Music is a universal human phenomenon, occuring across the widest sample of societies and time. In the words of music psychologist Daniel Levitin, music is a 'human obsession.'
According to Diana Deutsch and the team of leading music pscyhologists who authored the Oxford Music Online entry, 'Psychology of Music,' the psychology of music is defined as:"the discipline that studies the individual human musical thought and behavior from a scientific perspective. Activites that have been studied using the tools of psychology include sensation and perception, listening, performing, creating, memorizing, analyzing, learning and teaching. These activities have been studied across the lifespan of individuals, from birth to old age, and in a variety of social contexts, from domestic, through educational, to therapeutic and professional."
