Musical Bodies, Musical Minds : Enactive Cognitive Science and the Meaning of Human Musicality

An enactive account of musicality that proposes new ways of thinking about musical experience, musical development in infancy, music and evolution, and more. Musical Bodies, Musical Minds offers an innovative account of human musicality that draws on recent developments in embodied cognitive science. The authors explore musical cognition as a form of sense-making that unfolds across the embodied , environmentally embedded , and sociomaterially extended dimensions that compose the enactment of human worlds of meaning. This perspective enables new ways of understanding musical experience, the development of musicality in infancy and childhood, music’s emergence in human evolution, and the nature of musical emotions, empathy, and creativity. Developing their account, the authors link a diverse array of ideas from fields including neuroscience, theoretical biology, psychology, developmental studies, social cognition, and education. Drawing on these insights, they show how dynamic processes of adaptive body-brain-environment interactivity drive musical cognition across a range of contexts, extending it beyond the personal (inner) domain of musical agents and out into the material and social worlds they inhabit and influence. An enactive approach to musicality, they argue, can reveal important aspects of human being and knowing that are often lost or obscured in the modern technologically driven world. Contents Acknowledgments 1. Getting Situated Perspectives on the Musical Mind Music and the Computational Mind Language and the Rules of Musical Perception Embodied Music Cognition Interdisciplinary Musicology and Enactive Music Cognition Looking Ahead 2. Basic Principles of Enactive Cognitive Science The Ecological Stance Autopoiesis and Autonomy Sense-Making Basic Cognition without Mental Representation? The Dynamical Perspective Life, Mind, and Culture The 4E Framework 3. Music and Consciousness Experience and the Computational Mind The Mind-Mind Problem Questioning Qualia A Propositional Proposal Whence the Nuances? Musical Consciousness as Situated Embodiment From Perceptual Bundles to Behavioral Forms 4. Phenomenology and the Musical Body Beginning Phenomenology Intentionality and the Modes of Experience Ghanaian Polyrhythm Revisiting Representation Embodied Mind as a “Metaphorical” Phenomenon Some Implications for Future Research and Theory 5. Music and Emotion Searching for Musical Emotions Routes and Mechanisms Are Musical Emotions Basic? The Component Process Model The Emotional Meaning of Musical Experience Musical Emotions as Dynamical and Emergent Music, Emotion, and Social Life 6. The Empathic Connection Embodied Simulation Theory Interaction Theory Psychological Precursors to Interaction Theory Musical Scaffolding Empathic Space Toward an Enactive View of Musical Empathy Therapeutic Interventions 7. The Evolution of the Musical Mind Music and the Dichotomy of Adaptation A Biocultural Perspective Looking beyond Adaptationism The Rhythmic Origins of the Musical Mind Plastic Brains Evolving Embodied Minds Enactivism Meets the Biocultural Perspective Life, Music, and Meaning 8. Teleomusicality The Biocognitive Foundations of Infant Musicality Perception in Action Toward Teleomusicality Varieties of Teleomusical Acts 9. Creative Musical Bodies The Corporeal Foundations of Creativity The Es of Musical Creativity Musical Worldviews Musical Learning as Embodied, Exploratory, and Creative 10. Praxis Music Education and the “Aesthetic View” Rediscovering the Musical Body Praxis, Enaction, and Music Education Relationality and the Ethics of Care Implications for Curriculum Critical Ontology Parting Thoughts Notes 1 Getting Situated 2 Basic Principles of Enactive Cognitive Science 3 Music and Consciousness 4 Phenomenology and the Musical Body 5 Music and Emotion 6 The Empathic Connection 7 The Evolution of the Musical Mind 8 Teleomusicality 9 Creative Musical Bodies 10 Praxis References Index "An attempt to explain musical cognition from the perspective of embodied cognitive science. Emphasizes interactive sense-making with the environment rather than internal neural mechanisms"-- Provided by publisher