Recommended books are provided with links to free online libraries. In order to access materials, you may be required to register with the organization. Borrowing may be for a limited period, such as an hour at a time (with extensions), but enough to get an idea of the reading.
BOOKS
Ball, Philip. The Music Instinct: How Music Works and Why We Can’t Do Without It, Oxford University Press, 2010.
Drawing from a wide range of musical examples, science writer Philip Ball explores questions of cognition, pattern recognition, rhythm, and performance in his attempt to discover “how music does what it does.” Available via the Internet Archive.
Barzun, Jacques, editor. Pleasures of Music: A Reader’s Choice of Great Writing about Music and Musicians. Penguin, 1960.
Something for everyone in this anthology of writing about music that includes excerpts from Cellini, P.T. Barnum, and Bernard Shaw. Available via the Internet Archive.
Huron, David. Sweet Anticipation: Music and the Psychology of Expectation, MIT Press, 2007.
Aimed at musicians, music scholars, and psychologists, the book explores how music evokes emotions through anticipation, expectation, surprise. Available via the Internet Archive.
Juslin, Patrik N. Musical Emotions Explained: Unlocking the Secrets of Musical Affect. Oxford University Press, 2019. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198753421.001.0001
A psychology professor examines how the brain finds meaning in music from an evolutionary perspective and then asks why.
Presently no free online access. See the New York Public Library Performing Arts Division.
Juslin, Patrik N. and John A. Sloboda, Handbook of Music and Emotion: Theory, Research, Applications. Oxford University Press, 2011.
A variety of perspectives are represented in these essays, including the fields of philosophy, psychology, neurobiology, anthropology, sociology, social science, aesthetics, and communication. Available via the Internet Archive.
Jourdain, Robert. Music, the Brain, and Ecstasy: How Music Captures Our Imagination by William Morrow, 1997.
In layman’s language, Jourdain explores musical elements—sound, tone, melody, harmony, rhythm—leading to composition, performance, listening, understanding and ultimately ecstasy. Discussion focuses on western classical music tradition. Available via the Internet Archive.
Levitin, Daniel J. This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of Human Obsession, by Penguin Group, 2006.
Levitan asks, What can music teach us about the brain, and what can the brain teach us about music? Pop and classical music are equally featured in this probe that rises to the challenge without requiring musical skills. Available via the Internet Archive.
Margulis, Elizabeth Hellmuth, The Psychology of Music: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2019.
Attempt to connect the psychology of music to questions of interest to “practicing musicians, music therapists, musicologists, and the general public.” How does music influence emotions, movement, breathing? Online availability from New York Public Library with a NYPL Library card.
Meyer, Leonard B. Emotion and Meaning in Music, The University of Chicago Press,1956.
This exploration of musical meaning, its communication and its relationship to aesthetics continues to be meaningful to its readers. 1970 Edition available via the Internet Archive.
Patel, Aniruddh D. Music, Language, and the Brain, Oxford University Press, 2008.
An exploration of the relationship between music and language from the perspective of a cognitive psychologist with a background in evolutionary biology. Available via the Internet Archive.
Sacks, Oliver. Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, Alfred A. Knopf, 2007.
Tales of the immensely powerful musical experiences of his patients arranged in four sections: “Haunted by Music,” “A Range of Musicality,” “Memory, Movement and Music,” and “Emotion, Identity and Music.” Available via the Internet Archive.
ARTICLES
Malloch, Stephen, and Trevarthen, Colwyn. “The Human Nature of Music,” Front. Psychology, October 4, 2018.
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01680
Polite, Brandon. “Shared Musical Experiences,” The British Journal of Aesthetics, 59/4, October 2019, 429-447.
https://doi.org/10.1093/aesthj/ayz024
BLOGS
Music and the Soul
Music and what it means to be human | OUPblog
Music is universal and found in all cultures. Some have suggested that it is at the very essence of humanity . . .
