Reflections on the Musical Mind

Reflections on the Musical Mind

Author: Jay Schulkin

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2013-07-28

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 0691157448

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What's so special about music? We experience it internally, yet at the same time it is highly social. Music engages our cognitive/affective and sensory systems. We use music to communicate with one another--and even with other species--the things that we cannot express through language. Music is both ancient and ever evolving. Without music, our world is missing something essential. In Reflections on the Musical Mind, Jay Schulkin offers a social and behavioral neuroscientific explanation of why music matters. His aim is not to provide a grand, unifying theory. Instead, the book guides the reader through the relevant scientific evidence that links neuroscience, music, and meaning. Schulkin considers how music evolved in humans and birds, how music is experienced in relation to aesthetics and mathematics, the role of memory in musical expression, the role of music in child and social development, and the embodied experience of music through dance. He concludes with reflections on music and well-being. Reflections on the Musical Mind is a unique and valuable tour through the current research on the neuroscience of music.


Reflections on the Musical Mind

Reflections on the Musical Mind

Author: Jay Schulkin

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2013-07-28

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1400849039

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What's so special about music? We experience it internally, yet at the same time it is highly social. Music engages our cognitive/affective and sensory systems. We use music to communicate with one another--and even with other species--the things that we cannot express through language. Music is both ancient and ever evolving. Without music, our world is missing something essential. In Reflections on the Musical Mind, Jay Schulkin offers a social and behavioral neuroscientific explanation of why music matters. His aim is not to provide a grand, unifying theory. Instead, the book guides the reader through the relevant scientific evidence that links neuroscience, music, and meaning. Schulkin considers how music evolved in humans and birds, how music is experienced in relation to aesthetics and mathematics, the role of memory in musical expression, the role of music in child and social development, and the embodied experience of music through dance. He concludes with reflections on music and well-being. Reflections on the Musical Mind is a unique and valuable tour through the current research on the neuroscience of music.


Composition and Cognition

Composition and Cognition

Author: Fred Lerdahl

Publisher: University of California Press

Published: 2019-11-05

Total Pages: 159

ISBN-13: 0520305108

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In Composition and Cognition, renowned composer and theorist Fred Lerdahl builds on his careerlong work of developing a comprehensive model of music cognition. Bringing together his dual expertise in composition and music theory, he reveals the way in which his research has served as a foundation for his compositional style and how his intuitions as a composer have guided his cognitively oriented theories. At times personal and reflective, this book offers an overall picture of the musical mind that has implications for central issues in contemporary composition, including the recurrent gap between method and result, and the tension between cognitive constraints and utopian aesthetic views of musical progress. Lerdahl’s succinct volume provides invaluable insights for students and instructors, composers and music scholars, and anyone engaged with contemporary music.


MUSIC AND THE MIND

MUSIC AND THE MIND

Author: Anthony Storr

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2015-05-19

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 1501122096

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Why does music have such a powerful effect on our minds and bodies? It is the most mysterious and most tangible of all forms of art. Yet, Anthony Storr believes, music today is a deeply significant experience for a greater number of people than ever before. In this book, he explores why this should be so. Drawing on a wide variety of opinions, Storr argues that the patterns of music make sense of our inner experience, giving both structure and coherence to our feelings and emotions. It is because music possesses this capacity to restore our sense of personal wholeness in a culture which requires us to separate rational thought from feelings that many people find it so life-enhancing that it justifies existence.


This is Your Brain on Music

This is Your Brain on Music

Author: Daniel Levitin

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 2019-07-04

Total Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 0241987369

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From the author of The Changing Mind and The Organized Mind comes a New York Times bestseller that unravels the mystery of our perennial love affair with music ***** 'What do the music of Bach, Depeche Mode and John Cage fundamentally have in common?' Music is an obsession at the heart of human nature, even more fundamental to our species than language. From Mozart to the Beatles, neuroscientist, psychologist and internationally-bestselling author Daniel Levitin reveals the role of music in human evolution, shows how our musical preferences begin to form even before we are born and explains why music can offer such an emotional experience. In This Is Your Brain On Music Levitin offers nothing less than a new way to understand music, and what it can teach us about ourselves. ***** 'Music seems to have an almost wilful, evasive quality, defying simple explanation, so that the more we find out, the more there is to know . . . Daniel Levitin's book is an eloquent and poetic exploration of this paradox' Sting 'You'll never hear music in the same way again' Classic FM magazine 'Music, Levitin argues, is not a decadent modern diversion but something of fundamental importance to the history of human development' Literary Review


Rough Ideas

Rough Ideas

Author: Stephen Hough

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Published: 2020-02-04

Total Pages: 464

ISBN-13: 0374721408

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A collection of essays on music and life by the famed classical pianist and composer Stephen Hough is one of the world’s leading pianists, winning global acclaim and numerous awards, both for his concerts and his recordings. He is also a writer, composer, and painter, and has been described by The Economist as one of “Twenty Living Polymaths.” Hough writes informally and engagingly about music and the life of a musician, from the broader aspects of what it is to walk out onto a stage or to make a recording, to specialist tips from deep inside the practice room: how to trill, how to pedal, how to practice. He also writes vividly about people he’s known, places he’s traveled to, books he’s read, paintings he’s seen; and he touches on more controversial subjects, such as assisted suicide and abortion. Even religion is there—the possibility of the existence of God, problems with some biblical texts, and the challenges involved in being a gay Catholic. Rough Ideas is an illuminating, constantly surprising introduction to the life and mind of one of our great cultural figures.


Keys to the Kingdom

Keys to the Kingdom

Author: Kathleen L. Housley

Publisher:

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 81

ISBN-13: 9780982726204

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KEYS TO THE KINGDOM: Reflections on Music and the Mind Keys to the Kingdom: Reflections on Music and the Mind charts the course of an unusual odyssey. For nearly a decade, Kathleen Housley played piano with Katrina Withey, a gifted musician partially paralyzed from a stroke. To understand those times in their playing when disabilities disappeared in a shimmer of grace, Housley wrote brief reflections, turning to neuroscience and history for deeper insight. Some are as complex as a fugue. Others are as simple as a finger exercise on the C scale. Yet sounding throughout the reflections is a sublime theme-the importance of friendship. "I am certain I will return to this book many times-to prevent music from becoming solely intellectual, friendship simply casual, and life experiences reduced to a progression of day-to-day events. Each chapter is a fresh and enlighteninglook at the power of music throughout time, and a moving glimpse into evoking the eternal power between friends." Pamela J. Perry, D.M.A., Professor of Music, Central Connecticut State University "Kathleen Housley has written a sensitive account of friendship, courage, and the power of music to unite and heal. Her observations are sealed with a light touch of metaphors, never too much, always growing from the real experience." Richard T. Lee, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Trinity College "Keys to the Kingdom is more than an inspirational story. It brilliantly connects neurology, music, language, and the overall sense of being. All rehabilitation specialists should read this book to appreciate the holistic nature of recovery and well-being." Mary Purdy, Ph.D., Department of Communication Disorders, Southern Connecticut State University Kathleen L. Housley is the author of four books of non-fiction and one book of poetry. She has written for numerous journals including Image, Isotope, The Christian Century, and Ars Medica.


The Musical Human

The Musical Human

Author: Michael Spitzer

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2021-04-01

Total Pages: 481

ISBN-13: 1526602741

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A RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK 'Full of delightful nuggets' Guardian online 'Entertaining, informative and philosphical ... An essential read' All About History 'Extraordinary range ... All the world and more is here' Evening Standard 165 million years ago saw the birth of rhythm. 66 million years ago came the first melody. 40 thousand years ago Homo sapiens created the first musical instrument. Today music fills our lives. How we have created, performed and listened to music throughout history has defined what our species is and how we understand who we are. Yet it is an overlooked part of our origin story. The Musical Human takes us on an exhilarating journey across the ages – from Bach to BTS and back – to explore the vibrant relationship between music and the human species. With insights from a wealth of disciplines, world-leading musicologist Michael Spitzer renders a global history of music on the widest possible canvas, from global history to our everyday lives, from insects to apes, humans to artificial intelligence. 'Michael Spitzer has pulled off the impossible: a Guns, Germs and Steel for music' Daniel Levitin 'A thrilling exploration of what music has meant and means to humankind' Ian Bostridge