This text provides the theoretical and practical techniques that explain meaning and understanding in music. It gives coverage of such topics as the development of skills in music performance research on communicating music expressiveness, and more.

WINNER OF THE SOCIETY OF MUSIC THEORY’S 2019 CITATION OF SPECIAL MERIT FOR MULTI-AUTHORED VOLUMES The Routledge Companion to Music Cognition addresses fundamental questions about the nature of music from a psychological perspective. Music cognition is presented as the field that investigates the psychological, physiological, and physical processes that allow music to take place, seeking to explain how and why music has such powerful and mysterious effects on us. This volume provides a comprehensive overview of research in music cognition, balancing accessibility with depth and sophistication. A diverse range of global scholars—music theorists, musicologists, pedagogues, neuroscientists, and psychologists—address the implications of music in everyday life while broadening the range of topics in music cognition research, deliberately seeking connections with the kinds of music and musical experiences that are meaningful to the population at large but are often overlooked in the study of music cognition. Such topics include: Music’s impact on physical and emotional health Music cognition in various genres Music cognition in diverse populations, including people with amusia and hearing impairment The relationship of music to learning and accomplishment in academics, sport, and recreation The broader sociological and anthropological uses of music Consisting of over forty essays, the volume is organized by five primary themes. The first section, "Music from the Air to the Brain," provides a neuroscientific and theoretical basis for the book. The next three sections are based on musical actions: "Hearing and Listening to Music," "Making and Using Music," and "Developing Musicality." The closing section, "Musical Meanings," returns to fundamental questions related to music’s meaning and significance, seen from historical and contemporary perspectives. The Routledge Companion to Music Cognition seeks to encourage readers to understand connections between the laboratory and the everyday in their musical lives.

This text comprises of papers relating to music and mind. It presents a range of approaches from the psychological through the computational, to the musicological.

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.

VIEW BOOK DETAILS We are pleased to introduce the collection Frontiers in Psychology – Highlights in Performance Science: Music Performance Anxiety. Music performance anxiety (MPA) has been defined as “the experience of marked and persistent anxious apprehension related to musical performance”. For musicians performing in public is a demanding activity and the MPA can cause potential debilitating effects on their career and health, regardless of age, gender, experience, practicing time, and music genre. A greater understanding of the predicting factors of MPA has implications not only for theories of MPA but also for its prevention and management and more broadly for teaching and learning. This collection will welcome and showcase a selection of articles about Music Performance Anxiety (MPA), authored by leaders in the field. The work presented here highlights the broad diversity of research performed across the Performance Science field and aims to put a spotlight on the main areas of interest. This collection aims to further support Frontiers’ strong community by shining a spotlight on our authors' highly impactful research.

This issue comprises the twenty-five papers presented at the Second Music and the Cognitive Sciences conference held at Cambridge University in 1990.

The Routledge Companion to Embodied Music Interaction captures a new paradigm in the study of music interaction, as a wave of recent research focuses on the role of the human body in musical experiences. This volume brings together a broad collection of work that explores all aspects of this new approach to understanding how we interact with music, addressing the issues that have roused the curiosities of scientists for ages: to understand the complex and multi-faceted way in which music manifests itself not just as sound but also as a variety of cultural styles, not just as experience but also as awareness of that experience. With contributions from an interdisciplinary and international array of scholars, including both empirical and theoretical perspectives, the Companion explores an equally impressive array of topics, including: Dynamical music interaction theories and concepts Expressive gestural interaction Social music interaction Sociological and anthropological approaches Empowering health and well-being Modeling music interaction Music-based interaction technologies and applications This book is a vital resource for anyone seeking to understand human interaction with music from an embodied perspective.