Categories and Concepts eBook

This book comprises a series of “state-of-the-art” reviews on work relating music and mind. It offers a uniquely broad range of approaches within a single volume, ranging from the psychological, through the computational, to the musicological. Authors were selected from presenters at the Third International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition (Liege, 1994) to illustrate the wide range of perspectives now being adopted in studying how humans make and respond to music. The book is divided into four sections, each illustrating a different approach to the topic. Section 1, Musicological Approaches, illustrates the role of analysis and ethnomusicology in understanding cultural determinants of musical behavior. Section 2, Developmental Approaches, charts what is known about the acquisition of musical competence, from pre-birth through to the expert performer. Section 3, Biological Approaches, examines the evidence now accumulating about specific areas of the brain which control musical thinking and behavior. Section 4, Acoustical and Computational Approaches, examine how neurological, behavioral and artificial intelligence approaches are converging to shed light on fundamental processes in auditory perception. Finally, Section 5, Structural Approaches, highlights important developments in how we conceptualize the way in which musical structures are represented in the mind. This book provides an up-to-date entry into major preoccupations of current music psychology, suitable for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and researchers in the field.