ABSTRACT
The majority of experiments on hemispheric specialisation for music with normal subjects has used the dichotic listening technique. Music production has been almost ignored in the study of amusia. Music production essentially consists of instrument playing and singing. Initially, the neuropsychology of music was mainly concerned with the relationship between music and language competence; that is, with the relationship between aphasia and amusia, with particular attention to the relationship between reading and writing words and reading and writing music. Musical research has not yet developed a theory about the relationship between music and emotional phenomena. It is possible that what pertains to humanity in toto are the emotions that music kindles in those who listen to it. Other aspects of music, particularly the rules of musical composition, are largely culturally determined. A cognitive theory of music must differentiate between the universal aspects of music and the learned ones, and must study naive subjects and musicians separately.
