Susan Rogers and Ogi Ogas on This Is What It Sounds Like

Description

If you have ever wondered why one song stays with you and another gets skipped, this course gives you the research behind the answer. Susan Rogers presents the seven dimensions of musical listening from her book with Ogi Ogas, This Is What It Sounds Like, and explains how the brain judges a new piece of music in under a second. Other lessons cover how digital recording changed what music could be and why lyrics can feel as if they were written about you. Another explains how the melody of your native language shapes the music you prefer. The course closes with questions you can use to build your own listener profile.

Rogers presents each lesson on video. The text adds audio clips to listen to and prompts for reflecting on your own favorites.

About the expert

Susan Rogers is an audio engineer, record producer and cognitive neuroscientist who teaches at Berklee College of Music, and she worked on Prince’s Purple Rain album. She wrote This Is What It Sounds Like: What the Music You Love Says About You with computational neuroscientist Ogi Ogas. Rogers presents all ten lessons on video.

What you’ll be able to do

• Name the seven dimensions of musical listening and sort them into aesthetic and musical categories
• Explain why the brain decides whether it likes a piece of music in less than a second, and rarely changes its mind
• Describe how digital audio workstations changed the audio engineer’s job and the range of sounds listeners could hear
• Recognize how the speech patterns of your native language show up in the music of your culture
• Explain why listeners gravitate toward artists who seem similar to themselves, even when the lyrics are fiction
• Describe the role of dopamine and the mind-wandering network in the pleasure of a favorite song
• Use a set of questions for each dimension to build your own listener profile

Who it’s for

Anyone who loves music and wants to understand their own taste. You do not need to play an instrument; Rogers herself does not.

What’s inside

10 lessons, self-paced:

1. Introduction
2. The Listener Profile
3. Musical Taste Is Eclectic; Musical Judgment Is Swift
4. Digital Audio Revolutionized Music Listening—and Recording
5. Melody Reflects Speech; Speech Reflects Melody
6. Lyrics Help Forge Our Identity
7. “Everything Is the Way It Is Because It Got That Way”
8. Music Listening Induces Mind Wandering
9. Love at First Listen
10. Conclusion

What you get

• 365 days of access from the date of purchase
• A certificate of completion when you finish the course
• Your place is saved, so you can stop and come back whenever you like
• Works on a computer, tablet or phone

You can also get this course, and every other course in the library, with All Access for $99.99 a year.