Professor presents research linking music performance to data analytics, STEM, entrepreneurship

April 21, 2017
Categories: Research Tags: College of Arts + Architecture, Research

A series of conference presentations by Associate Professor of Piano Dylan Savage demonstrates the many connections between music performance and the fields of data analytics, STEM and corporate training and entrepreneurship.

Savage’s research in the areas of biomechanics at the keyboard and entrepreneurship for musicians has long been presented in conservatory master classes and music industry publications and conferences. But in recent years, it has found audiences at national and international conventions and workshops devoted to areas as wide-ranging as architecture, business, technology and Big Data.

Recently, Savage has brought his expertise to the area of Big Data, demonstrating skills and processes that the field of data analytics shares with the study and performance of music: pattern recognition, interpretation, predictive modeling and communication/story-telling. In presentations at the 2016 Analytics for Decision Makers workshop, the 2017 Analytic Frontiers Conference, held by the Data Science Initiative at UNC Charlotte, and the upcoming AAA Carolina – Informed Decision Making workshops, he discusses topics such as:

  • How might a musician’s way of detecting and using patterns be of benefit to a data analyst?
  • How can interpretation be used to benefit the customer and how can it be misused?
  • How does performance practice in music equate to the same concept in analytics?
  • What do musicians examine in the musical score to allow them to predict?
  • What correlations exist between bringing musical notes (data) alive in compelling performance and the convincing presentation of interpreted data to customers?

A Bösendorfer Concert artist, Savage holds music degrees from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the Indiana University School of Music. He has been using music to demonstrate and teach skills, concepts and ideas to businesses and corporations since the early 1990s.

For more information, visit Savage’s website whatsmusicgottodowithit.com.