Psychomusicology

Page 1. 1 Copyright 2011 by Psychomusicology DOI: 10.5084/pmmb2010/21/xxx Psychomusicology: Music, Mind & Brain 2010, Vol. 21, No. 1 & No. 2, xxx-xxx abstract—Research is reviewed on singing, health and well-being from the perspective of health psychology. ...

The similarities between music and language are often remarked upon. For this reason, many thinkers fall into a linguistic bias in music analysis. Both are unique products of the human mind serving the purpose of expression, although they do not coincide entirely. Meanings conveyed musically and linguistically differ due to physical, conceptual and formal limitations. A closer study of their creation points to the common root of linguistic and musical production, consisting in the human affinity for symbolic transformation of experience, stemming from evolutionary adaptation to the changing environment. Symbolisation not only allows the human being to internally conceive the reality which surrounds them, but also to represent objects and concepts in absentia. This faculty prompted the elaboration of systems of communication and artistic creation, a virtually ludic activity reflecting the inherent cerebral processes.

Reviews the book, "The Expressiveness of Perceptual Experience: Physiognomy Reconsidered" by Martin S. Lindauer (2013). The Expressiveness of Perceptual Experience: Physiognomy Reconsidered reviews, summarizes, and seeks to synthesize the author’s four decades of research investigating this topic. Lindauer belongs to a vanishing breed of generalists in a time of ever-increasing specialization and narrowly defined research agendas in cognitive psychology and neuroscience. Because of its broad scope and survey of relevant and related literature, his recent book is suitable as a supplementary text for courses on the psychology of emotion and psychological aesthetics encompassing, as it does, not just perception, but cognitive, aesthetic, and social aspects of expressive perceptual experience. The nine chapters of this rich and far-ranging monograph are organized under four headings: “Part 1: Background,” “Part 2: Physiognomy and the arts,” “Part 3: A perceptual framework for physiognomy,” and “Part 4: Answers and questions.” Though Lindauer enthusiastically provides the reader with a rich and informative panorama of sources, empirical findings, and ideas, his book does not forge a unified conceptual framework that links physiognomic perception with an empirically testable science of physiognomics.

Participants The participants for the research (baseline and post-intervention evaluation) were drawn from eighty-one schools located across England. The schools were in major cities and adjacent population centres across the South-East (Greater London), East have not witnessed before. It is the most elemental form of music making, and is within the grasp of all of us, whatever our ability. It is a powerful community activity binding individuals and community together.'