There are lots of elements involved in the design of a car. This study, which is inspired by the brief of BMW group, explores the seating unit of cars with regard to prototypical activities, such as, listening to music, working, looking outside etc. The current study proposes that these external stimuli have an effect on comfort experience and felt emotions. So, this study explores the relationship between types of music and activities typically performed by car passengers and emotion and comfort perception, through performing a within subject design empirical study. A car seat provided by BMW group was used to test the above mentioned relationships. Data was collected through a self-report questionnaire, heart rate equipment, a pressure mat and analyzed separately for each condition. Results of the study show that there is a successful emotion induction by task and music individually, and partly on task*music interaction. A comparison of congruent and non-congruent situations, i.e. high arousal music and high arousal task or low arousal music and low arousal task, showed that differences occur in subjects&rsquo / reported level of arousal. Furthermore, the results of the study indicated that comfort is related to valance factors, independent of arousal levels. Lastly, physiological measurements showed that only task has a significant effect on heart rate, implicating for the complexity of linking physiological data to emotion and comfort.

The purpose of this degree project is to describe and analyze how pre-school teacher´s didactically arrange different music activities in the work. To gain understanding and the importance of music didactics in preschool. The study was conducted using qualitative interviews through phenomenographical methodology in which six preschool teachers were interviewed. The theoretical background is based on music didactics, musicking and variation theory. The music activities in preschool rarely follow any form of didactic planning, focus is usually on another subject area, mostly language and the subject of music end on second place. There is a vision that the music subject should end in the first place, and that it requires a greater commitment and prioritization of time from the preschool teachers. The dreams and visions that exist for the music activities are about having access to a room like a studio where material in different forms of musical instruments is available. Another dream among preschool teachers is to gain more competence development and inspiration. Another vision is that the children should be challenged more and have the opportunity to explore the music subject further. Preschool teachers have different deductions for different subjects and usually it is in the staff that has the most musical skills that are responsible for the music activities. / Syftet med detta examensarbete är att beskriva och kartlägga hur pedagogerna didaktiskt tänker kring olika musikaktiviteter i verksamheten. För att åka förståelse och betydelsen kring musikdidaktiken i förskolan. Undersökningen genomfördes med hjälp av kvalitativa intervjuer genom fenomenografisk metodansats där sex stycken förskollärare intervjuades. Den teoretiska bakgrunden utgår ifrån musikdidaktik, musicking och variationsteorin.Undersökningens resultat visar att musikaktiviteterna i förskolan sällan följer någon form av didaktisk planering då fokus vanligen är på ett annat ämnesområde som mestadels är språk och musikämnet hamnar i andra hand. Det finns en vision om att musikämnet ska hamna i första hand och att det då krävs ett större engagemang och prioritering av tid hos förskollärarna. De drömmar och visioner som finns för musikaktiviteterna handlar om att ha tillgång till ett rum likt en studio där material i olika former utav musikinstrument finns tillgängligt. En annan dröm hos förskollärarna är att få mer kompetensutbildning och inspiration. En vision som finns är att barnen ska utmanas mer och få chans att utforska musikämnet vidare. Förskollärarna har olika engagemang för olika ämnesområden och vanligen är det den i personalstyrkan som har mest musikalisk kompetens som får ansvaret för musikaktiviteterna.

The aim of this study was to explore how musicking (a term denoting any music related activity, see Small 1998, p. 9) could be used locally to support people with dementia and their caregivers in a sustainable manner. The data for the study came primarily from a group known as “Song Birds”, a community-based volunteer music group working with people with dementia and their caregivers in the south of England. Participant observation was combined with interviews and an extensive ethnographic study of the music and care world surrounding the group. The data was explored using a grounded theory approach investigating three time phases, “preparation for the events”, “during the events” and “in-between and after the events”. The main findings related to the lay crafting of the events and the emergence of pathways between “music and care nodes” in a local, social network. The preparatory physical and social crafting of Song Birds events created a transitional time and place that guided the participants from everyday life into their collective musicking. This crafting was essential to the success of the musicking and produced inclusive activities that considered the different capabilities of all participants. As a result of these carefully crafted events, dementia identities were temporarily displaced and relationships were transformed. The musical repertoire was an important resource in this crafting and evolved according to the participants’ changing situations. The positive musical benefits and affordances (see DeNora 2000) from such weekly events could be transferred into participants’ everyday lives through multiple music and care groups and the pathways that connected those groups which constituted a “music and care world”. Such musically fostered networks helped generate a virtuous cycle that maintained the music group as a sustainable activity. As dementia care was a long-term activity, such sustainability was important to the on-going community support for people affected by dementia. Community musicking thus allowed people affected by dementia, their relatives and friends to remain together.

The thesis deals with the support and development of the music activities for preschool children at kindergarten. Its aim is to build a complete preview showing the current concept of the music class at kindergarten and the positive music influence on the whole individual in the field of physics, psychics and sociality. On the one hand, it calls attention to the risky and inconvenient pedagogical methods in relation to children and their talents in general and on the other hand, it shows the way of creating a positive music relationship for the future living.