Ways of Listening An Ecological Approach to the Perception of Musical Meaning

In Ways of Listening, musicologist Eric Clarke explores musical meaning, music's critical function in human lives, and the relationship between listening and musical material. Clarke outlines an "ecological approach" to understanding the perception of music, arguing that the way we hear andunderstand music is not simply a function of our brain structure or of the musical "codes" given to us by culture, but must be considered within the physical and social contexts of listening.

Eric Clarke is Professor of Music at the University of Sheffield. He received BA and MA degrees in music from the University of Sussex, and a PhD in psychology from the University of Exeter. He has published on topics including the psychology of performance, the perception and production of rhythm, the semiotics of music, the relationship between language and music, and music and ecological theory. For ten years he was a member of the improvising string quartet The Lapis String Quartet.