Psychology of Music

PART I: Philosophical Perspectives 1. Emotion and Meaning in Music, L.B. Meyer 2. Music and Language: Parallels and Contrasts, R. Aiello 3. Perception: A Perspective from Music Theory, N. Cook PART II: Developmental Perspectives 4. Songsinging by Young and Old: A Developmental Approach to Music, L. Davidson 5. Coming to Hear in a New Way, J. Bamberger 6. Music Performance: Expression and Development of Excellence, J.A. Sloboda PART III: The Perception of Melody, Tonality, Rhythm and Timing 7. Melodic Contour in Hearing and Remembering Melodies, W.J. Dowling 8. Describing the Mental Representation of Tonality in Music, D. Beutler and H. Brown 9. Tonality and Expectation, J.J. Bharucha 10. Perception, Production, and Imitation of Time Ratios by Skilled Musicians, S. Sternberg and R.L. Knoll PART IV: The Perception of Musical Compositions 11. The Interpretive Component in Musical Performance, L.H. Shaffer and N.P. Todd 12. Can Listening to Music be Experimentally Studied?, R. Aiello

Introduction: Personality assessment 1. Musicianship from a different perspective 2. Introversion 3. Independence 4. Anxiety 5. Gender role adaptability 6. Music preferences and listening styles 7. Orchestral performers 9. Musicians in popular fields and conductors 10. Composers 11. Music teachers 12. Development of musical talent

Musicians imagine music by means of functional models which determine certain aspects of the music while leaving others open. This gap between image and the experience it models offers a source of compositional creativity; different musical cultures embody different ways of imagining sound as music. Drawing on psychological and philosophical materials as well as the analysis of specific musical examples, Cook here defines the difference between music theory and aesthetic criticism, and affirms the importance of the "ordinary listener" in musical culture.

The power of music in everyday life is widely recognized and this is reflected in social theory from Plato to Adorno that portrays music as an influence on character, social structure and action. This book uses a series of ethnographic studies and in-depth interviews to show how music is a constitutive feature of human agency. Drawing together concepts from psychology, sociology and sociolinguistics it develops a theory of music's active role in the construction of social life and highlights the aesthetic dimension of social order and organization in modern societies.