Music and Mind

This course explores research in the mind and brain sciences that helps us to understand how we understand music. Although a portion of the material we cover will relate quite directly to what happens when we listen to music, other readings and topics will concern some of the more-general cognitive capacities that humans recruit to make sense of the sounds they hear. One challenge, then, will be to come to terms with what we have learned from research in music psychology and music cognition, which often involves relatively technical explorations of how musical sounds are organized. A second challenge will be to consider what research that isn’t as directly related to music—research, for instance, on analogical processes, the motor system, or gesture—can tell us about how we organize our understanding of the sounds we associate with music. The class is organized around selected readings—spanning both empirical research and more speculative work—that will provide a basis for class discussions, lectures, and brief writing assignments. There will also be ample opportunity to explore how these readings inform our understanding of specific musical pieces, which can help us to both understand and critique a range of approaches to music and mind.