Daniela Sammler (Max-Planck-Institut für empirische Ästhetik, Frankfurt am Main)
„How the brain plays music: From musical ideas to joint performance" 

Everywhere in the world people enjoy listening to and making music together. Over the past 30 years, research on the neurocognition of music has gained a lot of insights into how the brain perceives music. Yet, our knowledge about the neural mechanisms of music production remains sparse. How does a musical idea turn into action? And how do musicians coordinate sounds and actions when they perform in groups? The present line of research isolated distinct genre-dependent levels of action planning in solo pianists and identified dynamically balanced mechanisms of interaction in duetting pianists using 3T fMRI and (dual) EEG. The data converge on three main findings: (A) distinct neural networks for abstract harmonic and concrete motor planning converge in left lateral prefrontal cortex that acts as a hub for solo music production, (B) internal models of other-produced musical actions in cortico-cerebellar audio-motor networks coordinate self and other during joint music performance, and (C) interbrain synchrony during joint music making is not merely an epiphenomenon of shared sensorimotor information but is modulated by the alignment of cognitive processes. Altogether, it will become clear that solo and joint music performance relies on general principles of human cognition, tuned to achieve the musical perfection required on stage.

PD Dr. Daniela Sammler is Head of the Neurocognition of Music and Language research group at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. After completing her PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig in 2008, she spent post-doctoral residencies in Paris, Glasgow, and Sydney, and used an Otto Hahn Award of the Max Planck Society to establish her own independent research group in 2013. Together with her lab, Dr. Sammler studies how music and language are grounded and linked in the brain using neuroscientific methods such as functional neuroimaging, magneto- and electroencephalography, or transcranial magnetic stimulation. These technologies are paired with behavioural measures and perspectives from linguistics, music theory, and cognitive psychology to systematically deconstruct and compare sensory, cognitive, and expressive stages during music and language perception and production.