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MUSI2059 Music, Mind, and Body
Course Type: disciplinary elective for music majors/minors, free elective for others
Prerequisite: NIL
Instructor: Professor Youn KIM
Semester: Second Semester 2025/26
Time: 11:00am–12:50pm, Thursday
Venue: CPD-LG1.22 Rehearsal Room
This course is a Communication-Intensive Course
This course considers music as a phenomenon of human behavior and examines various aspects of the relationship between music, mind, and body. We will explore questions such as how humans came to be musical, how people listen to, understand, and perform music, and why we listen to and make music. Following the evolutionary bases for musicality and the psychoacoustic/physiological foundation of auditory perception, we will move to the cognitive issues of how the mind represents musical structures and how expectation works in the process of listening to music. We will also consider the role of the multimodal body in performing and listening, music and emotion, and music and the brain. The significance of social and cultural contexts for musical experience will be underlined, and the embodied approach will be introduced in the discussion of music, mind, and body. Students will have the opportunity to pursue their own interests in-depth within the individual project.
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Course Learning Outcomes
Assessment Methods
Topics
Text & Resource Materials
Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
  • CLO 1: Describe and explain key psychological processes involved in music perception and cognition, , using clear and precise language
  • CLO2: Reflect on personal and peer musical experiences to connect them with theoretical concepts in music psychology, illustrating insights with relevant musical examples such as scores, audio, or video (Written/Visual literacy)
  • CLO3: Formulate a research question in music psychology and develop a preliminary research plan, presenting it clearly through written, oral, and multimedia communication. (Oral/Visual literacy)
  • CLO4: Critically evaluate psychological literature on music, synthesizing findings into a coherent and well-supported research proposal. (Written literacy)
  • CLO5: Deliver concise and engaging oral presentations and participate in scholarly exchanges with peers, providing constructive feedback and collaborating effectively. (Oral/Visual/Written literacy)
1. Engaging Music: Reflective and Communicative Activities 20%
2. Individual research project 65%
    (1) A preliminary research plan 15%
    (2) Lightning talk Presentation 20%
    (3) Final research proposal 30%
3. Participation 10%
  • GETTING STARTED: MUSIC, MIND & BODY
  • “IN THE BEGINNING WAS …”: MUSIC MATTERS
  • BUILDING BLOCKS: From sound to tone
  • LISTENING THE TUNE: From tone to music
  • SOUNDING TOGETHER Consonance/Dissonance
  • “ONLY IN THE ANTICIPATION”: Musical expectation
  • COMPOSING AND PERFORMING
  • MUSIC IN THE BRAIN
  • MUSIC AND EMOTION
  • MUSIC AND MOVEMENT
  • MUSIC AND MIND IN OUR LIVES TODAY
  • Mini conference
KEY JOURNALS
  • Musicae Scientiae
  • Music Perception
  • Psychology of Music
  • Psychomusicology
  • Music and Science
  • Musica Humana
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  • Clarke, Eric. 2005. Ways of Listening: An Ecological to the Perception of Musical Meaning. New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Clarke, Eric, and Nicholas Cook, eds. 2004. Empirical Musicology: Aims, Methods, Prospects. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Deutsch, Diana, ed. 1982. The Psychology of Music. New York: Academic Press. 2nd ed., 1999; 3rd ed., 2013.
  • Dowling, W. Jay, and Dane L. Harwood. 1986. Music Cognition. San Diego: Academic Press.
  • Hallam, Susan, Ian Cross, and Michael Thaut, eds. 2009. The Oxford Handbook of Music Psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Hodges, Donald A., and David C. Sebald. 2011. Music in the Human Experience: An Introduction to Music Psychology.
  • Kim, Youn, and Sander L. Gilman, eds. 2019. The Oxford Handbook of Music and the Body. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Lehmann, Andreas C., John Sloboda, and Robert H. Woody. 2007. Psychology for Musicians: Understanding and Acquiring the Skills. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Margulis, Elizabeth Hellmuth. 2018. The Psychology of Music: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Margulis, Elizabeth H., Psyche Loui, and Deirdre Loughridge, eds. 2023. The Science-Music Borderlands: Reckoning with the Past and Imagining the Future. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
  • Sloboda, John. 2006. Exploring the Musical Mind: Cognition, Emotion, Ability, Function. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Tan, Siu-Lan, Peter Pfordresher, and Rom Harré. 2010. Psychology of Music: From Sound to Significance. Hove, East Sussex: Psychology Press.
  • Thompson, Bill. 2014. Music, Thought & Feeling: Understanding the Psychology of Music. Second Edition. New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Yi, Suk Won, ed. 1999. Music, Mind and Science. Seoul: Seoul National University Press.
A full list of suggested readings and resources is available on the course Moodle page.