Remembering David Huron

Two years ago, I referenced a 90 minute phone call I had with David Huron as being a post for another time. Today is the day for that.

I am sure there will be other posts from people who knew him better, but despite the fact I never worked with him, he had a tremendous impact on my life. The least I can do is spend the same 90 minutes this morning sharing what I can for others that are grieving.

For context: After I finished my undergraduate degree, I felt directionless. I had just spent the past four years only playing trumpet (very hard to overstate this if you are not familiar with conservatory education) and I was afraid that maybe putting all my eggs in this basket was a mistake.

Of the non-music classes I did take at BW, I did attempt to shortchange a physical education/health requirement of the liberal arts part of my degree by taking a music and the brain class my junior year.

I. Loved. This. Class.

It was everything I thought music theory class was going to be and could not get enough of it.

When I asked the professor who taught the class how I could get more of this material she suggested I just email David Huron. He of course taught at OSU (a few hour drive away from Cleveland) and it was his material that most resonated with me from the course.

After emailing, he suggested we speak on the phone that week. I remember standing in the BW Faculty Lounge on a Monday evening after teaching some trumpet lessons and speaking with him for about an hour and a half.

After telling him about my mostly-music undergraduate, he strongly advised me to apply to the Music, Mind and Brain program at Goldsmiths (mostly-science), then to consider applying for PhDs after I’d gotten a proper taste of the science side of things.

A few years later, I ended up doing a PhD with his postdoc Dan Shanahan. I then pretty much worked on the science side of things since 2019. Because of this I was fortune to have have so many wonderful and formative scientific experiences (e.g. working with Henkjan Honing in Amsterdam, several projects at Goldsmiths).

It’s just strange (so strange?) to think that DH spoke with some 22 year old on the phone for 90 minutes one Monday evening and it pretty much set the course of the next ten years of my life. I think I tried to explain this to him one time at a conference, but he very much tried to down play his own role in all this. I am sure he knew many other factors played into what my career ended up being, but without this call, I know none of this would have happened.

I recount this story because it’s such a clear reminder of the impact that a teacher can have the life of a student.

He wasn’t even my teacher. I was never his student.

(Though sometimes I like to think of myself as being part of this academic lineage since I did my PhD with his postdoc; Humdrum for life.)

He was such a well-respected and larger than life presence in the world of music psychology that there is empirical evidence (my career) that he did affect the lives of people well outside of his orbit.

I still have my overly highlighted copy of Sweet Anticipation that I read the summer before I flew to London (I also met my later-to-be-wife during this time). It was at his annual empirical methods workshop that I met many of the people that would go on to be my music science colleagues friends over the next decade. His way of thinking and writing (in London we’d often joke he was too good at writing) really captured my (and I am sure many other’s) imagination.

Again, I never was a part of his lab and yet his passing feels monumental to me. I can only imagine how those who knew him well might be feeling now. He will be missed.