Groove - by Tiger C Roholt (Paperback)

About the Book

"Written by an experienced drummer and philosopher, Groove is a vivid and exciting study of one of music's most central and relatively unexplored aspects. Tiger C. Roholt explains why grooves, which are forged in music's rhythmic nuances, remain hidden to some listeners. He argues that grooves are not graspable through the intellect nor through mere listening; rather, grooves are disclosed through our bodily engagement with music. We grasp a groove bodily by moving with music's pulsations. By invoking the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty's notion of "motor intentionality," Roholt shows that the "feel" of a groove, and the understanding of it, are two sides of a coin: to "get" a groove just is to comprehend it bodily and to feel that embodied comprehension"--

Book Synopsis

Written by an experienced drummer and philosopher, Groove is a vivid and exciting study of one of music's most central and relatively unexplored aspects. Tiger C. Roholt explains why grooves, which are forged in music's rhythmic nuances, remain hidden to some listeners. He argues that grooves are not graspable through the intellect nor through mere listening; rather, grooves are disclosed through our bodily engagement with music. We grasp a groove bodily by moving with music's pulsations. By invoking the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty's notion of "motor intentionality," Roholt shows that the "feel" of a groove, and the understanding of it, are two sides of a coin: to "get" a groove just is to comprehend it bodily and to feel that embodied comprehension.

Review Quotes

"With its many thoroughly discussed examples, Roholt's account of groove is very engaging, and I find much to agree with." --Clément Canonne, University of Burgundy, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

"It's a slim volume but an academic one, a punctiliously annotated and referenced study that requires and rewards careful reading. ... Groove remains an interesting, pithy examination of how (and why) we ultimately respond to music." --Frank Valish, Under the Radar

"Tiger C. Roholt's Groove: a phenomenology of rhythmic nuance is a splendid, rigorous, and brief (140 pp) book that makes a compelling case for something many musicians already know something about: groove." --Thomas Brett, brettworks

About the Author

Tiger C. Roholt is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Montclair State University, USA and is author of Key Terms in Philosophy of Art (Bloomsbury Academic, 2013).