The 9th Annual Creative Edge Lecture

Each Spring, Arts Orange County presents the Creative Edge Lecture to bring together the business, arts, and education communities to learn about and discuss the value of creativity in all endeavors.

Our 2018 Lecturer will be Dr. Robert Duke!

Bob Duke is the Marlene and Morton Meyerson Centennial Professor and Head of Music and Human Learning at The University of Texas at Austin, where he is University and University of Texas System Distinguished Teaching Professor, Director of the Center for Music Learning, and Clinical Professor in the Dell Medical School. For the past six years, he directed the psychology of learning program at the Colburn Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles. Dr. Duke’s research on human learning and behavior spans multiple disciplines, and his most recent work explores the refinement of procedural memories and the analysis of gaze in teacher-learner interactions. A former studio musician and public school music teacher, he has worked closely with children at-risk, both in the public schools and through the juvenile justice system. He is the author of Scribe 4 behavior analysis software, and his most recent books are Intelligent Music Teaching: Essays on the Core Principles of Effective Instruction, The Habits of Musicianship, which he co-authored with Jim Byo of Louisiana State University, and Brain Briefs, which he co-authored with Art Markman, his co-host on the public radio program and podcast Two Guys on Your Head, produced by KUT Radio in Austin.

LECTURE DESCRIPTION
Music is a fundamental form of human communication. Although many of us make music for pleasure alone in the privacy of our own homes, music experiences most often involve performers and listeners. Intelligent performers consider their musical intentions in terms of how listeners will hear and interpret the music they make, and thinking about music in this way defines expressive goals for performers at all levels of experience and expertise. The parts of our brains that create and store memories for how to do things make predictions based on our expectations and intentions and then update memories based on discrepancies between those predictions and what actually comes about when we practice and perform. We’ll discuss how the fundamental principles of procedural memory formation serve as the basis of productive, meaningful, and engaging music practice that leads to the accomplishment of expressive, artistic goals.