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Re: philosophy of music

SquishypuffDave — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 00:33:46 GMT

Author: SquishypuffDave

Posted: 03/17/2012 04:33

Cheers. 😄

I was watching a video earlier, where Europeans played various different music to an african man who had no experience in western music, and got him to point to which emotion he thought it embodied. He got them "correct", but I noticed that when each was playing, I could recognise which emotion it was written to embody, based on my experience with western music. But those were not the feelings that they stirred up in me. The "happy" music caused me to feel agitation and the "sad" music caused me to feel happy.

It seems to me that the temperament of an individual person has a significant effect on how they emotionally react to music, so I doubt it's entirely anthropological. The fact that people from within the same culture have such varied reactions to music seems to indicate that there is a personal (psychological) aspect.

Re: philosophy of music

Anonymous — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 11:31:58 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 03/16/2012 15:31

the only thing I can think of that comes close to a unifying emotional response of all music cultures is that drums tend to be used for war songs. However, I haven't really been exposed to Asian music outside of Indonesia, so I don't know if this holds up across Asia. Note though that the cultures still use the drums for different things: the Agbekor of the Ewe was used to terrify the opponent; the drums used in the American civil war were used to communicate strategy to your own troops; etc. You should also note that I'm not a musicologist and am speaking with comparatively little experience in other music cultures!

Re: philosophy of music

Anonymous — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 11:26:14 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 03/16/2012 15:26

I saw your previous post. I'm on break now and the remaining days of my break will be spent champagne dieting and recovering. However, I have the class again Tuesday. Wednesday or Thursday I'll update you on stuff we discussed previous to break, during Tuesday's class, and what I'm personally writing about for that class (free jazz!).

As far as some quick answers to those questions...

several cultures view the mourning process as a personal journey and believe that the public funeral services should be celebratory e.g. the ancient Greeks. The Ewe people, from what I've seen, don't cry at their funerals but do sing dirges, while dancing to music specific to funerals, so their seems to be a weird mix of celebration and mourning going on. However, this still doesn't change the fact that, if you were to ask (for example) a Canadian what emotion he thought Ewe funeral music was purveying his description would not fit an Ewe's because he perceives the emotions that music purveys differently. This does not mean that music doesn't have emotional significance, simply that it appears to be interpreted through culture (and of course the culture that creates it is accepted to have the most correct emotional interpretation of it). Bottom line, the first time someone from the western world hears so many layered polyrhythms created from so many drums his brain cannot possibly comprehend the music, though they may be paying full attention to it; it likely all sounds the same. It takes time to adapt to the sounds themselves, but even then you will never fully understand a music made outside of your culture as far as its emotional impact. A possible analog is language translation; there are several words in German that cannot be translated to similar words in English; you can create a combination of several words in English to mimic the German definition, but some cultural and/or emotional significance is lost e.g. zeitgeist. Same thing happened when Asian ambassadors came over to Europe; the hosts would take them to Western symphonies and they thought it all sounded the same, with no emotional impact; in fact, there's a few anecdotes of how these Asian ambassadors enjoyed the tuning session more than the body of work (When I'm finished with this class, I'll post all the references we're using so you're exposed to these anecdotes properly and don't have to take my word for it).

As far as the "relaxing" show... easily, yes. I have a friend that listens to death metal when he goes to bed, it's easy to imagine a possible case in which that is considered relaxing.

I wouldn't look to biology or psychology for our pleasure in music, but anthropology. It's largely a cultural phenomenon. The most generalized aesthetic pleasure that humans gain from making music might be biological; I don't touch psychology because I view it as borderline pseudoscience; and the music we're exposed to, are subconsciously taught to understand, and what we'll generally play if we perform music (even is we've been exposed to other music cultures) all comes from our culture.

wow, this is getting much longer than I expected it to...

I don't think you read my comments carefully on musical space. summary on three views:

(1) the language we apply to musical space is metaphorical, because how can a non-physical object (pitch) move spatially. an obvious criticism is that higher frequencies mean higher pitches, but pitches have ranges of frequencies that (I think?) overlap. Weird problems also arise when you start thinking about tuning, esp. "badly" tuned instruments, but I can't think of these off the top of my head

(2) we use polysemy, or similar words with different meanings, to describe musical space and motion. e.g. when we say a man cuts a sad figure, he might not actually be expressing sadness but simply demonstrating the body language of sadness. Likewise, when say music is going up or down, it might not actually be going up or down, but simply appears to in our minds.

(3) we use dead metaphors to describe musical space and motion i.e. an anthropological argument stating that when we first started using the words "up" and "down" to describe pitch we were using metaphor (and indeed could have chosen any combination of movement, "left" or "right", etc. (and we do have several forms of concomitant notation for music)), but know the words "up" and "down" have been so engrained in our various cultures for thousands of years that we perceive them as literal now.

I personally find the second argument strongest, but that's because I've read the papers from which these arguments came. I might not have expressed them as well.

Re: philosophy of music

SquishypuffDave — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 03:14:42 GMT

Author: SquishypuffDave

Posted: 03/16/2012 07:14

Bump. Where's Purple? 🙁

I'm really interested to hear more about this idea of different cultures experiencing music differently. I'm completely open-minded on the issue of nature vs. nurture when it comes to emotions and music. Are there any universal emotional reactions to particular musical properties? If so what are they? Are they unchangeable?

The idea of an innate human reaction to certain musical properties, which can then be developed/changed through experience sounds quite believable to me, although I don't know of any research that supports or challenges this idea.

Re: philosophy of music

SquishypuffDave — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 11:09:45 GMT

Author: SquishypuffDave

Posted: 03/15/2012 15:09

purple wrote:

If you were to hear a funeral dirge from the Ewe people it would sound happy to you. When you listen to music from disparate music cultures, if you can transfer an emotion onto it it's almost always an emotion that the music culture doesn't get from it. We also don't have a sense of musical space in other music cultures, so having never heard a work from a given music culture except for one you could not describe whether it was fast, slow, the notes moving up, down, what emotion it was evoking, etc.

I was sharing this with a friend, and I'd be very interested to hear your response to his arguments:

How do we know the Ewe people didnt deliberate decide to choose happy music for their funerals? I guess I find it hard to believe that music itself doesnt carry emotional significance. Different types music have specific properties that have specific reactions in our brains, and then on top of that, the reaction can be affected and changed by experiences.

Do you think in some parts of the world,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izuUgyzajYA
this might be considered soothing and relaxing?

It makes me want to punch people in the face. And not because i ever heard it when i was angry as a child or anytime.

In essence: the impact of music may be affected by biological or psychological factors, but generally, it transcends them.

In regards to the notes moving up or down/musical space:

Notes very clearly move up or down in pitch. There is absolutely no reason to think it is subjective - it's a fact. 'The notes moving up and down' means pitch. There is no other way to interpret that.

Let's get this going again!

Re: philosophy of music

Robert Anton Wilson — Sun, 5 Feb 2012 15:27:33 GMT

Author: Robert Anton Wilson

Posted: 02/05/2012 20:27

Mind Movie wrote:

Anything that can't be scientifically proven can't be defined, so in fact most things in life can't be defined.

That depends on how you define the word define. "Defining" is a linguistic operation not a scientific one and as such has nothing to do with scientific probity. You can define without using science but you cannot have a science without the capacity to define.

Music can be scientifically defined and studied.

Re: philosophy of music

Anonymous — Sun, 5 Feb 2012 14:52:47 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 02/05/2012 19:52

purple wrote:

Mind Movie wrote:

Music isn't an exact science where arguments and evidences belong, and therefore can't music be defined as anything.

would you define a painting as music? or a bowl of soup? or a flute? there are objects which obviously aren't music, so it's fun to try to think of a definition.

I wouldn't define either a painting, a bowl of soup or a flute as music - as I stated, I wouldn't define anything as music or music as anything. Anything that can't be scientifically proven can't be defined, so in fact most things in life can't be defined. Maybe music doesn't exist, but each individual have an idea about what music is or could be - where many, as you stated, agree that music is sounds with the intend to be listened to. Most people I know probably wouldn't consider 4:43 as music.

Re: philosophy of music

RFNAPLES — Sun, 5 Feb 2012 14:30:26 GMT

Author: RFNAPLES

Posted: 02/05/2012 19:30

purple wrote:

Robert Anton Wilson wrote:

Link

nice. our library actually has a copy of this so I'll have to check out the full film in the coming weeks. this could have some interesting implications. thanks for posting this!

RFNaples wrote:

Did you ever hear the phrase "That's music to my ears"? You know music when you hear it; like pornography when you see it.

while most would agree that "we tend to know music when we hear it," these people would never use the phrase "music to my ears" because music in that phrase has another, polysemic meaning. someone could easily say "that's music to my ears" when their boss tells them they got a job promotion and they wouldn't be wrong, and they wouldn't be talking about music. And there are certain pieces of music (e.g. concrete music) that people might not necessarily hear as music, though some definitely do hear as music, so it's interesting to think about what music actually can be instead of resigning to the ideas either that (1) music is simply something that we subtly, unconsciously understand or (2) why does it matter, just listen to it.

on that side topic, the line demarcating pornography from art can also be very blurry when you get into erotic poetry, nudes, sex scenes in film

Yes not everybody hears music when it is playing. I remember my mom often yelling "turn down that noise." It didn't matter if it was classical, jazz, rock or live piano if it was loud.

Re: philosophy of music

Anonymous — Sun, 5 Feb 2012 14:09:49 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 02/05/2012 19:09

Mind Movie wrote:

Music isn't an exact science where arguments and evidences belong, and therefore can't music be defined as anything.

would you define a painting as music? or a bowl of soup? or a flute? there are objects which obviously aren't music, so it's fun to try to think of a definition.

The most common premise in definitions is that music is something to be heard. But then where does 4'33" fit in? It's easy to imagine a possible situation in which the audience and performers are totally silent, silent enough to not hear their own breath or pulse. If nothing is heard, is it still music, even if it is presented and intended as music? And isn't it strange that during another performance of 4'33" someone in the audience could cough and it might then be considered music again?

SquishypuffDave wrote:

@Purple, that argument only stands if you separate the player/musician from the audience. Why does the musician not count as a listener?

well, that was one example and a bad one, but it can be redeemed if the musician's are deaf, as in the video Robert Anton Wilson posted

Re: philosophy of music

Anonymous — Sun, 5 Feb 2012 14:01:09 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 02/05/2012 19:01

Robert Anton Wilson wrote:

Link

nice. our library actually has a copy of this so I'll have to check out the full film in the coming weeks. this could have some interesting implications. thanks for posting this!

RFNaples wrote:

Did you ever hear the phrase "That's music to my ears"? You know music when you hear it; like pornography when you see it.

Re: philosophy of music

Jackwc — Sun, 5 Feb 2012 13:21:59 GMT

Author: Jackwc

Posted: 02/05/2012 18:21

an_outlaw wrote:

I was thinking yesterday. If we live in present and there is no past or future, only the present, how can we listen to music?

Well, technically, because music is an expression of time, without past and future playing music would be physically impossible.

Re: philosophy of music

RFNAPLES — Sun, 5 Feb 2012 12:33:26 GMT

Author: RFNAPLES

Posted: 02/05/2012 17:33

Did you ever hear the phrase "That's music to my ears"? You know music when you hear it; like pornography when you see it.

Re: philosophy of music

Robert Anton Wilson — Sun, 5 Feb 2012 12:24:05 GMT

Author: Robert Anton Wilson

Posted: 02/05/2012 17:24

purple wrote:

but there is no music for the deaf (or is there?)

Actually yes there is ...

Link

p.s. And don't go too quickly to the argument she is not totally deaf but only very hard of hearing because while this is the case for her she does teach to totally deaf kids how to play and how to listen to music with their body.

Re: philosophy of music

Anonymous — Sun, 5 Feb 2012 11:54:42 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 02/05/2012 16:54

Music isn't an exact science where arguments and evidences belong, and therefore can't music be defined as anything.

Re: philosophy of music

Anonymous — Sun, 5 Feb 2012 10:08:04 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 02/05/2012 15:08

I was thinking yesterday. If we live in present and there is no past or future, only the present, how can we listen to music? It doesn't fit in the present and seems to be routed in the past as well. Like if it was all the present wouldn't we be listening to the same song forever? It would never end. And wait... many people on here have listened to more than one song! Wouldn't they be all listening to all the songs at exactaly the same time? So techincally an album wouldn't end and it could last forever?

But that can't be right... everything moves in the songs. So they are playing in the past as well as the present? Maybe the brain is taking a few seconds to process the outside world so the signals are reaching a few seconds before and so they play it to keep the illusion there is more than the present and that time is at a standstill. But if they play in the past, maybe they can play in the future as well? The brain is getting the music before it is happening and forming it into words and beats that it knows will be pleasing to the body

So maybe time is moving the music or maybe... just maybe, could music be moving time foward...?

Re: philosophy of music

Facetious — Sun, 5 Feb 2012 09:12:01 GMT

Author: Facetious

Posted: 02/05/2012 14:12

40footwolf wrote:

I don't have much of a mind for academia so I'd feel foolish contributing to the conversation, but I'll gladly sit back and watch other people's discussions. This is fascinating stuff.

Re: philosophy of music

SquishypuffDave — Sun, 5 Feb 2012 04:07:17 GMT

Author: SquishypuffDave

Posted: 02/05/2012 09:07

Jackwc wrote:

SquishypuffDave wrote:

@Purple, that argument only stands if you separate the player/musician from the audience. Why does the musician not count as a listener?

What if the musician isn't a sentient being? A theoretical music-machine?

I suppose it would have been created by a musician for that purpose, so whoever created it would consider anything it comes out with to be music. If the subjective stance requires the beholder to be present for the duration of the piece in order to consider it music, then there are certainly problems. I'd probably go for an all-inclusive definition. If it fills any one of these definitions, then it counts as music.

Re: philosophy of music

Jackwc — Sun, 5 Feb 2012 02:53:08 GMT

Author: Jackwc

Posted: 02/05/2012 07:53

SquishypuffDave wrote:

@Purple, that argument only stands if you separate the player/musician from the audience. Why does the musician not count as a listener?

What if the musician isn't a sentient being? A theoretical music-machine?

Re: philosophy of music

SquishypuffDave — Sun, 5 Feb 2012 02:26:41 GMT

Author: SquishypuffDave

Posted: 02/05/2012 07:26

@Purple, that argument only stands if you separate the player/musician from the audience. Why does the musician not count as a listener?

Re: philosophy of music

Anonymous — Wed, 1 Feb 2012 08:57:00 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 02/01/2012 13:57

Bork wrote:

Jackwc wrote:

But are those eggheads not the receiving end of the "jackhammer music"? They are the audience the "jackhammer music" was intended for, and they accept it as such.

And further, some could say Captain Beefheart is this very same "jackhammer music". Would we dismiss the entire genre of avant-garde as being "subjectively music"?

Not at all. If you actually do enjoy listening to that jackhammer instead of just claiming you do out of not knowing that eggheadedness is an undesirable trait, then it is indeed music.

And where did the captain come into this? He made quite a bit of highly enjoyable music before going insane.

It can't be totally subjective. Below are three problems with the subjective argument that don't pop up with the intentional argument.

It's easy to imagine a western listener going to a foreign music culture and interpreting their music as noise (literally noise, not just an expression for bad music). Though it's not music to that person, it's obviously considered music by a significant amount of people; and it's easy to view the listener as an asshole who simply won't accept foreign music as music.

And if music is subjective, then what is a radio playing with nobody around to listen to it and decide if it is really music? Obviously the radio DJ intends it to be music, but how could anyone decide if he was actually playing music if a listener is not there and we require that the listener must decide what music is?

And lastly, let's imagine the a singer/songwriter is playing to a small crowd of their deaf friends. The s/s definitely believes he's playing music, if anyone with hearing were to walk into the private venue then they would agree that he's playing music, but there is no music for the deaf (or is there?). By a subjective definition though, the singer-songwriter is not playing music, because his audience cannot hear it as such.