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Hearing in Time: Psychological Aspects of Musical Meter
Our sense that a waltz is "in three" or a blues song is "in four with a shuffle" comes from our sense of musical meter. Hearing in Time explores musical meter from the point of view of cognitive theories of perception and attention. London explores how our ability to follow musical meter is
simply a specific instance of our more general ability to synchronize our attention to regularly recurring events in our environment. As such, musical meter is subject to a number of fundamental perceptual and cognitive constraints, which form the cornerstones of London's account. Because listening
to music, like many other rhythmic activities, is something that we often do, London views it as a skilled activity for performers and non-performers alike. Hearing in Time approaches musical meter in the context of music as it is actually performed, rather than as a theoretical ideal. Its approach
is not based on any particular musical style or cultural practice, so it uses familiar examples from a broad range of music--Beethoven and Bach to Brubeck and Ghanaian drumming. Taking this broad approach brings out a number of fundamental similarities between a variety of different metric
phenomena, such as the difference between so-called simple versus complex or additive meters. Because of its accessible style--only a modest ability to read a musical score is presumed-- Hearing in Time is for anyone interested in rhythm and meter, including cognitive psychologists, musicologists,
musicians, and music theorists.
simply a specific instance of our more general ability to synchronize our attention to regularly recurring events in our environment. As such, musical meter is subject to a number of fundamental perceptual and cognitive constraints, which form the cornerstones of London's account. Because listening
to music, like many other rhythmic activities, is something that we often do, London views it as a skilled activity for performers and non-performers alike. Hearing in Time approaches musical meter in the context of music as it is actually performed, rather than as a theoretical ideal. Its approach
is not based on any particular musical style or cultural practice, so it uses familiar examples from a broad range of music--Beethoven and Bach to Brubeck and Ghanaian drumming. Taking this broad approach brings out a number of fundamental similarities between a variety of different metric
phenomena, such as the difference between so-called simple versus complex or additive meters. Because of its accessible style--only a modest ability to read a musical score is presumed-- Hearing in Time is for anyone interested in rhythm and meter, including cognitive psychologists, musicologists,
musicians, and music theorists.
- GenresMusicPsychology
206 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2004
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November 23, 2012
So far the best book on musical time cognition. Most studies in the field come from psychologists interested in cognitive modelling – the ways our brain processes discrete (musical) information. This work comes from a fully fledged music theorist and has a high degree of applicability. It definitely beats me why "Hearing in time" is not more popular and why it has no Amazon.com reviews. Highly recommended! (I just noticed that the book is now available in paperback too – http://www.amazon.com/Hearing-Time-Ps...
Displaying 1 of 1 review