The book's title indicates the breadth and ambition of the 300 page volume: Psychology of Music: From Sound to Significance. Although smaller in size than the classical Psychology of Music volumes edited by Diana Deutsch (Reference DEUTSCH1982, Reference DEUTSCH1990), the scope and breadth of the book are comparable or even larger in the volume written by Tan, Pfordresher and Harré. As the title implies, it ranges from considerations of the acoustics and perception of sounds, to rhythm and pitch perception, to considerations of the social psychology of music, attribution of meaning to music, and emotional responses to music. The work is timely in bringing together many of the active research areas within the psychology of music domain, including frequent references to neuroscientific investigations of music perception and performance.

Distinct from the volumes edited by Diana Deutsch (to continue the parallel) is the aim to introduce music psychological research to readers with limited previous knowledge, rather than to give comprehensive literature reviews. In this respect, the book follows a trend of accessible introductory volumes that perhaps started with Sloboda's (Reference SLOBODA1985) The Musical Mind, and includes for example Psychology for Musicians (Lehmann et al., Reference LEHMANN, SLOBODA and WOODY2007), or The Science and Psychology of Music Performance (Parncutt & McPherson, Reference PARNCUTT and MCPHERSON2002). To assure accessibility, the authors are careful to define and explain terminology, give examples of frequently used methodologies, and distribute the introduction of new concepts carefully across sections. Sometimes the aim for accessibility makes the text slightly superficial, while, at other times, the content is rather advanced and probably only accessible with more background knowledge and experience.

The strength of the book remains that it introduces in a marvellous manner the diversity and breadth of the field including important details and specific case studies. The specific research backgrounds of the authors glance through, providing interesting specialisations and deepening of topics. This includes, for example, Pfordresher's work on auditory feedback and range of planning in music performance or Tan's investigations of the roles of music in films. Nevertheless, all topics are introduced with sophistication and an interesting balance is provided between references to classical work and more recent work. Similarly, quantitative and qualitative investigations are both included.

To give an outline of the book, the first of four parts is dedicated to the ‘foundations’ of music perception and performance. The first chapter introduces acoustical characteristics of sounds and instruments, and aspects of the acoustics of musical venues. The discussion of the acoustics of musical venues is particularly interesting, dealing with a need to include subjective evaluation in addition to objective measurement and highlighting the painstaking measurements that were needed to provide a firm basis for psychoacoustic research.

The next chapter introduces the basics of pitch, loudness, duration and timbre perception. The significance of this chapter is enhanced by references to investigations of, for example, hearing loss due to exposure to loud music, and the influence of visual gestures on duration perception. It continues with the anatomy and physiology of the ear and a very short introduction to the auditory pathways to the brain. The frequent use of figures taken from authoritative sources makes the content accessible.

The first section of the book ends with a general introduction to terminology and methodology in brain research, and a discussion concerning the relationship between areas in the brain active in music and language processing, highlighting the complexities of the findings. It also raises three important questions for the neuroscience of music: Is musical aptitude determined by genes or environment? To what extent are behaviours associated with specific areas in the brain? And, does studying the brain really reveal to us how the mind works? Unfortunately, the figure used to introduce evoked response potentials is taken from Wikipedia and the interpretation of the axis is ambiguous (given that the convention is to show positive potentials downwards and negative potentials upwards).

The second part of the book is dedicated to the perception and cognition of music, starting with the perception of musical pitch and melody, continuing with the perception of musical time, and finally considering the analysis and cognition of musical structure. Classical work on pitch perception is covered, such as gestalt principles and Deutsch's (Reference DEUTSCH1975) scale illusion, absolute pitch, Dowling's (Reference DOWLING1978) work on memory for melodic contours and intervals and Krumhansl's (Reference KRUMHANSL1979) probe tone studies and conical representation of pitch. Additional references are made to implicit learning of pitch schemata and neuropsychological evidence of tonal priming.

A major point discussed in the chapter about musical time perception is that time is multifaceted. The authors highlight evidence for the independent nature of rhythmic patterning, meter and tempo, and their interactions: although meter is invariant in the face of varying rhythms, rhythm and meter can conflict, and memory for rhythms depends on the match with the metrical context. This could have been extended to include interactions between tempo and categorical rhythm perception, and meter and categorical rhythm perception. An interesting detail that is considered is the relationship between rhythm and modulations of attention to musical events over time. This extensive chapter closes with a discussion of two major approaches to time perception related to information theory and the ecological notion of rhythmic entrainment.

The final chapter of part 2 takes a more music theoretical approach. It also assumes a stronger music theoretical basis from its readers. After a short introduction to Schenker's (Reference SCHENKER and Borgese1906/1954) ideas of deep structures that can be revealed through reduction, the main components of Lerdahl and Jackendoff's (Reference LERDAHL and JACKENDOFF1983) A Generative Theory of Tonal Music are presented. This is followed by an outline of Narmour's (Reference NARMOUR1992) implication–realisation model of melody perception. Important concepts are introduced such as bottom-up and top-down processes within this context. Some of Narmour's concepts and theories have seen recent revisions and too little attention is paid to these newer developments. For example, a reference to the work of Huron (Reference HURON2006) would have been appropriate here.

The third part of the book addresses musical development, learning and performance. Experimental investigations of music perception in infants are reviewed in relation to perception of pitch contour, rhythmic structure (as for example induced through bouncing), and memory for more complex music, and relevant research techniques are described. The authors emphasise the multidirectional character of development discussing the gain of a new specialisation at the expense of losing an earlier more general skill, which is apparent in the loss of the ability to detect mistunings in a non-Western scale like the Balinese Pelog scale, for example.

The next chapter focuses on qualitative rather than experimental investigations of early development of musical skills. Developments in singing and moving to music among infants and toddlers are presented. Swanwick & Tillman's (Reference SWANWICK and TILLMAN1986) spiral model of musical development is explained and the relevance of a supporting social context is emphasised as motivating musical development. Similarly, the authors emphasise the importance of starting to learn music aurally rather than from notation, and to have a non-symbolic musical model precede a symbolic representation.

The third chapter of this part of the book is concerned with practice and musical expertise. It summarises the extensive evidence for the direct relationship between amount of practice and performance level, but also reviews the influence of an appropriate social context for high achievement and qualitatively good practice and what this consists of. The chapter ends with an interesting overview of neurological differences between musicians and non-musicians and the plasticity that may be responsible for these differences. Evidence is provided for the highly specific functional and structural changes in the brain that occur as a result of intensive musical training. People are not just born with it, but develop their specialisation as a consequence of motivation, effort and persistence.

The final chapter of this part introduces important advances in music performance research in an accessible manner. It covers models of working memory and online planning in performance, semantic and procedural knowledge, control of the timing of movements, generative rules for expression, mechanisms for tuning as well as individual differences in tuning. Finally, characteristics of the use of perceptual feedback in performance are discussed and a short overview is given of recent neuroimaging studies of performance. This chapter is written with specific expertise and it shows the interesting edge that the authors provide throughout the book to the introduction of the domains.

The final part of the book is dedicated to the meaning and significance of music. It starts with a broad chapter introducing the social psychology of music. The power of social influences is highlighted for performing situations including the influence of audiences on performers and the idolisation of performers by audiences. Studies of communication and coordination in music ensembles and orchestras are summarised, emphasising the role of body movements, facial expressions and gestures for expressive communication. Additionally, the chapter reviews investigations of gender differences and gender biases when self-judging or judging others or products by others. Several surprising results are highlighted, demonstrating the relevance of empirical investigations of this sort. This slightly fragmented chapter closes with a brief summary of influences of music on consumer behaviour.

The chapter on musical meaning is, despite its title, mostly concerned with the emotional expressiveness of music. It introduces several classical theories concerned with the expressiveness of music, including theories by Langer (Reference LANGER1953), Meyer (Reference MEYER1956) and Scruton (Reference SCRUTON1997). The authors emphasise a link between perception of movement in music and perception of emotion, and discuss different viewpoints on the position of the subject within the assignment of meaning: does music allude to external events and phenomena, is the subject absent and is the music self-referential, or do listeners project a subjective experience onto musical characteristics?

The chapter that follows focuses on empirical investigations of perception and expression of emotions in music, (strong) emotional responses to music and possible sources for peripheral physiological responses. Studies are presented in considerable detail providing insight into the choices of musical material and research paradigms. The presentation of results is facilitated by the reproduction of figures (e.g. Hevner's (Reference HEVNER1936) affective circle). Additionally, influences of music on the interpretation of scenes and intensification of emotional experiences in film are discussed in considerable detail.

The book concludes with a chapter about culture and music that actually addresses the limitations of music psychological research. Most psychological investigations of music focus on western tonal music, and cross-cultural investigations have been scarce. Nevertheless, a review of several cross-cultural studies is given and some variants in tonal systems and rhythmic organisation of music are presented. These studies are mostly descriptive and ethnographic, but have also demonstrated the ability to understand musical intentions cross-culturally. Addressing possible universals in music, the book closes with a reference to such musical intentions when addressing Levitin's (Reference LEVITIN2008) The World in Six Songs that include friendship, joy, comfort, knowledge, religion and love. Importantly, this contrasts the earlier emphasis on expression of basic emotions (joy, anger, sadness, fear) in music and offers an interesting perspective for continued research.

The broadness of the book is splendid and allows for a complete introduction to the field. It will indeed be invaluable to undergraduate and postgraduate studies in the fields of psychology of music, especially when complemented with readings of original sources. It might have included suggestions for further reading and more critical evaluations and questions for future research. On the other hand, the extensive citations of original sources will certainly facilitate further reading and investigation.