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.