Biomusicology : neurophysiological, neuropsychological, and evolutionary perspectives on the origins and purposes of music

Beskrivning:

Since the 1960s, Swedish musicologist Nils Wallin has been exploring man's biological inheritance and its relationship to music. This book the culmination of these many years of investigation offers a musicological interpretation of recent research in neurophysiology and paleobiology. A model of music as a natural system which serves as a foundation for the understanding of our musical mind, its capacity, and its phylogenetic roots is proposed, and a unified bio-socio-cultural field theory of music is presented. It is argued that music creates structures which develop and grow in a manner not unlike the processes controlling the growth of organisms. Thus, music as a system is conditioned by biological microsystems as well as superi or macrosystems of a more complex nature such as the flow of consciousness and social, political, and economic systems - a natural synergetic system.
Wallin's discourse encompasses:

The musical consequences of cerebral functional asymmetry;
The hierarchic and selective organization of perceptual-cognitive auditory processes;
Reticular-limbic responses to musical stimuli interpreted as synapse-modifying mechanisms for long-term motivation and learning, as well as for phylogenetical "learning";
The question of remnants or retentions with roots in the sound-gestures of other vertebrates of a higher order (and not solely the non-human primates) being active in the innermost structure of music;
Vocalization techniques, e.g., the "kolning" technique of the late Paleolithic herding culture of Europe, as paleobiological retention;
The epistemological perspective of models of life-processes as discussed in recent scientific research.

Musik Psykologi Kontoret