Music informatics is an interdisciplinary research area that encompasses data driven approaches to the analysis, generation, and retrieval of music. In the era of big data, two goals weigh heavily on many research agendas in this area: (a) the identification of better features and (b) the acquisition of better training data. To this end, researchers have started to incorporate findings and methods from music cognition, a related but historically distinct research area that is concerned with elucidating the underlying mental processes involved in music-related behavior.

Music informatics is an interdisciplinary research area that encompasses data driven approaches to the analysis, generation, and retrieval of music. In the era of big data, two goals weigh heavily on many research agendas in this area: (a) the identification of better features and (b) the acquisition of better training data. To this end, researchers have started to incorporate findings and methods from music cognition, a related but historically distinct research area that is concerned with elucidating the underlying mental processes involved in music-related behavior.

A proposal that an embodied cognition approach to music research—drawing on work in computer science, psychology, brain science, and musicology—offers a promising framework for thinking about music mediation technology. Digital media handles music as encoded physical energy, but humans consider music in terms of beliefs, intentions, interpretations, experiences, evaluations, and significations. In this book, drawing on work in computer science, psychology, brain science, and musicology, Marc Leman proposes an embodied cognition approach to music research that will help bridge this gap. Assuming that the body plays a central role in all musical activities, and basing his approach on a hypothesis about the relationship between musical experience (mind) and sound energy (matter), Leman argues that the human body is a biologically designed mediator that transfers physical energy to a mental level—engaging experiences, values, and intentions—and, reversing the process, transfers mental representation into material form. He suggests that this idea of the body as mediator offers a promising framework for thinking about music mediation technology. Leman proposes that, under certain conditions, the natural mediator (the body) can be extended with artificial technology-based mediators. He explores the necessary conditions and analyzes ways in which they can be studied. Leman outlines his theory of embodied music cognition, introducing a model that describes the relationship between a human subject and its environment, analyzing the coupling of action and perception, and exploring different degrees of the body's engagement with music. He then examines possible applications in two core areas: interaction with music instruments and music search and retrieval in a database or digital library. The embodied music cognition approach, Leman argues, can help us develop tools that integrate artistic expression and contemporary technology.

Building on the insights of the first volume on Music and Gesture (Gritten and King, Ashgate 2006), the rationale for this sequel volume is twofold: first, to clarify the way in which the subject is continuing to take shape by highlighting both central and developing trends, as well as popular and less frequent areas of investigation; second, to provide alternative and complementary insights into the particular areas of the subject articulated in the first volume. The thirteen chapters are structured in a broad narrative trajectory moving from theory to practice, embracing Western and non-Western practices, real and virtual gestures, live and recorded performances, physical and acoustic gestures, visual and auditory perception, among other themes of topical interest. The main areas of enquiry include psychobiology; perception and cognition; philosophy and semiotics; conducting; ensemble work and solo piano playing. The volume is intended to promote and stimulate further research in Musical Gesture Studies.

This volume offers a comprehensive overview of the many facets of musical experience, behaviour and development in relation to the diverse variety of educational contexts in which they occur.