Searching for Sources - MUT 400 – Psychology of Music - SCSU Hilton C. Buley Library at Southern Connecticut State University

Continuing the Research Process

Once you've planned out your search strategy, you have to decide where to search! Sometimes good information on your topic is located in lots of places, but sometimes you have to be more picky.

In General

If what you want to write about just happened or is a very new phenomenon... you'll probably want to start with newspapers, news sites, and careful open web searching, because not enough time has passed for much if any scholarly work to be done on the topic.

If what you want to write about is relatively new but not extremely so... you'll probably be able to find articles on the topic from newspapers, magazines, and scholarly journals. You can search for these sources in library databases and/or using Google Scholar.

If what you want to write about is an established research interest... you should be able to find a book or book chapter that deals with it, possibly including a bibliography to point to you to other sources, like journal articles. (Try SouthernSearch for all our ebooks in full text.)

If you are too unfamiliar with your topic to know how new it is... try to find out something about it from an encyclopedia or other reference work (also available in SouthernSearch under "Reference Entries"). This is where Wikipedia is both helpful and acceptable, especially for new phenomena that haven't made it into books yet!

For Music Therapy in Particular

If you know you'll need sources that deal with psychology and music, it helps to use discipline-specific databases (such as PsycInfo and RILM), which may bring your attention to sources that the library doesn't have in full text and so won't appear in SouthernSearch.

Pay close attention to the language and focus points of each discipline. What seem to be areas of concern? This is the best way to narrow down a topic to a manageable research question.

Sources for Background Info

The Musical Brain: What Students, Teachers, and Performers Need to Know by Lois Svard
Call Number: Main Circulating Stacks / Call Number: ML3830 .S948 2023
Publication Date: 2023-03-03
We make or listen to music for the powerful effect it has on our emotions, and we can't imagine our lives without music. Yet we tend to know nothing about the intricate networks that neurons create throughout our brains to make music possible. The Musical Brain explores fascinating discoveries about the brain and music, often told through the stories of musicians whose lives have been impacted by the extraordinary ability of our brains to learn and adapt. Neuroscientists have been studying musicians and the process of making music since the early 1990s and have discovered a staggering amount of information about how the brain processes music. There have been many books discussing neuroscience and music, but this is the first to relate the research in a practical way to those individuals who make or teach music. Research in mirror neurons, neuroplasticity, imagery, learning and memory, the musical abilities of babies, and the cognitive advantage of studying music can offer valuable insights into how and when we should begin the study of music, how we can practice and teach more effectively, how we can perform with greater confidence, and can help us understand why experiencing music together is so important in our lives. An accompanying website provides links to interviews, performance clips, demonstrations, photos, and essays involving the concepts or musicians discussed in the book.
Every Brain Needs Music: The Neuroscience of Making and Listening to Music by Lawrence Sherman; Dennis Plies; Susi Davis (Illustrator)
Call Number: Main Circulating Stacks / Call Number: ML3820 .S44 2023
Publication Date: 2023-05-16
Whenever a person engages with music--when a piano student practices a scale, a jazz saxophonist riffs on a melody, a teenager sobs to a sad song, or a wedding guest gets down on the dance floor--countless neurons are firing. Playing an instrument requires all of the resources of the nervous system, including cognitive, sensory, and motor functions. Composition and improvisation are remarkable demonstrations of the brain's capacity for creativity. Something as seemingly simple as listening to a tune involves mental faculties most of us don't even realize we have. Larry S. Sherman, a neuroscientist and lifelong musician, and Dennis Plies, a professional musician and teacher, collaborate to show how our brains and music work in harmony. They consider music in all the ways we encounter it--teaching, learning, practicing, listening, composing, improvising, and performing--in terms of neuroscience as well as music pedagogy, showing how the brain functions and even changes in the process. Every Brain Needs Music draws on leading behavioral, cellular, and molecular neuroscience research as well as surveys of more than a hundred musical people. It provides new perspectives on learning to play, teaching, how to practice and perform, the ways we react to music, and why the brain benefits from musical experiences. Written for both musical and nonmusical people, including newcomers to brain science, this book is a lively and easy-to-read exploration of the neuroscience of music and its significance in our lives.
Psychology of Music: A Very Short Introduction by Margulis, Elizabeth Hellmuth
Call Number: Main Circulating Stacks / Call Number: ML3830 .M29 2019 & Online
Publication Date: 2019
Music has been examined from multiple perspectives: as a product of human history, for example, or a product of human culture. But there is also a long tradition, intensified in recent decades, of thinking about music as a product of the human mind. Whether considering composition, performance, listening, or appreciation, the constraints and capabilities of the human mind play a formative role. The field that has emerged around this approach is known as the psychology of music. Written in a lively and accessible manner, this volume connects the science to larger questions about music that are of interest to practicing musicians, music therapists, musicologists, and the general public alike.
Psychology of Music by Susan Hallam
Publication Date: 2018-09-14
How does music affect our moods? What is the best way to develop musical skills? How does the definition of music vary between cultures? The Psychology of Music explores the important impact music has on our everyday lives, and its influence on society, groups and individual people. It demonstrates how music can benefit our intellectual functioning, and health and well-being, and examines musical ability as both a gift and something that can be developed through learning and practice. Music can enhance our understanding of humanity and modern life and The Psychology of Music shows us the significance of music, and the power it can have over our behaviour.
The Psychology of Music by Diana Deutsch
Call Number: Main Circulating Stacks / Call Number: ML3830.P9 1999
Publication Date: 1998-09-21
This text covers topics such as concert halls, from magic to number theory; music and the auditory system; the perception of musical tones and singing; intervals, scales and tuning; absolute pitch; grouping mechanisms in music; processing of pitch combinations; neural nets, temporal composites and tonality; hierarchical expectation and musical style; rhythm and timing in music; music performance; the musical ability; neurological aspects of music perception and performance; and comparative music perception and cognition.