Eagle begins the first chapter of this handbook by stating, enthusiastically, that this text is written and edited by professionally trained musicians who are also scientists. This is refreshing, as some other texts on music psychology are written by people whose primary training is in psychology, leaving their music training as a secondary component of their education. After paying respect to “the father of Music Psychology” – Carl Seashore – Eagle describes his work on the CAIRSS project, an online database of articles from various journals relating to music psychology. (CAIRSS can be accessed at http://imr.utsa.edu/CAIRSS.html).
Eagle describes the field of music psychology as an interdisciplinary world, including aspects of fields such as education, sociology, anthropology, biology, philosophy and physics. This is certainly true from what I have seen, and this is one of the reasons I enjoy this field so much. Eagle presents an interesting, if dated, graphic based on a drawing of an atom to show relationships amongst various disciplines which study vibration and sound.
The next section of this chapter is divided into parts that review the past of the field, look at the present state of the field (at the time of the book’s publication in the late 90’s) and some projections about what the future may hold for music psychology. To review the past, textbooks are listed chronologically to give the reader an idea of what literature exists, and what time periods have been fruitful for the discipline. Periodicals are also discussed, and the CAIRSS project is again mentioned.
In his section for looking at the current state of music psychology, Eagle primarily explores, briefly, some of the journals that make current research accessible to other researchers and practitioners. When looking at what the future may hold for the discipline, Eagle’s enthusiasm becomes very apparent, making his writing seem more emotionally-driven. He discusses the development of theory and presents a triangular model of theory, practice and research, where each of those areas informs each of the others. Eagle seems to be seeking a theory that more succulently conjoins various elements throughout the field, alluding to Einstein’s E=mc^2 as an example of a theory which has done such. Metaphysics, time, soundscapes, altered states of consciousness… Eagle is truly zealous in his vision of a music psychology that encompasses music and related topics (see table 2, for example).
Eagle has succeeded in writing an inspiring overview of the past, present and possible future – albeit an extravagant one – of music psychology.
A wonderful synthesis of the chapter. The book certainly serves as a sound reference of earlier works in the field. I agree wholeheartedly with you that Charles Eagle exudes enthusiasm in his writing and rightly so, as the field of Music Psychology has certainly provided music in general with an amplitude of research as well as a better understanding of the human behavior of music (p.1).
ReplyDeleteI will shamefully admit that I have not ventured into the database of CAIRSS until today. But I've bookmarked it now and will definitely be making use of the website in the future.