Music and Shape
Oxford University Press eBooks · 2017
Shape is a concept that is widely used in talk about music. Musicians in wide-ranging genres of music use it to help them rehearse, teach and think about what they do. Yet why is a word that seems to require something to see or to feel so useful to describe something that sounds? How is sound shaped? And how does shaping help performers and composers, and engage listeners? If the concept is so ubiquitous among practitioners, why has it been missing from music studies until now? Music and Shape examines numerous aspects of this surprisingly close relationship, with contributions from scholars and musicians, artists, dancers, filmmakers, and synaesthetes. The book opens up new perspectives on musical performance, music psychology and music analysis, making explicit and open to investigation a vital factor in musical thinking and experience that was previously overlooked as a mere metaphor.