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Beethoven's Anvil

Music in Mind and Culture

Contributors

By William Benzon

Formats and Prices

Price

$24.99

Price

$31.99 CAD

Format

Trade Paperback

Format:

Trade Paperback $24.99 $31.99 CAD

This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around October 17, 2002. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.

Why does the brain create music? In Beethoven’s Anvil, cognitive scientist and jazz musician William Benzon finds the key to music’s function in the very complexity of musical experience. Music demands that our symbol-processing capacities, motor skills, emotional and communicative skills all work in close coordination-not only within our own heads but with the heads (and bodies) of others. Music is at once deeply personal and highly social, highly disciplined and open to emotional nuance and interpretation. It’s precisely this coordination of different mental functions, Benzon argues, that underlies our deep need to create and participate in music. Music synchronizes the brain and has had a profound, and little-appreciated, influence on the shape of the mind and human cultures. This is a remarkable book: both daring and scholarly, it offers a sweeping vision of a vital, underappreciated force in our minds and culture.

On Sale
Oct 17, 2002
Page Count
352 pages
Publisher
Basic Books
ISBN-13
9780465015443

William Benzon

About the Author

William L. Benzon, Ph.D., a cognitive scientist, is Senior Scientist with Metalogics Incorporated and an associate editor of the Journal of Social and Evolutionary Systems. He is also co-founder of the musical ensemble AfroEurasian Connection. He lives in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Learn more about this author