Music and Mind
I have loved music for most of my life and, this is probably true of most people, and I have never learned to play and instrument, so this thread is coming from the angle of appreciation. It is based on a book I have been reading, called 'This is Your Brain on Music: Understanding a Human Obsession', by Daniel Levithin(2006). The author is a neuroscientist and has been a record producer. He explores how music is linked to the processes in the brain and mental states, including emotions.
He looks at what music is and why individuals like specific music. He says,
'...it is helpful to examine what music is made of. What are the fundamental building blocks of music?...The basic elements of any sound are loudness, pitch, contour, duration (or rhythm), tempo, timbre, spatial location, and reverberation. Our brains organize these fundamental perceptual attributes into higher-level concepts_ just as a painter arranges lines into forms_ and these include meter, harmony, and melody. When we listen to music, we are actually perceiving multiple attributes or '"dimensions".
This objective component of music is important.
However, he speaks of the individual and unique aspects of development of musical understanding in the brain, in terms of the idea of neuroplasticity. In particular, he suggests that it is much more difficult to acquire new music taste later in life, explaining the way in which people often stop seeking new music. He also states that at 'a deeper level, the emotions we experience in response to music involve structures deep in the the primitive, reptilian regions of the cerebellar vermis, and the amygdala_the heart of emotional processing in the cortex'.
I found these ideas useful for thinking about, including where music takes us to into certain states of consciousness. For example, if many people are listening to Pink Floyd are they all perceiving a certain objective or intersubjective reality? Of course, the development of musical taste is formed in childhood. Personally, I grew up listening to pop and rock, and have difficulty relating to classical music and opera. However, I developed a strong liking for alternative genres, including indie and metal while a student, and these form strong emotional associations.
I am writing this with a view to readers thinking and reflecting on where music takes them, and asking why? I am also questioning to what extent the music listened to can affect and have a profound effect on mental states and emotions?
He looks at what music is and why individuals like specific music. He says,
'...it is helpful to examine what music is made of. What are the fundamental building blocks of music?...The basic elements of any sound are loudness, pitch, contour, duration (or rhythm), tempo, timbre, spatial location, and reverberation. Our brains organize these fundamental perceptual attributes into higher-level concepts_ just as a painter arranges lines into forms_ and these include meter, harmony, and melody. When we listen to music, we are actually perceiving multiple attributes or '"dimensions".
This objective component of music is important.
However, he speaks of the individual and unique aspects of development of musical understanding in the brain, in terms of the idea of neuroplasticity. In particular, he suggests that it is much more difficult to acquire new music taste later in life, explaining the way in which people often stop seeking new music. He also states that at 'a deeper level, the emotions we experience in response to music involve structures deep in the the primitive, reptilian regions of the cerebellar vermis, and the amygdala_the heart of emotional processing in the cortex'.
I found these ideas useful for thinking about, including where music takes us to into certain states of consciousness. For example, if many people are listening to Pink Floyd are they all perceiving a certain objective or intersubjective reality? Of course, the development of musical taste is formed in childhood. Personally, I grew up listening to pop and rock, and have difficulty relating to classical music and opera. However, I developed a strong liking for alternative genres, including indie and metal while a student, and these form strong emotional associations.
I am writing this with a view to readers thinking and reflecting on where music takes them, and asking why? I am also questioning to what extent the music listened to can affect and have a profound effect on mental states and emotions?
Comments (74)
Musical language is built around metaphor. A note can be "sharp" or "flat". A chord can be "crunchy" or "spicy". A harmony can be "warm" or "cold". A percussive element can be "aggressive". Pioneers figure out what can be done, then we name things according to how they make us feel because music has no natural descriptive language. So the answer to the question:
Quoting Jack Cummins
is "depends on how the music has been designed" (with our without comprehension). Why does a Picardy third make me feel upbeat and optimistic...? I don't really know. I could point out that minor scales feel sad, major chords feel happy, that playing A major at the end of a piece in A minor is surprising (that dopamine hit again), but that well-considered chord progressions also make it seem natural.
I could also point at the natural harmonics of notes, how the biggest contributors spell out the major scale, how playing the major scale but starting on the 6th creates a complimentary minor scale using the same notes, how playing in that minor scale will therefore always make me feel away from home because ultimately I still feel like it should all resolve to the tonic of that major scale (e.g. C from A minor) but at the same time the minor scale itself is so devoid of tension it never feels like I should have to resolve anywhere, making me feel distant but whole... But I still don't really know why.
In many ways, I agree that so much of thinking is built around metaphors and the whole symbolic levels of reality. However, when I was reading the book I referred to , I was wondering about the possibility of objective realities lying behind the arts and music. This may be about archetypal aspects of existence or sounds, but I am left wondering about the whole spectrum of objectivity and subjectivity, and it does seem that the physical world is such an important aspect of this , including shared meanings and experiences of sound and music.
Why should one note followed by another speicific note be, well, pleasing to the ear? I'm, luckily or not, not a musician although I tried hard - spent almost 5 years trying to learn the guitar with nothing to show for it - so am not able to give you the specifics. All I know is that for every note there's another that's a perfect match; it gives us the same feeling that some ardent lovers describe as that of "being made for each other."
It would be really fascinating if there's an objective reason why melody & harmony, in a way, "make sense" to our ears/brains/hearts. I feel it's more of a heart thing but that's going back to a time before neuroscience. Sounds like a bad idea but, let's be honest - look at history, do you see any good ideas?
Musical melody and harmony then must be the acoustic version of logic - a set of notes (horizontally - melody; vertically - harmony) seems to "make sense" (I repeat myself but treat this as a refrain and we should be alright).
I wonder if what women do with colors is something similar - visual logic. They always ask "does this :point: skirt go with this :point: top?" Some color combinations don't "make sense" (refrain) do they?
Perhaps it's a case of failure to appreciate the rationale/logic behind some notes/color combination and not that such arrangements don't "make sense" (refrain). Thus I made it a point to mention that subjectivity may have a role in all this.
That's all I have for now. Stay tuned for more. That's meant in an iffy way.
I'm guessing not the kind like
Quoting Kenosha Kid
though, or the objective musical landscapes in and of themselves.
Quoting Jack Cummins
One of the interesting things about music is that how it affects us is very much cultural. The Western tradition will always sound "right" to Western ears, Eastern traditions sound "right" to Eastern ears. Since the ancient Greeks, people have been trying to formalise an objective theory of music. In our more recent, more postmodern times we recognise that how we absorb music, including the language we use to describe it, is very much prejudiced by the music we've grown up surrounded by.
The jazz bassist and YouTuber Adam Neely has done some really insightful videos on this topic.
Actually, I have only ever smoked when 'dope ' has been part of the mixture rather than just tobacco. But, coming back to music, I do wonder about wider aspects of inter subjectivity, such as I felt the music of Jim Morrison to be bound up with the philosophy of Nietzsche.
I guess that I am really asking about the nature of metaphysical realities which may be underlying our appreciation of music. That is probably the aspect of this which makes it an aspect of philosophy, especially the relationship between subjective experience of sound and music, or anything which may be objective beyond this.
Quoting 180 Proof
Our brains ('survival engines' first and foremost, ergo so many cognitive biases) seek patterns and confabulate patterns when they are lacking – horror vacui (re: "formlessness", noise, silence, darkness, sleep, arbitrary violence, etc). Anyway, more thoughts to come.
The Eastern and Western approaches are interesting and may have implications for how music is understood or appreciated. But, even in our culture I wonder about binaries and divisions. It may be that music is understood and appreciated differently from the right and left hemispheres, and within cultures this is balanced so differently and it may impact on music appreciation.
Yes, it is a big topic and I am sure that you appreciate this as I know that you find music to be such an important aspect of life. I just know that music has such profound importance on my mental state, so when I came across the book I thought it was worth raising as an aspect of philosophy and it will be interesting to see what it raises here. I think that some people may consider music as an aspect of qualia, but I think that it is also an important aspect of phenomenology.
This is integral to Schopenhauer's WWR. And Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of Music (though not so much The Case Against Wagner). Also, George Steiner's Real Presences, etc (but avoid Adorno on music). And Albert Murray, who I quote above, his essay collection Stomping the Blues.
I don't know what else to say except this: Record all the sounds humans make, that includes sounds made by machines, and see if they they form a melody or a harmony. If they do, we're good - nothing that musical could have anything wrong with it - and if they don't we might have to brace ourselves for rough times ahead - nothing that discordant could bode well for us. The ears may tell us more about ourselves and nature, their combined future, than the eyes. In fact I've seen & heard a few videos doing just that - it looks like we're in good shape. F**k global warming and nuclear winters and AI takeovers. Nature is fine! Just listen to the music playing all around you!
Shiva is most pleased. He would very much like to grant you a boon. :smile:
I read more about Schopenhauer's ideas recently and I am trying to get hold of his writings. Personally, I do link Nietzsche's ideas with those of Jim Morrison and the Doors, but I am not sure that the logic of this is entirely correct. It may be my own connection, although I know that Jim was inspired by Nietzsche and this is so evident in Jim's lyrics, especially in 'An American Prayer' poetry/ album.
Sound may have such power at a subliminal level. I have even come across the idea that sound can kill. Hopefully, it does not go that far, but I stopped going to metal and punk live events because I did begin to think that it was affecting my hearing, and I think that I do have some difficulty hearing higher pitch sounds.
[quote=Fake Buddha quote]The tongue like a sharp knife, kills without drawing blood.[/quote]
When a bomb detonates, it's the blast wave (sound) that blows things & people to bits.
Yep, sonic killings do occur and are well-documented.
I am inclined to wonder how much words and music are interrelated on some level, especially in poetry. Many of those who wrote have combined the two, such as Leonard Cohen. Language and singing are both important of human utterances and what is heard. Even reading words aloud may be such a different experience of the sound of the human voice.
String Theory! You might've already guessed. Unfortunately or not, all I know about it is that we have a Theory of Everything when we consider nature as made up of tiny vibrating strings. This would be music to Pythagoras' ears. The universe is a grand symphony.
I wonder what the worst possible sound can be. The worst, from my point of view, is jarring sounds in the night, which prevent sleeping. But, some people may even be afraid of silence itself. Even though I love music of such varied nature, I think that silence can be so wonderful, as opposed to the most interfering and disruptive aspects of noise. Electric drills and vacuum cleaners may be the worst forms of 'music'. I also wonder about aspects of music in the outer world and in the imagination, including the idea of the 'third ear'.
Quoting Jack Cummins
:cool:
If you ask me, the worst possible sound is silence. Predators have evolved stealth technology - they're, among other things, acoustically "invisible".
We are likewise so en-cultured in the tempered scales, that natural harmonics sound a bit off in many circumstances
I wonder how much musical taste is nature or nurture. So far, in this thread I may have pointed to what is listened to in music in early childhood as being extremely important. However, as sound and meaning are so embedded in physical nature it may be that a biological aspect is important and it may that music has a biological component within human nature.
Vibrations may be important in music, as suggested in the The Beach Boys' song, 'Good Vibrations', and I hardly dare think what the bad vibrations are.... However, I think that I am probably familiar with them. I don't like to label or be opposed to any kind of music, I do wonder if some music is best avoided in some circumstances. It may be about tuning into the minds of people who made the music
I am very far from being some kind of moral absolutist, but I do have questions about what music may be helpful ot not. However, it so complex and I have my days in which I think that Nirvana were so wonderful. So, it may not about how far Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain can take us, and at what point is enough, in certain directions of experience and thinking. Also, life circumstances come into play, and how music is interpreted.
Pretty sure we are socialised into Western musical taste. Seems likely to me that the music we know would just be a series of sounds - wails, booms, thumps, moans, whoops and whirrs to the uninitiated. It's a type of language isn't it? Personally I have never much enjoyed rock or pop music - for the most part I find it ugly and dull - so personal taste clearly plays a roll.
I remember listing to Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik for the first time around the age of 6. I found it hilarious and remember hearing it as a series of amusing sound effects, without a narrative or melody.
Having sat in the bush listening to bird song, it's pretty clear that sound can take us places (it doesn't have to be music). Think of the meditative effect of falling rain, or the sound of a waterfall, or an old steam train.
My own basic intuition is that music may open up the imagination, to so much more possible ways of thinking and perceiving reality. Obviously, it is important that it be grounded in reality. Sound may encompass this whole spectrum, in its ability to transform experience and guide imagination.
Some music genres don't do anything for me. I have no clue why? Perhaps it doesn't resonate with me at any level for a good reason. This might be relevant to psychology as in it reveals something about a person; for one, his/her mindset.
I would love it if I enjoyed the whole spectrum that modern and classical music affords. I think fine appreciation of music comes with years of actualy study which I haven't done. Too bad. Can't have it all I guess.
It is hard to even know why some music makes sense to us and some doesn't. A friend bought me a classical compilation a few years ago, with a hope that it would enable me to access that kind of music. There is so much which goes beyond rationality with music taste and what makes sense to each of us. I remember a summer a few years ago when I was so into Daft Punk's ' Get Lucky', and the song featuring Pharrell Williams, 'Blurred Lines' and it so much seems to go beyond logic. Music seems to go beyond rationality, to a different space within human consciousness and emotions.
Clarify, if you will, what you mean by "rationality" in this context.
I suppose what I mean by rationality in this context is how I would usually justify music taste, such as how I would argue that the music and lyrics in ' The Joshua Tree' album make it stand out, and this is on a conceptual basis. With the music of Pharrell Williams, which was so commercial, it seemed to be a bit different, but I do think he is a great artist and it may be about emotions and touching on higher states of consciousness in that way. In many ways, his music is 'pop's but it seems to be about reaching 'for the stars' as the lyrics say in The Daft Punk track, and the song seems to be able to access that particular state of consciousness.
I also wonder about the nature of the power of dance music as a way of uplifting the spirit and emotions. I do have a lot of dance; trance etc and don't dance to it, but use it for meditation, because it seems to encapsulate higher states of consciousness or awareness. I don't know if this is my perception or whether others see it that way, sort of like the opposite to Slipknot, although I think that ' When All Hope is Gone' is a fantastic album. One way of bringing the darkness of metal and the vibrancy of dance together in an innovative way is crossover genres, such as explored by Pendulum and Skrillex.
That's just silly Jack. :grin:
I resemble that remark. I think I've read or heard other folks, smarter than me, who have opined that music plays the sound track of our lives. When we are young, and our hormones are raging, the music in the back ground (or blaring in the foreground) will imprint itself upon us. If it has been remembered, from our formative years, then it did not ruin the memory or the song. Even if the memory or the song are sad or bad.
Compare: If I hear a favorite song, from back in the day, used to hawk a fucking product, then that song can be forever ruined. The shit they want to sell me is not mine, their marketing is not mine, and their picking one of my favorite song in an effort to appeal to me is a big fucking fail. But maybe they aren't going after me. Maybe they are turning a new generation on to a bad thing with a good thing. I'd hate to see some kid equating the Animals rendition of The House of the Rising Sun with a fucking widget.
End rant.
You have told me that something which I have said is 'silly' but I need you to specify what, before I can think about it.
I think that the way music and memories goes deep. In particular, I was once running music appreciation groups in ana mental health ward for older adults and I discovered how through listening to music from the past, so much could be touched upon or triggered through listening to songs from the past.. Music and memories may be so interrelated.
Beyond logic, Jack, there maybe something but it would be incomprehensible nonsense to our minds.
"45 years ago on Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1976, The Band performs its final concert, ‘The Last Waltz,’ at San Francisco's Winterland before an audience of 5,000 who were treated to turkey dinner, an amazing playlist, and a star-studded show that included appearances by Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Eric Clapton, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Ringo Starr, Emmylou Harris, Muddy Waters, Ronnie Hawkins, and Neil Diamond. Director Martin Scorsese filmed the concert and made it into a documentary released in 1978. In 2019, ‘The Last Waltz’ was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
This Thanksgiving, I am grateful for The Band’s version of ‘When I Paint My Masterpiece.’ I don’t know what Bob Dylan intended when he wrote the song, but to me, it uniquely explores the difference between where we are and where we think we should be. Our present condition is portrayed as a bumbling tourist “sailing ‘round the world in a dirty gondola” while our greatest potential will be achieved only after “I paint my masterpiece,” some amorphous, maybe-it-will-happen-maybe-it-won’t type of fantasy. Underscoring the feeling of longingness and separation is the narrator’s presence on this great adventure in Rome and Brussels, yet he is wishing he was “back in the land of Coca-Cola” and thinking about “someday” when “everything is gonna be diff’rent” and “everything is gonna sound like a rhapsody” when I paint my masterpiece.
This holiday, I’m wishing you a Thanksgiving where you are neither dodging lions nor wasting time and are instead perfectly content as the masterpiece you already are."
Jesse Cook.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wq2e7DPhyHg
I am not saying that logic and rationality aren't important because they are essential, but it does not mean that anything beyond that is 'incomprehensible nonsense to our minds. The various functions include sensations, rationality, emotions and imagination or intuition. Music appeals to parts of us that are not just logical but are important, especially the realm of emotions. Some people like very emotional music, like romance or possibly sad aspects of love.
Hence a thread about music, or a thread about poetry. Most advertising for example is deliberate nonsense because it aims to bypass the logical analyst and appeal to a nonlinguistic non rational aspect of humanity. You surely do not claim to be unaffected by anything but logic?
It does often seem that those who are good at maths are also good musicians too and I have often wondered about why that relationship exists. Perhaps, the symbolic aspects of both involve the same aspects of the brain, including the reading of music.
1) The so-called subjectivity of music is overblown. Yes, everybody *likes* different music, but that doesn't mean they hear different things. Even across musical cultures, certain musical effects seem to rear themselves up again and again. Especially among musicians (who are not an elite but have merely spent more time paying attention to the relevant details), attitudes towards certain kinds of music or certain kinds of musical ideas tend to be quite prevalent. You can play a group of music students some pretty weird stuff far beyond their comfort zone, but if they're patient they will usually come to appreciate certain things going on in the music, and they will often agree in their assessments. There is, in fact, a universal aspect to music, as much as this troubles the strident post-modernist. And why shouldn't there be a universal aspect? It's just frequencies and rhythms anyone with a functioning set of ears can hear. Scales and chords are just pitches with mathematical relationships. Rhythms too in fact.
2) The tendency for people to forge their tastes around music they listened to in their childhood and teens is particularly true of popular music, but I'm not sure this actually used to be a thing before the mass commercialisation of music. Of course nostalgia can be part of appreciation, but there is nothing stopping someone from discovering new musical styles later in life. The main problem as I see it is that they have to fight not just nostalgia but also the entire weight of the music industry, which is designed to feed them more of what they already know, and to tie music to a brand or image. It's very difficult to discuss 'the metaphysics of music' in an environment like ours which saturates music with extra-musical artefacts, particularly in the visual department. Music moves us, but it also moves us to build a world around it, to explain, to eff the ineffable. And so we end up doing a lot of dancing about architecture, to paraphrase Miles Davis.
How right you are Jack Cummins! It all depends on how you define stuff, I mean words. If I play around with the meaning of "comprehension" and "sense", we could very well comprehend and see sense in almost any damn thing we like. I propose a motion. Redefine "comprehension" and "sense" in a way that does justice to the true extent of human cognition and experience.
By virtue of endless repetition, we've begun to automatically associate comprehension and sense with logic, it's been drilled into us and we're now so habituated to thinking this way that no one, perhaps some, really asks if there's any necessary connection, a rationale to, this linkage.
Perhaps, taking a page out of David Chalmers' views on consciousness, the inability of logic and rationality to cover the whole gamut of human thought and existence, also reality itself, should be dubbed The Hard Problem Of Logic. :grin:
Douglas Hofstadter is a pianist. Queens guitarist Brian May is cosmologist. The brother of Killing Joke singer Jaz Coleman is particle physicist. The grandson of Hugh Everett (many worlds interpretation of QM) is Eels member. Stevon Alexander is a jazz musician. Etc. See her also. The other direction is less common. There are more musicians with no interest in math than math people with an interest. Good musicians not interested in math make better music in general than musicians interested. Math confines.
Sometimes a single transgression from one tone to another can already evoke emotion. Even 4:03 minutes of silence can be music. How experimental can it get? You can see music just as painting with tones. Some like abstract expression (it's my view that the most abstract paintings are the hyper realist ones, but that aside), some like easy viewing or easy listening, some like march music, some like dance, jazz, punk,, etc. There is no universal formula.
I'm always gonna be what people, derisively call, a wannabe. I think I'm a character simulator, I think such programs (I consider myself one in The Matrix :joke: ) are known around the world as actors.
Ah, metaphysics... The world's your lobster!
Quoting Jack Cummins
A lot of those cultural differences derive from different dances (again, Adam Neely is really insightful on this). I think there's two really important factors in our appreciation of music, one relating to the social, there other to the aesthetic, with origins in dance and prayer respectively.
Quoting coolazice
Surely as a musician you've noticed that you listen to music differently to non-musicians? When I speak to my partner about what I like about a song, she gives me very blank stares then mumbles something about listening to it as a whole not the sum of its parts. (She apparently hasn't heard Feynman speak about the beauty of a flower.)
The relationship between dance and music or between music and prayer is an important aspect of music. I actually meditate to dance music, and when I tell some people this they often look puzzled, so I tell them I am dancing inside my head. I went through a phase of meditation to metal music but that is another story.
It is interesting that your partner and you appear to listen to certain music differently. I often wonder to some extent each of us hears music a little differently. One reason why I wonder about this I sometimes feel that certain music has sounded different if I am ill with a fever, or in an unusual state of mind.
It is probably true that there are more musicians who are not good at maths than those who are. I agree that music can be so experimental, 'like painting in tones'. I have often thought that 12 inches singles seem to give more scope than 7 inch ones, especially the ones on ZZT label, which include 'The Art of Noise' and ' Orbital. I also came across a CD by 'The Flaming Lips' which came with 4 identical discs. The idea was to play all 4 at the same time. I was able to play 2 at once and I think it did make the experience rather different from just listening on one player.
Different parts speak to me in different genres too. The double bass is king for me in jazz, pour myself over it. Melody is the most important part of songs for me. Some of that is going to be quite idiosyncratic, e.g. I'm hearing jazz quite differently to a jazz drummer or horn player.
I read a book on logic recently, called'The Art of Logic: How to Make Sense in a World That Doesn't,' by Eugenia Cheng(2019). The author shows how logic, including the basics of maths, is a foundation 'to verify and establish the truth'. However, the following statement may be applicable to this thread discussion on music in relation to emotions:
'Emotions and logic do not have to be enemies. Logic works perfectly in the abstract mathematical world. But life is more complicated than that. Life involves humans, and humans have emotions'.
So, music helps soothe emotions and can be cathartic. I often find some really dark music can be cathartic and uplifting, although I do like 'The Logical Song', by Supertramp
It must be great to perform in bands and I do know some people who do. Do you sing as well?
You are probably right that it is more in popular genres that people are inclined to stop exploring music after teenage or student years. Even though I am into rock and alternative music, I do like to continue to find new music and I will probably always continue to do so. That is because I read reviews in music magazines.
Of course, one other aspect which does affect the whole industry is streamlining as opposed to people buying records and CDs. I still buy CDs and find them to be the most durable form of music. Some people think that records sound better but this may just be because some CD players have such poor speakers and having decent ones is important. I even know of some people who collect vinyl who don't have a record player. But, what may get missed with online music is the culture and subculture surrounding music, but this does have an industry component.
I am sure that people who have more classical or jazz tastes find specific venues to share their interests. There are specialist stores for all genres and I love going to a punk music shop in Camden Town.
Besides a heavy emotional impact, like from the heavy contrary and agressive distorted punk guitar blasts and aggressively fat swollen bass shootings, seasoned with machine-gun drums, to the sweet violins accompanying Nat King Cole, and the madness accompanying "Horse Latitudes", from the outwordly anxious Bartok, the alienating experiments of Holger Czukay, to the naive joy of early Depeche Mode, or from the sounds of Philip Glass accompanying Koyaanisquatsi imagery, to the nervous and jittery VU, to absolute silence, from the soothing sounds of Coldplay, the ecstatic dance drives of house, and the soundscapes of Jean Michel Jarre, from the pumping guitar and synth of the Krupps, you can make up all kinds of contextual stories. Or movies, and even life itself. It can even be thought provoking. Mostly, when not dancing on it, it's just nice or fun.
Yeah. I used to be okay but kind of losing it through lack of use tbh
:up:
I agree people hear different things in music, and not even just musicians vs. non-musicians. If you take an album like Laughing Stock by Talk Talk, as a musician, I still hear something new each time I listen to it (that has more to do with the endless layers than anything, I guess). Another interesting thing I've noticed is that I sort of log songs I hear casually into "like" or "dislike" categories, but subliminally. I'll hear a song in a store or something and either immediately be like "ah what is that, I like that song", or the opposite. When I realize what it is, I might be sort of embarrassed at myself, if it's, for instance, a Katy Perry song I was enjoying. This is apparently based on the social acceptability of certain music within certain circles, which goes into another topic, but the point is that apparently I don't even always hear the same song the same way; i.e., I may not realize I instinctively like a song or piece until I hear it in a new context.
EDIT: That was rather brief and meh, apologies. Point being the subjective experience of someone trained to be more attentive _is_ different to that of a casual listener because they _are_ hearing it differently. Likewise the cultural aspect. What sounds odd to me sounds normal to an eastern European and vice versa. That in itself is a different subjective experience.
I hear you. I appreciated Britney's songwriters more when I heard a pianist friend of mine playing them instrumentally on the piano. I've tried to train myself to be a bit more open-minded since then.
And so, The Hard Problem of Logic.
I've said this before and I'll say it again if it matters at all. Emotions, save, like always, in some cases, are usually effects. They do cause stuff (more on this later), but it's them as effects that I'll focus on. We experience all kinds of emotions - love, lust, anger, hate, and s on - and they all tend to be elicited by very specific stimuli which I'm sure I won't have to spell out as it's common knowledge. The point I'm trying to make is that there are patterns in emotions and their causes and just like there's a perfectly good reason why when we water a plant regularly, tend to its soil, and keep it in the sun, it makes for a healthy plant, there has to be or I suspect there is logic to emotions.
I once remarked in another thread that the most vital - mission critical - components of life seem to be reflexive i.e. consciousness is bypassed or short circuited. I suppose the rationale behind this is to buy us time for, in a very narrow sense, the fight/flight response. Emotions, under this reading, are like you crying "ouch!" and pulling away your hands from a hot pan in your kitchen. This is called, I think, the spinal pain reflex. There's a very good reason for this: The "ouch!" alerts others who might be able to come to your aid and the sudden, completely unconscious, withdrawal of your hand prevents severe injury. As you can see there's a really good reason we shouldn't be thinking in certain situations. Emotions could be just like that, there's a rationale to them; it's just that evolution, in its "wisdom", has decided that there really is no point ratiocinating on the matter, react instantly and with force is the rule in the emotional sphere.
Now to music as an cause. Play the right kind of music, I'm told, and you can make a man do anything. It sets the mood and mood has a huge part in motivation. Figure the rest out Jack Cummins, truthseeker.
Thanks :up:
And I'm not denying there's an objective element: I brought up natural harmonics, etc. The objective stuff is interesting, but the subjective element -- how we _feel_ about a piece of music, and why -- is more interesting.
I appreciate your focus on attention. As a young person, I liked what I liked as an immediate response to music but learned a lot from people drawing my attention to how time, anticipation, and sounds coming together worked in very different performances. Coming to recognize when musicians were really playing together helped me open up to what had not been in my experience before.
True. It's been proven (?) that the sound of bass (guitar) is very, very attractive to our ears. So I guess, that's objectively quantifiable truth that we are drawn to bass sounds.
There are technical and biographical differences between Madonna and Fitzgerald that are obviously objectively true, but mostly dry. What those differences can exploit, however, is subjectively appraised.
I had more in mind composition (since I personally value this above technical musicianship: big Tom Waits fan, not into Celine Dion). The purpose of music is to generate or else reinforce subjective judgements (even if by way of making money) and the interesting questions to me are along the lines of: which features of the music are responsible for these judgements?
Because you can say, yes, this pre-chorus had used diminished 7ths as tritone substitutions going up the scale and minor 7ths going down, objectively, but "giving it a gliding, transitory feel that heightens the force of the chorus" is subjective, whether that be in a personal context or a cultural one (e.g. how the use of bosanova in that pre-chorus affects the listener). And for a songwriter, making technical choices about composition and arrangement is how they attempt to generate the desired subjective appraisals.
No one is writing for a computer. They may be trying to create a whole new genre, write outside of any genre, develop or subvert an existing genre, or use what's proven to work to make a buck, but everything is still hitting a target audience: a group of people who have similar subjective appraisals about certain technical choices, distinct from people outside that target audience who have different appraisals of the same choices.
I think that you are right to emphasise the power of music and how it can make someone do -'anything'. It has a hypnotic quality. I do wonder about the subliminal levels of music. Of course, this could go too far with the attempt to remove all 'negativity'. However, even though I like the music of Nirvana, my intuition is that it would probably not be a good idea to listen to that music all day. Even though I love the Doors, I do try to balance out what I listen to because music probably affects us so deeply, and getting the right balance may be essential. Sometimes, I just spend so much time thinking what music to listen to.
Perhaps you should listen to this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgvknp5kxlo
Everyone is keeping to their own time signature.
Wait till the government gets wind of the power of music.
I haven't the slightest idea what happened between Islam and music.
[quote=Eckhard Neubauer, Veronica Doubleday, Islamic religious music, New Grove Dictionary of Music online] Strictly speaking, the words ‘Islamic religious music’ present a contradiction in terms. The practice of orthodox Sunni and Shi‘a Islam does not involve any activity recognized within Muslim cultures as ‘music’. The melodious recitation of the Holy Qur'an and the call to prayer are central to Islam, but generic terms for music have never been applied to them. Instead, specialist designations have been used. However, a wide variety of religious and spiritual genres that use musical instruments exists, usually performed at various public and private assemblies outside the orthodox sphere.[/quote]
Islamic geometric patterns.
A certain door was closed shut and quite literally sealed. Another was meant to be opened...
Sound tiling/tessellations: Shaped sounds covering space in intricate geometric patterns.
Sine waves can tile a surface. :grin:
:chin: