The Psychology of Music: A Very Short Introduction seeks to answer fundamental questions of enduring interest, such as "What is musicality?" and "How does music move us?" In doing so, it reveals what happens when science attempts to confront some of the deepest questions about music.

Approx.542 pages

In Psychology of Music: From Sound to Significance (2nd edition), the authors consider music on a broad scale, from its beginning as an acoustical signal to its different manifestations across cultures. In their second edition, the authors apply the same richness of depth and scope that was a hallmark of the first edition of this text. In addition, having laid out the topography of the field in the original book, the second edition puts greater emphasis on linking academic learning to real-world contexts, and on including compelling topics that appeal to students’ natural curiosity. Chapters have been updated with approximately 500 new citations to reflect advances in the field. The organization of the book remains the same as the first edition, while chapters have been updated and often expanded with new topics. 'Part I: Foundations' explores the acoustics of sound, the auditory system, and responses to music in the brain. 'Part II: The Perception and Cognition of Music' focuses on how we process pitch, melody, meter, rhythm, and musical structure. 'Part III: Development, Learning, and Performance' describes how musical capacities and skills unfold, beginning before birth and extending to the advanced and expert musician. And finally, 'Part IV: The Meaning and Significance of Music' explores social, emotional, philosophical and cultural dimensions of music and meaning. This book will be invaluable to undergraduates and postgraduate students in psychology and music, and will appeal to anyone who is interested in the vital and expanding field of psychology of music.

Music in the Human Experience: An Introduction to Music Psychology, Second Edition, is geared toward music students yet incorporates other disciplines to provide an explanation for why and how we make sense of music and respond to it—cognitively, physically, and emotionally. All human societies in every corner of the globe engage in music. Taken collectively, these musical experiences are widely varied and hugely complex affairs. How did human beings come to be musical creatures? How and why do our bodies respond to music? Why do people have emotional responses to music? Music in the Human Experience seeks to understand and explain these phenomena at the core of what it means to be a human being. New to this edition: Expanded references and examples of non-Western musical styles Updated literature on philosophical and spiritual issues Brief sections on tuning systems and the acoustics of musical instruments A section on creativity and improvisation in the discussion of musical performance New studies in musical genetics Greatly increased usage of explanatory figures

For most of the history of film-making, music has played an integral role serving many functions - such as conveying emotion, heightening tension, and influencing interpretation and inferences about events and characters. More recently, with the enormous growth of the gaming industry and the Internet, a new role for music has emerged. However, all of these applications of music depend on complex mental processes which are being identified through research on human participants in multimedia contexts. The Psychology of Music in Multimedia is the first book dedicated to this fascinating topic. The Psychology of Music in Multimedia presents a wide range of scientific research on the psychological processes involved in the integration of sound and image when engaging with film, television, video, interactive games, and computer interfaces. Collectively, the rich chapters in this edited volume represent a comprehensive treatment of the existing research on the multimedia experience, with the aim of disseminating the current knowledge base and inspiring future scholarship. The focus on empirical research and the strong psychological framework make this book an exceptional and distinctive contribution to the field. The international collection of contributors represents eight countries and a broad range of disciplines including psychology, musicology, neuroscience, media studies, film, and communications. Each chapter includes a comprehensive review of the topic and, where appropriate, identifies models that can be empirically tested. Part One presents contrasting theoretical approaches from cognitive psychology, philosophy, semiotics, communication, musicology, and neuroscience. Part Two reviews research on the structural aspects of music and multimedia, while Part Three focuses on research examining the influence of music on perceived meaning in the multimedia experience. Part Four explores empirical findings in a variety of real-world applications of music in multimedia including entertainment and educational media for children, video and computer games, television and online advertising, and auditory displays of information. Finally, the closing chapter in Part Five identifies emerging themes and points to the value of broadening the scope of research to encompass multisensory, multidisciplinary, and cross-cultural perspectives to advance our understanding of the role of music in multimedia. This is a valuable book for those in the fields of music psychology and musicology, as well as film and media studies.

Examining the intersection of music, psychology, and neuroscience, this text surveys the rapidly growing field of music cognition and explores its most interesting questions. Assuming minimal background in music or psychology, the book begins with an overview of the major theories on how and when music became a widespread aspect of human behavior. Now in its second edition, the text includes enhanced coverage of music therapy, the most recent theory and research, and improved pedagogy, including enhanced definitions of key terms and a reworked organization of topics.

Between the physical world of vibration, as measured by apparatus, and the world of consciously heard music there is a third area of investigation. Our auditory apparatus and/or mind separates different instruments and tones, hears some vibrations but not others, adds tones to fill out the sound spectrum, etc. This middle ground is the province of the psychology of music, a subject about which even many physical scientists know little. This introduction, by the developer of the Seashore test of musical ability, is a thorough survey of this field, the standard book for psychologists specializing in the area, for the school, and for interested musicologists. It opens with the musical mind and with a series of chapters on music as a medium: vibrato, pitch, loudness, duration, timbre, tone, consonance, volume, and rhythm, dealing with each from the special point of view of the role of psychology. It then moves to such factors as learning, imagining, and thinking in music; the nature of musical feeling; the relative sound patterns of specific instruments and the human voice; measures of musical talent; inheritance of musical ability; primitive music; the development of musical skills; and musical aesthetics. This wealth of material is supplemented with dozens of oscillograms and other sound-pattern charts recorded from actual play and singing by Jeritza, Caruso, Paderewski, Szigeti, Rethberg, Menuhin, Martinelli, and other artists. An appendix cites two attitudes toward the evaluation of musical talent and over 200 bibliographic references.