Seeing Music? What musicians need to know about vision
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Date
2008-07
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Empirical Musicology Review
Abstract
Music is inherently an auditory art form, rooted in sound, and generally
analyzed in terms of its acoustic properties. However, as the process of hearing is
affected by seeing, visual information does in fact play an important role in the musical
experience. Vision influences many aspects of music – from evaluations of
performance quality and audience interest to the perception of loudness, timbre, and
note duration. Moreover, it can be used to achieve musical goals that are in fact
acoustically impossible. As such, understanding the benefits of embracing (and the
costs of ignoring) vision’s role is essential for all musicians. Furthermore, since music
represents a pervasive and ubiquitous human practice, this topic serves as an ideal case
study for understanding how auditory and visual information are integrated. Given that
some musically-based studies have challenged and even contributed to updating
psychological theories of sensory integration, this topic represents a rich area of
research, relevant to musicians and psychologists alike.
Description
Keywords
sensory integration, cross-modal interactions, music perception, music cognition, vision, audition, psychology, performance, education
Citation
Empirical Musicology Review, v3 n3 (July 2008), 83-108