Harvard College

Harvard College Spring Term, 2007-2008 Academic Year January 30 — May 2, 2008 Study Card Day: Feb. 6, 2008 Mind/Brain/Behavior 98: Music & The Brain Wednesdays 6:30 — 9:30 PM William James Hall, 13th Floor, Room 1305 No Sections Syllabus Updated Jan. 30, 2008 Fatal* Mark Jude Tramo, MD, PhD Director, The Institute for Music & Brain Science Department of Neurology, Harvard Medical School & Massachusetts General Hospital Steering Committee, Harvard University Mind/Brain/Behavior Interfaculty Initiative Board of Honors Tutors, Department of Psychology, Harvard University Teaching Affiliate, Department of Biology, Harvard University Research Affiliate, Research Laboratory of Electomics, M.I.T. Songwriter Member, ASCAP www.BrainMusic.org Office hours by appointment, The Institute for Music & Brain Science, 175 Cambridge St, Suite 340, Room 382, Boston Course Description MSS 98: Music erne Brain, now in its 12th year in the FAS courses of instruction (formerly Psychology 9876), takes a multidisciplinary approach to understanding neural systems governing music perception, performance, and cognition. Students are expected to master selected topics in acoustics, music, psychophysics, cognitive psychology, neurophysiology, neuroanatomy, and neurology. The course begins with a series of lectures by Professor Tramo that provides a common fund of knowledge in functional neuroanatomy, auditory neurophysiology, psychoacoustics, cognitive psychology, and music for students with diverse backgrounds. Thereafter, individual seminars focus on specific themes, such as pitch perception, harmony perception, emotion and meaning in music, and talent and creativity. Seminars are deigned to help students: 1) cultivate analytical skills through critical appraisals of "primary-source" experimental literature published in peer- reviewed science, medical, music, and education journals; and 2) develop oral presentation skills in a supervised setting. Semi-weekly reading and homework problem sets from the required text, Rossing's Science of Sound, solidify working knowledge of basic concepts (e.g., resonance, decibels, scales) needed for the advanced readings that are the springboard for each seminar's provocative discussions of neuroscientific data collection and analysis EFTA00306316 Professor Tramo Syllabus for MBB 98: Music & The Brain, Spring 2008 methods, results, interpretation, and corroboration. Prerequisites Secondary school mathematics and physics. No music background necessary. If you are not familiar with the vocabulary of music, get the Harvard Dictionary of Music, which is listed below under Recommended Books and is available at the Coop. Books (available at Harvard Coop unless otherwise noted) Required The Science ofSound, Rossing, Moore, and Wheeler, 2001 Recommended Core *xi of Isleuroanatoug Malcolm Carpenter (any edition) — available at Amazon The Harvard Dictionary of Mask: Fourth Edition, D.M. Randel (Editor), 2003 The Aridity Cortex, L.A. Alain, 2003 Introduction to the Poichology of Hearing, 5th Edition, Brian Moore, 2003 The Pgchology of Music, 2nd Edition, Diana Deutsch (Editor), 1999 Music, Language, and the Brain, Aniruddh D. Patel, 2007 Requirements & Grading • Weekly attendance and participation in seminar discussions that reflects you have read the assigned journal papers (20-25%) • Performance on homework problem sets (3540%) • Oral presentations of papers using overheads or powerpoint at 1-3 seminars (35-40%; first presentation is not graded to allow for practice and feedback) • No exams, no term papers 2 EFTA00306317 ,s• • Syllabus for MBB 98: Music & The Brain, Spring 2008 Lecture & Seminar Schedule Jan. 30: Lecture Introduction Brain Organization & Behavior Musical Phonology Feb. 6: Lecture Experimental Methods The Auditory Nervous System Feb. 13: Seminar Pitch I Feb. 20: Seminar Pitch II Feb. 27: Seminar Harmony I March 6: Seminar Harmony II March 12: Seminar Melody March 19: Seminar Rhythm lamb 26: Spiv Rears April 2: Seminar Timbre & Voice April 9: Seminar Speech & Prosody April 16: Seminar Emotion & Meaning April 23: Seminar Evolution, Development & Plasticity April 30: Seminar Intelligence, Talent & Creativity 3 EFTA00306318