkilä provided lectures and workshops on Integrative Improvisational Music Therapy (IIMT). The HIGH-M project was also able to answer exciting questions from other researchers at the University of Jyväskylä in the CoEMMBB PhD colloquium.

As part of the cooperation between the THWS and the University of Jyväskylä, it was also possible to transfer the central data set of the HIGH-M project, which originated from studies on the effectiveness of Integrative Improvisational Music Therapy (NO PAIN NO GAIN). 

Thank you very much!

• The central theoretical components have been embedded in the SGT Framework
• Psychodynamic backgrounds at the intersection of game theory, psychotherapy and clinical improvisation have been researched
• The web presence of HIGH-M has been finished

The following goals are now being pursued:

• The central theoretic complex will be connected to computer-based methods
• The analysis process will be sketched and further concretized
• Music Therapy Toolbox features are being further extended
  
  

For the first time, HIGH-M was presented publicly on the 9th of June at the second MIRAGE Symposium "Music, emotions, analysis ... and computer" at RITMO Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Rhythm, Time and Motion of the University of Oslo. Live presented Olivier Lartillot, leader of the MIRAGE-Project, Anna-Maria Christodolou, PhD-Student at RITMO, Bastian Vobig, and Thomas Wosch, who attended online, basic principles and theoretical structures to HIGH-M and the cooperation between THWS and RITMO.

At the second MIRAGE Symposium, several interdisciplinary research projects and results in the disciplines of music psychology, music computing, and neuroscience were presented, including central keynotes of Patrick Justin (University Uppsala) and Didier Grandjean (University Geneva) on the topic of music and emotion.