Cognitive Musicology – Praised and Reproved

Two Challenges in Cognitive Musicology

Two themes in music cognition research are highlighted--inspired by the contributions in this volume: (a) statistical learning and (b) evolutionary theorizing. Our ability to test alternatives to statistical learning is threatened by the rapidly diminishing opportunities for cross-cultural studies unconfounded by bimusicalism. Our ability to infer possible evolutionary origins for music is conf...

Computational Evolutionary Musicology

The beginning of Chapter 2 offered a sensible definition of music as temporally organized sound. In the broader sense of this definition, one could arguably state that music is not uniquely human. A number of other animals also seem to have music of some sort. Complex vocalizations can be found in many birds (Marler and Slabbekoorn 2004), as well as in mammals such as whales (Payne and McVay 19...

Biography and the New Musicology

While modern musicology has seen the frequent exploration of issues of historiography and canonicity, biography itself has largely eluded critical investigation until much more recently. The discipline has lately challenged the aesthetic of musical canon, for many decades a largely uncontested phenomenon, as well as that of the Great Composer. Recent scholarship has similarly addressed the matt...

Comparing music, comparing musicology

My aim in this chapter is to offer some observations on the past, present and future of comparison in musicology. These comments concern the necessity of comparison, but also the profound difficulties it presents: understanding both the importance and problems of comparison is an important part of any cultural study of music. In order to introduce and to illustrate these observations, I will ma...

Musicology for the masses: Situating new audio technologies for musicology and music education