Music as Art and Science – serie

Music and the Cognitive Humanities explores how music and its web of cultures, practices, and experiences can be examined through perspectives that combine the sciences and the humanities. Bringing together nineteen leading international scholars from complementary disciplines, it investigates how scientific and humanities approaches to the musical mind can inspire richer understandings of what it means to experience and engage with music.The volume challenges conventional disciplinary boundaries to foster a unique dialogue between empirical and theoretical research. To this end, each chapter is co-authored by researchers representing both scientific and humanities traditions. These partnerships yield fresh insights into complex topics such as musical creativity, empathy, development, performance, and subjectivity, unlocking new avenues of inquiry that pave the way for a more integrated approach.As part of the Music as Art and Science series, Music and the Cognitive Humanities embodies a new model of radical interdisciplinarity and invites readers to consider how cognitive science, philosophy, psychology, musicology, cultural history, and performance studies can, when working in concert, illuminate aspects of musical life that may not be disclosed by any single disciplinary account. Combining intellectual rigor with clear and accessible writing, this book offers a compelling vision of how the cognitive humanities can contribute to a richer, deeper, and more inclusive understanding of human musicality in the twenty-first century.

Music and the Cognitive Humanities explores how music and its web of cultures, practices, and experiences can be examined through perspectives that combine the sciences and the humanities. Bringing together nineteen leading international scholars from complementary disciplines, it investigates how scientific and humanities approaches to the musical mind can inspire richer understandings of what it means to experience and engage with music.The volume challenges conventional disciplinary boundaries to foster a unique dialogue between empirical and theoretical research. To this end, each chapter is co-authored by researchers representing both scientific and humanities traditions. These partnerships yield fresh insights into complex topics such as musical creativity, empathy, development, performance, and subjectivity, unlocking new avenues of inquiry that pave the way for a more integrated approach.As part of the Music as Art and Science series, Music and the Cognitive Humanities embodies a new model of radical interdisciplinarity and invites readers to consider how cognitive science, philosophy, psychology, musicology, cultural history, and performance studies can, when working in concert, illuminate aspects of musical life that may not be disclosed by any single disciplinary account. Combining intellectual rigor with clear and accessible writing, this book offers a compelling vision of how the cognitive humanities can contribute to a richer, deeper, and more inclusive understanding of human musicality in the twenty-first century.

What is music when viewed as a biological phenomenon, and how does that perspective shape our understanding of ourselves? The Biology of Music offers a comprehensive, interdisciplinary examination of musicality as a biologically grounded yet culturally shaped human capacity. While music itself is a product of culture, the ability to perceive, process, and produce music--known as musicality--has deep evolutionary roots and intersects with nearly every domain of human experience.Edited by Andrea Ravignani, this volume brings together leading scholars from evolutionary biology, cognitive science, anthropology, neurobiology, developmental psychology, artificial intelligence, musicology, and related fields. Their twelve original chapters trace the emergence and development of musicality across individuals and species, exploring its evolutionary origins and its possible coevolution with emotion, ritual, communication, and social cohesion.Organized into three thematic sections, the book examines musical universals and early ontogeny; cross-species comparisons and the biocultural evolution of musicality; and theoretical models that account for how musical capacities arise and diversify. Contributors engage with topics such as musicking across species, systems evolution, evo-devo approaches, and the interplay between biological predispositions and cultural environments. Rather than imposing a single explanatory framework, the volume highlights the value of dialogue--between disciplines, between biological and cultural perspectives, and between empirical findings and conceptual models. The result is a rigorous yet accessible synthesis that reflects the growing momentum toward a biologically informed musicology and a culturally literate biomusicology.