Simon Music Center, M225B
Andrew Goldman is assistant professor of music in music theory at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music and assistant professor of cognitive science at the IU College of Arts and Sciences.
He earned a Ph.D. from the Centre for Music and Science at the University of Cambridge in 2015. Goldman was in the inaugural cohort of Presidential Scholars in Society and Neuroscience at Columbia University from 2015 to 2018 and held a postdoctoral position with the Music, Cognition, and the Brain Initiative at Western University before joining the faculty at IU in 2020. For 2024-25, he was named an IU Presidential Arts and Humanities Program Fellow.
Goldman’s theoretical research considers the intersection between scientific and humanistic scholarship on music, and his experimental research applies behavioral, perceptual, and neuroscientific methods to investigate various topics within the field of music cognition. His research has primarily focused on improvisation in music and dance, but he has also worked on projects concerning the perception of musical form, embodiment in music, musical syntax, musical groove, and corpus studies.
Goldman directs IU’s Music and Mind Lab, a place for students at Jacobs and IU more generally to collaborate on music cognition research with facilities to conduct behavioral, perceptual, and neuroscientific (EEG) experiments. The lab is also the research home of his CogSci Ph.D. students.
Also a pianist and composer, Goldman’s original musical, Science! The Musical, provides an alternate platform to explore the worlds of music and science. Songs include “The Interdisciplinary Rag,” “The Real World,” “Publish or Perish,” and more.
More information and a CV is available on his website.
Selected Publications
Goldman, A. (accepted). Neuroscience in Music Studies: Critical Challenges and Contributions. Music Perception. Preprint.
Goldman, A. (2022). Returning to the continuum: On the value of typological distinctions in the analysis of improvisation. Music Theory Online, 28(3). https://mtosmt.org/issues/mto.22.28.3/mto.22.28.3.goldman.html
Goldman, A., Harrison, P. M. C., Jackson, T., & Pearce, M. T. (2021). Reassessing Syntax-Related ERP Components Using Popular Music Chord Sequences: A Model-Based Approach. Music Perception, 39(2), 118–144. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/mp.2021.39.2.118
Goldman, A., Jackson, T., & Sajda, P. (2020). Improvisation experience predicts how musicians categorize musical structures. Psychology of Music, 48(1), 18–34. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0305735618779444
De Souza, J., Roy, A., & Goldman, A. (2020). Classical Rondos and Sonatas as Stylistic Categories. Music Perception, 37(5), 373–391. https://online.ucpress.edu/mp/article-abstract/37/5/373/110589
Goldman, A. (2019). Live coding helps to distinguish between embodied and propositional improvisation. Journal of New Music Research, 48(3), 281-293. doi: 10.1080/09298215.2019.1604762 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09298215.2019.1604762
Goldman, A., Thomas, C., & Sajda, P. (2019). Contact Improvisation Dance Practice Predicts Greater Mu Rhythm Desynchronization During Action Observation. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/aca0000255
Goldman, A. (2016). Improvisation as a way of knowing. Music Theory Online, 22(4). https://mtosmt.org/issues/mto.16.22.4/mto.16.22.4.goldman.html
Goldman, A. (2013). Towards a cognitive-scientific research program for improvisation: Theory and an experiment. Psychomusicology: Music, Mind, and Brain, 23(4), 210-221. https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fpmu0000020
Other Media
Science! The Musical (trailer):
https://vimeo.com/263736236
Science! The Musical (full production at Columbia University): https://vimeo.com/265269188
2020 study on the neuroscience of improvisation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=To4y_YOYzsg