Musical Cognition: A Science of Listening

by Henkjan Honing

Why do people attach importance to the wordless language we call music? Musical Cognition suggests that music is a game. In music, our cognitive functions such as perception, memory, attention, and expectation are challenged; yet, as listeners, we often do not realize that the listener plays an active role in reaching the awareness that makes music so exhilarating, soothing, and inspiring. In reality, the author contends, listening does not happen in the outer world of audible sound, but in the inner world of our minds and brains. Recent research in the areas of psychology and neuro-cognition allows Henkjan Honing to be explicit in a way that many of his predecessors could not. His lucid, evocative writing style guides the reader through what is known about listening to music while avoiding jargon and technical diagrams. With clear examples, the book concentrates on underappreciated musical skills―"sense of rhythm" and "relative pitch"―skills that make people musical creatures. Research on how living creatures respond to music supports the conviction that all humans have a unique, instinctive attraction to music. Everyone is musical. Musical Cognition includes a selection of intriguing examples from recent literature exploring the role that an implicit or explicit knowledge of music plays when one listens to it. The scope of the topics discussed ranges from the ability of newborns to perceive a beat, to the unexpected musical expertise of ordinary listeners. The evidence shows that music is second nature to most human beings―biologically and socially. This paperback edition contains a new afterword that details cutting-edge research on musicality and language.

Genres: Music, Science, Psychology

166 pages, Paperback

First published March 31, 2011

About the author

Henkjan Honing studies what musicality is or can be and to what extent human beings share musicality with other animals. His aim is to define the cognitive and biological mechanisms that underpin musicality. In addition to a research agenda (The Origins of Musicality, 2018, MIT Press), Honing has published several books for the general public, including the English-language publications Music Cognition: The Basics (2021, Routledge) and The Evolving Animal Orchestra (2019, MIT Press). Honing’s books and lectures are popular with a broad audience and are appreciated both inside and outside the scientific world.

Reviews

[Bill Leach · Rating 1 out of 5]

Honing introduces the book with the question of whether music is sound, concluding that it is not only sound but the cognition of the sound by the human brain. This distinction is typical of the discussion in the book where the author defines various concepts, discusses them and then leaves them on an inconclusive basis.

Music as a language is proposed and discussed.

A major idea is that humans develop beat induction - the expectation of a beat - in the womb. He examines monkeys and birds were claims have been made of an inherent beat, but seems uncertain whether to accept these as valid. In the end, it is not clear how all this matters.

Another idea is the loud rest. The concept is that if a note is missing from a measure, it is surprising to the listener. He then goes on to suggest that some loud rests are more arresting than others, so one should quantify rests as to their loudness.

The book end with a study that claims that French babies cry in an ascending tone while German babies cry in the descending tone. While a very small study the author considers it very significant.

Most of the book is along these lines - defining terms and debating the meaning of the terms, making one wonder whether academia can contribute anything to understanding the perception of musical constructs.

[DL (Donna) Rudd · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was not what I thought when I checked it out at library.
It did not hold my attention, to be honest. It felt to obscure.
I'll give five stars, only because it is written well, just not what I need or expected, hence: uninterested. I skimmed through the mid to end ....