Dear Bill (and others),
Thanks for the note. While we are on the subject I want to say I look
forward to reading the book, although I'm not well versed in musical issues.
I had ordered it during the discussion last summer and just received my copy
last week, I believe. I've only glanced around a bit, but it definitely
looks like a real contribution.
All the best,
Amy
_____________________________
Amy Ione
PO Box 12748
Berkeley, CA 94712-3748 USA
Tel: 1 510 548 2052
Fax: 1 510 548 2054
Email: ione@diatrope.com
URL: http://www.diatrope.com / http://users.Lmi.net/ione
----- Original Message -----
From: "William Benzon" <bbenzon@mindspring.com>
To: "Art/Mind/Brain" <artwithbraininmind-l@pks.bu.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, November 07, 2001 6:56 AM
Subject: Music in Mind and Culture
> Beethovenıs Anvil: Music in Mind and Culture
>
> William Benzon
>
> Basic Books, 2001
> ISBN: 0-465-01543-3
>
>
> ³A provocative and persuasive treatise. Unlike most who write about this
> greatest of all mental mysteries, William Benzon is equally comfortable
with
> the science and the art of music.²
>
> Howard Gardner
>
> * * * * *
>
> Why does the brain create music? What is it about certain abstract
patterns
> of sound that makes us want to dance? How can songs have deep emotional
> power despite lyrics that are simple and trite?
>
> We tend to think of the arts as luxuries rather than necessities, and as
> inventions of society rather than evolution. Yet the origin of musical
> ability was a turning point in the evolution of modern humans. Every
> culture, without exception, has some form of music. Is this really a
luxury
> or does it answer some basic biological need? If so, what? In
Beethoven's
> Anvil, William Benzon takes up the fascinating and unexplored link between
> music and the brain. Among early humans, he says, there was no
distinction
> between music, dance, ritual and religion > activity, and this activity
used every part of the conscious brain.
> Language, movement, vision, emotion, hearing, touch and social
interaction
> were all involved. In fact, Benzon argues, music is necessary precisely
> because it engages so many different parts of the brain. It literally
keeps
> the brain in tune with itself and with the brains of others. The ultimate
> form of musical experience is that feeling of oneness with a larger entity
> that we identify as transcendent religious experience. We feel this way
> because thatıs precisely what the brain is doing: becoming one with a
> larger unit, the human tribe.
>
> * * * * *
>
> Contents
> Preface: Speculative Engineering
>
> 1. Some Varieties of Musical Experience
>
> Part I: Collective Dynamics
> 2. Music and Coupling
> 3. Fireflies: Dynamics and Brain States
> 4. Musical Consciousness and Pleasure
>
> Part II: Music and the Mind
> 5. Blues in the Night: Emotion in Music
> 6. Rhythm Methods: Patterns of Construction
> 7. Bright Moments
>
> Part III: The Evolution of Musical Culture
> 8. The Proto-Human Rhythm Band
> 9. Musicking the World
> 10. Music and Civilization
> 11. Through Jazz and Beyond
>
> * * * * *
>
>
> ³Beethoven's Anvil presents the compelling and entertaining thesis that we
> humans above all are musical creatures. From neural circuits to social
> circles, from elementary consciousness to concerts and rituals, Benzon
> explains how music and dance provide the social technologies that link
minds
> into communities. This is original work of the highest importance.²
>
> Walter Freeman, author of How Brains Make Up Their Minds
>
> ³I admire Benzonıs mastery of so many diverse idea-worlds and congratulate
> him as a virtuoso both of thought and of performance. Beethoven's Anvil
is
> a rare combination; learned, proficient, and profoundly provocative.
> Reading it was a great experience for me.²
>
> William H. McNeill, author of Plagues and Peoples and Keeping Together in
> Time
>
>
> ³The cutting edge rarely cuts deep. For decades we have been
tantalizingly
> exposed to scraps of research on the brain and the origins of language and
> culture. But there was no synthesis. Then suddenly this suitably
ambitious
> project appears. Beethoven's Anvil is surely destined to orchestrate an
> exciting debate for everyone interested in the evolution of mind.²
>
> Mary Douglas, author of Natural Symbols
>
>
> ³In this truly remarkable book, Bill Benzon shows how the timed and
> synchronized flow of music creates pleasure in our brains, and how music
can
> and does and did contribute to our survival as a species. Everyone who
> enjoys music will find this new understanding of the basics both eye- and
> ear-opening.²
>
>
> Norman N. Holland, editor, PSYART: A Hyperlink Journal for the Psychology
of
> the Arts
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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