Tucked away in the winding white corridors behind the Sydney Conservatorium of Music’s Music Workshop is the Sydney Music, Mind and Body Lab.

Under a figurative microscope – and a literal thermal imaging camera clicking away gently in the corner – the Lab investigates a wide range of topics relating to music and higher-order cognition: the relationship between music and memory; how music shapes emotional responses, imagination and performance anxiety; and the physical health of musicians – a major consideration for athletes but still woefully overlooked in the arts.

Steffen Herff. Photo © Stefanie Zingsheim/University of Sydney

“In sports, there are people going to great lengths to understand the limits of their body, but with musicians, there’s very little of that,” the Workshop’s Dr Steffen Herff tells Limelight. “There’s no ‘okay, this is where I’ll practise at 30 percent effort’. Usually, you just get a call and then for four days you’re binging [on practice] as hard as you can, and then there’s another call. It’s these bursts all the time, which is not sustainable at all.”

Awarded a Sydney Horizon Research Fellowship in...