Bachelor of Music in Music Cognition in Evanston United States | Northwestern University

Northwestern's Music Theory and Cognition Program stands out by merging two interconnected fields united in purpose: exploring how musical form connects with creative expression (composition, improvisation), performance (reproduction, movement), and perception (listening and interpretation).

The listener concept serves as a central theme in our research, encompassing a broad and varied range of definitions and applications. It involves reconstructing historical listeners shaped by stylistic traditions while also considering modern listeners engaging with global soundscapes and digital media. We view the relationship between music theory and cognition as dynamic, adaptable to various forms and methodologies. This includes music theory enriched by cultural and historical insights into listening contexts alongside cutting-edge cognitive research, as well as empirical studies utilizing corpus analysis, laboratory experiments, and ethnographic fieldwork.

This wide-ranging epistemological outlook and methodological diversity is evident in the vast array of musical repertoires examined by our world-renowned faculty, spanning from classical eras to contemporary electronic dance music. We invite PhD candidates aspiring to academic careers in music theory, particularly those whose research aligns with our specialties in schema theory, topic theory, rhythm and meter, musical semantics, embodied cognition, popular music, and video game music.