• Royce Fellowship
Marion
Wellington

Concentration 

Independent Major in Music Cognition

Award Year 

2015
Musical Improvisation and the Brain in Jazz and Carnatic Musicians: A Cross-Cultural EEG Study

Faculty Sponsor: Monica Linden

Improvisation is the act of spontaneous musical composition; it breaks down the dichotomy between composer and performer. It allows musicians to express themselves, contributing their idiosyncratic style to the music in real time. The neuroscientific study of improvisation has become increasingly popular, from studies of jazz pianists to classical musicians and their audiences, freestyle rap artists, and non-musicians. However, the majority of these experiments are Western-centric; they focus on improvisation purely in the context of our tonal system. In order to gain understanding about improvisation from a cross-cultural lens, Marion traveled to Montreal, Canada, and Bangalore, India, and recorded brain activity of jazz musicians and Carnatic musicians playing and improvising in their respective styles. 

Marion is currently the Growth Marketing Analyst at Aurora Solar in Palo Alto, CA. She was previously the Sales and Marketing Manager at CrossWind Technologies in San Francisco, CA.