music

What does the 1960s Beatles hit “Girl” have in common with Astor Piazzolla’s evocative tango composition “Libertango”?

Probably not much, to the casual listener. But in the mind of one famously eclectic singer-songwriter, the two songs are highly similar. That’s one of the surprising findings of an unusual neuroscience study based on brain scans of the musician Sting.

​McGill Newsroom 

This significant investment of public and private support will redefine the future of music research in Canada by transforming the way musicians compose, listen and perform music.

A team of scientists from McGill University, the University of Cambridge, and Stanford Graduate School of Business developed a new method of coding and categorizing music. They found that people’s preference for these musical categories is driven by personality. The researchers say the findings have important implications for industry and health professionals.

By Cynthia Lee

Newsroom

Everyone marches to the beat of their own drum: From walking to talking to producing music, different people’s movements occur at different speeds.

Masashi Usui has over 18 years of experience playing the saxophone. Yet when he applied to the Master of Music program at McGill’s Schulich School of Music, he was told that he needed to improve his English in order to be admitted.

Read more on The Next Page, the School of Continuing Studies' newsletter.

Study fuels nature versus nurture debate

How do you get to Carnegie Hall? New research on the brain’s capacity to learn suggests there’s more to it than the adage that “practise makes perfect.” A music-training study by scientists at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital -The Neuro, at McGill University and colleagues in Germany found evidence to distinguish the parts of the brain that account for individual talent from the parts that are activated through training.