NYU Music Cognition Research: Exploring the Intersection of Music, Science, and Technology

The NYU Music and Audio Research Lab (MARL) is an interdisciplinary center at the intersection of science, technology, music, and sound. Research at MARL connects a wide range of fields from computing and artificial intelligence, immersive experiences and algorithmic composition, to the latest advances in neuroimaging of the human brain. The initiative aims to provide a forum that increases the visibility and contextualizes the work of NYU faculty, post-doctoral researchers, and doctoral, master and undergraduate students, interested in the intersection of music and science.

Key Research Areas at NYU

Several groups within NYU are dedicated to advancing our understanding of music through various research areas:

• MARL Music Cognition Group: This group focuses on modeling the complex mental processes involved in the perception and production of music. Our approach integrates multiple perspectives, including theoretical modeling, experimental psychology, and computation. Current topics being explored range from the cognition of basic musical structures, such as harmony and rhythm, to higher-level phenomena like expectation, tension, and expression.
• The Immersive Audio Group: The focus of this group lies in the capture, analysis, synthesis and reproduction of auditory environments.
• The Computer Music and Interactive Performance Systems Group: This group is concerned with technologies that enable and enhance live musical performances that include both human and computer performers.
• The Music Informatics Group: This group is concerned with research aimed at extending the understanding and usefulness of digital music data, through the research, development and application of computational approaches and tools. This specialization of informatics, spanning fields as diverse as music, signal processing and machine learning, shows great potential for scientific, cultural and commercial profit that can benefit consumers, music scholars and creators, and support the archiving and dissemination efforts of libraries, music stores, content owners and radio stations.

The Science of Music Perception: How Our Brains Process Music

Featured Researcher: Morwaread Farbood

Morwaread Farbood's research encompasses topics in music perception cognition, computational modeling of music, and computer-assisted/algorithmic composition systems. She employs methodologies drawn from various disciplines including music theory, cognitive psychology, and computer science. Her work focuses primarily on the real-time aspects of music listening, in particular how emergent phenomena such as tonality and musical tension are perceived. She is a member of the NYU Music and Audio Research Lab (MARL) and the Max Planck/NYU Center for Language, Music, and Emotion (CLaME). She co-founded the Northeast Music Cognition Group with colleagues at NYU and Yale.

In summary, NYU's commitment to music cognition research is evident through its various research groups, interdisciplinary approach, and the work of researchers like Morwaread Farbood. These efforts contribute significantly to our understanding of music perception, creation, and interaction.