CZ:Guidel 2008 summer course on Music and Brain

About

This page serves as a central forum for the Music and Brain course at the Guidel 2008 summer academy of the German National Merit Foundation.

The course is organized by Daniel Mietchen (Citizendium page/ lab page) and Stefan Koelsch (lab page).

It has two major aims – it seeks to provide participants with

• an up-to-date overview about how the brain perceives and produces music and
• an insider experience in a collaborative learning environment.

The task for each participant is to give a presentation on a topic relevant to music perception and cognition (see list below), and to assist at least one other participant in the preparation of their presentation.

Further than that, we wish to encourage participants to share the knowledge they gain in the preparation of their talks, preferably by creating an encyclopedic wiki entry about their respective topics. The language of the course will be German, and so the German Wikipedia would be one option for sharing but Wikipedia has a number of drawbacks, most notably vandalism, whereas Citizendium's policy (e.g. requiring real names) drastically reduces or effectively eliminates such problems. Most of the topics covered in the course do not have an entry yet in either of the Wikipedias or Citizendium, while the few entries that exist are of rather poor quality or very short, such that they will have to be re-written or expanded anyway. Under these circumstances, we deem Citizendium (which currently has only an English language version) to be most suited for the course. German will be allowed on this page and its subpages, though.

Timeline

30 June 2008 -- Topic selection due

31 July 2008 -- Rough draft due

31 August 2008 -- Final draft due

7-20 September 2008 -- Guidel summer academy (9-13h on working days, with a coffee break around 10.30-11.00, hence ca. 2x90min)

Course schedule (once the topics have been chosen, add your name once as presenter and at least once as collaborator; until then, indicate your preferences in the tentative list below)

Date	Topic	Presenter	Collaborator(s)	primary sources	comments
Sep 7	Thema I	Name Ia	Name Ib	Reference Ia, Reference Ib	test comment vormittags
	Thema II	Name IIa	Name IIb	Reference IIa, Reference IIb	test comment nachmittags
Sep 8	Thema I	Name Ia	Name Ib	Reference Ia, Reference Ib	test comment vormittags
	Thema II	Name IIa	Name IIb	Reference IIa, Reference IIb	test comment nachmittags
Sep 9	Thema I	Name Ia	Name Ib	Reference Ia, Reference Ib	test comment vormittags
	Thema II	Name IIa	Name IIb	Reference IIa, Reference IIb	test comment nachmittags
Sep 10	Thema I	Name Ia	Name Ib	Reference Ia, Reference Ib	test comment vormittags
	Thema II	Name IIa	Name IIb	Reference IIa, Reference IIb	test comment nachmittags
Sep 11	Thema I	Name Ia	Name Ib	Reference Ia, Reference Ib	test comment vormittags
	Thema II	Name IIa	Name IIb	Reference IIa, Reference IIb	test comment nachmittags
Sep 14	Thema I	Name Ia	Name Ib	Reference Ia, Reference Ib	test comment vormittags
	Thema II	Name IIa	Name IIb	Reference IIa, Reference IIb	test comment nachmittags
Sep 15	Thema I	Name Ia	Name Ib	Reference Ia, Reference Ib	test comment vormittags
	Thema II	Name IIa	Name IIb	Reference IIa, Reference IIb	test comment nachmittags
Sep 16	Thema I	Name Ia	Name Ib	Reference Ia, Reference Ib	test comment vormittags
	Thema II	Name IIa	Name IIb	Reference IIa, Reference IIb	test comment nachmittags
Sep 17	Thema I	Name Ia	Name Ib	Reference Ia, Reference Ib	test comment vormittags
	Thema II	Name IIa	Name IIb	Reference IIa, Reference IIb	test comment nachmittags
Sep 18	Thema I	Name Ia	Name Ib	Reference Ia, Reference Ib	test comment vormittags
	Thema II	Name IIa	Name IIb	Reference IIa, Reference IIb	test comment nachmittags

Getting registered

Go to Special:RequestAccount and fill in the form provided there. Some additional hints:

Form field	Suggested input	Comments
User account/ Position	author	You can change that later.
Main areas of interest	Eduzendium	You can choose more and always change that.
Personal information/ Biography for your public user page	I am a student of X in Z (place, country) and wish to contribute to articles about Music and Brain.	You can always extend this later. Citizendium user pages are publicly visible but not indexed by search machines.
Other information/ Additional notes	Guidel 2008

Writing instructions

CZ:How to edit an article gives general instructions on how to edit Citizendium pages. Please make use of the preview button before you submit a page you have edited. Remember we are creating an encyclopedia here, and so the individual articles should be informative as well as nicely phrased and illustrated. They should cover all aspects relevant to the topic such that an interested lay reader (imagine yourself as an undergraduate) can digest it and find suitable references for in-depth study. In contrast to Wikipedia, Citizendium makes use of subpages for these purposes.

If you want to invite other Citizendium authors (everybody here) or editors (a subset of everybody, with specialist knowledge in some area) to join you in working on your article, add this text: "{{EZarticle-open-auto‎}}" (just what's inside the "'s) just below the "{{Subpages}}" at the top of your article page. It produces this notice:

This article is currently being developed as part of an Eduzendium student project. One of the goals of the course is to provide students with insider experience in collaborative educational projects, and so you are warmly invited to join in here, or to leave comments on the discussion page. However, please refrain from removing this notice. Besides, many other Eduzendium articles welcome your collaboration!

We strongly encourage such collaborative editing but if you want to make sure no other Citizendium authors or editors do anything to your article while you are working on it, add this text: "{{EZarticle-closed-auto‎}}" (just what's inside the "'s) just below the "{{Subpages}}" at the top of your article. It produces this notice:

This article is currently being developed as part of an Eduzendium student project. If you are not involved with this project, please refrain from collaboratively developing it until this notice is removed. Articles that lack this notice, including many Eduzendium ones, welcome your collaboration!

Please also keep in mind that copyright restrictions may allow you to use some materials for your presentation but not here. If you are uncomfortable with writing encyclopedially in English, we suggest to concentrate on providing facts, references and figures for articles written by others.

List of possible topics

A tentative list of topics (will still be slightly rearranged until June 17) for the presentations follows below (an explanation of the colours and icons associated with an article is here). Other relevant topics are listed here. Comments and further suggestions welcome. The topics are structured at three levels: The first one is meant to indicate the broad topic, the presentations should focus on the second level (the one with numbers), while contributions by the collaborators could perhaps most effectively be done on the third level.

If you are interested in one of these topics, please sign up by replacing the "Test user" placeholders with ~~~ (these three tildes will then automatically be converted into your user name).

Music (M)

1.  Musical syntax: A set of culture-specific rules underlying the composition and interpretation of music and often dance, too. ^[e] (Test user wishes to present, Test user would like to collaborate)
2.  Musical semantics: The study of how music conveys meaning. ^[e] (Test user wishes to present, Test user would like to collaborate)
3. Ethnomusicology: The study of music in its cultural context. ^[e] (Test user wishes to present, Test user would like to collaborate)
4. Music universals: Add brief definition or description (Test user wishes to present, Test user would like to collaborate)

Brain (B)

1.  Neuroimaging: A group of techniques used to visualize structure and function of nervous systems, especially the vertebrate brain. ^[e] (Johannes Reinhard wishes to present, Test user would like to collaborate)
2.  Brain development: The build-up of the brain from ectodermal cells to a complex structure of neurons, glia and blood vessels. ^[e] (Test user wishes to present, Test user would like to collaborate)
3.  Brain evolution: The process by which the central nervous system changed over many generations. ^[e] (Test user wishes to present, Test user would like to collaborate)
4. Brain function: Add brief definition or description (Test user wishes to present, Test user would like to collaborate)
   • Modularity of the mind: Add brief definition or description (Test user would like to collaborate)
   •  Auditory system: A sensory system used by animals for the processing of sound pressure variation. ^[e] (Test user would like to collaborate)
   • Limbic system: Add brief definition or description (Test user would like to collaborate)
   • Mirror neuron: Add brief definition or description (Test user would like to collaborate)s

Music cognition (MC)

1.  History of music psychology research: Description of the historical development of research in music psychology. ^[e] (Test user wishes to present, Test user would like to collaborate)
2.  Music perception: The study of the neural mechanisms involved in people perceiving rhythms, melodies, harmonies and other musical features. ^[e] (Felipe Gerhard wishes to present, Katharina Höllerhage would like to collaborate)
   •  Harmony: Simultaneous pitches (tones, notes), or chords used in making music. ^[e] (Test user would like to collaborate)
   • Rhythm: Please do not use this term in your topic list, because there is no single article for it. Please substitute a more precise term. See Rhythm (disambiguation) for a list of available, more precise, topics. Please add a new usage if needed. ( Martin Schorb would like to collaborate)
   • Auditory illusions: Add brief definition or description (Test user would like to collaborate)
3.  Music production: Principles of generating sounds and music. ^[e] (Martin Schorb wishes to present, Johannes Reinhard would like to collaborate)
   • Larynx: The primary organ for sound production in mammals; also protects the trachea. ^[e] (Test User would like to collaborate)
   •  Musical instrument: An object constructed or used for the purpose of making music. ^[e] (Test user would like to collaborate)
   • Synchronization: Add brief definition or description (Test user would like to collaborate)
4.  Music and emotion: An overview of the intricate relationships between music and emotion. ^[e] (Test user wishes to present, Test user would like to collaborate)
   • Physiological effects of music: Add brief definition or description (Test user would like to collaborate)
   • Social functions of music: Add brief definition or description (Test user would like to collaborate)
5.  Music and disease: Add brief definition or description (Dorothea Kluczniok wishes to present, Felipe Gerhard would like to collaborate)
   • Amusia: An umbrella term for brain disorders affecting music perception and production. ^[e] (Test user would like to collaborate)
   • Focal dystonia: Add brief definition or description (Test user would like to collaborate)
   • Specific language impairment: Add brief definition or description (Test user would like to collaborate)
   • Tourette syndrome: Add brief definition or description (Test user would like to collaborate)
   • Williams syndrome: Add brief definition or description (Test user would like to collaborate)
6.  Music therapy: The planned and creative use of music to attain and maintain health and well being. ^[e] (Katharina Höllerhage wishes to present, Test user would like to collaborate)
7.  Language and music: Forms of communication that has a number of common neurobiological, evolutionary and formal similarities and at the same time differing in syntax and meaning. ^[e] (Test user wishes to present, Test user would like to collaborate)

Biomusicology (BM)

1.  Vocal learning: The ability of an organism to imitate sounds not inborn to it. ^[e] (Test user wishes to present, Test user would like to collaborate)
   • Babbling: Add brief definition or description (Test user would like to collaborate)
   • Birdsong: Vocalizations that birds learn. ^[e] (Test user would like to collaborate)
   • FOXP2: A regulatory gene on human chromosome 7, involved in language disorders. ^[e] (Test user would like to collaborate)
2.  Origin of music: The evolutionary background of the human capacity for music. ^[e] (Test user wishes to present, Test user would like to collaborate)
3.  Human uniqueness: A theoretical concept in evolutionary studies, often used in discussions about the evolution of biological traits found in humans. ^[e] (Test user wishes to present, Test user would like to collaborate)

General literature recommendations

• The online version of "Nature" currently features a series of essays about music and the brain (recommended by Felipe Gerhard).

Other useful information

• Testimonials for past Eduzendium project at Citizendium and similar projects in English Wikipedia
• An open scientist's philosophy (in German)
• Tools
• Citizendium licence

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