| 1 | Course Mechanics
Survey of Topics to be Covered
Overview of the Structure of Music
Horizontal and Vertical Dimensions. Pitch, Tone Quality/Color, Consonance, Melody, Harmony, Tonality, Organization of Voices, Rhythm, Dynamics, Expressive Timing, Tonal and Rhythmic Hierarchies | |
| 2 | Overview of Auditory Perception and the Time Sense: Pitch, Timbre, Consonance/Roughness, Loudness, Rhythm, Auditory Grouping, Event Structure
Overview of the Auditory System: Representation and Processing of Sounds in the Auditory Pathway | |
| 3 | Musical Acoustics
Sound and Vibration, Production of Sounds, Representations of Sound, Waveforms and Power Spectra, Characteristics of Musical Instruments and Human Voices, Similarities and Differences between Speech and Musical Sounds
Musical Pitch
Acoustic Correlates - Pure and Complex Tones, Acoustics of Instruments
Psychophysics - Existence Regions, JNDs, Invariances, Dominance Region, Octaves, Resolved Harmonics Harmonicity and Auditory Grouping; Relative and Absolute Pitch, Introduction to Auditory Representations | |
| 4 | Psychoacoustically-based Theories of Hearing
Theory of Auditory Filters | |
| 5 | Representation of Pitch in the Auditory System
Neurocomputational Models for Pitch
Spectral Pattern vs. Temporal Pattern Models
Licklider, Terhardt, Grossberg and Cohen, Bharucha
Equivalence Classes and Octave Relations; Neural Evidence Pros and Cons | |
| 6 | Timbre
Acoustic Correlates - Spectrum, Time-Frequency Trajectory, Amplitude Dynamics Dimensional Analysis of Timbre Perceptual Spaces (Multidimensional Scaling) Role of Timbre in Defining and Distinguishing Separate Voices, Musical Coloration Neural Correlates, Coding of Spectrum, Attack, Decay, Modulation | |
| 7 | Harmony I: Consonance, Dissonance, and Roughness
Theories: Helmholtz, Stumpf, Plomp, Terhardt
Sensory and Hedonic Aspects
Neural Correlates (Auditory Nerve, Midbrain, Cortex) | |
| 8 | Scales and Tuning Systems
History, Basic Psychophysics, Scales and Tuning Systems, Role in Music
Theory Relations between Auditory and Cultural Factors | |
| 9 | Music and the Cerebral Cortex. Overview of Functional Role of Cortex in Music Perception and Cognition.
Results of Imaging and Lesion Studies. Hemispheric Assymmetries | |
| 10 | Harmony II: Chords and Keys
Perception of Chords, Pitch Multiplicity (Parncutt, Terhardt), Higher Order Structure of Pitch Space (Shepard, Krumhansl), Fundamental Bass, Keys, Major-Minor and Resolved/Unresolved Chords, Tonality Induction, Tonal Schemas/Key Relations, Computational Models (Leman), Neural Correlates of Tonal Relations and Expectations (fMRI, ERP) | |
| 11 | Presentation and Discussion of Term Projects | Student oral presentations of term projects due |
| 12 | Melody
Perception of Note Sequences, Existence Region, Melodic Expectation, Melodic Recognition, Melodic Memory, Melodic Grouping Processes (Phrases), Neural Representation of Melody, Problem of Melodic Invariance under Transposition | |
| 13 | Rhythm I: Rhythm Perception and Production
Basic Psychophysics of Rhythm Perception and Production
Role of Rhythm in Melodic Recognition and Recall
Rhythm II: Computational Models
Oscillator Models, Clock Models, Rhythmic Hierarchies | |
| 14 | Time Perception, Event Structure, and Temporal Expectations
Auditory Spectral and Temporal Integration; Chunking of Segments
Time Perception (Fraisse, Jones)
Auditory Scene Analysis and Organization of Voices
Grouping of Sounds – Onset, Harmonicity, Rhythm
Sound Streams (Bregman, Deutsch), Polyphony
Grouping Processes and Musical Structure | |
| 15 | Music, Speech and Language: Parallels and Contrasts (Bernstein, Jackendoff) | |
| 16 | Emotion and Meaning in Music
Musical Semantics, Music and Pleasure
Music and Long-term Memory | |
| 17 | Clinical Applications of the Neuropsychology of Music | |
| 18 | Clinical Issues. Music Exposure and Hearing Loss. Music Perception and Hearing Impairment. Music Perception by Cochlear Implant Users | |
| 19 | Effects of Cortical Lesions on Music Perception and Cognition
Music Therapy: Clinical Problems and Prospects | |
| 20 | Developmental Psychology of Music
A Question of Origins: Comparative and Evolutionary Psychology of Music | Problem set due |
| 21 | Music Performance. Organization and Timing of Movement | |
| 22 | Special Topics: Absolute Pitch, Synesthesia, etc. | Student oral presentations of term projects results due |
| 23 | Student Term Project Presentations | Student oral presentations of term projects results due |
| 24 | Student Term Project Presentations (cont.) | |
| 25 | Overview and Recap of Major Themes; Other Special Topics | Final term project papers due |