History Of Western Music: The Theoretical Differences Between Each Musical Era

A comprehensive overview of the visual mechanisms the brain uses to make sense out of and create music.



This is the story of music in visual metaphor. What makes music the "language of emotions," and why do we react to music at all? The author, a professional pianist and scholar in music cognition, compares our perception of music with orientation in 3-D space. The key metaphor is an image of a melodic object shaped by a tonal force field. Here, melodic elements are compared directly to geometric proportions, and some identified as artistic "universals." At the core of the aesthetic experience in music ultimately lies the mystery of non-linguistic human communication - its ability to generate emotions and even thought. This places the art of music at the center of contemporary discussion on the theory of mind.