Lecture 2: The 'paradigm' of music psychology

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Lecture 2The 'paradigm' of music psychology

• MUSI 1911/2
• Introduction to the
• Psychology of Music

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Overview

• A proposed paradigm for Psychology of Music
• Examples of paradigmatic research
• Limitations of the paradigm
• Additions to the paradigm
• Summary, conclusions and follow-up task

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A proposed paradigm for Psychology of Music

• Sloboda, J. A. (1986) Cognition and real music
  The psychology of music comes of age.
  Psychologica Belgica, 26 (2), 199-219.
• Agreed problem
• Agreed methods
• Agreed theoretical frameworks
• Specificity of the activity
• Appropriate research

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• Agreed problem
• the structure and content of musical experience
• in what ways do we store music in our minds?
• how and in what ways do we respond to music?
• Agreed methods
• Recording (of performance)
• Computer synthesis (to check that people perceive
  what we think they perceive under controlled
  conditions)
• Memory measurement (e.g. to see what is stored
  and in what form)
• Studies of verbal behaviour (what do we say about
  our musical experiences)
• Physiological correlates (how do our bodies
  respond)
• Simulations (to see whether our theories sound
  right or are logical)

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• Agreed theoretical frameworks
• music is mentally stored and manipulated in ways
  that would be familiar to music theorists (metre,
  tonality etc.)
• playing, listening and composing are underpinned
  by the same types of musical representations
• Specificity of the activity
• our research should not assume that music shares
  psychological principles with other domains
  (language, vision)
• Appropriate research
• research should cover all aspects of musical
  behaviour
• researchers should use real music and real
  musical situations
• the results should be valuable to musical
  professionals

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Examples of paradigmatic research

• Sloboda and Parker (1985) on memory
• Lerdahl and Jackendoffs Generative Theory (1983)
• Pollard-Gott on the perception of musical themes
  (1983)

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Limitations of the paradigm

• Why do we need one?
• Can we agree?
• Who makes up the rules?
• Restrictiveness?

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Additions to the paradigm

• Psychology of music not music psychology
• Must be mainstream (cognitive) psychology (not,
  for example, ecological or biological psychology)
• Is this helpful?

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Summary

• There is broad agreement about what psychology
  of music studies and how
• This has benefits and drawbacks
• Paradigms can shift or be overtaken
• Is it a paradigm or just an accidental bundle of
  assumptions?

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Follow-up Task

• Read the four extracts handed out in this
  lecture. Each is an attempt to describe and
  delimit Psychology of Music and is drawn from a
  book written or edited by a major researcher in
  the field. Note that they are written both before
  and after Slobodas article, and from different
  viewpoints. The following questions may help you
  to assess what you have learnt about the
  paradigm Sloboda argues for
• How closely do these authors visions match up
  with John Slobodas?
• How are they similar to each other?
• How do they differ?