Abstract
This paper is concerned with possible applications of Gestalt concepts in relation to music. The concepts are examined as to their limitations and possibilities. We propose a reappraisal of some older insights and an enlargement of the Gestalt concepts from a rather intuitive to an operational approach, arguing strongly for using the methodology of interdisciplinary research, and stressing the importance of the cognitive view of elaboration and processing of musical structure by the listener's mind. This involves a shift from structural description to a functional approach, with special emphasis on musical information processing. Furthermore attention is directed to the specificity of music as a temporal and sounding art, stressing the role of memory and imagination, and the tension between actuality and virtuality in the construction of musical Gestalts.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Bharucha, J. (1987). Music cognition and perceptual facilitation: A connectionist framework. Music Perception, 5, 1–30.
Bregman, A. (1978). The formation of auditory streams. In J. Requin (Ed.), Attention and performance VII. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Bregman, A. (1981). Asking the “what for” question in auditory perception. In M. Kubovy & J. Pomerantz (Eds.), Perceptual organization. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Bregman, A. (1990). Auditory scene analysis: The perceptual organization of sound. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Bruner, J. (1957). On perceptual readiness. Psychological Review, 64, 123–152.
Bystrina, I. (1983). Kodes und Kodewandel. Zeitschrift für Semiotik, 5, 1–22.
Camilleri, L. (1989). A modular approach to music cognition. Interface-Journal of New Music Research, 18, 33–44.
Carnap, R. (1971). The logical syntax of language. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. (Original work published 1937)
Coker, W. (1972). Music and meaning: A theoretical introduction to musical aesthetics. London: Free Press / Collier-Macmillan.
Davidson, L., & Welsh, P. (1988). From collections to structure: The developmental path of tonal thinking. In J. Sloboda (Ed.), Generative processes in music: The psychology of performance, improvization and composition. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
de Sélincourt, B. (1820). Music and duration. Music and Letters, 1, 286–293.
Dowling, W., & Harwood, D. (1986). Music cognition. New York, NY: Academic Press.
Edelman, G. (1989). Neural darwinism: The theory of neuronal group selection. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Edelman, G., Gall, W., & Cowan, W. (1988). Auditory function: Neurobiological bases of hearing. New York, NY: John Wiley and Sons.
Gibson, E., & Gibson, J. (1957). Principles of perceptual learning and development. Englewood Cliffs, NY: Prentice Hall.
Gjerdingen, R. (1990). Categorization of musical patterns by self-organizing neuronlike networks. Music Perception, 7, 339–370.
Guillaume, P. (1937). La psychologie de la forme. Paris: Flammarion.
Hargreaves, D. (1986). The developmental psychology of music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hofstadter, D. (1986). Metamagical themas: Questing for the essence of mind and pattern. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
Hulse, S., & Page, S. (1988). Toward a comparative psychology of music perception. Music Perception, 5, 427–452.
Husserl, E. (1928). Vorlesungen zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewusstseins. Jahrbuch für Philosophie und Phänomenologische Forschung, 9, 367–489.
Iser, W. (1970). Die Appelstruktur der Texte: Unbestimmtheit als Wirkungsbedingung literarischen Prosa. Konstanz: Universitätsverlag.
Jauss, H. (1975). Der Leser als Instanz einer neuen Geschichte der Literatur. Poetica, 7, 325–344.
Jauss, H. (1977). Aesthetische Erfahrung und literarische Hermeneutik. In Bd. I, Versuche im Feld der ästhetischen Erfahrung. Munich: Fink.
Jones, M. (1976). Time, our lost dimension: Toward a new theory of perception, attention, and memory. Psychological Review, 88, 323–355.
Jones, M. (1982). Music as a stimulus for psychological motion II: An expectancy model. Psychomusicology, 2, 1–13.
Jones, M., & Bolz, M. (1989). Dynamic attending and responding to time. Psychological Review, 96, 459–491.
Jones, M., & Holleran, S. (1992). Cognitive bases of musical communication. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Koffka, K. (1935). Principles of Gestalt psychology. New York, NY: Harcourt, Brace, and Company.
Köhler, W. (1929). Gestaltpyschology. New York, NY: Liveright.
Krumhansl, C. (1992). Internal representations for music perception and performance. In M. Jones & S. Holleran (Eds.), Cognitive bases of musical communication. Washington: American Psychological Association.
Martindale, C., & Moore, K. (1989). Relationship of musical preference to collative, ecological, and psychophysical variables. Music Perception, 6, 431–446.
McAdams, S. (1989). Contraintes psychologiques sur les dimensions porteuses de forme en musique. In S. McAdams & I. Deliège (Eds.), La musique et les sciences cognitives. Brussels: Mardaga.
McNeill, D. (1971). Sentences as biological systems. In P. Weiss (Ed.), Hierarchically organized systems in theory and practice. New York, NY: Hafner.
Morris, C. (1975). Foundations of the theory of signs, Vol. 1, Nr. 2. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. (Original work published 1937)
Neisser, U. (1967). Cognitive psychology. New York, NY: Appleton-Centuri-Crofts.
Neisser, U. (1987). Concepts and conceptual development: Ecological and intellectual factors in categorization. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Petitot, J. (1983). Paradigme catastrophique et perception catégorielle. Recherches sémiotiques (RS/SI), 3, 207–245.
Petitot, J. (1985). Les catastrophes de la parole: De Roman Jakobson à René Thom. Paris: Maline.
Petitot, J. (1989). Perception, cognition et objectivité morphologique. In S. McAdams & I. Deliège (Eds.), La musique et les sciences cognitives. Brussels: Mardaga.
Piaget, J. (1968). Le structuralisme. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
Piéron, H. (1955). Rapport au symposium “la perception”. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
Reti, R. (1961). The thematic process in music. London: Faber and Faber.
Reybrouck, M. (1989). Music and the higher functions of the brain. Interface-Journal of New Music Research, 18, 73–88.
Reybrouck, M. (1995). Spanning en ontspanning in de muziek: Een semiotische benadering van de omgang met muziek. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Louvain.
Rosch, E. (1973). On the internal structure of perceptual and semantic categories. In T. Moore (Ed.), Cognitive development and the acquisition of language. New York, NY: Academic Press.
Rosch, E., Mervis, C., Gray, W., Johnson, D., & Boyes-Braem, P. (1976). Basic objects in natural categories. Cognitive Psychology, 8, 382–439.
Rosenthal, D. (1989). A model of the process of listening to simple rhythms. Music Perception, 6, 315–328.
Seifert, U. (1993). Systematische Musiktheorie and Kognitionswissenschaft-Zur Grundlegung der kognitiven Musikwissenschaft. Bonn: Verlag für systematische Musikwissenschaft.
Sloboda, J. (1985). The musical mind: The cognitive psychology of music. London: Clarendon Press.
Smolensky, P. (1988). On the proper treatment of connectionism. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 11, 1–74.
Souris, A. (1976). Conditions de la musique et autres écrits. Brussels: Editions de l'Université de Bruxelles.
Stoianova, I. (1975). L'énoncé musical. Musique en jeu, 19, 23–57.
Tenney, J., & Polansky, L. (1980). Temporal Gestalt perception in music. Journal of Music Theory, 24, 205–241.
Thom, R. (1972). Stabilité structurelle et morphogenèse. New York, NY: Benjamin.
Thom, R. (1980). Modèles mathématiques de la morphogenèse. Paris: Bourgois.
Tighe, J., & Dowling, W. (1993). Psychology and music: The understanding of melody and rhythm. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Volkelt, H. (1959). Simultangestalten, Verlaufsgestalten und Einfülung. Zeitschrift für experimentelle und angewandte Psychologie, 6, 357–371. von BertalanfFy, L. (1949). Das biologische Weltbild. Bern: Francke Verlag. von Bertalanffy, L. (1950). The theory of open systems in physics and biology. Science, 111, 23–29.
von Bertalanfy, L. (1967). Robots, men and minds: Psychology in the modern world. New York, NY: Braziller.
von Ehrenfels, C. (1890). Über “Gestaltqualitiiten”. Vierteljahrschrift für Wissenschaft, 14.
von Uexküll, J. (1957). A stroll through the worlds of animals and men, A: Picture book of invisible worlds. In Instinctive behavior: The development of a modern concept. New York, NY: International Universities Press. (Original work published 1934)
Wallin, N. (1991). Biomusicology: Neurophysiological, neuropsychological and evolutionary perspectives on the origins und purposes of music. New York, NY: Pendragon Press.
Wertheimer, M. (1922). Untersuchungen über die Lehre von der Gestalt. Psychologische Forschung.
Wertheimer, M. (1958). Principles of perceptual organization. In D. Beardslee & M. Wertheimer (Eds.), Readings in perception. Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1997 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Reybrouck, M. (1997). Gestalt concepts and music: Limitations and possibilities. In: Leman, M. (eds) Music, Gestalt, and Computing. JIC 1996. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1317. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0034107
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0034107
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-63526-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-69591-2
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive