The course will explore the tone combinations that humans consider consonant or dissonant, the scales we use, and the emotions music elicits, all of which provide a rich set of data for exploring music and auditory aesthetics in a biological framework. Analyses of speech and musical databases are consistent with the idea that the chromatic scale (the set of tones used by humans to create music), consonance and dissonance, worldwide preferences for a few dozen scales from the billions that are possible, and the emotions elicited by music in different cultures all stem from the relative similarity of musical tonalities and the characteristics of voiced (tonal) speech. Like the phenomenology of visual perception, these aspects of auditory perception appear to have arisen from the need to contend with sensory stimuli that are inherently unable to specify their physical sources, leading to the evolution of a common strategy to deal with this fundamental challenge.
ofrecido por
Music as Biology: What We Like to Hear and Why
Universidad DukeAcerca de este Curso
Habilidades que obtendrás
- Biology
- Music
- Evolution
- Neurobiology
ofrecido por

Universidad Duke
Duke University has about 13,000 undergraduate and graduate students and a world-class faculty helping to expand the frontiers of knowledge. The university has a strong commitment to applying knowledge in service to society, both near its North Carolina campus and around the world.
Programa - Qué aprenderás en este curso
Course Introduction
Introduction to Music as Biology
Sound Signals, Sound Stimuli, and the Human Auditory System
An overview of the organization of the human auditory system, and how sound signals are transformed into sound stimuli.
The Perception of Sound Stimuli
An introduction to the sound qualities we perceive, and how and why these qualities differ from the information in sound signals.
Vocalization and Vocal Tones
A discussion of the nature of vocal sound signals, their biological importance and their role in understanding music.
Defining Music and Exploring Why We Like It
The tonal phenomena that need to be explained in any theory of music, and different approaches that have been take to provide answers.
Reseñas
- 5 stars56,96 %
- 4 stars24,92 %
- 3 stars12,53 %
- 2 stars3,56 %
- 1 star2,01 %
Principales reseñas sobre MUSIC AS BIOLOGY: WHAT WE LIKE TO HEAR AND WHY
This course has helped me to understand biological psychology of humans towards music. Based on this knowledge i am confident to create music which will seem good to the ears of humans.
Thanks so much Dale for your teaching! I'm highly interested in this and would like to know more about this and get more involved!
It was a nice experience to learn about the Biology of the music. Very complete and explained course. Thanks
Great course. I enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed his previous course "Visual Perception and the Brain".
Preguntas Frecuentes
¿Cuándo podré acceder a las lecciones y tareas?
¿Qué recibiré si compro el Certificado?
¿Hay ayuda económica disponible?
Will I receive a transcript from Duke University for completing this course?
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