This bibliography can seem quite broad because it assesses different lines of questioning within my project. I took the liberty to add titles and connecting notes to the different items so that the logic chain is more clear to the reader.
Music psychology and philosophy
1) Emotion and Meaning in Music
Meyer, L. B.
Univ. Chicago Press, Chicago, 1956.
This is the core of my research, Meyer’s stance is so elegant that it still makes for the authority in the field.
He begins by dismissing previous debates on the subject. Meyer argues that the two different ways the brain forms thoughts (phenomenological and reflective) are two sides of the same psychological process, so they are not contradictory (as we previously debated about) but complementary.
What is elegant about his work is that he presents a modern theory of emotion and applies it to music. His central thesis states that emotion is stimulated when a desire is prevented. Emotion in music lies in the structural building of tension and release, so in that sense, it can be universal.
This new way of redefining music certainly impacts on how I perceive it. It also changes how I think about how my brain works and that was unexpected.
2) Music and Emotion: Theory and Research
Juslin, P. N., and Sloboda J. A. (Eds.)
Series in affective science,
New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Music and Emotion: Theory and Research is the modern update of Meyer's work. It presents how Meyer reflected in different works during the years, what other authors with similar objectives wrote, and confirms its authority. It expands and challenges the knowledge of the 50s with modern experiments.
The book seeks a wider perspective by presenting approaches in different fields (philosophy, musicology, psychology, anthropology, biology...) delivered in chapters written by one expert in each field. There are so many different points in those approaches that I certainly could have used each chapter as a different source in my bibliography.
Juslin and Sloboda helped me have a wider point of view on what is written on music and emotion, which work stands out the most, and where are we researching now. They address criticisms that were very welcome for this bibliography.
3) The Language of Music
Cooke, D.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1959.
Deryck Cooke attempted to do exactly what I wanted my research to conclude on. His thesis is that composers have used similar musical parameters to express similar emotions, so we can deduct a language, a lexicon, a dictionary of music. His assumption is that no matter the instrumentation, the emotions expressed stay the same, thus, we can link expressed emotions with text in vocal works with their associated melodies in instrumental versions.
He bases the lexicon expressivity in tonality, each interval of the scale has an associated meaning.
However, Cooke's method is heavily based on extramusical aspects, it does not consider a potential emotional quality inherent in music. It does not take into consideration the musical context around those intervals he talks about, which can completely modify their meaning. Additionally, music significance may not be as fixed as language significance.
4) Analysing Popular Music: Theory, Method and Practice
Tagg, P.
Popular Music, Vol. 2, Theory and Method (1982), pp. 37-67
Cambridge University Press, 1982.
Within the same range of ideas than Cooke’s (i.e. decode music with language theories), Philip Tagg brings the term of "musemes" to label musical parameters used to express specific emotions. He raises two methods to test musemes effective reality: by confirming that the emotion and meaning expressed have been exactly identically comprehended by two different listeners (inter-subjective comparison); by comparing every association between the musical parameters studied and its meaning expressed in extra-musical ways (inter-objective comparison).
Same criticisms can be applied to both Cooke and Tagg approaches. However, reading about their theories and their limits taught me a better understanding of what music really is and isn’t. It changed my mind about the possibility of building a lexicon of music.
Along with the philosophical approach, I wanted to know what science had recently found on the subject of music in the brain.
5) Music, the food of neuroscience?
Zatorre, R.
Nature 434, 312-315 (17 March 2005). Available from:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v434/n7031/full/434312a.html
Zatorre made me realize that the neurological approach is by no means less complex than the philosophical approach. We know which parts of the brain are associated with musical skills but we don't know how they work essentially. The article also taught me that music recognition was surprisingly innate, this is important to identify the importance of music to humans.
Evidence of psychological mood changes and physiological changes caused by music are mentioned. One hypothesis to what brain responses can explain those effects is that we tend to imitate the behaviour of the music we listen to. To scientists, it is surprising to see how deep human's response to music is compared to how little it is useful to survival.
6) Exploring the Musical Brain
Leutwyler, K.
Scientific American, a division of Nature America, Inc. (22 January 2001). Available from:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exploring-the-musical-bra/
The difficulty with the lack of research on the subject is that many articles relate the same piece of information between each other. I will focus on the differences.
Leutwyler assesses the importance of music and how deep it is implemented in nature. In the human world, music seems to predates farming, but it also exists in the animal realm as well (e.g. birds, whale), thus it is not an ability specifically human but rather an intricate part of life. What is most surprising is that animals share a lot of musical preferences with humans.
This article also relays the famous assumption that dissonance seems unpleasant and consonance seems pleasant with scientific evidence.
Leutwyler ends by presenting the debate about music purpose between S. Pinker who thinks that music is nothing more than an "auditory cheesecake", an accident in speech evolution, and D.J. Levitin who believes that something that has such profound effect on emotions must have an important purpose. Levitin best suggestion is that music is an aspect of our cognitive tendency to make order out of disorder.
7) Music And The Brain
Weinberger, N. M.
Scientific American, a division of Nature America, Inc. (1 September 2006). Available from:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/music-and-the-brain-2006-09/
Weinberger's article seems to be the continuation of Leutwyler's article, as it begins with the debate between Pinker and Levitin.
Here we have the first occurrence of what has been widely researched on recently: Brain damaged patients seems to unexpectedly recover long lost brain functions thanks to music, suggesting that music runs even more deeply than others cognitive skills.
The article then presents the path of music from the ear to the brain, which is what I primarily started my research on. Weinberger studies confirm philosophical intuitions, such as we interpret tones differently according to context.
Supported by many studies, the article goes on about how musicians are better at playing and listening to music than non-musicians. However, I think this is an expected result of cognitive training and as we can't conclude on musicians having better brains than non-musicians.
Those neurological approaches draw a map of what music can expect to produce in the brain of the audience, supported by scientific evidence. We even have a new line of questioning about how old is music and what is its purpose.
8) Sound Design is the New Score
Kulezic-Wilson, D.
Music, Sound, and the Moving Image, Vol.2, Issue 2, 127-131, 2008.
Liverpool University Press. Available from:
http://online.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/abs/10.3828/msmi.2.2.5
The content of this article develops the approach of my master course on a quite different topic than previously covered yet very relevant to my project. Kulezic’s main idea is to get out of the traditional way of making music for films which have become too predictable and too heavily sentimental and lean progressively into sound design which is much more suggestive and discrete. The article illustrates with a range of examples from directors Aronofsky (for a hip-hop inspired editing style) and Gus Van Sant (for using musique concrète instead of traditional music).
My research with Meyer's book taught me the distinction between music that gives meaning via itself and music that gives meaning via extra-musical references. I believe that in film scoring, music always uses the latter. In that regard, this article suggests using the very powerful denotative and connotative potency of sound design to express extra-musical meaning.
9) In The Blink of an Eye: A Perspective on Film Editing
Murch, W.
Silman-James Press, 2001
I believe it is an essential part of the composer’s job to understand film mechanics, especially editing.
Water Murch provides a hierarchy of importance of factors in editing decisions, emotion being the most important factor. What is so stunning about his work is that he allies editing with technology and neurology, albeit keeping a very easy to read style of writing. It doesn't feel like he is imposing manifestos, he writes like he shares orally his personal finding so that we can actually follow his train of thoughts.
One of his most insightful findings is that the moment we naturally blink is a great moment to cut, because the action of blinking is a consequence of the way we comprehend the world.
Walter Murch is also the inventor of the term of sound design. Those reasons are why I couldn't avoid to put him in my bibliography.
Research specific to the live project
10) Stress Recovery during Exposure to Nature Sound and Environmental Noise
Alvarsson, J. J., Wiens, S., and Nilsson M. E.
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2010, 7(3), 1036-1046. Available from:
http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/7/3/1036/htm
Linking the power of sound denotation with supporting scientific evidence, this study proves that nature sound helps recover from psychological stress better than a noisy environment. The study also assesses previous research in the area which focused on the effect of nature visuals. Conclusions are that the idea and projections of nature relieve human beings.
There is a part of my live project where I wish the audience to be relieved from stress as much as possible and I was looking for the best way to emulate it. I plan on using nature sounds and visuals to achieve such results.
11) A Comprehensive Review of the Psychological Effects Of Brainwave Entertainment
Huang, T. L., and Charyton, C.
Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine; Aliso Viejo Vol. 14, Iss. 5, (Sep/Oct 2008): 38-50. Available from:
http://www.machineswww.mindmodulations.com/resources/STUDY-ComprehensiveEntrainment.pdf
Still with the objective to find the best way to relax an audience, this article gathers various studies rigorously selected which suggest that brainwave entertainment (BWE) benefits people suffering from a list of different negative disorders such as stress, anxiety, mood and behavioural problems.
BWE consists of presenting auditory or visual repetitive stimulation - such as a pulsing tones or lights - to the patient whose brainwave will resonate with the frequency. Brainwave frequencies are associated with states of alertness, it goes gradually from delta frequencies (1-4 Hz) associated with deep sleep, to high beta frequencies (20-32 Hz) associated with intensity or anxiety, going through alpha frequencies (8-12 Hz) which are associated with conscious calmness.
I could use this therapeutic tool to lower the audience's brainwave frequencies and thus progressively ease them down. Now I just have to found speakers that goes below 20 Hz.
12) The efficacy of psychodynamic psychotherapy
Shedler, J.
American Psychologist, 65(2), 98-109, 2010. Available from:
http://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2010-02208-012.html
This article gathers empirical findings that support the efficacy of psychodynamic psychotherapy. I wish my live project to be based as much as possible on scientifically supported methods. This is why the first part of the narrative structure of my live project follows the psychodynamic psychotherapy.
Like in therapy, we would begin by focusing on expressing emotions and labelling feelings, before exploring the attempts of the mind to flee unpleasant thoughts and feelings. The goal is to identify recurring themes and patterns of avoidance. We would talk about how past experiences and interpersonal relations could be themes and causes of patterns.
We may have to skip the part of the therapy where it focuses on the relationship between the patient and the therapist as it would take a widely different form in the live show.
Once negative thoughts are externalized, we would then encourage the positive thoughts, which is the second part of the live project.
13) Differential effects of mindful breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, and loving-kindness meditation on decentering and negative reactions to repetitive thoughts
Feldman, G., Greeson, J., and Senville, J.
Behaviour Research and Therapy Vol.48, Issue 10, October 2010, 1002-1011. Available from:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0005796710001324
The second part of the live project would consist of proposing the audience to engage in stress-reducing methods accompanied by sounds and visuals. This article compares a well-known method (mindful breathing) with two alternative stress management techniques (progressive muscle relaxation and loving-kindness meditation) and provides further evidence towards the superior efficiency of the first method.
The objective of mindful breathing is to clear the mind of repetitive thoughts in observing internal sensations caused by breathing without controlling or judging them.
The article also gives us the notion of decentering which will be the main theme of the second part of the narrative structure of my project. The idea of decentering resides in learning to view thoughts as events in the mind rather than necessarily being reflections of reality or accurate self-view.
