Research in the Psychology of Music
What is Psychology of Music?
Research in the Psychology of Music uses psychological theories and methods to interpret and understand musical sounds, musical behaviours, and the effects of music. The subject is strongly inter-disciplinary, and makes use of a wide range of approaches – empirical, theoretical, discursive, and critical. The scope of the discipline ranges from understanding how music is picked up by sensory systems and understood (cognition and perception), through the acquisition of musical expertise (development and education), to uses of music in the world (social psychology); and all of these areas are represented in the current research of psychology of music staff at Sheffield. Staff expertise includes emotion and meaning in music, music perception and cognition, the study of performance, voice, the social psychology of music, musical participation and musical development.
Psychology of Music at Sheffield
The Psychology of Music, encompassing Music Education, is an important part of the Department's research profile, with three full-time permanent members of staff, regular visiting lecturers and associated research fellows/assistants active in this area. The department´s ethnomusicology staff provide additional geographical and theoretical expertise in music education, and cognitive ethnomusicology. The Department regularly hosts international conferences in music psychology, including meetings of SEMPRE (Society for Education, Music and Psychology Research), on themes including `Music and Consciousness´, `Musical Participation´, and `Music and Gender´. Staff and students regularly contribute as reviewers, session chairs and presenters at conferences around the world, notably the International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition (ICMPC), International Society of Music Education (ISME) and European Society for the Cognitive Science of Music (ESCOM). Members of staff also serve as editors and reviewers for leading journals in the field, including `Psychology of Music´, `British Journal of Music Education´, `Music Perception´ and `Musicae Scientiae´, and with our students are regular contributors to these and other relevant journals.
There are currently 16 research students working on psychology of music or music education projects, as well as three taught MA programmes which have around 30 students in total. The biggest grouping of psychology of music expertise in the UK, since 2001, 65 students have completed research degrees or MAs here, and many more prior to that. We have strong links with the Department of Psychology and other cognate departments, through joint supervision of postgraduate and undergraduate research projects, and through research collaborations between staff. Our research graduates have gone on to hold academic posts in UK universities and overseas, including Leeds, Liverpool John Moores, Durham, Royal College of Music, Aveiro, Porto, Harvard and Canberra.
Research funding for our work has come from the Leverhulme Trust, the Nuffield Foundation, White Rose, the Arts Council of England, The Arts and Humanities Research Council, The British Academy, PALATINE, Worldwide Universities Network, and the Economic and Social Research Council. The Department has a number of specialist facilities to support this research, including digital performance instruments, specialist library holdings, video equipment, and a high specification digital sound studio. Recent projects by staff and students have included
- The social psychology of musical participation
- Music in the workplace
- The physiology of emotional responses to music
- Key-mood associations
- Perception of sound source and location in music recordings
- Expression in musical performance
- The role of the body in musical performance
- The aesthetics and physiology of extended vocal techniques
- Vocal production and the menstrual cycle
- Tempo and timing in musical performance
- Connectionist modelling of metre perception
- Sight reading in performance
- Music and dyslexia
- Teacher/pupil relationships in music lessons
- The relationship between free improvisation and composition
- The social and therapeutic functions of singing
- Race and gender bias in judgement of performance
- Perceptual and semiotic approaches to musical meaning
- Musicians´ perceptions of self identity
- Social interaction in ensemble performance
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