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Why do people attach importance to the wordless language we call music? Musical Cognition suggests that music is a game. In music, our cognitive functions such as perception, memory, attention, and expectation are challenged; yet, as listeners, we often do not realize that the listener plays an active role in reaching the awareness that makes music so exhilarating, soothing, and inspiring. In reality, the author contends, listening does not happen in the outer world of audible sound, but in the inner world of our minds and brains.
Recent research in the areas of psychology and neuro-cognition allows Honing to be explicit in a way that many of his predecessors could not. His lucid, evocative writing style guides the reader through what is known about listening to music while avoiding jargon and technical diagrams. With clear examples, the book concentrates on underappreciated musical skills—"sense of rhythm" and "relative pitch"—skills that make us musical creatures. Research on how living creatures respond to music supports the conviction that all humans have a unique, instinctive attraction to music.
Musical Cognition includes a selection of intriguing examples from recent literature exploring the role that an implicit or explicit knowledge of music plays when one listens to it. The scope of the topics discussed ranges from the ability of newborns to perceive a beat, to the unexpected musical expertise of ordinary listeners. The evidence shows that music is second nature to most human beings—biologically and socially.
View the book trailer View the book's website - see videos, images, sample materials, and the author's blog and Twitter feed.
Preface ix
Part 1 De do do do, de da da da Babble Music
1 First Listening Experiences 3
2 The Illiterate Listener 17
3 What this Book Is About 23
Part 2 Ooh-ooh-ooh The Magic of Music
4 Music as Mystery 27
5 Music as Language 31
6 Music as sound 45
Part 3 Hmmm … Music and Musicality
7 We're Musical Creatures 53
8 Measuring the Beat 63
9 Do You Recognize this Melody? 77
Part 4 Tá-ta-ta-tá-ta Music as Cognition
10 The Secret of the "Loud Rest" 87
11 The Secret of the Details 103
12 The Secret, Mapped Out 109
Part 5 Aha! Music in Our Heads
13 The Musical Listener 123
14 Listening and Learning 135
15 Encore 139
Index 147
Overview
Why do people attach importance to the wordless language we call music? Musical Cognition suggests that music is a game. In music, our cognitive functions such as perception, memory, attention, and expectation are challenged; yet, as listeners, we often do not realize that the listener plays an active role in reaching the awareness that makes music so exhilarating, soothing, and inspiring. In reality, the author contends, listening does not happen in the outer world of audible ...