Spatial Concepts of Music

Abstract

Music is spatial in many ways. Musical concepts and music perception are described by spatial terms in many cultures. This spatial thinking is reflected in music from spatial compositions to stereophonic recording and mixing techniques. Consequently, traditional music theories as well as modern music information retrieval approaches leverage spatial concepts and operations to gain a deeper understanding of music. This chapter reviews concepts of spaciousness in music psychology, provides the state of the art in spatial music composition and mixing in the recording studio, and gives an overview about spaciousness in music theory and music information retrieval. The prominence of spatial concepts in all these theoretic and practical disciplines underlines the significance of space in music. This deep relationship becomes obvious in terms of music as creative arts, an acoustical signal, and a psychological phenomenon.