Music and the Mind: Essays in Honour of John Sloboda

The Musical Mind, published in 1985, was written by the relatively unknown John Sloboda. It made ground-breaking inroads in raising crucial questions relating to music’s status as a form of human expression and has become the seminal text in the field of music psychology. The scope of that book was impressive: from music perception to production, embracing topics as diverse as music’s origin and the circumstances that encourage its skill acquisition. Musical structure, grouping, and perceptual processing, including memory, were key areas where John Sloboda had made early empirical investigations. Discussion of emotional responses and creative processes were far more inductively written, based on his own personal experiences. The Musical Mind laid a research agenda in asking those crucial ’how’ and ’why’ questions that have since occupied a growing body of researchers from all over the world.
Following a quarter of a century after that seminal work, Music and the Mind celebrates the life and work of John Sloboda whilst taking stock of where the field of music psychology stands 25 years after The Musical Mind first appeared. It reviews key areas of current research in the field, written by world-leading authors, each making a significant and original academic contribution. Offering a timely review of the field of music psychology in the 21st Century, the contributors to Music and the Mind also reflect on how the field has been significantly stimulated by the influential work of John Sloboda. This book is fascinating reading for students and researchers in music psychology and musicology, as well as music professionals.

Irene Deliege obtained her qualifications at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels. After a twenty year career as a music teacher, she retrained in psychology and obtained her PhD in 1991 from the University of Liege where she was responsible for the Unit of Research in Psychology of Music. A founding member of ESCOM, she has acted since its inception as permanent secretary and Editor of the Journal MUSICAE SCIENTIAE. She is the author of several articles and co-edited books dedicated to music perception.

Jane Davidson is the current Callaway/Tunely Chair of Music at the University of Western Australia. She has published extensively within psychology of music with research topics including expressive body movement, collaborative performance, music learning and ability, and singing. Her first academic appointment was at University of Keele between 1991-1993, where she worked as a post-doctoral fellow with John Sloboda and Michael Howe on an innovatory study of the biographical determinants of musical abilities. This led to more than 20 joint peer-reviewed publications.