Music Sound

Music cognition is an interdisciplinary field involving such disparate areas as cognitive science, music theory, psychology, musicology, neuroscience, computer science, philosophy, etc. The field aspires to account for the underlying mental processes that occur when people listen to music or perform music.

Contents 1 Overview 2 Accessibility 3 References 3.1 Introductory Reading 3.2 Intermediate Reading 3.3 Journal Articles 4 External links

Overview

Music cognition clearly came to be recognized as a discipline in the early 1980's, with the creation of the Society for Music Perception and Cognition and the journal Music Perception. The field of music cognition focuses on how the mind makes sense of music as it is heard. It also deals with the related question of the cognitive processes involved when musicians perform music. Topics in the field include (but are not limited to):

• A listener's perception of grouping structure (motives, phrases, sections, etc.)
• Rhythm and meter (perception and production)
• Key inference
• Expectation (including melodic expectation).
• Musical similarity
• Emotional response
• Expressive, musical performance

Accessibility

Pieces of music and other works of art are commonly judged on their accessibility, with some feeling that less-accessible works are superior and some considering them inferior. For instance, serial music is often valued by its creators and others for its high concentration of information while being criticized by Fred Lerdahl and others for being literally unintelligible.

References

Introductory Reading

• Day, Kingsley (October 21, 2004). "Music and the Mind: Turning the Cognition Key". Observer online.
• Jourdain, Robert (1997). Music, the Brain, and Ecstasy: How Music Captures Our Imagination. New York: William Morrow and Company. ISBN 0-688-14236-2.

Intermediate Reading

• Dowling, W. Jay and Harwood, Dane L. (1986) Music Cognition. San Diego: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-221430-7.
• Sloboda, John A. (1985) The Musical Mind: The Cognitive Psychology of Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-852128-6.

Journal Articles

• Cross, Ian (1998). "Music Analysis and Music Perception." Music Analysis 17(1).
• Honing, H. (2002). "Structure and interpretation of rhythm and timing." Tijdschrift voor Muziektheorie [Dutch Journal of Music Theory] 7(3): 227-232.

External links

• Research group specializing in rhythm, timing, and tempo, University of Amsterdam
• Society for Music Perception and Cognition (SMPC)
• Music Cognition at Northwestern University
• Music Cognition at the Ohio State University
• Music Cognition Group at University of Amsterdam
• Centre for Music and Science at University of Cambridge
• Music, Mind and Technology (MMT) at University of Jyväskylä (Finland)
• The Music Cognition Group of the Society for Music Theory (SMT)