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This chapter reviews the area of performance research in which great progress has been made internationally. Most interestingly, researchers are no longer interested solely in motor programming and internal clocks but also in knowing how people communicate and understand musical expression. It also brings modern research into contact with its historical roots. It discusses musical communication from three points of view: the performer’s and the listener’s standpoints and the side of the music itself, examining what is communicated by the structural elements of the music.

This chapter first sets out the purpose of the book, which is to explain the musical, social, and cultural processes that underlie the eventual realization of the acoustic performance event (by the composer, performer, arranger, and all others involved), the means by which they lead to the listener's response, and thence to short and long-term effects upon arousal level, cognition, emotion, and subsequent behaviour. It then discusses a reciprocal feedback model of musical communication. An overview of the subsequent chapters is presented.

This chapter reviews theoretical concepts and empirical findings on musical emotions. First, it examines the notion of music as a means of communicating emotion and presents some relevant evidence concerning the issue. Then it provides a working definition of emotions and some conceptual distinctions for the study of musical emotion. It reviews mechanisms through which music may express and induce emotions. Finally, it considers various objections to music-as-communication and provides an agenda for future research. The discussion is limited to Western music, especially classical and popular music from the 18th century to present day.

The chapter examines the importance of the notion of ‘music as communication’ in the therapeutic field. It reviews interdisciplinary research on the relationships between health and social interaction in relation to contemporary music therapy. It argues that placing the idea of ‘music as communication’ at the centre of music therapy can embody and foster a humanistic value system of musical dialogue as companionship and community — as ways of being musically with people in need.

This chapter sketches a framework for thinking about music as a communicative channel between brains. It argues that music serves to align peoples' brain states, but not necessarily for the purpose of communicating discernable meaning or emotion. Rather, the alignment of brain states enables a range of communicative objectives, including synchronization across individuals. The chapter is organized into three parts. First, it elaborates on the conceptual framework for understanding musical communication. Second, it proposes a formalism of alignment in terms of vectors in features spaces. Third, it elaborates on one component of the framework — tonal vectors — the area in which a lot of work has been done.

This chapter examines musical interaction between adults and three- to five-year-old children attending preschool education. First, it discusses musical communication in early childhood and sets out a definition. It then describes two studies that reveal forms of dialogue between adults and children in preschool settings. It considers the role of the adult and how he can be seen to be mediating between his own stock of musical knowledge and experience and the child's emerging musical competencies in a way that fosters creative transformation. This is followed by a discussion of pedagogical strategies. It is argued that creative productivity in music rests on the ability to hold in tension between the individual and the social, and thus enabling children to negotiate musically between their own musical ideas and those of many musical traditions.

This chapter examines the ways in which music teachers communicate with pupils in secondary music classrooms while engaged in music making, teaching, and learning. It first considers some ideas associated with communication as part of the learning process, and communication within the learning environment; links are made between these ideas, the music classroom, and the different ways teachers and students communicate. It suggests ways in which verbal and musical communication might be used to engage pupils in open-ended creative tasks using various communication strategies such as direct teaching and scaffolding. Finally, the chapter examines how verbal, non-verbal, and musical communication can be used in the classroom. It provides a template for teachers to assist in planning and implementing teaching activities with individuals and small groups.

This chapter presents a review of the current literature addressing the therapeutic use of music among those affected by: chronic illness, cancer, and cardiac disease. It includes a systematic analysis of each of these areas, highlighting music listening (both music therapy and other types of music listening) as the most prevalent type of music activity reported. Results suggest beneficial effects of music listening upon a range of physiological (e.g., blood pressure, heart rate, enzyme production, respiration) and psychological variables (e.g., anxiety, mood, relaxation, pain). Theoretical integration and synthesis is then explored, with three mechanisms presented as possible explanations for the positive effects of music listening: musical communication as a form of social support; emotional engagement with music; and increased levels of perceived control.

This chapter examines the communicative role of invented notation in children's experiences. It provides an overview of research in children's thinking as users of invented notation; examines the communicative role of invented notation as initiation into the use of conventional symbolic systems and/or externalization of musical thinking; and explores the potential relationship of invented notation to other forms of sign-making activity (drawing, writing, using mathematical symbols). To provide a context for the discussions some of the roles of notation in musical communication in the broader context of western music are briefly examined.

This chapter explores the notion of a ‘community of practice’ in relation to children's music-making in informal settings. It illustrates recent research in children's communication of musical practice that investigates the communicative processes that hold between persons and practices in these communities, and the nature of musical engagement in these settings.

This chapter is an introduction to Section 3 (Learning of processing), covering Chapters 16–20. In the next chapter, the target article, the argument frames musical communication as an alignment of brain states. It argues that music and language differ in the sense that language serves primarily as a code to communicate meaning (in terms of propositions and propositional attitudes) whereas music communicates structure, affect, and motion, and affords synchronization across individuals. The chapter then presents a formal model of alignment based on the representation of brain state vectors and discusses a connectionist approach to modelling tonal vectors in music, based on Bharucha's MUSACT model. This is followed by commentaries.

This chapter considers the neural basis of musical experience alongside theories of the embodied nature of consciousness. Drawing on previous theoretical work on the role of the human mirror neuron system in emotional responses to music, it proposes that the nature of the musical listening experience is of a shared subjectivity between individual listeners and performers, underpinned by innate bodily responses to musical gestures. Based on an outline of this broad theory, it offers a number of conclusions that include a reassessment of the ideas of ‘musical meaning’ and ‘musical communication’. It is argued that, while communication can be found in music, one of the attributes that distinguishes music from language is that music provides an intimately shared, embodied experience rather than communicating a specific message.

The mind enables musical communication but it is also a limiting factor. This chapter examines musical communication from the point of view of these capabilities and limitations. It argues that a cognitive theory of musical communication must define not what is communicated but also what cannot be communicated. The argument is developed in a historical context, touching first on the early years of experimental psychology, then the period of behaviourism, and finally, the present cognitive era. It reviews several experimental paradigms to demonstrate how the capacities and limitation of music communication can be quantified. It presents a brief comparison between language and music literacy, and a plasticity framework of understanding the role of early music exposure. The chapter concludes that a foundation now exists for the creation of fairly complete though complex quantitative cognitive representation of music communication.

This chapter examines the role of human vocalization and singing in musical communication. It reviews its neurological and physiological origins and its role in early infant-parent relationships, especially in the communication of emotion. It suggests that musical communication is integral to human vocalization and emotional expression.

This chapter suggests that there is evidence that musical ability is a genetic, biological competence; but then goes on to develop the argument that the evolutionary signs of music and language lie in sociality. It describes some attempts to identify and characterize some specific interactional mechanisms which are held in common by both musical and verbal interaction, and expresses the belief that ‘we enjoy music because it represents, in crystallized form, the basic processes of human social life....As we listen to a performance, we are exposed to the distilled essence of sociality’.

This chapter deals with three central aspects of musical communication which focus on how the human body is used to produce a musical performance, namely how biomechanical constraints operate; how expressive intentions and social codes influence the production of a performance; and how that production is subsequently interpreted by co-performers and audiences. It uses three case studies to illustrate these issues: a classical pianist, a jazz singer and accompanist, and a pop band. The chapter demonstrates the need to adopt an integrated perspective to understand the role of bodily communication in musical performance.

This chapter explores musical communication in a cinematic context. It presents empirical and theoretical models of film music perception and the role of music in film. It illustrates some of the ways in which a film's soundtrack can not only contribute towards but also expand upon the meaning of a film's narrative, and on what it communicates to the audience.

This chapter takes an ethnomusicological approach to communication within Indian raga music, showing how this can operate through both auditory and non-auditory channels. It suggests that non-verbal and auditory features of a performance can combine to create a cultural Gestalt whose intrinsically musical features are part of a social milieu that must be considered in its entirety for a full appreciation of the communicative potential of the music.

This chapter presents an account of how talk about music in informal settings can play a crucial role within the musical communication process. It focuses on the ways in which talk about music serves a number of personal, social, and musical functions for both young people and professional musicians, which can be viewed as an important aspect of musical communication itself.