Australia ”A valuable addition to the growing field of music and philosophy, the results are as fascinating as they are enlightening, and would be of interest to anyone seeking to explore the rich complexity of musical experience and the ways in which it is possible – and indeed desirable – to understand ourselves through it.” —Nanette Nielsen, Associate Professor, University of Oslo, Norway “This is a study conducted from the inside out – starting inside the masterful musical performances of the Danish String Quartet, explicated in a detailed set of interviews with the musicians. Høffding brings the latest developments in phenomenology and cognitive science to bear on these issues, and creates one of the rare places where expertise in phenomenology meets expertise in musical performance – an overall performance not to be missed.” —Shaun Gallagher, Lillian and Morrie Moss Professor of Excellence, University of Memphis, USA This book presents a detailed analysis of what it means to be absorbed in playing music. Based on interviews with one of the world’s leading classical ensembles, “The Danish String Quartet” (DSQ), it debunks the myth that experts cannot reflect while performing, but also shows that intense absorption is not something that can be achieved through will, intention, prediction or planning – it remains something individuals have to be receptive to. Based in the phenomenological tradition of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty as well as of Dan Zahavi and Shaun Gallagher, it lays out the conditions and essential structures of musical absorption. Employing the lived experience of the DSQ members, it also engages and challenges core ideas in phenomenology, philosophy of mind, enactivism, expertise studies, musical psychology, flow theory, aesthetics, dream- and sleep studies, psychopathology and social ontology, and proposes a method that integrates phenomenology and cognitive science. Simon Høffding is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Musicology, University of Oslo, Norway. |