Martin Norgaard
Professor Music Education, Strings School of Music- Specializations
Music Education: Instrumental - Strings
Cognitive Processes Underlying Improvisation
- Biography
What happens in the brain when we play composed and improvised music? Why does music appear to have a positive effect on learning and how can music help people with various challenges related to mental health? These and many other related questions are the focus of my lab at GSU, the Music Cognition and Creativity Lab.
Martin Norgaard is Professor of Music Education and Director of the Music Cognition and Creativity Lab at Georgia State University in Atlanta. He collaborates with faculty in occupational therapy, neuroscience, psychology, anthropology, mathematics, and computer science to investigate the cognitive processes underlying improvisation and related therapeutic applications. His research appears in the Journal of Research in Music Education, The International Journal of Music Education, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Cognition, Scientific Reports, Brain Sciences, Brain Connectivity, and the interdisciplinary journal Music Perception among others.
Dr. Norgaard is the author of ten jazz string method books for Mel Bay Publications including Jazz Fiddle Wizard and Jazz Fiddle/Viola/Cello Wizard Junior and the composer of several string orchestra pieces. Dr. Norgaard is a frequent clinician at state, national, and international conventions such as The ISME World Conference on Music Education, NeuroMusic, The Midwest Clinic, NAfME, ASTA, GMEA, and TMEA among others.
Born and raised in Denmark, Norgaard moved to the United States to study jazz performance at William Paterson University, and Queens College in New York, where his instructors included Rufus Reid, Hal Galper, Jimmy Heath and others. He then moved to Nashville where taught jazz and commercial strings at Belmont University and Vanderbilt University. There he directed the Belmont Jazz String Quartet and Jazz String Septet, which were featured at the International Association for Jazz Education 2001 conference, MENC 2002 and ASTA 2003. Prior to his appointment at Georgia State University, Dr. Norgaard received a PhD in music and human learning from The University of Texas at Austin where he studied with Robert Duke and Laurie Scott.
Dr Norgaard’s research papers are listed here