Postdoctoral research fellowship in the computational analysis of gesture-vocalization interactions Full-time

Postdoctoral Research Fellowship

The project, SongGesture, aims to significantly advance knowledge on how expert vocalists use gesture in support of their performance goals. Building on recent research showing an effect of gesture on co-occurring vocalization, SongGesture will advance the theorization of gesture-vocalization relations in musical contexts by considering also the physical interactions between gesture and vocal production movements (e.g., breathing and articulation). The project looks at co-singing gesturing practices in three different vocal performance traditions: beatboxing, European art song, and karnatak vocal music from South India. The candidate is not expected to have previous experience with these musical traditions, as this is covered by other project personnel.

The successful candidate for this position is expected to investigate physical interactions between co-singing body movements (gestures) and vocalization. This will involve exploring how vocalists' gestures affect their own vocal performance (both sound produced and vocal production movements), as well as how vocalists physically adjust to achieve their performance goals when their gesturing or vocalization is manipulated. Tasks will include contributing to project theory and methods development on multimodal communication in song performance; using experimental methods that involve the manipulation of performers' gestures and/or vocalizations to examine interactions between the two; making either motion capture or multi-camera video recordings (for pose tracking) of human movement; preparing human movement data for analysis; audio feature extraction; the computational analysis of human movement, biomechanics and vocalization; and co-writing articles.

The position is available for a period of 3 years. There is a 10% component of the position that is devoted to teaching and administrative duties or other career-enhancing work. Given additional funding, the position may be extended to 4 years, with a 25% duty component. This would depend on the qualifications of the recruited candidate, the department's needs for teaching, and the centre's need for assistance.