UA instructor enjoys taking music beyond limits

As a musician-in-training, Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis was urged to maintain her focus while attending the Peabody Conservatory, a division of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

But questions beyond the scope of her instruction there nagged at her. Margulis wondered exactly how a subtle change in a piece of music’s microtiming — how long or short a note is played — could alter people’s perception of it, for example. Or, in a broader sense, how an outstanding concert hall performance could ever connect with people so much that it moved them to tears.

“I remember being just sort of frustrated during my time there,” said Margulis, now a University of Arkansas at Fayetteville music professor. “There were so many questions and basic things I was curious about with music that the conservatory framework didn’t really have a means to help you investigate.”

So she went looking for answers, starting on a path that led to publication last year of her first book, On Repeat: How Music Plays the Mind. The work received the top book honor this year from the Society for Music

Theory, an award known as the Wallace Berry Prize. Over the past several months, Margulis’ insights into the basic nature of music appreciation also have appeared in several national media outlets.

But as a conservatory student, exploration beyond the narrow field of performance was not encouraged, Margulis recalled, even though nearby Johns Hopkins University offered classes on a wide range of music-related subjects.

“My teacher had said, under no circumstances can you get on that bus and go take a class at Johns Hopkins because you’re here to practice the piano,” said Margulis, smiling while recalling the memory.

Undaunted, Margulis “snuck on the bus,” enrolling in a class called Minds, Brains and Computers. The second class session touched on the topic of music perception, and Margulis said she knew right away that she had discovered her calling.

“I just realized that cognitive science offered this framework and this methodology for potentially answering some of these questions that I’d been so curious about and unable to address as a conservatory student,” Margulis said.

After completing her studies at the Peabody Conservancy and moving to advanced studies in music at Columbia University in New York, Margulis joined the UA faculty in 2002.

SIMILARITIES IN ALL

Her work emphasizes the seemingly innate aspects of appreciating music, even in cases where the listener has no formal training in such appreciation.

“There’s no known human culture that doesn’t make music, so music really is a cultural universal, so far as we know,” Margulis said.

While styles differ greatly, Margulis said, music shares similarities.

“All known human culture makes music where repetition is some key element of how that music works,” Margulis said.

She began researching repetition to “understand and define better” the human capability for understanding and being moved by music, Margulis said. She acknowledges a focus on “big questions” in her interdisciplinary approach, which is heavy on experimentation.

“I really tried to look systematically at what kinds of repetition you found in music, what effects they tended to have on people, and to make some conjectures about what that means for what it is really like to listen to music,” Margulis said.

The enjoyment of music can be tied to its repetition, she said.

“There’s this kind of engagement that can emerge after you’ve heard something repeated enough where you kind of know what’s coming next,” Margulis said. Hearing songs “in your head” helps “people have this sense that the music is kind of a part of them,” she said.

At UA, her experimental sessions often involve seating a listener in a small, soundproof booth to better avoid distractions. Psychology and neuroscience play big roles in what’s known as UA’s Music Cognition Lab, led by Margulis.

Bill Levine, an associate professor of psychological science at UA, has worked with Margulis on a research project about expectations that people have when listening to a piece of music.

“She’s really been kind of the catalyst for trying to make cognitive science part of what we’re doing here at the University of Arkansas,” said Levine, praising Margulis for frequently inviting experts to campus to deliver public talks.

With the Music Cognition Lab, Margulis works with graduate students and often about a half-dozen or so undergraduates who are encouraged to explore music cognition, regardless of their majors.

“The humanities and the sciences are not as separate as they were,” Margulis said.

MORE TO DO

As a mentor, Margulis received praise from Stephanie McCullough, a recent graduate who studied psychology and music at UA.

“She’s not pretentious at all,” said McCullough, describing Margulis as “a teacher who makes you feel very affirmed for what you do and who you are.”

McCullough embarked on an intensive research project during her senior year under the guidance of Margulis, studying links between physical activity and the incidence of “ear worms,” which are songs stuck in the memory of the listener even after the music stops.

The project “really affirmed that I can and will want to do research later in life,” said McCullough, describing plans to pursue a doctorate in school psychology.

Whether students go on to study music cognition or not, Margulis said the point is to prepare students with critical-thinking skills.

She plans to study ways that listeners develop internal stories associated with music they’ve been hearing.

“I’m interested in my research in really uncovering how much processing needs to happen for people to be able to appreciate music in the way they do,” Margulis said.

There may be applications in arts, education and elsewhere, but she’s still looking to satisfy the curiosity that anyone may feel about music and its role in their lives.

“I think people have intrinsic curiosity, because our capacity for music feels so very close to defining who we are,” Margulis said.