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Back to Music as Biology: What We Like to Hear and Why

Learner Reviews & Feedback for Music as Biology: What We Like to Hear and Why by Duke University

4.3
stars
676 ratings

About the Course

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....

Top reviews

TS

May 16, 2020

This course helped me to see music from a different angle i.e through history and biology. Prof. Dales is a wonderful human being and has a beautiful gift of explaining things in a much simpler way.

MM

Sep 21, 2016

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.

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26 - 50 of 170 Reviews for Music as Biology: What We Like to Hear and Why

By Patricia J

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Nov 21, 2020

I enjoyed this course. It made me appreciate music more as it relates to our emotions etc. Thank you to all the lecturers who were instrumental in putting this course.

By miguel a g p

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May 18, 2017

Muy completo e interesante, didáctico y muy intuitivo, aprendí demasiado... definitivamente lo recomiendo para aquellos que apenas inician en el mundo de la música!

By Olivia J

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Sep 22, 2020

I really enjoyed this course. I am really passionate about music and evolution, so this gave me a lot of really useful information for my future research.

By Choir A

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Aug 7, 2021

It was an incredible experience! Mr. Dale Purves's way of explaining the material is just wonderful! and goes into details which was really helpful!

By Cecilia G

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Jun 15, 2020

Enlightening & complete & progressive. A bit dense at times (for me at least, as a non-scientist) so don't be afraid to watch some videos twice :)

By Ignacio A P C

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Oct 11, 2020

Great course. The information is thorough and easy to understand. The presentation and rythm is excellent and the instructor is well informed.

By Christel R

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Oct 14, 2020

Very clearly laid out in lecture and slides. Was able to learn a great deal, even though I have little previous knowledge of this area.

By Jean P G C

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Jul 6, 2020

Excelente curso. Valiosa información para quienes deseen introducirse en la Psicoacústica y sus alcances en la música. Muchas gracias.

By Geo S

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Jun 11, 2017

Great course, very informative for anyone who wishes to explore deeper aspects of music that have to do with biology and psychology.

By Manuel P Y

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Sep 14, 2020

Excelente curso. Creo que no se ve la música desde un sentido biológico, si no también físico y matemático.

By Ian C

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Nov 19, 2017

Supremamente interesante y completo. Dio respuestas a varias preguntas que me formulaba frecuentemente.

By ALEJANDRO J S G

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Aug 22, 2021

Great information and an excellent explanation in each module. Thank you very much and congratulations

By A.k.m. N H ,

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Apr 16, 2020

If u wanna learn about Music Theory, Evolution & Neuroscience at the same time, hurry up and enroll...

By Ebraheem S

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Oct 3, 2023

I have really enjoyed learning through this course and I wish to take my PHD about the course's topic

By Noel A

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Aug 22, 2020

It was well organised, and I learnt more than what I expected myself to learn from this course!

By Isabelle M

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Oct 30, 2021

It was a very good and fun course the format of every test was very badly messed up though.

By Catherine S

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Apr 3, 2016

The content was interesting, but the quizzes didn't relate to the lectures very often. It was as if there was a major piece missing in this course. One of the questions even referenced a book that was never mentioned or made available. Also, several of the musical sections seemed to be in the wrong place. I think maybe this is one of the classes that doesn't work well in this format.

By Vincent G

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Feb 8, 2017

Very interesting subject. I was really wainting for a course like that but, with all due respect and aknowledgement to the instructors, their is many ways this course could have been an inspiring and exciting journey. Vincent

By Jordan H

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May 20, 2017

The entirety of this course has been awful. The instructor gives no vocalization to emphasize the importance of any material, and the quizzes honestly seem to have questions based off of his opinions rather than any real definitions or fact at times (and if they were, what he says and what is written are always two different statements, which leads to confusion and uncertainty of material). After failing almost every single quiz in the entire course, I would always return to the material and never find any sort of clear answer, leaving me to continuously guess and hope for the best. I did stick it through to the end of the course, and even though I personally thought it would get better every time I progressed through one lesson to the next, I was always disappointed. The instructor made everything seem so unimportant that you can never really tell what actually has any true meaning to the class, and again, a portion of it was honestly opinion based as far as I can tell. The later lessons (such as 5 and 6) were honestly the whole reason I wanted to do this course, however, I was thoroughly disappointed with the entire experience. I would not recommend this course to anyone.

By Janis F

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Jul 21, 2016

I didn't understand very much of this course. Instructor relies heavily on the use of various charts. They were seldom explained in a way I could understand. Instructor seemed to believe that underlining things in the charts served as an explanation. After completing the entire course & listening to many of the lessons several times, I can't tell you "what we like to hear and why". Instructor speaks in a monotone with no emotion. Seems bored stiff. Seems like he's just talking, but his mind is elsewhere. Quizzes frequently contained questions for material to be covered in a future lesson

By Charles R

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Feb 3, 2018

This course wasn't that good. The class seems like a freshman introduction course. First week covers anatomy and physiology of the hearing system, which does not come up again later in the course. Then there's a section that covers very basic music theory. Plus the course almost exclusively talks about tonal and harmonic information and does not discuss rhythm or tempo in any meaningful manner. Given that the course instructor is a neurologist, I was expecting more research regarding neuroscience, which is minimal at best.

By Ionko N

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Jul 5, 2016

Arguments that sound very unconvincing and unscientific.

By Alex W

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Nov 4, 2022

This course was really helpful in deepening my understanding of sound in both music and Biology as the name implied. The lectures were very helpful and the information has stuck with me. I would recommend this to anyone interested in sound, music, or biology.

By Didier J

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Nov 8, 2023

Musica como biología....Esperaba más biología. Como y porque nos afecta la música y como podemos utilizarla para sonoterapia. En términos generales, musica como biología es un buen inicio para tomar conocimientos del tema. Gracias.

By Aïdita M

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Sep 30, 2022

Un curso que estoy recomendando a colegas sin dudarlo.

Lo único que verificaría es que los text evaluativos estén disponibles también en esáñol así como hay traducción a la lengua de los videos.

Muchas gracias!