About this course: The course will explore the tone combinations that humans consider consonant or dissonant, the scales we use, and the emotions music elicits, all of which provide a rich set of data for exploring music and auditory aesthetics in a biological framework. Analyses of speech and musical databases are consistent with the idea that the chromatic scale (the set of tones used by humans to create music), consonance and dissonance, worldwide preferences for a few dozen scales from the billions that are possible, and the emotions elicited by music in different cultures all stem from the relative similarity of musical tonalities and the characteristics of voiced (tonal) speech. Like the phenomenology of visual perception, these aspects of auditory perception appear to have arisen from the need to contend with sensory stimuli that are inherently unable to specify their physical sources, leading to the evolution of a common strategy to deal with this fundamental challenge.
Created by: Duke University
Taught by: Dale Purves, M.D.
Duke Institute for Brain Sciences
| Language | English, Subtitles: Spanish |
| How To Pass | Pass all graded assignments to complete the course. |
| User Ratings |
Syllabus
WEEK 1
Course Introduction
Introduction to Music as Biology
1 video, 2 readings
Sound Signals, Sound Stimuli, and the Human Auditory System
An overview of the organization of the human auditory system, and how sound signals are transformed into sound stimuli.
4 videos, 3 readings
Graded: Sound Signals, Sound Stimuli, and the Human Auditory System
WEEK 2
The Perception of Sound Stimuli
An introduction to the sound qualities we perceive, and how and why these qualities differ from the information in sound signals.
5 videos, 2 readings
Graded: The Perception of Sound Stimuli
WEEK 3
Vocalization and Vocal Tones
A discussion of the nature of vocal sound signals, their biological importance and their role in understanding music.
5 videos, 2 readings
Graded: Vocalization and Vocal Tones
WEEK 4
Defining Music and Exploring Why We Like It
The tonal phenomena that need to be explained in any theory of music, and different approaches that have been take to provide answers.
9 videos, 2 readings
Graded: Defining Music and Exploring Why We Like It
WEEK 5
Musical Scales
Why a small number of basic scales are used in music worldwide, and how a biological framework explains this and related puzzles.
6 videos, 2 readings
Graded: Musical Scales
WEEK 6
Music, Emotion, and Cultural Differences
How emotion is conveyed by vocal similarity in music across cultures, and how the speech of a culture and its music are related. A summing up of the major points in the course follows.
7 videos, 4 readings
Graded: Music, Emotion, and Cultural Differences
Graded: Summing Up
Additional Resources
Additional demonstrations and commentaries by Ruby Froom on some of the musical issues considered in the course, as well as a glossary of terms and bibliography for references.
6 videos, 16 readings
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Duke University
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Ratings and Reviews
Amazing Course! Thank You!
Very good!
Great course, very informative for anyone who wishes to explore deeper aspects of music that have to do with biology and psychology.
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