Content, progress and pedagogy of the module

Musical information is created, communicated and processed in a wide variety of contexts and activities. Humans engage with music passively (e.g., when listening), actively (e.g., when composing) and interactively (e.g., when improvising or performing with others). Musical information may encode musical sound, perceived musical structure, the affective or semantic content of music, musical gestures or musical interactions. The ability to design and build effective and efficient computing systems for processing musical information requires an understanding of how such information is created, represented, communicated and processed by humans.

This course introduces experimental, theoretical, computational and neuroscientific work that has contributed to our understanding of how musical information is created, represented, communicated and processed, both in the brain and the body, when humans perform musical tasks such as listening, dancing, performing, composing and improvising.

Learning objectives

Knowledge

Students who complete this course must gain the following knowledge:

• Must understand the basic cognitive and motoric mechanisms underlying expressive human performance (for example, in relation to timing and dynamics).
• Must have knowledge about musicians’ interactions (with instruments, audience, and co-performers).
• Must understand current theories of how emotion (affect) is represented and communicated by music.
• Must understand current theories of the relationship between music and movement (embodied music cognition).
• Must understand current theories of how musical skills and knowledge are learnt and then applied in creative tasks such as composition and improvisation.

Skills

Students who complete this course must gain the following skills:

• Apply experimental methodologies in the design and execution of appropriate experiments for testing hypotheses in the field of music perception and cognition.
• Must be able to create and evaluate basic computational models of specific aspects of music perception and cognition (e.g., perception of musical streams, expressive timing).
• Must be able to evaluate theories and models of music perception and cognition.

Competences

Students who complete this course must gain the following competencies:

• Must be able to apply the basic principles underlying the perception and cognition of the main types of musical structure (including melodic, harmonic, motivic, tonal and rhythmic structure as well as the role of auditory streaming in music).
• Must be able to apply and synthesize understanding of experimental, computational, theoretical and neuroscientific research on music perception and cognition in the design and testing of music computing systems.
• Must be able to apply and synthesize understanding of experimental and theoretical work in music perception and cognition to the design, execution and analysis of appropriate experiments.
• Must be able to evaluate current experimental, theoretical and computational research in music perception and cognition.

Type of instruction

Refer to the overview of instruction types listed in the start of chapter 3. The types of instruction for this course are decided in accordance with the current Joint Programme Regulations and directions are decided and given by the Study Board for Media Technology.

Exam

Exams