"Chapter 1 describes how the cognitive process of analogy can be used as a framework for analyzing how individual listeners relate what they are hearing to what they may have heard or learned in musical and other experiences in the past. The framework emphasizes the cognitive steps a person takes when making an analogy of any kind: (1) retrieval-remembering patterns and associations based on experience; (2) mapping-aligning situations; and (3) inference transfer- transferring inferences/associations, recognizing manipulations. I use this process to analyze hearings of Western art music, illustrating not only how listeners might analogize music to other domains (such as the body or language) as a framing analogy for their listening experience, but also how they might analogize details of the music they are currently hearing to music they have heard in the past, creating what I call music-to-music analogies"--
Imagine someone who attended a Beethoven Symphony in 1805. Now imagine a listener attending the same symphony today. Both create meanings by relying on previous experiences, but no one assumes they leave their concerts with the same experience. Yet, when analyzing music, we often rely on "ideal listeners," presuming all have the same experience. Who Listens? Experience, Cognition, and Musical Meaning is a fascinating look into the importance of who is listening and how. Author Janet Bourne presents a new set of cognitively-based tools for analyzing music from the perspective of the listener.
Imagine someone who attended a Beethoven Symphony in 1805. Now imagine a listener attending the same symphony today. Both create meanings by relying on previous experiences, but no one assumes they leave their concerts with the same experience. Yet, when analyzing music, we often rely on "ideal listeners," presuming all have the same experience. Who Listens? Experience, Cognition, and Musical Meaning is a fascinating look into the importance of who is listening and how. Author Janet Bourne presents a new set of cognitively-based tools for analyzing music from the perspective of the listener.
This book shows how listening is an active and creative act, and that many people make sense of music largely by drawing on their previous experiences, particularly experiences with music. According to research in cognitive science, listeners use a musical form of analogy and categorization to relate what they previously heard to what they hear in the moment. To demonstrate that listeners draw on this experience to perceive meaning when listening, Bourne combines music analytic tools, empirical psychological methods, and reception history. Drawing on analogy and categorization, Bourne has designed cognitively-based tools for analyzing music from the perspective of the listener to create different interpretations for different listeners.
While Part 1 outlines the analytical tools, Part 2 analyzes pieces by Beethoven from the perspective of three groups of listeners: Beethoven's early 19th-century contemporaries; late 20th- and 21st-century musicians and music scholars; and 21st-century film-goers. In so doing, this book illuminates how musical meanings change when considering different listeners' backgrounds and ways of listening, giving voice to overlooked reception histories and musical meanings.
