Chevron Left
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
712 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

AW

Mar 13, 2017

Natural scientific approach to music; this is definitely a new perspective on music and acoustics in general.

CA

Aug 6, 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!

Filter by:

76 - 100 of 182 Reviews for Music as Biology: What We Like to Hear and Why

By Karen B

•

May 21, 2017

Excelente curso, me encanto.

100% Recomendado

By Wilson O

•

Sep 11, 2022

Enjoyable, and key ideas clearly conveyed.

By muntassir h

•

Sep 16, 2019

It was an amazing experience studying this.

By Vincenzo C

•

Jun 30, 2024

this is a very interesting course, thanks!

By Theo L

•

Apr 23, 2018

Really informative and superbly in depth

By Aoyu Z

•

May 21, 2017

that's useful, intriguing and fantastic!

By Alan d J G R

•

Jan 13, 2018

De los mejores cursos que he tomado.

By Bart S

•

Mar 1, 2016

do this course again, great course!

By Ekaterina K

•

Aug 3, 2017

Very good and interesting course

By Mohammed B m

•

Mar 30, 2021

i really loved this course

By Hanwen D

•

Sep 22, 2017

Very nice scheduled course!

By Tamara L

•

Jun 18, 2017

Amazing Course! Thank You!

By Claire G

•

Jun 17, 2020

very interesting course

By Stephanie T

•

May 20, 2017

Incredibly good :)

By Valeria S

•

Aug 8, 2016

Excellent course!

By Antonio A

•

Feb 21, 2025

Great course :-)

By Priyanka B

•

Sep 19, 2023

highly satisfied

By David A M

•

Sep 3, 2020

Excelente curso.

By Harini

•

Jul 2, 2020

It's very useful

By Julio C G L

•

Aug 9, 2017

Excelente curso.

By Praveen K

•

Jul 26, 2017

A great Course !

By Watuthanthrige K G S P

•

Feb 2, 2021

Great content .

By Eddie C

•

Nov 11, 2024

Great course!

By Hernan S

•

May 6, 2020

Great for me.

By Z S

•

Aug 28, 2024

great course