Univ.-Prof. Dr. Hauke Egermann

Bio

Hauke Egermann is Professor at the Department of Music and Musicology at TU Dortmund. Here, he directs the Dortmund Systematic Musicology Lab (DSML). Before, he graduated in Systematic Musicology, Media Studies, and Communication Research (MA 2006, Hanover University for Music and Drama, Germany). Subsequently, he studied Neuroscience (PhD in Music Psychology/Neuroscience 2009, Center for Systems Neurosciences Hanover). He was Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (2009-2011, McGill University, Montreal, Canada). From 2011 to 2015 he lectured and researched at the Audio Communication Group (Technische Universität Berlin, Germany). In 2015 he was a Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Digital Music, Queen Mary, University of London.  In 2016 he was awarded his Habilitation in Musicology at the Technische Universität Berlin. His research mostly centres around trying to understand which impact music has on listeners. He has held large collaborative research grants on audience experience of music performances, the development of music and media technology, or understanding emotional responses to music.

Research Statement

The Dortmund Systematic Musicology Lab (DSML) aims to explain and understand musical behaviour and experience, including the production, processing, and reception of music. In addition to creating this knowledge, we also apply it to music practice and the development of music technology.

Our main motivations to participate in ECR can be grouped into the following four groups:

• In previous research, we have developed an Audience Response System (measuring EMG, ECG, BVP, GSR), and we are strongly interested in expanding it in order to assess non-verbal, embodied data that represent audience experiences (e.g. Upham, et al., 2018). Here, we are particularly interested in the role of facial expressions in response to music and if they can be measured reliably from concert audiences (Kayser & Egermann, 2018).
• We are strongly interested in investigating social experiences of music listening. We are particularly interested in evaluating how embodied markers of synchronization and mirroring (within and between audiences members and musicians) are correlated with the subjective and collective experiences. This research interest builds upon our previous work focusing on the role of empathy and emotional contagion in music listening (O’Neill & Egermann, submitted).
• The theory of Musical Expectation has been often applied to music listening. However, so far, there is no research on statistical learning of typical concert features, such as behavioural rituals, piece orders and arrangements. We would predict here, that more experienced concert goers respond stronger to the unconventional concert elements as they have stronger schematic knowledge now how concerts are typically arranged.
• The theory on Aesthetic Judgement as an emotion-induction mechanism (Juslin, 2013) still lacks a solid theoretical and empirical foundation. We would like to contribute to establish whether different concert features influence different aesthetic attitudes about the value of the concert, that in turn influence, how the audience responds to the concert.