Dr. Christine Beckett, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Music

Status: Coordinator BFA Major in Music, Minor in Music, liaison to Music Therapy

Research areas: auditory perception & cognition, ear training, sight singing, dictation, multi-part structures, musical notation, music reading/dyslexia, music education, memory, creativity, emotions, improvisation, traditional musics

Contact information

Email:

christine.beckett@concordia.ca

Availability:

Office hours by appointment, please email me.

Websites:

BRAMS
Publications with Christine Beckett
ZLab - Scroll down to Past and Present Collaborators

Biography

Dr. Christine Beckett studied music education, composition, piano and viola at the University of Toronto. She then did a viola performance diploma, and completed graduate studies in research on ear training pedagogy at McGill (Ph.D. 1993). Christine has performed as pianist and string player in many musical genres in various solo, chamber, and large ensemble contexts in North America and Europe. She continues to put her playing skills to community service.

Dr. Beckett's research is in the field of music perception and cognition, and other matters, with studies on: aspects of ear training; pedagogy; music reading/dyslexia; music and emotion; cross-arts studies such as creative strategies of musicians and dancers; oral heritages such as Irish & Icelandic traditional musics; absolute pitch; etc.

Dr. Beckett is a charter Full Faculty member of the International Laboratory for Brain, Music, and Sound, BRAMS lab (www.brams.org). She organizes Concordia' Music Research Talks Series which includes an annual BRAMS Distinguished Lecture. She organized the SMPC 2007 conference at Concordia; and co-organized with Prof Eldad Tsabary the Montreal hub of ICMPC / ESCOM 2018. This event, once every 6 years, is a leading international conference on music perception and cognition. Dr Beckett is an Associate Editor for the journal Psychomusicology: Music, Mind, & Brain (PMMB)

Prof. Beckett's teaching at Concordia includes the Music Capstone course, ear training at all levels, keyboard skills, theory, survey of music research, history (Women in Music), independent studies, and special projects, as well as individual supervision, graduate and undergraduate. Dr. Beckett has taught at McGill, at l'Université de Sherbrooke, at CEGEP level, at Suzuki institutes, and in private studio.

Prof. Beckett enjoys organizing university events such as conferences, concerts, the Welcome for first year students, Open House, and Portfolio Day. She was Acting Chair of the Music Department from 2011 - 2013.

Publications

Selected publications

2021 -- Monograph in progress on teaching ear training

2020 Tsabary, E., Savage, D., et al. Inner Ear: A Tool for Individualizing Sound-Focused Aural Skill Acquisition. Journal of Music, Technology, & Education. Also presented as a paper at 2019 AERA annual meeting, Toronto.

2019 Cruz de Menezes, R., Moreno Sala, M.T., & Beckett, C. L'utilisation et l'efficacité des stratégies lors de la résolution de dictées de basses chiffrées. 6e JIRPP, UQAM, July.

2018 Beckett, C. 5:4 -- Five in the Time of Four. Talk for IdeaLab series, Concordia, Nov. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhH0gowhMdI 5:30 – 9:55

2018 Beckett, C. Report from ICMPC15/ESCOM10. Talk at Music Research Talks series, Concordia, Oct.

2017 Beckett, C. Teaching ear training. Talk at Music Research Talks series, Concordia, Nov.

2017 Beckett, C. Icelandic Song, Singers, & Singing Societies. Talk for IdeaLab series, Concordia,Mar.

2017 Beckett, C. How the heck can we hear two things at once? Talk at Music Research Talks series, Concordia, Mar.

2016 Pelletier, S., & Beckett, C. Towards a Working Definition of Virtuosity. Poster at the conference Virtuosity: An Interdisciplinary Symposium of the Liszt Academy & ESCOM. Budapest, March.

2015 Beckett, C. Child prodigies: born or made? U of Ottawa/BRAMS joint conference, round-table participant on "The role of talent & training."

2015 Other talks on counterpoint; on neural impacts of MT interventions (to the music therapy grad students); and on "Musical Iceland"; at various venues.

2014 Beckett, C Circle of Fifths. Article in Music in the Social & Behavioural Sciences. Thompson WF & Golson JG Eds Sage Reference Publications.

2012 Beckett, C Variety of Irish lace, and tatting. Lecture demonstration with curatorial display, for Concordia Fibres program. Montreal, Mar 15.

2011 Beckett, C. Human perception of Irish jigs: Two pioneering studies. Inaugural lecture of Concordia Department of Music's "Research Talks" series, Montreal, Oct. 6.

2011 Beckett, C. Auditory parsing of Irish jigs: The role of listener experience. Talk at the SMPC Conference, Eastman School of Music, NY, USA, Aug.

2011 Beckett, C. Music is Spatiotemporal. Oral presentation to the Institute of Musical Research, University of London, Senate House UCL, London, England, May.

2011 Beckett, C. Music perception research meets Irish traditional music. Talk to the Graduate Symposium, Centre for Irish Studies, NUI-Galway, April 6.

2011 Beckett, C. Dancers and Musicians Improvising Together. Paper at Dance & Music: Moving Dialogues conference, McGill, Montreal, Feb.

2010 Beckett, C. & D. Eck. The 37th Jig. Poster presented at the 11th International Conference for Music Perception & Cognition (ICMPC11), University of Washington, Seattle USA, Aug 23 - 27.

2010 Beckett, C. Body Music: When Dancing Drums. Poster presented at the 11th International Conference for Music Perception & Cognition (ICMPC11), University of Washington, Seattle USA, August 23 - 27.

2010 Beckett, C. Music Perception & Cognition Research: Basics & Recent Advances in Clinical Applications. Talk to Concordia Music Therapy graduate students, class of Prof G. Vaillancourt, Feb.

2009 Beckett, C. Perception and cognition research on traditional music: Where are the Irish? Concordia; internal working paper

2009 Beckett, C. Temporal stability in rhythmic continuations by drummers and dancers. Oral presentation at the SMPC 2009 conference, IUPUI, Indianapolis, Aug 4.

2009 Beckett, C. Serial Technique in Improvisations by Drummers and Dancers. Poster at the 2009 BRAMS Annual Scientific Day, Loyola campus of Concordia University, Dr. V. Penhune (Concordia, Psychology) organizer. Montreal, May.

2009 Beckett, C. Continuations from Opening Gestures in Rhythm and Dance. Oral presentation at The Musical Body conference, University College London, Senate House, England, April.

2008 Hemispheric Harmonies. A talk at Concordia Vanier Library, Loyola campus, on music, brain and mind. Oct 28. Audio and video files online at:
http://library.concordia.ca/about/events/?guid=past2008

2008 Hébert, S., Béland, R., Beckett, C., Cuddy, L., Peretz, I. & Wolforth, J. A case study of music and text dyslexia. Music Perception, 25(4), 369-381.

2008 Madell, Hebert, McNabney & Beckett. Eye-motion tracking in Music Reading. Poster presented at the Neuroscience of Music III conference, McGill, Montreal, June 28.

2007 Beckett, C., & Hall, M.D. (Eds.) SMPC 2007 Conference Program Book. Montreal, July.

2007 Beckett, C. Does memory skill predict ear training ability? Oral presentation at the SMPC 2007 conference, Jul 30 - Aug 3, Concordia University, Montreal, Aug. 1.

2007 Beckett, C. Warm-ups for Two-part Melodic Dictation? Poster presented at the 8th conference of the Society for Music Perception & Cognition (SMPC 2007). Concordia University, Montreal, QC, Canada. August 2.

2007 Beckett, C. Harmonic Imagery Evoked by Implicative Melodic Intervals. Poster presented at the 8th conference of the Society for Music Perception & Cognition (SMPC 2007). Concordia University, Montreal, QC, Canada. Aug 1.

2006 Beckett, C.A. What Research Tells Singers: Haystacks, hens' teeth, and the hunt for connection. Powerpoint presentation to 1st Vocal Summit Invitational, organized by Prof. Jeri Brown. Concordia University, Montreal, QC, Canada, Oct. 19.

2006 Hebert, S., L. Cuddy, C. Beckett & I. Peretz. Music reading deficiencies and the brain. Oral presentation at the ICMPC9, Bologna, Italy, Aug.

2006 Gagnon, M., S. Hebert, C. Beckett, I. Peretz. La lecture musicale chez les musicians du haut niveau. 15th Scientific Day of GRENEC (Groupe de recherché en neuropsychologie expérimentale et cognition), QC, April.

2005 Beckett, C. Book review of: Williamon, A., Ed. Musical Excellence: Strategies and Techniques to Enhance Performance. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. In Music Perception, L. Cuddy, Ed., 23(1), Sept., 101-02.

2005 Gosselin, N., I. Peretz, M. Noulhiane, D. Hasboun, C. Beckett, M. Baulac, & S. Samson. Impaired recognition of scary music following unilateral temporal lobe excision. Brain, 128, 628-640.

2004 Beckett, C. Tonic triads drive implicative minor third. Poster at the First Research Workshop Day on Brain, Music, & Sound, BRAMS. MNI, Montreal, June.

1998 Zatorre, R. J., D. Perry, C.A. Beckett, et al. Functional anatomy of musical processing in listeners with absolute pitch and relative pitch. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. 95, 3172-3177, March, Neurobiology.

1997 Beckett, C. A. Directing student attention during two-part dictation. Journal of Research in Music Education (JRME). 45(4), 613-625, Winter.

1993 Beckett, C. A. Integration of musical languages in the ear training class. Actes du Colloque: Orientations et implications du nouveau programme de musique au collegial, 5-14. Claude Parenteau (Ed.) Trois-Rivières, Quebec, Canada, June.

1989 Zatorre, R. J., & C. A. Beckett. Multiple coding strategies in the retention of musical tones by possessors of absolute pitch. Memory and Cognition. 17(5), 582-589.

Participation activities

Selected presentations

Artistic performances

With the Studio de Musique Ancienne de Montréal

European tours in the 1980s, concerts, videos and recordings in Canada

With the Bug Alley Band, Karen Young et al

Album, "Bug Alley!" Recording engineer Mike Pinsonneault

With L'orchestre Sympathique de Montréal, Jean Vanasse et al

CBC performance live to air from Salle Claude Champagne

With soprano soloist Irene Feher

Performances of Schubert's "An die Musik" for BRAMS 10th anniversary conference at the Université de Montréal, as well as at the Memorial for former Concordia Dean of Fine Arts Prof. Christopher Jackson at Concordia's Oscar Peterson Concert Hall

With the Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montréal

Sectional player on various occasions: with Rostropovitch at Festival de Lanaudière (Dvorak Cello Concerto); Canada Day celebrations in Ottawa on Parliament Hill; etc

With the Montreal Chamber Orchestra

Violist in section, Montreal performances

Free-lance violist

With many varied ensembles and choirs in Montreal, Trois-Rivières, Drummondville, Sherbrooke, etc., throughout QC; much wedding-circuit work.

Piano & guitar/singer-songwriter Community Service volunteering

In community settings (seniors' residences, long-term care homes, etc.) in Montreal, Toronto, Port Hope ON, and elsewhere