Body and Force in Music

Youn Kim obtained her PhD in music theory from Columbia University and is currently Associate Professor of Music at The University of Hong Kong. Kim’s previous publications include a monograph History of Western Music Theory (2006) and articles in Journal of Musicology, Psychology of Music, and Journal of Musicological Research, among others. She also co-edited The Oxford Handbook of Music and the Body (2019) and co-authored several articles published in Scientific Reports and PLOS One.

What Kim presents in her "meta-psychology" of music is a story, circa 1900, in which music theorists and physiologists, economists and educators, physicists and philosophers create a whole new way of thinking about music – a musical thought that starts from the body and takes metaphors such as motion and force seriously. In this wide-ranging book, Kim shows how these discussions have not lost any of their relevance but strongly resonate with current musical concerns. Alexander Rehding, Fanny Peabody Professor of Music, Department of Music, Harvard UniversityYoun Kim is one of the very few contemporary musicologists whose work is of true value to both historians of music as well as historians and philosophers of science. Her new book, Body and Force in Music: Metaphoric Constructions in Music Psychology captures the emergence of a complex new way of imagining music in the course of the rise of the new sciences of biology and human nature by psychologists and philosophers (Darwin, Spencer, William James) in the course of the late 19th century. Concepts such as "soul," "force," and "body" become at this time simultaneously scientific "facts" and powerful metaphors that shape an understanding of music as phenomenon and relocate the question of its social and cultural meanings. Youn Kim’s book offers a rethinking not only of what music means today but how it came to have such meanings. Any one engaged with discussions about music as a "scientific" or "social" phenomenon, ethnomusicologists and those engaged in post-colonial studies of music; any one captured by the idea that our musical minds both pre-determined by genetics and yet shaped by our environment, will benefit from reading Youn Kim’s seminal work. Sander L. Gilman, Distinguished professor of the liberal arts and sciences and professor of psychiatry (emeritus), Emory University;Author of "I Know Who Caused COVID-19": Pandemics and Xenophobia. (2021)What exactly is music? Scientists have long wrestled with this question, often resorting to metaphors about movement, force, and the human body. In this well researched volume Professor Kim surveys the historical landscape that eventually becomes the modern field of music psychology. Along the way we are introduced to a singing sloth, a mechanical voice, and all manner of graphical representations as writers from previous centuries wrestle with the fleeting experience of music. The author brings together a chorus of fascinating voices––performers, critics, scientists, historians, dancers, neurologists—all grappling, as we still do today, with the mysteries of music.Robert O. Gjerdingen, Professor Emeritus of Music Theory and Cognition, Northwestern University

• Introduction The human body and musical instrumentsConceptual dimension of metaphoric construction Force and agency "Body and force" and "body versus force" The discursive space and disciplinary identity of music psychology Metaphors as shorthand for music psychologyRoadmapHistoricizing music psychology Chapter 1. The Musicking Body-machine Music, machine, and the body The emergence of the "human motor" model Rhythm: "an inevitable corollary from the persistence of forces" Psychological studies in the era of rhythm Musical rhythm and laborRhythm in the "body culture" The "irrational," continuous rhythm Rhythm and the piano-playing body Concluding remarksChapter 2. "A Force of Nature": Tracing Voice Animal, machine, and voice Speech theory of music Voice, the body machine, and the issue of agency Voice as both object and subject Voice of the "primitive" soul Recorded Voice "Dragging movement" "How the voice looks" Concluding remarksChapter 3. Motion, Force, and "Rhythm Form"The "‘co-working of motion’ with one’s own will" Piano theories Motion in piano playing Force and the will The will, physiology, and piano-playing Force and posture Action–perception coupling at the turn of the twentieth century "Rhythmic massing" Concluding remarks Chapter 4. Minding Gaps and Musical Energy The ball analogy The human motor capable of locomotion Capturing the musicking body Music as streams of energy Gliding between tones The agency of motion Revisiting the ball analogy Music as motion across disciplines and times Concluding remarks Chapter 5. Force at a Distance Force acting at a distance In the words of amateur pianists and psychologists Force affecting the audience The metaphor of vibratory waves in psychology Force at a distance and The power of sound"Brain waves" in communication Inhibition and waves in music psychology The vibratory energy of music "Sympathetic oscillation" Concluding remarks Epilogue Bibliography Index