/r/musiccognition

Photograph via snooOG

Discussion, news, events, and recent findings regarding the scientific and empirical probings of musical experience.

A subreddit dedicated to scientific and empirical approaches to music cognition and perception. As a highly interdisciplinary field, we promote music research in the domains of psychology, cognitive science, neuroscience, computer science, linguistics, speech and hearing science, music theory, musicology, and more.


SMPC Music Cognition Resources

Books and Reading on Music Cognition 1 2

Events and Conferences


Related Subreddits

Music Theory | Musicology | Ethnomusicology | Music Education


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/r/musiccognition

8,783 Subscribers

2

A survey about sheet music for research purpose

Hello! I would really appreciate if you could answer this short survey about finding sheet notes!(:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScq24h6y16Kp8LPA5ylkXAmaGfMWAgZcvc_CJ-pGpfNRHuShw/viewform?usp=sf_link

thank you!

0 Comments
2023/09/03
18:46 UTC

0

IamPolar “My Side” ft. Austin Luxurious (Official Music Video)

0 Comments
2023/08/08
01:53 UTC

3

TuneTwins: A fun experiment that tests your memory for music! [REPOST]

0 Comments
2023/07/28
12:05 UTC

3

TuneTwins, a game that tests your memory for music! (Everyone, English-speaking)

0 Comments
2023/07/05
14:05 UTC

6

Expanding perception of pitch by vibrating body

Are there any ways to expand perception of pitch by setting up some kind of apparatus that vibrates the sternum, chest, or anus at the same frequency as the note that is being perceived by the inner ear, in order to create additional sensory associations and expand the body's ability to learn proper pitch via a sort of vibrational synesthesia?

6 Comments
2023/06/28
05:03 UTC

3

Online survey about moving to music - participants needed

At Aarhus University in Denmark, we are investigating how different types of music make us feel and want to move. It would be great if you could help us by participating in an online survey. Your task in this 12-15 minute anonymous survey will be to listen to several short music clips and to rate them. The ratings are based on your subjective experience and will be explained in detail later. There are no right or wrong answers.

Link to the survey: https://www.soscisurvey.de/rhg_M/

We will also ask for information about your gender, age, nationality, personality traits, and musical training. At no point will we ask you for identifying information such as your name or email address.

Thank you!

2 Comments
2023/06/27
09:21 UTC

3

Music Speaks | Melanie DeVore | TEDxGeorgiaCollege Want your voice to be heard in the public square? Put your words to music and teach your people to sing. Music was, and should be, part of our lives, our public squares, and a means of uniting our nation with a common emotional reality

0 Comments
2023/06/24
22:40 UTC

2

Another (slightly surprising) 'affect-prescribed' composition. Please visit tonamic.com for more information, and subscribe to our YouTube channel to support the project, many thanks!

0 Comments
2023/06/20
16:52 UTC

2

Looking for research subjects for a study on emotional responses to sound!- Volunteer at UNLV

Want to participate in science? At the UNLV Music Lab (Principal Investigator: Erin Hannon) we study how different people respond to music, language, and the many sounds in the world. We are currently recruiting for a research study in which we will ask you questions about which sounds you like and dislike, your musical experiences and habits, and your general auditory experiences, and you will do some short listening tests. The study should take 60 minutes. If you would like to take the survey click HERE. For more information about the study email questions to UNLVmusiclab@gmail.com or call us 702-895-2995.

0 Comments
2023/05/04
18:49 UTC

5

Looking for research subjects for a study on emotional responses to sound!- Volunteer at UNLV

Do you experience musical chills? Do certain sounds really bother you? If so, we want to study you! The UNLV Music Lab (Principal Investigator: Erin Hannon) is conducting a new study about misophonia, ASMR, musicality and emotional responses to meaningful sounds. We are currently recruiting for a research study in which we will ask you questions about which sounds you like and dislike, your musical experiences and habits, and your general auditory experiences, and you will do some short listening tests. The study should take 60 minutes. If you would like to take the survey click HERE. For more information about the study email questions to UNLVmusiclab@gmail.com or call us 702-895-2995.

0 Comments
2023/03/16
19:20 UTC

1

Online study of The Soul and Music

*Research survey - posted here to collect valuable diverse perspectives and contributions*

What is the soul and is it linked to creativity? Specifically, how did soul music come to be named after the philosophical concept?

If you have a moment to help with postgraduate research by completing this survey, I’d be most grateful: https://docs.google.com/forms/de1FAIpQLSfvpI6Qf7wHmM39RYg__jcoHOW4TZHf4hOLYvMJEImWtjmeHg/viewform?usp=sf_link

Or feel free to comment on this thread!

3 Comments
2023/03/11
16:58 UTC

7

The influence of music artists' popularity on loyalty towards them (everyone)- i need 400 answers!

Hi everyone, i hope you're well! I'm finishing my master in Marketing and i'm currently developing my master thesis . It aims to understand what is the influence of the popularity of music artists on the listeners' loyalty towards them. I would really appreciate if you could answer this questionnaire to help me in my studies! i need 400 answers, which is a lot so if you could spend 5 mins of your time to complete this, i would be really grateful! thank you very much! https://iscteiul.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bHJnyVgXCPCvJPw

0 Comments
2023/03/08
15:02 UTC

4

PARTICIPANTS NEEDED: Online Studies of Music Perception and Emotion

Study link: https://unlv.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_8B208FTcrCIM7HL

Advertisement for Community Members

Title: Online Studies of Music Perception and Emotion

The purpose of this research study is to examine the extent to which perceptual music skills and self-ratings of emotional reactions to sounds contribute to how we listen and enjoy music. The study is open to those that are 18 years of age or older. We invite all participants that meet these criteria; however, participants must have a firm grasp of the English language as they will be answering questions presented to them in English. Additional exclusionary criteria include: (1) cognitive or brain deficits due to past traumatic brain injury; (2) neurological disorder or disease (e.g., schizophrenia); (3) inability to provide informed consent; (4) uncorrected visual impairment; and (5) history of hearing impairment.

In this research study, you will be asked to do the following:

  1. Answer a series of background question, including some medical questions

  2. Complete tasks assessing musical skills and general auditory processing

  3. Answer a series of questions about your emotional reactions to sounds

  4. Listen and rate music

The entire testing session will last up to 1.5 hours. If you have any questions regarding your participation in this study, please contact the Principal Investigator, Dr. Joel Snyder at joel.snyder@unlv.edu.

Thank you!

3 Comments
2023/02/25
23:06 UTC

5

Looking for research subjects for a study on emotional responses to sound!- Volunteer at UNLV

Want to participate in science? At the UNLV Music Lab (Principal Investigator: Erin Hannon) we study how different people respond to music, language, and the many sounds in the world. We are currently recruiting for a research study in which we will ask you questions about which sounds you like and dislike, your musical experiences and habits, and your general auditory experiences, and you will do some short listening tests. The study should take 60 minutes. If you would like to take the survey click HERE. For more information about the study email questions to UNLVmusiclab@gmail.com or call us 702-895-2995.

1 Comment
2023/02/09
23:52 UTC

6

Survey into algorithms in music streaming sites and social media and their impact on listening habits.

Hello Reddit,

Im conducting a survey regarding algorithms used on music streaming sites and social media to see how effective they are in changing listening habits.

if you've got a couple minutes spare It would really help me out.

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/Q35SY38

1 Comment
2023/02/09
14:07 UTC

3

Need suggestions for DAW to use to produce chord progressions for harmonic priming research

I'm a grad students a currently working on a few research projects involving harmonic priming in which participants will have to make speeded judgements of whether or not a chord is consonant/dissonant. I need to be able to make chord progressions where I can control the velocity of each individual pitch as well as make microtonal adjustments to specific chord members in order to detune them by 3/8 of a semitone. I have purchased a MIDI keyboard, but I am not a piano player, so it would be helpful if I could use a DAW which did not require me to enter pitches in real time. The research I am replicating was done in the 80s and 90s and the stimuli was produced on now-defunct technology, so the method section is no help here. Do any of the other researchers have DAWs you recommend that you typically use to create stimuli?

1 Comment
2022/12/19
02:14 UTC

15

Why do we spend so much time of the day listening to music?

I mean, beyond the social conditions that make this phenomenon happen, the question is aimed at trying to understand why music is so necessary to us in our lives. And the latter, is it a good thing or a bad thing?

11 Comments
2022/12/11
13:11 UTC

6

Is this the sub on Reddit for people who are attempting to come up with a theory of music based on cognitive principles?

My current understanding is that music operates on 3 levels, which are: 1) Sonic presentation - what is presented acoustically, 2) Aural perception - what the mind instantly hears, and 3) Cognition - how the mind organizes what has been heard.

My believe that a final music theory has not been found is tied up in the fact that understanding how the human mind works is a very hard problem.

And AFAICT, what is commonly referred to as "music theory", are cookbooks of recipes for how to go about making music of particular genres.

The issues I'm primarily interested in figuring out are mostly related to the cognition of tonal music. For example:

What is fundamentally required to establish a tonal center? (I don't think the answer is chord progressions.)

When music has ambiguous tonal centers, does our cognition, depend on what we choose to focus our attention on? (I think the answer is yes.)

When listening, do we have any control over when the tonal center changes, ie, we hear a modulation. (I think the answer may be yes).

I'm also interested in the cognition of chords in tonally centered music.

Is Reddit the best place to engage in such discussions and if so, which sub?

5 Comments
2022/11/29
13:09 UTC

12

Feel like participating in a 10' scientific listening experiment?

You are invited to participate in a scientific experiment that compares the auditory perception of humans & songbirds (zebra finches). You will be asked to complete an acoustic task that takes ca. 10 minutes. Can you do as well, or even better than a songbird? The online experiment can be found at https://www.mcg.uva.nl/humansvszebrafinches/. Results will be shared via the same link later this Winter.

Male zebra finch

8 Comments
2022/11/26
14:36 UTC

9

Incredibly specific feeling for singers that have been producing music for decades

This might as well get lost on an ocean of posts but I'll try to ask this anyways, it mainly happens with full band music so guitars, bass, drums and of course voice, mostly rock but it can applied to others genres too like jazz, some pop and metal too.

This phenomenon/feeling only occurs to me when the artist in question has albums with at least a decade or more years between them.

When you listen to the best songs from the earlier albums, the voice feels like is singing fluidly and you feel like there's this young person spewing great stuff super naturally, pardon me for the term i'm about to use but I can imagine the singer almost autistically looking at a empty wall without any expression on their faces and just letting the words and the tone of their words flow uninterrupted like a river, super naturally like their talent is just leaving their body in the form of their voice. It's effortlessly.

While I mostly refer to the way their voice sounds, this can also be applied to the lyrics, rhymes and beat of the song.

Fast foward and pick a song from way later in their career, a decade or more preferably, when the artists has gotten older, when you listen to a newer great song it's different, you can tell there's some self-awareness in the voice, it feels a lot more theatrical, perhaps singing trying to make it sound big and explosive, I wouldn't say artificial sounding, because remember we're looking at great songs too, but now you can feel the intentions behind the tone, you imagine them singing with an expression on their face, their eyes closed, their mouth wide open, their neck all tense.

Something to note here is that the former isn't necessarily better than the latter, not just because the flow of words and lyrics feels like a river flowing so naturally and effortlessly makes it absolutely superior to the later records where it feels like the singer is trying harder, it's simply different, no style is better than the other, there can be hard trying-sounding songs as good as the autistically natural ones, I mentioned that for both cases I was thinking of great songs.

If you've ever felt this or something similar I invite you to comment as extensively as you wish, thank you.

3 Comments
2022/10/12
22:42 UTC

9

Why We Can't Resist Music (As Explained By A Science Writer/Broadcaster)

0 Comments
2022/10/02
13:51 UTC

0

Tonality in Rap-Hop???

Does the dramatic decline in the tonal complexity of popular music track the decline in the ability to play an instrument? Also, what does a person who doesn’t play an instrument and listens only to Rap-Hop hear if they listen to music with tonal complexity like Jazz or Progressive Rock? Can they distinguish the existence of melody and harmony, but it’s presence is not preferable? Can they only perceive the rhythm of music? Is melody then perceived as noise added to the rhythm? Rap-Hop does contain some tonal elements like the sound of an air horn for example. Those tonal elements don’t form a melody — so what function do they serve compositionally?

16 Comments
2022/09/17
03:27 UTC

12

Participants Required - Music Artists and Idea Management

Hello all!

I am a Ph.D. student in Cognitive Science and a music enthusiast. I study singing myself but I am far from a pro: I just really enjoy it!

I am working with the University of Aarhus, Denmark, to collect data about how music artists manage ideas. Managing ideas is a core component of working as a music/audio artist but still little is known about how practitioners actually do it. Understanding it would not only shed a light on the creative process involved i music making but also inform the design of digital tools for music creation and collaboration. Moreover, I would be happy to share and discuss with you my findings, at the end.What I need is for professional music artists in the reddit to fill out a 15-20 minutes survey. This will ask about your strategies to capture, retrieve, and develop ideas when making music. If you are interested in contributing further, you can agree to an interview to elaborate more on your answers. For any doubt or question, you can contact me here or through the email addresses reported in the survey introduction. Here is the link: https://forms.gle/BKRTYaWvpXLFuD4v8

Thank you!

Emilia

0 Comments
2022/08/30
12:15 UTC

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