Shaping Time: Music, the Brain, and Performance

by David Epstein

Epstein investigates the relationship between the ineffable art of music and the hard science of neurobiology. He integrates philosophic and scientific inquiry to formulate a theory of the fundamental yet elusive quality in music time. Derived from an analytical study of motion, tempo and emotion, Shaping Time offers a theory of the way we percieve, perform and interpret music. Epstein suggests that audience satisfaction with a musical performance results from timing trajectories established by the performer at the beginning of the piece. When the timing of a performance conflicts with audience anticipation, listeners experience physical and affective discomfort. Epstein applies his thesis to a wide range of examples for the repertoire.

Genres: Music

Hardcover

First published June 1, 1995

About the author

There is more than one author with this name in the database.

David Epstein is a musicologist.

Reviews

[Andrei Pogorilowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has it all: cognitive musicology, old-fashioned musicology, Schenkerian analysis, you name it.
600 large format pages of valuable information! I have used that extensively for my own proccupations – and I definitely plan to read the book again sometime. The only thing that I found intriguing is the author's disproportionate obsession with proportional tempi. Perhaps that comes from Epstein's extensive experience as an orchestra conductor.

Here is a more expert review, coming form a real scholar in musical time cognition, Bruno Repp (Haskins Laboratories):
http://www.haskins.yale.edu/Reprints/...