THE MUSICIAN-INSTRUMENT RELATIONSHIP
This project started out as my MA thesis in Philosophy and is the basis of all my further work. Here I investigate why, how, and when musicians experience their instrument as a part of themselves.
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Keywords: ecological philosophy, activity theory, flow and presence, active inference, phenomenl self-model
My work on the musician-instrument relationship is continuously developing.
It started with a thesis in philosophy (Ghent University, 2008), in which I used ecological philosophy, activity theory and flow/presence theory (Nijs et al. 2013).
Next, I integrated Thomas Metzinger's levels of embodiment (Nijs, 2017).
In a following phase, I focused less on the musician-relationship but elaborated on its context: music performance, and on creativity. Here, I integrated dynamical systems theory (Nijs et al., 2023; Nijs et al., 2023).
In addition, in collaboration with my PhD student Laura Serra Marin, we reviewed literature (scoping review) on multimodal measurement of music performance skill acquisition in connection to Metzinger's embodiment levels (Serra, Nijs et al., 2026).
Currently, I am working on the integration of Karl Friston's framework on active inference and free energy, in combination with Metzinger's Phenomenal Self model, to further develop my theory on the musician-instrument relationship.