Music Therapy Toolbox (MTTB)

In a Nutshell

The Music Therapy Toolbox (MTTB) is a Music Information Retrieval (MIR) and analysis tool that has been specifically designed for the analysis of MIDI-Data deriving from clinical improvisations. MIDI-Data include musical information about the onset and offset times, the velocity and pitch of each note played. Via MIDI-Data one may therefore "digitize" a complete improvisation. 

Based on that information the MTTB analyses several musical features that can grouped into Temporal Surface Features, Register-Related Features, Dynamic-Related Feature, Tonality-Related Feature, Dissonance-Related Feature, Pulse Related Features, and Features quantifying the client-therapist interaction. 

Each of these features is visualized as a graph so that the development of musical parameters in dyadic improvisations can be traced second-by-second. The parallel depiction of client and therapist furthermore allows us to compare musical behaviour and the assumption of conscious and maybe unconscious social interaction through it. 

Those features lay the foundation for further statistical analysis to gain deeper insights into the specificity of different ways of musical improvisation.  

Role in HIGH-M

The MTTB is, next to the Autonomy Microanalysis, the second substantial part of the theoretical setup of HIGH-M. To automate the Autonomy Microanalysis, a flexible data-based foundation is needed. 

MTTB closes this gap and preprocesses the reality of the musical product via MIDI data for further analysis with the Autonomy Microanalysis. 

The potential of joint analysis between IAP-AM and MTTB has already been proven in single publications. For consequent communication of the two systems, however, a common musical language in the form of shared musical features is needed. This is the second challenge the HIGH-M project is facing. 

A diagram with eleven rows. Each row, except the first one, is titled on the left side. Under the diagram, the time is indicated in steps of 100 seconds. The first row is, again, divided into two horizontal sections, showing the individual piano roll of each improviser. Beneath, the analysis results of the MTTB are shown: "density, mean duration, mean pitch, pulse clarity, tonality, articulation, tempo, dissonance, synchronicity, synchro tempo". Each row features two graphs (in black and grey) indicating the development of each improviser per musical feature in time. The last two rows only show a single black line.
Erkkilä, J. (2007). Music Therapy Toolbox (MTTB)—An Improvisation Analysis Tool for Clinicians and Researchers. In T. Wosch & T. Wigram (Eds.), Microanalysis in Music Therapy: Methods, Techniques and Applications for Clinicians, Researchers, Educators and Students (1st American pbk, pp. 134–148). J. Kingsley, 141.

Literature

Erkkilä, J. (2007). Music Therapy Toolbox (MTTB)—An Improvisation Analysis Tool for Clinicians and Researchers. In T. Wosch & T. Wigram (Eds.), Microanalysis in Music Therapy: Methods, Techniques and Applications for Clinicians, Researchers, Educators and Students (1st American pbk, pp. 134–148). J. Kingsley.

Erkkilä, J., & Wosch, T. (2018). The Music Therapy Toolbox. In S. L. Jacobsen, E. G. Waldon, G. Gattino, & B. L. Wheeler (Eds.), Music Therapy Assessment: Theory, Research, and Application (pp. 293–314). Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Luck, G. P. B., Riikkilä, K., Lartillot, O., Erkkilä, J., Toiviainen, P., Mäkelä, A., Pyhäluoto, K., Raine, H., Varkila, L., & Värri, J. (2006). Exploring Relationships between Level of Mental Retardation and Features of Music Therapy Improvisations: A Computational Approach. Nordic Journal of Music Therapy, 15(1), 30–48.

Wosch, T. (2021). Microanalysis. In H.-H. Decker-Voigt, E. Weymann, M. Nöcker-Ribaupierre, E. Pfeifer, & C. Decker-Voigt (Eds.), Lexikon Musiktherapie (3., vollständig überarbeitete und erweiterte Auflage, pp. 347–352). Hogrefe.

Wosch, T., & Erkkilä, J. (2016). Microanalysis in Objectivist Research. In B. L. Wheeler & K. M. Murphy (Eds.), Music Therapy Research (Third edition, pp. 578–588). Barcelona Publishers.

Wosch, T., & Magee, W. L. (2018). Technology Developments in Music Therapy. In S. Federici & M. J. Scherer (Eds.), Assistive Technology Assessment Handbook (Second edition, pp. 457–470). CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group.