Bob Snyder: Music and Memory: An Introduction (2001)

This far-ranging book shows how human memory influences the organization of music. The book is divided into two parts. The first part presents basic ideas about memory and perception from cognitive psychology and, to some extent, cognitive linguistics. Topics include auditory processing, perception, and recognition. The second part describes in detail how the concepts from the first part are exemplified in music. The presentation is based on three levels of musical experience: event fusion (the formation of single musical events from acoustical vibrations in the air, on a time scale too small to exhibit rhythm), melody and rhythm, and form. The focus in the latter is on the psychological conditions necessary for making large-scale—that is, formal—boundaries clear in music rather than on traditional musical forms. The book also discusses the idea that much of the language used to describe musical structures and processes is metaphorical. It encourages readers to consider the possibility that the process of musical composition can be “a metaphorical transformation of their own experience into sound.”

The book also touches on unresolved debates about psychological musical universals, information theory, and the operation of neurons. It requires no formal musical training and contains a glossary and an appendix of listening examples.

Publisher MIT Press, 2001
ISBN 0262692376, 9780262692373
313 pages

publisher
google books

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André Leroi-Gourhan: Gesture and Speech (1964-65–) [ES, IT, EN]

“André Leroi-Gourhan (1911-1986) was an anthropologist and paleontologist whose theoretical endeavors extended well beyond those realms to encompass the culture of the twentieth century and its most advanced developments. His bold and coherent revision of both analytic and archaeological methods revolutionized the study of prehistoric culture. His adoption of the structuralist method for the analysis of prehistoric art enabled a radical rethinking and clearer understanding of its nature, with resulting implications for the understanding of the art of our own times, and for a broad range of contemporary issues.

Leroi-Gourhan was, for example, concerned with questions of communication, particularly the ways in which new techniques of communication reshape our understanding of language and writing. His work in this field has proved catalytic for the thinking of other major theorists, among them Jacques Derrida. Gesture and Speech combines in one volume Technics and Language and Memory and Rhythms, which are the cornerstones of Leroi-Gourhan’s comprehensive theory of human behavior and cultural development.

In Technics and Language, Leroi-Gourhan looks at prehistoric technology in relation to the development of cognitive and linguistic faculties, expanding on the cultural ramifications of erect posture, a short face, a free hand during locomotion, and possession of movable implements.

Memory and Rhythms approaches its subject from the standpoints of sociology and aesthetics. Here Leroi-Gourhan addresses the problems of instinct and intelligence. He defines the relationship between aesthetic behavior, on the one hand, and species attitudes and the personalization of ethnic groups, on the other, and undertakes a sweeping aesthetic analysis from visceral perception to figurative art, including a discussion of the ‘language of forms’ that makes figurative art an abstract expression of language.”

Originally published in French under the title Le Geste et la parole (t.1: Technique et langage; t.2: La mémoire et les rythmes), Albin Michel, Paris, 1964 and 1965.

Translated by Anna Bostock Berger
Introduction by Randall White
Publisher MIT Press, 1993
October Books series
ISBN 0262121735, 9780262121736
453 pages

Publisher (EN)

El gesto y la palabra (Spanish, trans. Felipe Carrera D., 1971, 20 MB, added on 2015-2-19)
Il gesto e la parola (Italian, trans. Franco Zannino, 1977, 9 MB, added on 2015-2-19)
Gesture and Speech (English, trans. Anna Bostock Berger, 1993, 10 MB)

David Cope: Virtual Music: Computer Synthesis of Musical Style (2001)

Virtual Music is about artificial creativity. Focusing on the author’s Experiments in Musical Intelligence computer music composing program, the author and a distinguished group of experts discuss many of the issues surrounding the program, including artificial intelligence, music cognition, and aesthetics.

The book is divided into four parts. The first part provides a historical background to Experiments in Musical Intelligence, including examples of historical antecedents, followed by an overview of the program by Douglas Hofstadter. The second part follows the composition of an Experiments in Musical Intelligence work, from the creation of a database to the completion of a new work in the style of Mozart. It includes, in sophisticated lay terms, relatively detailed explanations of how each step in the process contributes to the final composition. The third part consists of perspectives and analyses by Jonathan Berger, Daniel Dennett, Bernard Greenberg, Douglas R. Hofstadter, Steve Larson, and Eleanor Selfridge-Field. The fourth part presents the author’s responses to these commentaries, as well as his thoughts on the implications of artificial creativity.

The book includes an appendix providing extended musical examples referred to and discussed in the book, including composers such as Scarlatti, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Puccini, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Debussy, Bartok, and others. It is also accompanied by a CD containing performances of the music in the text.

With commentary by Douglas Hofstadter
And with perspectives and analysis by Eleanor Selfridge-Field, Bernard Greenberg, Steve Larson, Jonathan Berger, and Daniel Dennett
Publisher MIT Press, 2001
ISBN 026203283X, 9780262032834
565 pages

Experiments in Musical Intelligence (author)

publisher
google books

PDF (updated on 2012-6-13)