Goldsmiths, University of London · Full-time
Music, Mind and Brain
This distinctive programme combines psychology and neuroscience to understand how music shapes the human mind and society. You’ll learn how biological, cognitive, and cultural mechanisms influence music perception, creation, and experience, while developing th…
MSc1 yearFull-time
Browse creative arts and design courses in UK
Psychology
This distinctive programme combines psychology and neuroscience to understand how music shapes the human mind and society. You’ll learn how biological, cognitive, and cultural mechanisms influence music perception, creation, and experience, while developing the skills required to apply this knowledge in research, industry, and creative practice. - Music plays a central role in emotion, identity, communication, learning, health, technology, and society. You’ll develop the theoretical foundations and research skills needed to study these processes scientifically. - This specialist MSc offers more focused career and research pathways than a general psychology degree. Graduates normally progress into PhD and research pathways, as well as careers in the creative and media industries, education, technology, and health and wellbeing. - The programme is highly interdisciplinary, drawing on expertise in music cognition, cognitive neuroscience, empirical aesthetics, big data, computational modelling, music education, and music therapy. - With a small, selective cohort, you'll benefit from close contact with academic staff, individualised dissertation supervision, strong mentoring for PhD applications and careers, and a collaborative, intellectually engaged learning environment. - The programme is enriched by close collaborations with world-class institutions and research groups, including the University of Cambridge, Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics and the Royal College of Music. - Beyond academia, we also collaborate with non-academic partners in education (for example, Curious Minds) and marketing and audio branding (for example, amp sound branding), supporting real-world applications of music and psychological science. - You'll benefit from the expertise across Goldsmiths, including Psychology and Neuroscience, Computing, Music and Performance and Media, Communications and Cultural Studies. - You'll have access to state-of-the-art facilities, including the Infant Lab, Virtual Reality Lab, neuroimaging equipment (EEG, TMS), high-performance computing for large-scale experiments and big data, and wearable biosensors for tracking physiological responses (eye-tracking, motion capture, heart rate, and skin conductance).
Getting in
As the university states it
The MSc in Music, Mind and Brain is a truly interdisciplinary programme that attracts students from diverse backgrounds who want to complement their knowledge on music research, neuroscience or cognitive psychology. As a general rule, you should have a good background in at least one of these areas and preferably have already carried out a piece of empirical research. You should normally have (or expect to be awarded) the following: An undergraduate degree of at least second class standard in a relevant/related subject OR A background in music plus demonstrable knowledge and/or experience of empirical research. You do not need an extensive technical background in psychology or statistics to join the MSc in Music, Mind & Brain. What matters most is a strong interest in understanding music and human behaviour, and a willingness to engage with scientific approaches. We actively welcome students from diverse academic and professional backgrounds. Previous cohorts have included graduates and professionals from psychology, music, computer science, education, creative industries, content creation, health, and marketing. When students join the programme, we assess their prior experience in order to provide a supportive yet appropriately challenging learning environment. Students with limited background in psychology or statistics are encouraged to take pre-sessional courses and are offered additional academic support throughout the programme. You might also be considered for some programmes if you aren’t a graduate or your degree is in an unrelated field, but have relevant experience and can show that you have the ability to work at postgraduate level. We accept a wide range of international qualifications. If English isn’t your first language, you will need an IELTS score (or equivalent English language qualification) of 6.5 with a 6.5 in writing and no element lower than 6.0 to study this programme.
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Course details as published by the university. No graduate-outcome statistics are published for UK postgraduate courses, so none are shown.