Music and the Mind

The Musical Mind, published in 1985, was written by the relatively unknown John Sloboda. It made ground-breaking inroads in raising crucial questions relating to music's status as a form of human expression and has become the seminal text in the field of music psychology. The scope of that book was impressive: from music perception to production, embracing topics as diverse as music's origin and the circumstances that encourage its skill acquisition. Musical structure, grouping, and perceptual processing, including memory, were key areas where John Sloboda had made early empirical investigations. Discussion of emotional responses and creative processes were far more inductively written, based on his own personal experiences. The Musical Mind laid a research agenda in asking those crucial 'how' and 'why' questions that have since occupied a growing body of researchers from all over the world. Following a quarter of a century after that seminal work, Music and the Mind celebrates the life and work of John Sloboda whilst taking stock of where the field of music psychology stands 25 years after The Musical Mind first appeared. It reviews key areas of current research in the field, written by world-leading authors, each making a significant and original academic contribution. Offering a timely review of the field of music psychology in the 21st Century, the contributors to Music and the Mind also reflect on how the field has been significantly stimulated by the influential work of John Sloboda. This book is fascinating reading for students and researchers in music psychology and musicology, as well as music professionals. "I can recommend Music and the Mind for several additional reasons. One is the sheer sense of satisfaction and inspiration in seeing how one person can have such a rich, multifarious impact on a research area of substantial general interest. On a related note, aside from providing a representative snapshot of high-quality and varied current research on music psychology, Music and the Mind deserves a special recommendation for individuals who may be new to the psychology of music and wish to learn more about this fundamentally human and engaging area of research." -- Aaron Kozbelt, PsycCRITIQUESPrelude ; JOHN SLOBODA AND HIS CONTRIBUTION ; 1. Music, linguistics and cognition ; 2. 'What are the important questions?' A reflection ; MOTIVATING MUSICAL LIVES ; 3. Developing a young musician's growth mindset: the role of motivation, self-theories and resiliency. ; 4. Negotiating Music in the Real World: development, motivation, process and effect ; 5. Musical Participation: Expectations, Experiences and Outcomes ; MUSIC AND EMOTION ; 6. How do Strong Experiences with Music (SEM) relate to experiences in everyday listening to music? ; 7. Music and Emotion: Seven Questions, Seven Answers ; SLOBODA'S RECALL PARADIGM ; 8. Perception of melody. An empirical approach ; 9. Sloboda's recall paradigm for melodic memory: A new, computational perspective ; MUSICAL ACHIEVEMENT AND EXPERTISE ; 10. Musical encounters of the temporary kind ; 11. Routes to Adolescent Musical Expertise ; 12. The musical child prodigy (Wunderkind) in music history: A historiometric analysis ; 13. : Evidence from a Savant of how Atonal Music is Processed in Cognition' ; EXAMINING MUSICAL PERFORMANCE ; 14. Off the record: performance, history, and musical logic ; 15. Expressive Variants in the Opening Robert Schumann's Arlequin (from Carnaval, op. 9): 54 Pianists' Interpretations of a Metrical Ambiguity ; 16. Quantifying the beat-inducing properties of conductors' temporal gestures, and conductor-musician synchronization ; 17. Performance cues in singing: Evidence from practice and recall ; MUSIC AND CULTURAL INTEGRATION ; 18. Emotions in motion: Transforming conflict with the help of music ; 19. The role of music in the integration of cultural minorities ; Postlude