HUM 210: Understanding our World Through the Arts

Music's ability to express and arouse emotions is a mystery that has fascinated both experts and laymen at least since ancient Greece. The only book of its kind, the Handbook of Music and Emotion will fascinate music psychologists, musicologists, music educators, philosophers, and others with an interest in music and emotion (e.g. in marketing, health, engineering, film, and the game industry).

Includes chapters on : The role of music in everyday life ; Choosing to hear music : motivation, process and effect ; Music in performance arts : film, theatre, and dance ; Peak experiences in music; Musical identities ; The effects of music in community and educational settings ; Music and consumer behaviour .

The author argues that when the Muzak Corporation's commercialized ambient music became a predominant feature of modern life in the 1940s - both as a brand and a genre of background music - it also became a powerful instrument of social engineering in an advanced capitalist society. Different kinds of music were developed to encourage or incite greater productivity in the workplace, more energetic shopping, or more animated socializing.

The Oxford Handbook of Music and Advertising is an essential guide to the crucial role that music plays in relation to the audio or audiovisual advertising message, from the perspectives of its creation, interpretation, and reception.

Sound and music surround us so constantly that we often take them for granted. But sound has surprising power to influence our decisions, opinions, and actions in ways we might not even notice. Discordant ambient noise can induce anxiety; ice cream truck jingles can bring you back to your childhood. In The Sonic Boom, composer and strategic sound expert Joel Beckerman provides a new framework for thinking about sound's effects on every aspect of our lives.