Instru(mental)

#22 - Beautiful Motives, Better Person? [Interview with Dr. Tanushree Agrawal]

Does knowing someone's motivations for using music change our opinion of them? This episode features an interview with Dr. Tanushree Agrawal discussing her research

#21 - An MT-BC Goes to SMPC (2026)

Where can you catch up on the latest music cognition research, watch a musical about the scientific process, and karaoke to your heart's desire? SMPC 2026! This epis

#20 - This Is Your Musical Brain On Marijuana

Have you ever noticed that music just hits differently when your high? In this episode of Instru(mental), we're diving into the surprisingly sparse, but curious body

#19 - Split Second Music Judgments

What can we deduce from hearing less than 1 second of music? Learn how accurately listeners can identify music genres from excerpts that are less than a quarter of a seco

#18 - Music as Moral Evidence

Can music change our moral judgments of others? In this episode, we explore how knowing about someone's, or something's, musicality shifts our moral decision-ma

Instru(mental) Trailer

What if you didn’t have to be a scientist, or a musician, to use music in your everyday life? Hi there, I’m Brea, a board-certified music therapist and this is Instru(men

#17 - The Best Wedding Music

What's the best music for a wedding? In this episode, I explain how I lightly manipulated my guests with music to make my wedding as fun, engaging, and memorable as

#16 - Music as a Social Surrogate

How can music serve as a social surrogate when we can't directly interact with others? This episode explores how listening to music can serve as a social proxy and p

#15 - Bridging Music Therapy/Cognition [Interview with Daniel Goldschmidt]

How can the fields of music therapy and music cognition strengthen each other? This episode features a conversation with music therapist Daniel Goldschmidt (@danielnnz) o

#14 - Drumming and Prosody [Interview with Jessica Riley]

This episode features an interview with Jessica McLean, a soon-to-be music therapist who started her career in music neuroscience. We talk about how Jessica first got inv

#13 - Human Hearing

How do our ears and brains take in and process sound? This episode covers the basics of how we hear starting with sound wave all the way to the primary auditory cortex. L

#12 - Melody vs. Lyrics and Emotional Intensity

How can individual musical elements impact our music listening experiences? This episode is a quick dive into how melody and lyrics in a song impact the emotional intensi

#11 - Music-Evoked Autobiographical Memories

How do certain songs become intertwined with our personal memories? This episode explores the musical reminiscence bump, how our musical preferences may be influenced by

#10 - Music, Rewards, and Dopamine

Does music release dopamine? And how can music be interpreted as a reward? This episode uncovers how reward circuitry in our brain can be activated when we listen to musi

#9 - Congenital Amusia

Why are some people tone deaf? This episode explores a musical disorder called congenital amusia, in which people have trouble processing the pitch and melodic structures

#8 - Music and Dying

How does music help us deal with death? This episode covers research that gives us insights into how music can lessen death anxiety and then discusses three ways that mus

#7 - Personality and Music Preference

Do our musical tastes reflect our personalities? This episode dives into research about how the Big Five personality factors might influence what music we like. Along the

#6 - Music and Shopping Behavior

Can music impact how we shop? This mini-episode explores how music can unconsciously influence our decisions of what to buy and how much money we spend in retail settings

#5 - Music, Movement, and Exercise

How does music impact how we move? Can music help us exercise more efficiently? This episode dives into research that explains what's happening in your spinal cord a

#4 - Infant Music Perception

How do babies perceive music? Infants aren't blank musical slates, they're actually pretty sophisticated music listeners. This episode highlights how we're