The Field of Music Cognition

What is Music Cognition?

A field of inquiry can often be conveniently described by listing some of the questions its practitioners hope to answer. The following questions are ones that help to shape the field of music cognition.

Some of the following questions already have answers -- although most of these answers are provisional or incomplete. Some of the questions will not be resolved in the foreseeable future; some questions are in principle unanswerable. Moreover, some of the questions are undoubtedly malformed and wrong-headed.

A list of recommended reading is available for those wanting to learn more about music cognition.

Some questions that motivate music cognition researchers:

• Musical Origins and Musical Character
• Musical Skill and Musical Intelligence
• Musical Pleasure and Preference
• Musical Development
• Musical Organization
• Music and Memory
• Music and Emotion
• Music Performance and Improvisation
• Music's Influences
• Music, Brain and Body
• Music, Environment and Culture
• Modeling Music Cognition

Musical Origins and Musical Character

• Why do people make music?
• Does music-making contribute to human survival in some way?
• How old is music-making?
• How did human music-making originate?
• Why doesn't every culture in the world have similar music?
• Are animals capable of appreciating or "understanding" human music?

Musical Skill and Musical Intelligence

• Why are some people more musical than others?
• What are the elements of musical ability?
• Is musical "intelligence" independent of general intelligence?
• Can musical talent be identified or measured?
• Can we predict which children are likely to be most musically gifted?
• Why are some people "tone-deaf"?
• Can something be done to help tone-deaf people become more musical?
• Why do only some people have "perfect pitch"?
• Can perfect pitch be learned?
• Is musical ability inherited?
• How is it that some people can "hear" what's written in a score without any sound?
• How do composers know what to write?

Musical Pleasure and Preference

• How does music give pleasure?
• Why does the sound of fingernails scratching a blackboard sound so bad?
• What makes some sonorities or chords sound pleasant?
• Why do our musical preferences sometimes change over time?
• Why do people disagree about musical likes and dislikes?
• Are musical preferences related to personality?
• Does everyone "hear" music the same way?
• Why can't we enjoy listening to two pieces of music at the same time?
• Why do we need so much music and so much musical variety -- why don't we limit our listening to just the dozen best works?
• Why are some people more enthusiastic about music than others?
• Does music always have to involve sounds?
• Can deaf people learn to appreciate music (say) by reading a score?
• Why do most people prefer tonal music to atonal music?

Musical Development

• How does our musical "hearing" change as we grow up and grow old?
• Do children experience music the same way adults do?
• Does musical understanding depend on early exposure?
• Does playing music to an unborn fetus have any value?
• How does musical development relate to physical developments such as increases in motor coordination?
• With training, how might we listen differently?
• Are there certain life experiences (such as ecstasy or grief) that contribute to a person's understanding of music?

Musical Organization

• Is music somehow similar to speech or language?
• Why are melody and rhythm so important in music?
• Why do some chord progressions sound better than others?
• Are some scales "better" than others?
• What is tonality?
• What is the origin of various compositional rules, such as the rules of "voice-leading"?
• What makes something "musical"?

Music and Memory

• Why do some melodies get stuck in your head?
• Why don't all melodies get stuck in your head?
• How are musical memories stored in the brain?
• Why can't we recall everything we've ever heard?
• Can our memory for music be improved?
• How does repeated listening to a work change our experience of it?
• How important is memory for appreciating a musical work?
• How are we able to identify different instruments by their sounds?

Music and Emotion

• How does music evoke emotions?
• Are there some emotions that cannot be evoked by music -- such as shame or envy?
• Why does some music make us nostalgic?
• Why do people willingly listen to music that makes them sad?
• What makes us hate some songs?

Music Performance and Improvisation

• Why does rubato exist -- why isn't music played strictly according to the notated timing?
• What makes some interpretations of a work sound better than others?
• Why do musicians have to practice so much?
• Is there a better way to practice?
• What is the best way to teach performers?
• Why do some performers suffer from stage fright?
• Is there anything that can be done to lessen or avoid stage fright?
• How are groups of performers able to coordinate their activities?
• How is it that some people are able to improvise music?
• How do groups of improvising musicians work together?

Music's Influences

• Can music "heal" people?
• Can music somehow corrupt or enhance moral behavior?
• Is background music bad for you?
• Can a person listen to too much music?
• Can listening to music make you smarter?
• Does the complete absence of music have a detrimental effect on people?
• Why does some music make people want to dance?
• Why doesn't music make people want to cook or work in the garden?
• Why is it easy to drive a car and listen to music at the same time, yet it is often difficult to read a book and listen to music?
• Why is some music more distracting than others?
• Is music a spiritual phenomenon?

Music, Brain and Body

• How is music, or aspects of music (such as pitch or timbre) represented in the brain?
• Does our personal physiology affect our experience of music?
• How does illness or physiological abnormality influence musical experience?
• What happens when you "imagine" music?
• Are there musical hallucinations?
• Can drugs enhance musical pleasure?
• Can drugs take away musical pleasure? If so, why?
• Does music "happen" in a particular part of the brain?
• Are there brain structures specialized for just music?
• Do women and men experience music differently?

Music, Environment and Culture

• Can we hear/understand the music of another culture in the same way as people from that culture do?
• How do children become enculturated to a particular music?
• Why do cultures or styles change?
• How does the specific history of a culture influence future musical developments?
• Does a music tell us something about the people who make it?
• What role does music play in culture generally?
• Can one musical culture ever be regarded as superior to another culture?
• How do musical cultures interact, influence or interfere with each other?
• Are there different ways of "listening"?
• With training or effort, how differently might we be able to hear music?
• What is the relationship between music and the other arts?
• Are there limits to what music could be?

Modeling Music Cognition

• How can we model musical experience?
• How can we model musical thinking?
• What are the implications of connectionism for musical modeling?
• Can connectionism properly model time-dependent sequential mental processes?