Blogs

Music Matters

Exploring music and the mind.

by Henkjan Honing

Henkjan Honing is Associate Professor in Music Cognition at the University of Amsterdam. See full bio

October 3, 2009

Snowball, the dancing cockatoo: is he listening or imitating?

Is Snowball listening or imitating? Read More

March 29, 2009

How well would you do as an expert?

In the Netherlands (and I'm sure there are versions of it in the UK and the US as well) there is a weekly radio show containing a returning item in which music experts are asked to compare and judge two or three CD recordings of the same piece, without knowing who the musicians are. They have to guess the performers and describe why they do (or don't) like that particular performance. Read More

March 5, 2009

What makes a theory compelling?

Can a theory be surprising in itself? Karl Popper was a philosopher of science that was very much interested in this question. He tried to distinguish 'science' from 'pseudoscience', but got more and more dissatisfied with the idea that the empirical method could effectively mark this distinction. Read More

January 26, 2009

Do newborn infants have a sense of rhythm?

It might look somewhat disturbing, but the picture that accompanies this entry is a snapshot of a two day old baby that is healthy and sound asleep! She is one of fourteen newborns that participated in a recent listening experiment, a collaboration between the Institute for Psychology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and our research group at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. In this project we are interested in how newborn infants perceive the musical world around them and in how far certain musical skills are innate.

December 20, 2008

A 2006 recording of Glenn Gould?

A well-known recording company recently released a new recording of Glenn Gould performing the Goldberg Variations. The recording date was summer 2006. Curious, not? Read More

December 12, 2008

Rhythm Makes You Move

Why do some people dance more rhythmically to music than others? Are these differences genetically or culturally determined? The link between musical rhythm and movement has been a fascination for a small yet passionate group of researchers. Early examples, from the 1920s, are the works by Alexander Truslit and Gustav Becking. Read More

December 1, 2008

De do do do, de da da da?

For a long time I thought of it as quite a peculiar phenomenon: grown-ups who, the moment they spot a baby, start talking in a curious dialect. A dialect that has unclear semantics, little or no grammar, and is full of exaggerated rhythmic and melodic diversions. Nevertheless, babies love it! Read More

November 24, 2008

Can music save your life?

To explore a research finding I'm about to present, I asked my girlfriend some time ago to think of the film Saturday Night Fever and the song Stayin' Alive. Read More

November 12, 2008

Does Mozart make you smarter?

Mozart's Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major (KV 448) is one of the most used compositions in music psychology research. Read More

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