The Science of Music

Abstract

Music is all around us. It plays a major role in every known human culture and we are exposed to it over many hours of the day: in shopping malls, advertisements, and - of course - voluntary listening or playing. We use music in order to celebrate and to grief; film music can express what dialogue and image can’t, especially when it comes to feelings and emotions. Despite these seemingly universal functions, music displays an astonishing cross-cultural and stylistic diversity. The Digital and Cognitive Musicology Lab at EPFL is dedicated to finding out how music fulfills all those functions and more. To study this multifaceted phenomenon, insights from many different perspectives are necessary. Our interdisciplinary team uses computer science and machine learning, psychology and neuroscience, as well as musicology and theory, to better understand how music works.

Fabian C. Moss

Assistant Professor for Digital Music Philology and Music Theory

Fabian C. Moss is an assistant professor for Digital Music Philology and Music Theory at Julius-Maximilians University Würzburg (JMU), Germany.