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Is Music a Symbolic Skill? Introduction

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Abstract

In his opening paper Neisser (this volume) proposes two major characteristics of symbolic skills: they are uniquely human; and they involve reference and meaning. Number and language, he argues, are unique to humans. I believe we may reasonably add music to this list as well.

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References

  • Clarke, E. F., 1982, Timing in the performance of Erik Satie’s “Vexations”, Acta Psychologica, 50: 1.

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  • Meyer, L. B., 1956, “Emotion and Meaning in Music”, Chicago, University of Chicago Press.

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  • Shaffer, L. H., 1981, Performance of Chopin, Bach and Bartok: Studies in motor programming, Cognitive Psychol., 13: 3 26.

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  • Sloboda, J. A., 1983, The communication of musical metre in piano performance. Q.J. Exp. Psychol., (in press)

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© 1983 Plenum Press, New York

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Sloboda, J.A. (1983). Is Music a Symbolic Skill? Introduction. In: Rogers, D., Sloboda, J.A. (eds) The Acquisition of Symbolic Skills. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-3724-9_27

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-3724-9_27

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4613-3726-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4613-3724-9

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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