Personnel – Digital Music Lab

Lab Director

Matthew Woolhouse

Matthew Woolhouse studied composition with Robert Saxton and piano with Frank May at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, London, UK, before completing Masters and PhD degrees at the University of Cambridge. Currently, he is an Associate Professor in the School of the Arts where he teaches courses in music theory and analysis, and directs the McMaster Chamber Orchestra. In 2013 he founded the Digital Music Lab, which conducts research into music perception, music and Parkinson’s disease, and music and eye movements. His research has attracted significant funding and multiple awards, including three Canadian Tri-Council grants, McMaster’s Synergy Award (in recognition of excellence in interdisciplinary research and commitment to innovation), and the Provincial Government of Ontario’s Early Researcher Award. Prior to coming to McMaster in 2011, Woolhouse was a Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge.

Teaching

Courses

Conducting

Specializing in exciting and inspiring repertoire, the McMaster Chamber Orchestra (MCO) provides musically talented students from across campus with the opportunity to develop their performance skills to a maximum. Rehearsing once a week under the baton of Matthew Woolhouse, the MCO puts on two concerts per year, typically in November and March of each academic year.

Over 250 students perform in McMaster’s ensembles every year; each ensemble explore a rich variety of musical styles and ranges, from large-scale “classical works” to cutting-edge contemporary pieces. In addition to the Chamber Orchestra, other ensembles include University Choir, Women’s Choir, Concert Band, David Gerry Flute Ensemble, Jazz Band, and Percussion Ensemble.

Composition & Performance

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Graduate Students

Jo Spyra

Jo is a Ph.D. candidate in Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour studying the effects of musical characteristics on memory. Seemingly a permanent student, Jo started at McMaster in 2004, completing an Honours degree in music education with a diploma in performance on the flute a few years later. In a brief stop at the University of Western Ontario, she completed a Master’s in music performance. Unfortunately for her music career, science was too fascinating and lured her back to McMaster for another Bachelor in PNB with a music cognition specialization and a Master of Science. When not immersed in science or music, Jo likes to go hiking and travelling or spending a quiet night at home working on pieces for her art shop.

Key Nonadjacency, Events & Time

“Key” finding: we forget musical keys over time.

Key Nonadjacency, Melody & Rhythm

Melodies and rhythms help create a stronger memory for a musical piece.

Nonadjacency, Surface Features over time

Melodies and rhythms help us remember a musical piece for much longer than we would remember a string of chords.

Key Nonadjacency & Timbre

Hearing something in a natural timbre (the characteristic of a sound) builds a stronger memory for a musical key than an artificial sound.

Konrad Swierczek

Konrad began at the Digital Music Lab as a volunteer and completed his undergraduate thesis exploring a theory of tritone substitution based on perception. He completed a Bachelor of Music with a specialization in Music Cognition at McMaster University in 2018, studying jazz double bass with Clark Johnston. During his graduate studies, he will investigate tonal attraction and cognitively informed music theory. Konrad is also an active audio engineer and musician, and continues to perform, record, and mix in Hamilton and the Greater Toronto Area.

Tonal Attraction

Tonal attraction is the magnetism between two notes or chords. Modelling the perception of tonal attraction can help explain the musical experience without relying on theoretical descriptions.

Maya Flannery

Maya joined the Digital Music Lab in 2019 with interests in music theory, audio feature analysis, and music-preference relationships. Her Honours Thesis investigated the relationships between personality and preference for low-level musical features. Maya has worked as an assistant at McMaster’s LIVE Lab, providing demonstrations of their facility and assisting with public events and research projects. Outside of the lab, Maya is an aspiring musician, currently learning piano and occasionally performing in the community. She also enjoys the outdoors, computer programming, and rolling dice with more than six sides.

Personality & Music Preference