Monday, December 28, 2009

Mirrored Feelings


Here's a quote from Roger Scruton's Understanding Music, which I found in this review of the book, which was linked by Arts and Letters Daily (a terrific website).

>>> Just as facial expressions do not communicate something that can be understood so much as enjoin us to imagine what it feels like when we ourselves make such an expression, so too, according to Scruton, does some elemental aspect of musical experience enjoin us to engage our imagining in similar fashion. In this way, and because the experience of music is not, at least not typically, heard as a single expression, the imagination is forced to grapple with the musical shapes and forms as they unfold over time, following its movement as it echoes in, or is anticipated by, the movements of our body and rational imagination. <<<

This seems a very good non-technical way of talking about mirror neurons and how they enable musical communication.

photo - animal tracks on the two feet of snow we had just over a week ago

No comments:

Post a Comment