Whether you listen to Bach or Bono, music has a significant role in your life--even if you never realized it. Why does music evoke such powerful moods? The answers are at last becoming clear, thanks to revolutionary neuroscience and the emerging field of evolutionary psychology.…
Music and history: bridging the disciplines
"This book begins with a simple question: Why haven't historians and musicologists been talking to one another? This collection of original essays, the first of its kind, argues that the conversation between scholars in the two fields can become richer and more mutually informin…
This book begins with a simple question: Why haven't historians and musicologists been talking to one another? Historians frequently look to all aspects of human activity, including music, in order to better understand the past. Musicologists inquire into the social, cultural, a…
What is music, and why do we enjoy it? Drawing on a number of accessible examples, Nicholas Cook prompts us to call on our own musical experiences in order to think more critically about the roles of performer and listener, about music as a commodity, and what it means to unders…
Music is omnipresent in human culture-but why do we enjoy it so much? What meaning does it have in our lives? How does it function as a symbol of identity? And do men and women process music differently? Nicholas Cook takes a fascinating look at a variety of styles-from traditio…
"Ranging through and beyond the 20th century, 'Performing Rites' puts the Pet Shop Boys and Puccini, rhythm and lyric, voice and technology, into a dialogue about the impact of popular aesthetics on our lives.
Ranging through and beyond the 20th century, Performing Rites puts the Pet Shop Boys and Puccini, rhythm and lyric, voice and technology, into a dialogue about the impact of popular aesthetics on our lives.