Ways of Listening

Choice This challenging, impressive study implies new ways of thinking about music and listening. No other books cover the same territory.

Nicholas Cook, Royal Holloway, University of London This is the first book to place an ecological approach to perception at the core of music theory. The result is that many problems created by the hitherto dominant cognitive approach simply disappear: emotion and meaning emerge as primary attributes of music (as common sense might always have suggested). Clarke's highly approachable book, with its wide range of musical case studies, will prompt both musicians and psychologists to rethink some of their most basic assumptions.

Lawrence Zbikowski, University of Chicago Department of Music Using a holistic approach to perception, Clarke captures the particularity and import of that unique aspect of musical sound Roland Barthes called 'the grain of the voice.' Through this, he is able to build a rich and textured account of musical meaning equally applicable to W.A. Mozart and P.J. Harvey. This important and innovative book offers a fresh perspective on music cognition that will be much discussed in the years to come.

<br>Eric Clarke is Professor of Music at the University of Oxford. He received BA and MA degrees in music from the University of Sussex, and a PhD in psychology from the University of Exeter. He has published on topics including the psychology of performance, the perception and production of rhythm, the semiotics of music, the relationship between language and music, and music and ecological theory. For ten years he was a member of the improvising string quartet The Lapis String Quartet.<br>

Introduction Ch.1 Perception, Ecology, and Music Ch. 2 Jimi Hendrix's "Star Spangled Banner" Ch. 3 Music, Motion and Subjectivity Ch. 4 Subject Position in Music Ch.5 Autonomy/Heteronomy and Perceptual Style Ch.6 The First Movement of Beethoven's Quartet in A Minor, Op 132 Conclusions Notes References Index