Isn't musicality more than rhythm?

Last month, we organized a follow-up to the 2014 Lorentz Workshop on Musicality in Leiden, The Netherlands. Twelve years later, it felt both exciting and meaningful to return to Leiden with a renewed focus: spectral percepts. 

While rhythm cognition has received substantial attention over the past decade, key perceptual dimensions of melodic cognition—especially timbre and pitch—remain comparatively underexplored. Many comparative studies still rely on simplified stimuli, such as pure tones, which may limit our understanding of how non-human animals perceive melodic structure. Recent findings suggest that pitch and timbre do not map uniformly across species, inviting us to rethink how these percepts are studied. 

We therefore deliberately shifted attention away from rhythm perception and production toward the perceptual and affective dimensions of melody, harmony, and timbre. In doing so, we revisited Darwin’s idea that animals may not only perceive melodies, but may also take pleasure in them (see workshop proposal). 

What made this workshop especially rewarding was the remarkable diversity of backgrounds and expertise in the room. Researchers from neurobiology, psychology, ethnomusicology, musicology, and evolutionary theory came together to examine the evolutionary and perceptual roles of pitch, timbre, and consonance. This breadth of perspectives allowed us to explore how these percepts vary across species, cultures, and contexts in ways no single discipline could address alone. 

By bringing together such a broad and inspiring group of researchers, the workshop generated new insights, strengthened interdisciplinary collaborations, and laid the groundwork for a more coherent framework on the evolution and cognition of musicality. 

A special issue is planned for Spring 2027, in which we will summarize the workshop’s findings, develop new research ideas, and outline a future agenda for musicality research. 

Photo credits: (cc) 2026 Bas Cornelissen and Lorentz Center.

What makes music groovy?

©20140417 Volkskrant

Today PLOS ONE will publish an interesting study on rhythm, groove and syncopation that uses an often criticized methodology: questionnaire and web-based research (cf. Honing & Reips, 2008). However, this study is a good example of how an unspectacular method (compared to brain imaging techniques, elegantly controlled experiments or advanced computational modelling) can still be quite informative.

The paper takes advantage of people's intrinsic interest in rhythm, timing and what's often called 'groove', in combination with the sheer fun of participating in an online listening experiment that has to do with music (cf. Honing & Ladinig, 2008).

Based on sixty-six responses, the authors were able to extract an inverted U-curve for a music-theoretic measure of syncopation, a shape that was absent for an alternative, information-theoretic measure based on the acoustic quality of the soundexamples used (i.e. entropy). As such the study provides evidence that the theoretical notion of syncopation, as defined by Longuet-Higgins' L-model in the 1980s, might be an important component of 'groovyness': pleasure and dance-inducing aspects of many musics ranging from James Brown to Marvin Gay and from Funkadelic to Stevie Wonder.

The first author, Maria Witek (Aarhus University), encouraged me to mention that the questionnaire and all soundexamples are online. Feel free to take part.

[See also article in de Volkskrant and interview on Radio 1; both in Dutch]

Witek, M., Clarke, E., Wallentin, M., Kringelbach, M., & Vuust, P. (2014). Syncopation, Body-Movement and Pleasure in Groove Music PLoS ONE, 9 (4) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0094446

Honing, H., & Reips, U.-D. (2008). Web-based versus lab-based studies: a response to Kendall (2008). Empirical Musicology Review, 3 (2), 73-77.

Honing, H., & Ladinig, O. (2008). The potential of the Internet for music perception research: A comment on lab-based versus Web-based studies. Empirical Musicology Review, 3 (1), 4-7.

Was Steven Pinker right after all? [Part 2]

At the end of the 1990s, cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker infamously characterized music as “auditory cheesecake”: a delightful dessert but, from an evolutionary perspective, no more than a by-product of language. But Pinker was probably right when he wrote: “I suspect music is auditory cheesecake, an exquisite confection crafted to tickle the sensitive spots of...our mental faculties.” Or, to express his idea less graphically: music affects our brains at specific places, thereby stimulating the production of unique substances that have a pleasurable effect on our mood. However, rather than a by-product of evolution, music or more precisely musicality is likely to be a characteristic that survived natural selection in order to stimulate and develop our mental faculties (cf. Honing, 2011).

Pinker’s idea may actually be a very fruitful hypothesis whose significance has wrongfully gone unacknowledged because of all the criticism it elicited. After all, the purely evolutionary explanations for the origins of music largely overlook the experience of music we all share: the pleasure we derive from it, not only from the acrobatics of making it but also from the act of listening to it.

Last week Science published a study (a follow-up of Salimpoor et al., 2011) in which Canadian researchers were able to show precisely that: Music can arouse feelings of euphoria and craving, similar to tangible rewards that involve the striatal dopaminergic system. They were able to show that intense pleasure in response to music can lead to dopamine release in the striatal system, most notably the nucleus accumbens. And, more importantly, the anticipation of an abstract reward can result in dopamine release in an anatomical pathway distinct from that associated with the peak pleasure itself.

Salimpoor, V., van den Bosch, I., Kovacevic, N., McIntosh, A., Dagher, A., & Zatorre, R. (2013). Interactions Between the Nucleus Accumbens and Auditory Cortices Predict Music Reward Value Science, 340 (6129), 216-219 DOI: 10.1126/science.1231059

Salimpoor, V., Benovoy, M., Larcher, K., Dagher, A., & Zatorre, R. (2011). Anatomically distinct dopamine release during anticipation and experience of peak emotion to music Nature Neuroscience DOI: 10.1038/nn.2726

Honing, H. (2011) Musical Cognition. A Science of Listening. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers.