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How to be a (music) science writer
Hello, Dear Reader I had an email today from a former student, Suzie. She said: “I am emailing to ask your advice on getting into science writing as I would like to start communicating some of the ideas and research findings involved in the field of music psychology to a wider audience“. Great! The more people writing about music and science, the better. Of course my first piece of advice is try a blog – I have found my blog to be a fun and rewarding activity these past 3.5 years (yes Dear Reader, it has been that long). Writing a blog gives invaluable experience in writing for a wider…
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Musicophilia – real but poorly understood
What causes musicophilia? If you go to any search engine and type in ‘musicophilia’ then you will more than likely be directed to the excellent book of that title by Oliver Sacks. In this book Sacks employs his familiar engaging and compassionate narrative of neurological patients to explore afflictions and treatments surrounding music. I have known many students to be first inspired to studying music psychology thanks to this enjoyable book. Musicophilia is an excellent title for Sack’s book given its focus on both music-related phenomena and neurological patients. But many people do not realise that it is also a poorly understood neurological phenomenon. Patients who are diagnosed with ‘musicophilia’…
