Everyone is Musical

Everyone is Musical

Faculty of Humanities, University of Amsterdam

Do you believe that you weren’t born musical? The music cognition research group at the University of Amsterdam’s Faculty of Humanities would probably disagree. They are conducting research on the “everyday listener” and that listener’s often unsuspected musical abilities.

For more than ten years now, the researchers have contributed to science communication about music cognition by means of public lectures, media appearances, books, and entertaining activities. This is a field that makes use of methods and techniques from musicology, psychology, cognitive neuroscience, computer science, behavioural biology, and neurobiology. They aim in this way to interest the general public and promote the message that musicality is a natural, spontaneously developing aptitude, i.e. a set of characteristics that enable us to enjoy music. In short, they believe that everyone is musical!

The research group will use the grant from the Rewarded! Fund to develop an online game that brings together existing listening tests and demonstrations from various public lectures, theatre shows, and media appearances. It will enable players to understand their listening talents, listening preferences, and existing scientific literature. The game also introduces methods and techniques from the humanities, the physical sciences, and the social sciences that make the group’s research possible. This emphasises the contributions made by the various different faculties; in other words a look behind the scientific scenes.

Websites:
MCG – UvA
Youtubekanaal – Musiccognition
Amsterdam Music Lab
Iedereen Is Muzikaal

Coordinator:
Henkjan Honing, hoogleraar

Other group members:
J. Ashley Burgoyne, universitair docent
Makiko Sadakata, universitair docent
Fleur Bouwer, postdoc

Foto © Ben Houdijk. Henkjan Honing bij een (populair)wetenschappelijke lezing