Body and Force in Music

Youn Kim obtained her PhD in music theory from Columbia University and is currently Associate Professor of Music at The University of Hong Kong. Kim’s previous publications include a monograph History of Western Music Theory (2006) and articles in Journal of Musicology, Psychology of Music, and Journal of Musicological Research, among others. She also co-edited The Oxford Handbook of Music and the Body (2019) and co-authored several articles published in Scientific Reports and PLOS One.

Introduction

The human body and musical instruments

Conceptual dimension of metaphoric construction

Force and agency

"Body and force" and "body versus force"

The discursive space and disciplinary identity of music psychology

Metaphors as shorthand for music psychology

Roadmap

Historicizing music psychology

Chapter 1. The Musicking Body-machine

Music, machine, and the body

The emergence of the "human motor" model

Rhythm: "an inevitable corollary from the persistence of forces"

Psychological studies in the era of rhythm

Musical rhythm and labor

Rhythm in the "body culture"

The "irrational," continuous rhythm

Rhythm and the piano-playing body

Concluding remarks

Chapter 2. "A Force of Nature": Tracing Voice

Animal, machine, and voice

Speech theory of music

Voice, the body machine, and the issue of agency

Voice as both object and subject

Voice of the "primitive" soul

Recorded Voice

"Dragging movement"

"How the voice looks"

Concluding remarks

Chapter 3. Motion, Force, and "Rhythm Form"

The "‘co-working of motion’ with one’s own will"

Piano theories

Motion in piano playing

Force and the will

The will, physiology, and piano-playing

Force and posture

Action–perception coupling at the turn of the twentieth century

"Rhythmic massing"

Concluding remarks

Chapter 4. Minding Gaps and Musical Energy

The ball analogy

The human motor capable of locomotion

Capturing the musicking body

Music as streams of energy

Gliding between tones

The agency of motion

Revisiting the ball analogy

Music as motion across disciplines and times

Concluding remarks

Chapter 5. Force at a Distance

Force acting at a distance

In the words of amateur pianists and psychologists

Force affecting the audience

The metaphor of vibratory waves in psychology

Force at a distance and The power of sound

"Brain waves" in communication

Inhibition and waves in music psychology

The vibratory energy of music

"Sympathetic oscillation"

Concluding remarks

Epilogue

Bibliography

Index