Some two years ago, I asked the question in the Music & Science blog series whether the perception of consonance and dissonance is universal. While the world has well and truly changed since then, pandemics aside these past two years have been fruitful for the Music & Science Lab in terms of new research into … Continue reading Separating the Cultural from the Universal in Harmony Perception
Written by Annaliese Micallef-Grimaud @LieseGrimaud & Thomas Magnus Lennie @lennie_tm Everyone has felt the impact of COVID-19 and lockdown in different ways and similarly there have been substantial differences in the ways people have adapted to keep their work progressing. The different stages at which individuals were in their research projects at the time of … Continue reading Research in Lockdown: challenges, adaptions, & looking to the future
Our minds are travelling all the time: at work, in class, while commuting, even when making love (Killingsworth & Gilbert, 2010). The urge to escape the present moment is so pressing that many of us decide to invest considerable amount of time and money in training our brains to mindfulness, in the hope of cracking the … Continue reading On the science of mind-wandering and how music can contribute to it
Last month, the Music & Science Lab held its third Music & Science Symposium; a one-day event at the Music Department at Durham University. The day was jam-packed with interesting talks on diverse topics from researchers, both from Durham University and other Universities. One of the main focuses of this symposium was to be a … Continue reading Music & Science Symposium 2018: Highlights of the Event
Blog Post written by Annaliese Micallef Grimaud & Matthias Lichtenfeld 9:23am Coffee #1 Monday morning: windy and rainy Booting the laptop to life and…*ping* The email account showed our new administrative task. That’s us, the new DURMS (Durham Undergraduate Research in Music & Science) editorial assistants. The Durham University Music & Science Lab has published its … Continue reading The Newcomer’s View of Reviewing
Researchers at the Music and Science Lab have enjoyed a unique collaboration with BBC Radio 3 and musicians from the Royal Northern Sinfonia. The BBC’s Free Thinking festival, broadcast live from the Sage Gateshead, features the fruits of this collaboration, as we discuss analysis of the performances of two string quartet movements by Sophie Appleton … Continue reading Inside a String Quartet
There is a wonderful variety of experiences that any one person can have with music. Perhaps you have been compelled to head bang to Metallica’s ‘Master of Puppets’, or to show off your flawless funk to Stevie Wonder’s ‘Superstition’. Or, if you’re like me, you have at one point played (perfectly) the ‘air piano’ whilst … Continue reading Now That’s What I Call Chills! A Growing Playlist for ‘Chills Music’
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