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Mission Statement

Music is a ubiquitous phenomenon across cultures around the world. Why does music play such an important role in human life? What are the underlying cognitive structures? How did they evolve? What are the musical features and processes shared between various genres, historical styles, and cultures? How did musical universals emerge? How can modern methods and innovations such as self-learning algorithms help to better understand this highly complex system?

At the Digital and Cognitive Musicology Lab (DCML) we are devoted to exploring music from cognitive, computational, musicological, and psychological perspectives, bringing together modern algorithmic methods, corpus research, music-theoretical expertise, and experimental approaches to advance our four main research topics:

  • Principles of musical structure-building
  • Musicological corpus research across styles
  • Cognitive foundations of music
  • Computational modelling and creativity

The DCML also strives to collaborate with different labs around the world. By engaging a global network of domain experts in musicology, artificial intelligence, and neuroscience, we build on the latest progress in development and technology to contribute to deepening the understanding of musical structures.