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* Sweet Anticipation: Music and the Psychology of Expectation. By David Huron. MIT Press, 55 Hayward St., Cambridge, MA 02142-1315; 800-405-1619; http://mitpress.mit.edu. 2006. 512 pp. Black-and-white illustrations, music examples, notes, glossary, references, index. Hardcover, $40.00.
In Leonard Meyer's landmark 1956 book, Emotion and Meaning in Music, the importance of listeners' expectations and their fulfillment or denial by composers was proposed as one of the principal sources of the experience of significance and emotion in music. In Sweet Anticipation: Music and the Psychology of Expectation, David Huron describes his theory of expectation, the ITPRA theory, especially as it applies to musically inspired expectations and emotional response.
The theory suggests that humans are biologically programmed to anticipate threats in the environment as an aid to survival. Huron...