Putting forward an extensive new argument for a humanities-based approach to big-data analysis, The Music in the Data shows how large datasets of music, or music corpora, can be productively integrated with the qualitative questions at the heart of music research. The author argues that as well as providing objective evidence, music corpora can themselves be treated as texts to be subjectively read and creatively interpreted, allowing new levels of understanding and insight into music traditions.

The Psychology of Music serves as an introduction to an interdisciplinary field in psychology, which focuses on the interpretation of music through mental function. This interpretation leads to the characterization of music through perceiving, remembering, creating, performing, and responding to music.

In particular, the book provides an overview of the perception of musical tones by discussing different sound characteristics, like loudness, pitch and timbre, together with interaction between these attributes. It also discusses the effect of computer resources on the psychological study of music through computational modeling. In this way, models of pitch perception, grouping and voice separation, and harmonic analysis were developed. The book further discusses musical development in social and emotional contexts, and it presents ways that music training can enhance the singing ability of an individual.

The Art of Post-Tonal Analysis consists of analyses of thirty-three musical passages or entire short works in a variety of post-tonal styles. For each piece author Joseph N. Straus shows how it is put together and what sense might be made of it: how the music goes. Along the way, he shows the value of post-tonal theory in addressing these questions, and in revealing something of the fascination and beauty of this music.

Do you want to know how the language of music works? Would you like to explore all the different elements that create the music we all love? Are you interested in building a rock-solid foundation for more advanced musical studies?

Then this book is for you!

With hundreds of exercises and examples, listening challenges, 1 final test and online access to audio files, you’ll learn