Best Ever Albums

Re: The Semiotics Of Music

RockyRaccoon — Fri, 25 Apr 2014 16:35:48 GMT

Author: RockyRaccoon

Posted: 04/25/2014 20:35

NickVolos wrote:

Not quite the truth, actually far from it: Beethoven was not born deaf. He experienced life knowing what each note on paper sounded like!

Ah ok, a technicality, but true nonetheless. I didn't know you were referring to only those born deaf

Re: The Semiotics Of Music

NickVolos — Fri, 25 Apr 2014 14:08:14 GMT

Author: NickVolos

Posted: 04/25/2014 18:08

RockyRaccoon wrote:

Definitely true. Beethoven wrote his whole 9th symphony almost entirely deaf just through the vibrations of a piano on his floor.

Not quite the truth, actually far from it: Beethoven was not born deaf. He experienced life knowing what each note on paper sounded like!

Re: The Semiotics Of Music

RockyRaccoon — Fri, 25 Apr 2014 11:03:04 GMT

Author: RockyRaccoon

Posted: 04/25/2014 15:03

meccalecca wrote:

Maybe it sounds the same, but assuming the music is powerful enough for the vibrations to be felt, then I imagine a deaf person may feel a variety of music differently.

And I guess this may get to the point of the OP. Sonic vibrations can create tension, while other forms of sonic vibrations can be soothing.

Definitely true. Beethoven wrote his whole 9th symphony almost entirely deaf just through the vibrations of a piano on his floor.

Quote:

Even calling it an "animal" is inconclusive semiotically. There is nothing inherently "animal-like" about "an animal". We just call them like that.

Definitely a good point, something my professor had also mentioned in that lecture.

Re: The Semiotics Of Music

NickVolos — Fri, 25 Apr 2014 10:01:15 GMT

Author: NickVolos

Posted: 04/25/2014 14:01

meccalecca wrote:

Yes indeed music requires a receiving apparatus - commonly a pair of ears and a brain/mind but in this case (deaf) sensing the vibrations with some other human mechanism (that of touch) will make it a very poor receiver missing on a lot of the information - musical and lyrical - conveyed in the original wave.

Although all animal receiving apparati (ears/brain) work in the same fundamental way - that of receiving the vibrations and converting them into sound inside their brain, not all perceive the final product in the same way. I am sure the same vibration sounds differently inside the human brain than inside the brain of some other animal - pretty much how the EM light waves are seen black-and-white inside a dog's brain. And to expand this further, the same vibration never "sounds" exactly the same inside different human brains.

Re: The Semiotics Of Music

Anonymous — Fri, 25 Apr 2014 08:51:36 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 04/25/2014 12:51

I agree completely with a lot of the commentary being displayed upon this topic (though it's been done quite a bit so it's nothing new, but the topic in general is pretty interesting), but I will add that experience plays a huge role in what we consider correlates with what emotion. This might fall more under the "social" category though so it's really nothing new to add. However, I think what's a bit more interesting (this isn't based upon studies, just personal experience) that a majority of the music that I can't connect to an experience I've had doesn't have any emotion to it when I listen. I think it's sort of an interesting experience, but social and cultural influence certainly plays a large role in this too (I don't want to undermine that).

Re: The Semiotics Of Music

meccalecca — Fri, 25 Apr 2014 08:43:33 GMT

Author: meccalecca

Posted: 04/25/2014 12:43

NickVolos wrote:

For someone deaf all music sounds the same.

Re: The Semiotics Of Music

Norman Bates — Fri, 25 Apr 2014 07:21:20 GMT

Author: Norman Bates

Posted: 04/25/2014 11:21

RockyRaccoon wrote:

There is nothing inherently dog-like about that dog, outside of the fact that it is that particular animal.

Even calling it an "animal" is inconclusive semiotically. There is nothing inherently "animal-like" about "an animal". We just call them like that.

Re: The Semiotics Of Music

Hammy — Fri, 25 Apr 2014 04:57:38 GMT

Author: Hammy

Posted: 04/25/2014 08:57

sp4cetiger wrote:

Having listened to lots of early classical music (before 1500), I think that many of the secular pieces that were meant to be "happy" would sound goofy to a modern listener... they certainly did to me. I do think that there are characteristics of music that tend to elicit similar reactions in humans, regardless of cultural background, and that our genetic make-up does play some part in our response. Steady, up-tempo music is good for dancing, so it tends to be associated with happiness. Dissonance is harder to process than consonance, so it's more often associated with negative emotions.

I was thinking more the Baroque Era and onward, when composers really started to catch on. Anyway listening to say one piece of music from each year ,1600-present day, that's meant to be "happy" or "sad" may make for an interesting experiment.

sp4cetiger wrote:

I think this can be true, but I don't see a positive experience as being equivalent to happiness. I loved jamming to Nirvana when I was a teenager, but I was expressing frustration, not happiness. The Soft Bulletin, by contrast, really just makes me happy.

Well I didn't equate positive experience to happiness. Just listening to music you like, regardless if say the artist making the music was depressed and you can hear that in the music. Listening to it will be a positive experience.

You were able to connect with Nirvana. So listening to their music and expressing your frustration through it, I'm assuming was a positive experience at the time. Maybe listening to them now though, it's a nostalgic experience that doesn't bring back the best of memories. So of course you wouldn't associate them with "happy" music.

Our brains work in strange ways though. I read once a short story about how someone associated country music with feeling sick. Their parents played it for them in the car, or something, and they would get car sick alot. Basically just hearing some of those songs again was enough to make them feel nauseous.

It's hard to actually pinpoint certain things when we listen to music that would elicit so and so emotional response. I believe though, in say instrumental music, the pieces that move us the most are the ones most closely resembling something human. Be it the sounds we make when we cry, the joyous emotion we associate with the sound of laughter or even the sound of someone yelling at us which we may associate with fear. Just for some examples, though there are a lot of experiences auditory or not that may be heard in music which could elicit in us an emotional response.

More random thoughts:
(A human scream is "dissonant" sounding)
(We have long associated a human's scream with terror) it's etched into our DNA
(One reason we may naturally dislike dissonance in music) though it still elicits an emotional response

Re: The Semiotics Of Music

Anonymous — Fri, 25 Apr 2014 02:38:26 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 04/25/2014 06:38

Tonality wrote:

If you mean the piano chord at the beginning, that ends like :12 seconds in, it sounds incomplete to me now.

Well, actually that was kind of a bad example because they didn't end on the tonic (as most popular songs do). I think of it as final because it immediately follows the chaotic build of the orchestra, but if that doesn't work for you, consider the final chord of "Let It Be" instead. The example doesn't really matter, though, because most of popular music is based on the concept of tonality (haw), within which triadic harmony is considered stable and non-dissonant.

Quote:

Anyways I think people are confusing social/cultural conditioning with our own individual listening experiences. Which would then lead to psychological conditioning of course. (How we react to music/what we like.) Genetics still play a part though.

At bold, though why do musicians choose to play and or sing a certain way to reflect the lyrics in a song. Deriving emotions from playing a certain way (and even what instruments are used for certain parts of music) has existed for at least a few hundred years, composers have known how basically. <- in instrumental music too

Quote:

random thought: Humans, who have emotions, make music to channel those emotions. If we "connect" with the music, basically understand the artist's intentions, you'll like the music. Because music makes you feel. It doesn't matter if the music is "sad" or even depressing when you connect you'll have a positive experience.

Re: The Semiotics Of Music

Hammy — Fri, 25 Apr 2014 01:46:33 GMT

Author: Hammy

Posted: 04/25/2014 05:46

sp4cetiger wrote:

Yeah, I think you're right that there's a relationship between dissonance and what we label as sad, scary, spooky, etc, but it's all in a relative sense. In the earliest classical music, an interval of a third (and therefore a major chord), was considered dissonant. In other words, the final chord of "A Day in the Life" would have sounded unresolved to early musicians. Seems crazy now.

If you mean the piano chord at the beginning, that ends like :12 seconds in, it sounds incomplete to me now.

Anyways I think people are confusing social/cultural conditioning with our own individual listening experiences.
Which would then lead to psychological conditioning of course. (How we react to music/what we like.) Genetics still play a part though.

sp4cetiger wrote:

My guess is that the descriptive labels we give to music are mostly relational and only loosely based on its intrinsic properties. As we grow, we notice that when music plays slowly or in minor keys, the lyrics and tone are often sad, so we think of the music as sad. Similarly with melodic and upbeat music being happy.

At bold, though why do musicians choose to play and or sing a certain way to reflect the lyrics in a song. Deriving emotions from playing a certain way (and even what instruments are used for certain parts of music) has existed for at least a few hundred years, composers have known how basically. <- in instrumental music too

The "Why" (do we feel a certain way when we listen to music) is another story though.

random thought: Humans, who have emotions, make music to channel those emotions. If we "connect" with the music, basically understand the artist's intentions, you'll like the music. Because music makes you feel. It doesn't matter if the music is "sad" or even depressing when you connect you'll have a positive experience.

Re: The Semiotics Of Music

RockyRaccoon — Thu, 24 Apr 2014 23:20:25 GMT

Author: RockyRaccoon

Posted: 04/25/2014 03:20

Also, KKS, that's some really interesting stuff, I'll have to peruse that thread soon.

Re: The Semiotics Of Music

RockyRaccoon — Thu, 24 Apr 2014 23:19:52 GMT

Author: RockyRaccoon

Posted: 04/25/2014 03:19

sp4cetiger wrote:

Oh most definitely. What is "acceptable" in music has typically come from musicians "breaking the rules". Debussy is a great example of this. When you're writing SATB four-part harmony, one of the biggest rules is no parallel fifths, and Debussy said fuck that and did it all over the place. Now, parallel fifths in voice leading is more seen as something you probably don't want to do but it's ok.

Stravinsky is another great example, his use of dissonance in The Rite Of Spring caused a near-riot in Paris. It was "unconventional" and "avant-garde" and thus, angering to many people. But now, listening to it, people rarely find The Rite Of Spring to be completely jarring.

That's part of the reason it seems like cultural conditioning to me, because we as a culture agree upon what is "acceptable". Then a musician stretches that thinking and the culture then decides on whether or not that will be considered "acceptable", and then the concept is stretched.

Re: The Semiotics Of Music

Anonymous — Thu, 24 Apr 2014 22:42:28 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 04/25/2014 02:42

RockyRaccoon wrote:

As for the overall discussion, I think it's interesting, I'm just curious why people think things like minor keys and all sound sad, or why certain tones evoke certain emotions? Personally, I think dissonance has a lot to do with it. When we play a minor chord, taking that third down a half-step to the minor third makes it slightly more dissonant, which is something that, in western music, sounds "out of place". I'm not saying it's entirely dissonant, it's not a minor second or anything, but it's more dissonant than a major chord. Same thing with the tri-tone, the augmented 4th, diminished 5th. Why does it sound "evil", why did people think the devil lived in that note? Because it's dissonant, it's not major or minor, and it sounds "out of place". We want everything to fit in little spots, and when it doesn't, it causes anxious emotions in us because we've been conditioned that way.

All in all, I think it's a lot of social and cultural conditioning.

Re: The Semiotics Of Music

Anonymous — Thu, 24 Apr 2014 22:28:55 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 04/25/2014 02:28

RockyRaccoon wrote:

All in all, it's a lot of cultural conditioning.

bingo, imo

you might be interested in comparative musicology and the philosophy of "understanding" music (movement, emotiveness, etc.)

purple wrote:

Understanding Music

What does it mean to listen to music with understanding?

sample subquestions:
What does it mean when we say the music expresses emotion?
What does it mean when we say music moves (i.e. up, down, forward, stagnant)?

One argument used to describe the way in which we hear emotion in music is the metaphoricists':
(1) only sentient creatures can have and express emotions
(2) music is non-sentient
(3) so music cannot have and express emotions
(4) yet, despite realizing the truth of (1)-(3) we still say things like "the music is sad" when referring to purely instrumental pieces
(5) so these emotional attributions must be metaphoric rather than literal

someone who takes this stance would say that musical movement doesn't happen because musical space doesn't necessarily exist. When we attribute the words up, down, sad, happy to music it is always metaphorical. To think of it in another way, think of it like this: someone can hold a tragic mask up to their face to express sadness readily, but how could wood express sadness except metaphorically?

There are two key objections to the popular view above.

(1) That polysemy (the cross-language linguistic phenomenon in which a word has many closely-related meanings) frees us from metaphor. Or, that there is a familiar use of the words in which they are not used to refer to a literal movement or felt emotion e.g. a person with a sad figure.

someone who takes this literal stance would say that music literally moves up and down, and can express emotions, as well as that music can only be talked about in spatial terms (up, down).

(2) That dead metaphors free us from metaphor. Or, that in our ancestral past humans used crude vocabulary to describe the phenomenon of music and used spatial words to describe musical movement metaphorically; these words have become so engrained in our species that it is no longer metaphor to refer to a musical note as higher than the other, i.e. they are dead metaphors. This argument also believes musical terms could be described by any set of terms, spatial or not, and believes we do: i.e. C, G, A instead of high, higher, highest, something like that

someone who takes this stance would say that music does not literally move up and down, or literally express emotion, but does so in a secondary sense i.e. it is not an objective, intrinsic quality (i.e. primary e.g. mass) of the music but an objective, perceived quality (i.e. secondary e.g. color) of music (metaphors would be subjective qualities i.e. tertiary e.g. seeing a face in a cloud)

there's a synopsis of some arguments concerning the understanding of music; feel free to comment, take a stance, ask questions, etc...

and then there's some more you might be interested in here

the topic died because I'm lazy

Re: The Semiotics Of Music

RockyRaccoon — Thu, 24 Apr 2014 22:18:18 GMT

Author: RockyRaccoon

Posted: 04/25/2014 02:18

SquishypuffDave wrote:

Unless you're talking about anthropomorphism, this doesn't make much sense to me. I mean I agree about everything being interpreted through a subjective filter, but most of the adjectives people generally give to dogs are descriptive rather than prescriptive. There are objective things about dogs that those descriptions signify.

I didn't describe it well.

In essence, the exercise worked liked this: we were all asked to describe a dog, what a dog was. People said things like loyal or friendly or happy or a companion. These are all things that we, as people, assign to that dog. There is nothing inherently dog-like about that dog, outside of the fact that it is that particular animal. Does that make more sense?

As for the overall discussion, I think it's interesting, I'm just curious why people think things like minor keys and all sound sad, or why certain tones evoke certain emotions? Personally, I think dissonance has a lot to do with it. When we play a minor chord, taking that third down a half-step to the minor third makes it slightly more dissonant, which is something that, in western music, sounds "out of place". I'm not saying it's entirely dissonant, it's not a minor second or anything, but it's more dissonant than a major chord. Same thing with the tri-tone, the augmented 4th, diminished 5th. Why does it sound "evil", why did people think the devil lived in that note? Because it's dissonant, it's not major or minor, and it sounds "out of place". We want everything to fit in little spots, and when it doesn't, it causes anxious emotions in us because we've been conditioned that way.

All in all, I think it's a lot of social and cultural conditioning.

Re: The Semiotics Of Music

Anonymous — Thu, 24 Apr 2014 19:39:14 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 04/24/2014 23:39

A few things I can throw in here. First, when my son was less than 6 months old, this song made him happy:

Link

Though many of us probably like that song, it doesn't fit in with what most folks would consider "happy" music.

The other thing is this thread:

happy albums?

As outlaw pointed out at the end, it's really all over the place what seems to make people happy.

My guess is that the descriptive labels we give to music are mostly relational and only loosely based on its intrinsic properties. As we grow, we notice that when music plays slowly or in minor keys, the lyrics and tone are often sad, so we think of the music as sad. Similarly with melodic and upbeat music being happy.

That's not to say that our emotional response to music is entirely based on social conditioning, just that the labels we apply to it are. For example, few would argue that Pet Sounds is a happy album, at least from the thematic standpoint, but it still makes SuedeSwede happy. Similarly, The Soft Bulletin is an extremely depressing album that somehow brings me to ecstasy.

Why? If I knew, I probably wouldn't need to discuss music anymore.

Re: The Semiotics Of Music

Anonymous — Thu, 24 Apr 2014 19:09:53 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 04/24/2014 23:09

What you have to do is find yourself in the music. If you write things it may be hard to see anything as you will see what isn't there. If you use words like "sad" or such it will become harder. Meaning will get in the way. It feels better to listen to music.

Re: The Semiotics Of Music

alelsupreme — Thu, 24 Apr 2014 19:00:11 GMT

Author: alelsupreme

Posted: 04/24/2014 23:00

Kool Keith Sweat wrote:

Link

I've seen this like 5 times and still don't get what their point was.

Re: The Semiotics Of Music

NickVolos — Thu, 24 Apr 2014 18:53:24 GMT

Author: NickVolos

Posted: 04/24/2014 22:53

For someone deaf all music sounds the same.

Re: The Semiotics Of Music

Mercury — Thu, 24 Apr 2014 18:46:02 GMT

Author: Mercury

Posted: 04/24/2014 22:46

Kool Keith Sweat wrote:

Link

What the duck was that about? I'm so fucking confused.