music phd amsterdam

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Oosterdokskade 151 1011 DL Amsterdam

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Research Theme Music & Technology
Research Theme Musical Learning Cultures
Rsearch Theme (Jazz) Reception, Criticism and Identity
Supported Publications
Master Research
Academy for Musicology and Musicianship Amsterdam
Chair in Jazz and Improvised Music (UvA)

DocARTES - doctoral programme

Phd research.

Research Projects Music & Technology
Research Projects Musical Learning Cultures
Short-Term Research Projects
Completed Research Projects
Reading Circle
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Lectures and presentations
The Research Division
Research Projects

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The Music Cognition Group (MCG) is part of the Department of Musicology, the Institute for Logic, Language and Computation ( ILLC ), and Amsterdam Brain and Cognition ( ABC ) of the University of Amsterdam ( UvA ) and is housed at LAB42 , Science Park Amsterdam.

Our research offers interdisciplinary perspectives on the capacity to perceive, make, and appreciate music (‘musicality’ for short). It asks what music is for and why every human culture has it, whether musicality is a uniquely human capacity, and what biological and cognitive mechanisms underlie it.

The current research program aims to identify the basic mechanisms that constitute the cognitive and biological basis of musicality , as well as developing theoretical, computational and empirical methods for analyzing various musicality phenotypes .

What is music cognition?

We are all born with a predisposition for music, a predisposition that develops spontaneously and is refined by listening to music. Nearly everyone possesses the musical skills essential to experiencing and appreciating music. Think of “relative pitch,” recognizing a melody separately from the exact pitch or tempo at which it is sung, and “beat perception,” hearing regularity in a varying rhythm. Even human newborns turn out to be sensitive to intonation or melody, rhythm, and the dynamics of the sounds in their surroundings. Everything suggests that human biology is already primed for music at birth with respect to both the perception and enjoyment of listening.

Human musicality is clearly special; Musicality being a set of natural, spontaneously developing traits based on, or constrained by, our cognitive abilities (attention, memory, expectation) and our biological predisposition. But what makes it special? Is it because we appear to be the only animals with such a vast musical repertoire? Is our musical predisposition unique, like our linguistic ability? Or is musicality something with a long evolutionary history that we share with other animals? ( Honing, 2019 ).

Latest news

Henkjan Honing receives SMPC Lifetime Achievement Award

Henkjan Honing, Professor of Music Cognition at the University of Amsterdam, has been awarded the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award by the Society for Music Perception and Cognition (SMPC). The accolade was presented during the SMPC conference in Banff, Canada, on July 27, 2024, in recognition of his pioneering contributions to the field of music perception and cognition.

Do you know a parrot that talks or sings?

The Bird Singalong and Speech Project needs you. You can contribute by uploading audio clips of your parrot to the survey at manyparrots.org.

Workshop on the Evolution of Musicality

Attendees of our workshop, held last week in Amsterdam, discussing guidelines for studying the evolution of musicality, w/ our honoured guest Aniruddh D. Patel and researchers from a variety of fields, including Music Studies, Behavioural Ecology, Cognitive Neuroscience, Animal Behaviour, Genetics and More!

Lecture by prof. Aniruddh D. Patel

Prof. Aniruddh D. Patel will visit the Netherlands from 18-22 March 2024 to discuss his work on the origins of musicality, with a public talk at MPI Nijmegen on Tuesday 19 March and a fully booked (invitation-only) workshop on Friday 22 March in Amsterdam.

Latest publications

Media attention

Henkjan honing ontvangt lifetime achievement award npo radio 4, onderzoek naar popmuziek, melodieën zijn in afgelopen zeventig jaar steeds simpeler geworden volkskrant, why do humans sing ヒトはなぜ歌うのか nhk | frontiers, we were born to groove - narrated by fat tony nautilus, music matters.

Latest posts from Henkjan Honing’s blog Music Matters

Ben jij muzikaal? [Dutch]

Why do humans sing? |ヒトはなぜ歌うのか

A musical ape?

Music cognition group.

PhD research

PhD research is at the heart of what we do as a University. Around 2000 PhD candidates are involved in research and education at the UvA and around 400 doctorates are conferred each year. Two-thirds of these are in the Sciences or Medicine.

PhD vacancies

Getting your PhD at the UvA

UvA Staff Housing

The guide to doing your PhD at the UvA brings together all kinds of information about the PhD process, from the regulations and different steps in the process to terms of employment and facilities you can make use of as a PhD candidate.

Doctoral programme: from admission to completion

Documents and forms, phd contact information, central phd council, cookie consent.

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