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26 Mar 03 - 05:05 PM (#919045) Subject: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: wilco Has there been any research done on harmonic/chord structures, explaining why some patterns of music are more "appealing" than others? And, I wonder if the appeal of these structures are cultural? In other words, does the twelve bar blues appeal to everyone? Is the I, IV, V chord progression universal in appeal? Why? |
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26 Mar 03 - 05:29 PM (#919066) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Little Robyn And why/how does music have a calming effect on a tormented brain? (I've just had a run-in with my boss, been practically fired and I had to come and play 'Hard Times' to calm me down again.)(Maybe a few morris tunes might perk me up again?) Grrrrr! |
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26 Mar 03 - 06:14 PM (#919115) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Amos I haven't seen any research directly on this topic, but I think there is a beauty thing that is of a particularly high frequency, which stills the noise and arhythmic patterns of stress in the way white light banishes shadows. That's not a scientific theory, though! :>) A |
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26 Mar 03 - 06:54 PM (#919151) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Mrrzy I may actually know of someone working in this area - Look up Jay Friedenberg, somewhere in NYC (teaches psychology)... |
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26 Mar 03 - 09:07 PM (#919255) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: wysiwyg Yes, also see www.dovesong.com. ~S~ |
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26 Mar 03 - 09:13 PM (#919265) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: GUEST Some rhythms are sympathetic, others not. |
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26 Mar 03 - 11:51 PM (#919318) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: GUEST,Les B. An advertising theory book from about 20 years ago theorized that TV Commercials using music with about the beat of a human heart (approx. 60 beats a minute)were more "attractive" to a general audience ? |
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27 Mar 03 - 07:16 AM (#919466) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Wolfgang No idea whether this is good, I just found it: Emotion and the experience of listening to Music Wolfgang |
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27 Mar 03 - 07:46 AM (#919483) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Pied Piper Hi Wilco48. Quite a lot of research has been done, and there are lots of good books out there try "Beethoven's Anvil" for a well-reasoned and passionate argument for the centrality of music to human culture and why it does what it does (sorry Amos no Mysticism). All the best PP |
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27 Mar 03 - 10:59 AM (#919674) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Frankham Wilco, this is a very interesting topic. My view is that much of this is cultural. Here's my problem. I get agitated listening to "new age music" which is designed to relax someone. Hungarian fiddling drives some people up the wall and soothes others. I like it. Music is more like a language that's consensual. If enough people "speak" it, then it has a salutary affect. There's a cathartic aspect to it. A sad song can sometimes make a person happy by relieving pent up emotions. That's what the blues is all about. Joy can be created by "letting it out" on a horn, lick, or the cry of the "high lonesome sound". One thing, I find no joy in atonal classical music such as Schoenberg, Berg or any of the twelve-tone serialists because it seems to defy cultural recognition. It's like trying to wax poetic in "Esparanto". I guess it could be done but it seems that it would need a cultural base to support it. Frank Hamilton |
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27 Mar 03 - 11:39 AM (#919716) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Alasdair Hey there! I'm a research biologist, but not working in neuropsych. As far as I have read (which is not all that much) the relationship between musical styles & progressions and enjoyment is largely based on a sense of familiarity and a *sub-conscious* ability to anticipate music. I know that a lot of us like music which surprises us, however I'm talking about sub-conscious recognition and anticipation, rather than conscious. This explains why some forms of music which are totally grating to are enjoyable to peoople from other cultural backgrounds. Cheers Al |
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27 Mar 03 - 11:49 AM (#919726) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Wolfgang After some searching, it seems The origins of Music (summary at the link) is the most up-to-date work upon that question. Same as with the study of languages, in recent years many so called human universals, valid in each culture, are found. If you look into it you'll find that of all theoretically possible 'musics' only a tiny fraction has been used across the world and that the physiology of the human ear and brain is responsible for that. However, even this tiny fraction allows for many different musics that are 'learned' in a sense of getting used to it by exposure. Wolfgang |
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27 Mar 03 - 11:52 AM (#919734) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Pied Piper Hi Frank. A lot of what music does is cultural, but the basic resources are inbuilt in the way the ear and brain process sound. The choice of frequency intervals that all human cultures use is based on the fact that we hear frequencies logarithmically so that the interval between a note and one double the frequency is perceived as the same note only higher. All melodic activity goes on between these points. The ear evolved to deal with natural sounds of which most of the ones with the property of tone, consist of a series of frequencies linked in a harmonic way. To cut a long story short the ear-brain system recognises as meaningful simple ratio intervals between 1/1 and 2/1. These intervals by definition will contain an odd number, and the degree of dissonance increases as the size of these numbers. Thus 1/1absolute consonance 2/1 octave 3/2 fifth 4/3 fourth 5/4 major third 8/5 minor sixth 6/5 minor third 5/3 major sixth ..... .... Maximum dissonance All the best PP |
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27 Mar 03 - 01:17 PM (#919832) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: M.Ted Only thing, Pied Pieper, is that these intervals are far from universally used--even in western music-- the system of scales and harmonies that we use,would actually be impossible if we adhered to pitches that were derived from those ratios-- In Turkish classical music, fretted instruments traditionally had moveable frets, allowing each musician to alter scale intervals to his/her own taste--Not surprisingly, each musicians used a different pitch for the same scale note--Even the octave wasn't universal--some makams use an octave that is as much as a half step shy shy of where it would fall harmonically-- Then of course, there are musical traditions that only vary rhythm, and don't differentiate pitches at all-- Fortunately, although the underlying structures of music continue to elude scientists, composers and muscians have understood them since the beginning of time-- |
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27 Mar 03 - 02:44 PM (#919921) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Bearheart The ancient Greeks had theories about the effects (emotional, spiritual and otherwise) of music on humans and related their Modes (Mixolydian etc) to it, believing that some interval relationships led to dissonance and some to harmony. They also correlated it to the planets and their effects on humans, seeing a connection between Mars and war/martial music, etc. It's actaully quite complex-- and metaphysical but also I think very much based in mathematics and obsevation of human behavior. Don't have a current reference but a friend researched it some years ago and I'm sure there is lots of material. Maybe even on the Net. Bekki |
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27 Mar 03 - 03:26 PM (#919961) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: open mike Music therapy might be a subject to search to find the properties of music, healing and otherwise. Also that Swiss guy who was into theosophy--i think? oh yes, a search for Rudolph Steiner theories would most likely bring up a lot of his ideas about the human reactions to sound, light, color, fragrance and other senses. |
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27 Mar 03 - 03:37 PM (#919964) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Amos M. Ted and Beccy both point to an interesting observation -- the evolved mechanisms of music (intervals used, scales defined, rhythms commonly used) are not universal, and yet the net effect of music as an uplifting, calming, or energizing perception does seem to have universal distribution in homo sap. But if it isn't coming from the structure, as such, then maybe it is an effect caused by some super-frequency that all musical forms generate. Hmmmm? Jes' specyoolatin'. A |
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27 Mar 03 - 04:19 PM (#919983) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: M.Ted The old "Big Note Theory", eh, Amos? Alexandr Scriabin thought that some sort of spiritual thing would happen if a "Mystic Chord", built, if I remember correctly, on fourths-Check this out Alexandr Scriabin |
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27 Mar 03 - 05:19 PM (#920021) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: GUEST Wilco48, As several people have said, the answer is yes, an enormous amount of research. However, there are a number of aspects to it, and you are probably interested in some more than others. Some of the answers are rooted in basic physics and the physiology of the ear, and I think they are pretty universal once understood (this buys an argument, of course, but usually those who disagree are either interested in another, less well understood aspect of music or they are offended by the application of physics to music in the first place). The consonance or dissonance of combinations of notes is an example of this (the musical desirability of consonance vs. dissonance is entirely separate and much more a matter of learning). On the other hand, "high-level" questions like "why does this song make me feel sad" are *not* primarily questions of physics and not amenable to quick answers so far as I know (I am much better informed about the physics of music than the psychology of music, I hasten to add). The answer might not even be "musical" (perhaps you associate it with a tragic event). Whether the twelve-bar blues is good music is I think not a matter of physics. Part of the relation of the I, IV and V chords is, however, because they are particularly consonant on basic physics grounds. It is surely a matter of experience whether that consonance is particularly pleasing, though the universality of the major scale is an indication that perhaps we are naturally *inclined* to find those combinations pleasing, and those reasons *are* I think rooted in the basic physics. I think a good rule of thumb is that what we perceive is often fairly close to the basic physics and can often be understood on those grounds. How we react to what we perceive is much less often amenable to such arguments (though I think we have some inborn tendancies which are amenable to a physical analysis). Personally, I find the physics of music extremely interesting and satisfying, but I try to remember that few people share this interest! Dustin |
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27 Mar 03 - 05:43 PM (#920047) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Dustin Laurence Alasdair, Hmm, there are some aspects of music and physiology that would be interesting to discuss with a biologist. In particular, I used to have some trouble wrapping my head around *why* certain phenomena would evolve. I think I can now make a case that the fundamental physiology of our ear's response to music is evolved to match the human voice (and not, primarily, the other way around), but I've never discussed it with someone with a good grasp of evolutionary theory. Dustin |
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27 Mar 03 - 06:00 PM (#920059) Subject: c From: M.Ted Dustin is certainly right saying that physics is not really a key to understanding the high level aspects of music, or a least to the relationship of music and emotion-- The thing is that you can't rule it out the scientific elements in the emotional impact of music altogether, because so much of the evolution of music comes from insights into ways that the harmonic aspects can be enhanced--this doesn't come only from development of new technology(like synthesizers or electric guitars, or finding a more resonant brass alloy), it comes into play in things like voicings-- The creative musician/composer is as much an engineer as anything else, because they work with finding and using repeatable ways of making sounds on instruments-- In a way, chords, and the system of harmonization that we use, are really a product of engineering--they were created and refined over the last 500 or so years--based on an evolving understanding of the harmonic principles of phyics, or maybe physics evolved from the musicians understanding of harmonics--Pythagoras was, after all, a musician-- |
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28 Mar 03 - 06:49 AM (#920358) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Wolfgang Another lengthy review of Origins of music presenting a glimpse into Biomusicology. That is the field (combining physics, biology, mathematics and a bit psychology) from which the modern responses to the question discussed here come. For an extreme idea see Evolution of human music through sexual selection Wolfgang |
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28 Mar 03 - 10:58 AM (#920570) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: wilco This has got to be one of the most interesting exchanges that I've seen in years. In my mind, everything goes back to evolution, with hundreds of millions of years of development, based on the preservation of the species. I wonder if studies have been done on music and the emission of pheromones. |
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28 Mar 03 - 04:42 PM (#920766) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Little Robyn "Pythagoras was, after all, a musician--" And Bach was a mathematician! |
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28 Mar 03 - 05:12 PM (#920796) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: duuuude And here I thought I listened just cuz it sounded purty ........ |
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28 Mar 03 - 11:25 PM (#921032) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: GUEST,leeneia When I was in high school, I saw an oscilloscope rendition of musical notes. When notes are discordant, the oscilloscope shows a tangle of criss-crossing curves. These tangles represent the mad jangling of bouncing air molecules. These jangling air molecules then bombard the cilia of the inner air, irritating them and stressing the brain. Is it any wonder that people everywhere like the orderly molecules of the I,IV and V chords? (I just watched a Jackie Chan movie, "Twin Dragons" where Beethoven's music was a central feature.) But when things get more complicated, individual variation plays a role. I get very irritated by rock. Jazz puts me to sleep until they play a loud, discordant note. (This is equivalent to yelling at a person when your poetry put them to sleep.) German folk music, no matter how sad, doesn't use any minor harmonies, or at least so I've read. There goes the idea that minor and sad are interlinked. Just thinking thoughts at random, here... |
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28 Mar 03 - 11:43 PM (#921041) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: GUEST,Al Twelve bar blues appeals to most people, but has never appealed to me. I have no idea why. Then again, I have never been in the mainstream on anything. Al |
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29 Mar 03 - 02:30 AM (#921085) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Dustin Laurence Er, all respects to your high-school physics teacher, but that what makes notes discordant is quite well known, and it has nothing to do with jangling air molecules! Or, at least they jangle pretty much the same way with any sound, and jangle quite well with no sound at all. What makes a note sound "musical" is that its components are more or less equally spaced in frequency (how close they need to be depends at least partly on duration); in fact, this has to be true to some degree for the ear to perceive a definite pitch for the sound as a whole. What makes it consonant (not dissonant) with another note is that none of its components and hetrodyne frequencies beat with any of the components and hetrodyne frequencies of the other note. This more or less happens when the fundamental frequencies have certain small integer ratios, as a previous poster said. This is *why* those ratios sound good. Said more simply, a musical note contains a whole array of frequencies, and more are generated inside the ear. Your ear likes it (hears them as consonant) if the frequencies from two different notes are either the same or far away from each other, and it dislikes it whenever two of them fall very close, but not quite, together. Think of the beating sound of two strings when you tune a guitar. If a lot of the component frequencies are all doing that at the same time, and all at different beat frequencies, the notes sound very dissonant together. That might even be good, if say we're talking about blues and the two dissonant notes are the minor and the major thirds. That is a matter of artistic choice and learned preference. But the degree of consonance or dissonance is not, or at least not only learned. This is actually even why single notes need to have (very close to) evenly spaced components to sound musical; your ear generates equally-spaced hetrodyne frequencies for each of the original components, and if the original components are evenly spaced the new components the ear generates fall right on top of them. If they are not evenly spaced, they will probably beat like mad with the internally generated frequencies. These rules aren't really true for very brief sounds--percussion instruments do just fine without evenly spaced components. But the longer the duration, the more discriminating the ear is about the harmonic structure. Dustin |
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29 Mar 03 - 09:48 AM (#921173) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Frankham Great topic. Mathematics is a language. Music is a language. In order to really communicate, you have to be on the same frame of reference. The idea that a Westerner can understand Eastern music is only good up to a point. What can be perceived is tonal order and structure but not it's implications. For that, you gotta' study the music. It's not wholly universal. As to physical principles in music, it's a half-truth. But what might be interpreted on an oscillicope (spelling?) as jangled might in fact be pleasing to some cultures. Many cultures hear microtones which are not physically determined by tempered scales. In fact, the octave might even be off my a micro-degree. I think the idea of music might be universal, that is if you hear an unfamiliar or foreign music, you might perceive it as music but to say that it resonates might be an overstatement. As in language, I think you need a frame of reference to understand it. The choice of these reference points is an interesting subject. Does it come from the language of a culture or sub-culture? Does the language come from the ability of the physical aspects of speech? Slurs and drawls? Pointed articulation? Is it in the facial structure? Singers have different facial characteristics which make the music diverse. Is it environment? Does a comfortable habitat make people sing sanguine songs? Does a harsh environment mean dissonance and if so, who interprets it as such? I am in favor of diversity in music and not a for a perception of a commonality of acceptance without having studied it. I don't really know African or Indian music, Arabic or Turkish or Pythagorean "Lima". That which resonates with me is based on my level of understanding at the time. Jazz never puts me to sleep because I have studied it. The same goes for the folk music I'm interested in. I don't claim to be an expert and often expertise gets in the way of enjoyment, IMHO. Frank Hamilton |
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29 Mar 03 - 02:02 PM (#921305) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: *daylia* This is a most interesting thread, on one of my favourite topics! Thanks for the info, everyone. I'd like to add that researchers have discovered that listening to music stimulates the production/release of endorphins, the brain's natural painkillers. That's probably one reason why soothing music is so effective as a healing agent. According to James Kalat's "Biological Psychology", "...listening to 'thrilling' music - the kind that sends a tingling sensation down your back or all over your body - also decreases pain." It's interesting that exposure to stress can also release endorphins. For example, the mere presence of a cat causes the release of endorphins in rats, thereby reducing their response to (anticipated) pain. Maybe that's why the "stimulation" of my son's beloved "death metal" at full volume has yet to evoke a murderous response from me! daylia |
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29 Mar 03 - 02:14 PM (#921307) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Bearheart I think "understanding" music can be useful, if you're talking about cognition. Technical facility can certainly be enhanced by it, if you are a performer. Personally I think that "understanding" should encompass an internal sensibility as well, and my definition does. This might be related to "feeling" or "soul". Perhaps it's my eclectic backround-- listening to folk music as diverse as Hungarian/Danish/Celtic as a kid, as well as the full range of classical--including opera every Saturday on the radio-- and Lutheran church music of the liberal sort. I find myself sent into ecstacies of various sorts by everything from Beethoven's 6th (I have loved it since age 14-a very impressionable age) to Tuvan throat singing to Middle Eastern folk music. I still hate opera (well maybe hate is too strong a word) and don't care for jazz or Bach. And I still love Celtic and Old-time music and the music of my foreBears. I think what sounds good to us is as much about our character/personality as anything-- or perhaps it's really about the soul... my taste in music is much like my brother's but not much like my sister or father, who prefer Bach and Aarvo Part (sp? --he does nothing for me...)If it's all about the structure of the ear-- I guess I didn't inherit my Dad's... Bekki |
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29 Mar 03 - 09:39 PM (#921514) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Frankham There is a kind of music that seems to get to me. A lot has to do with a visceral understanding that might be inherited. My cultural background, even when I'm not identifying with it particularly, can sometimes trigger an emotion. Some say they don't like jazz. That's understandable. They may not "feel" it due to their physiology. Some folks dislike country music. They don't get it. There are opera buffs who wouldn't dream of listening to field recordings of blues hollers. When I was a student at a music business class, it was comprised of young aspiring promoters, record execs, rock musicians etc. I brought in a recording of Almeda Riddle to play for them just to give them an idea of another kind of music. If you think that they would be open to new music, you'd be wrong. Most of the class hated what they heard. Frank Hamilton |
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29 Mar 03 - 11:17 PM (#921537) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Dustin Laurence Just to be clear, I would be very unhappy if anyone used anything I said to support any notion that their own musical preferences are due to their particular physiology. No reason you can't believe it, but nothing I said relating to human physiology would support such a notion except in the case of someone with a genuine physical impairment. Dustin |
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29 Mar 03 - 11:49 PM (#921545) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: toadfrog I think there is a limit to the extent one can say reactions to music are cultural. I, for example, find I react favorable to Chinese, Japanese, or Indian folk music, but not to their classical music. I'm prepared to believe that I might appreciate Ragas or Koto music, if I was brought up on it and could understand it. But on the other hand, that does not explained why I don't like Brahms, or the Sons of the Pioneers, which I have heard from early childhood. |
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30 Mar 03 - 11:16 PM (#922225) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: M.Ted The words consonant and dissonant have no absolute meaning within the context of music, intervals that sound good in one music culture grate on the nerves of another--furthermore, the intervals in many scales tend to be fairly arbitrarily selected, at least when related to the series of harmonic overtones--If you were to construct a scale that used the notes that occur in the harmonic overtone, some of the pitches would sound out of tune, the intervals would be wildly irregular, and, most significantly, the chords and harmonies that we use would be impossible -- The bottom line is that scales of any sort are artificial constructions, rather than natural phenomena, although they tend to incorporate fifths, fourths and octaves, which are phenomena-- |
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31 Mar 03 - 07:10 AM (#922352) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: GUEST "The words consonant and dissonant have no absolute meaning within the context of music" that's as maybe but the words do describe a real Auditory experience for all human beings regardless of culture. I think one of the problems with discussing the Neuropsychological basis of Human musicing is the deep rooted and over simplistic relativism adopted by the social sciences in regard to culture. I once heard a sociologist say when asked what human nature was reply "there is no such thing". I think the adoption of this position as a response to equally over simplistic genetic determinism of the late 19th and early 20th centuries is hindering us in coming to a more balanced picture of human nature. Clearly tap dancing has large cultural components, but is impossible without legs. All the best PP |
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31 Mar 03 - 09:51 AM (#922474) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: wilco The discussions of pheromones suggests a question, although it might seem elemntary to many of you. What came first, a spoken language or song? If other species (like whales, dolphins, birds, etc.) use "songs" to communicate, did humans do this first too? In other words, could it be that human communication was based on songs, rather than "unsung" languages. Pheromones suggest such a primitive level of communication, that further suggests that one of the next evolutionary stages would be songs to attract mates, signify family bonds, pacify children, etc? Maybe music is inbred. predating a more structured language?? |
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31 Mar 03 - 10:45 AM (#922544) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Steve Parkes Well, if the other great apes are anything to go by, speech came first. Most primates (i.e. all the ones I've seen on tv) have some form of vocal communication, although nothing that can be described as "language". Singing as we know it is a combination of speech and music, and folk-song is a form of story-telling, with a kind of memory aid and teaching aid built in: rhythm, melody, formal structure and lots of repetition. Good communication requires lots of redundancy to ensure the message gets across even if bits of it get missed in the process; many trad. ballads have a lot of repetition, and the tunes are largely simple and shortish, coming round frequently. The oldest known musical instruments are earth drums, I'm told (although there is a 24,000 year-old flute, according to Google). Maybe we've just always liked things that make a noise, but it seems it had to be a musical noise? I suppos we can only realy make educated (or ignorant!) guesses now; still, it's fun to see where informed specualtion could take us. Steve I've just read this through again, and I don't think my first argument stands up, after all. Illogical, Captain ... |
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31 Mar 03 - 11:31 AM (#922599) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: M.Ted PP-What I meant is simply that at different times and in different places, what is dissonant and what is consonant is different-- At one time, the major third interval was regarded as dissonant. by the same token, the minor second, which by some reckoning, would be the most dissonant sound possible-- is commmonly used, not only in Balkan vocal music, but also in a Major Seventh Chord, which is used often in contemporary and popular music--In fact, a lot of folkies regard the major seventh sound as being too sweet--seems to me we had a discussion thread where this point came up not that long ago-- |
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31 Mar 03 - 12:32 PM (#922659) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Dustin Laurence MTed, I'm afraid I have to firmly disagree on this point. Dissonance and Consonance I think are fairly well based in physiology, and one measure of this is that the most consonant intervals are the most universal. What is a matter of artistic convention (notice I tried to avoid the pop-sociological language) is the desirability and uses of consonance and dissonance. It is like spicy food--most people should be able to agree on which foods are hotter than others, but are likely to agree on which is "better". The physiology it is based on, BTW, is not as simple as just taking the notes that appear at low order in the harmonic series for a single ideal string. It is based on the degree to which the ear hears various intervals beat-free. The harmonic series for a single string is a good predictor of this, but that is more in the way of an extremely fortunate accident than a causal relation. The causal relation is based on hetrodyne frequencies generated in the ear combined with the Fourier spectrum of the sounds being heard. While I agree with GUEST that creeping relativism is probably involved (but it's pretty slippery to speculate on other's motivations, isn't it?), but I think there is another error involved. That said, one of the besetting sins of these discussions is forgetting one of the oldest lessons--Aristotle's rule that one must keep in mind that every field of inquiry has it's own degree of precision, and it is a fool's game to ask more precision than the field supports. In the game at hand, one can probably always find singular exceptions to every rule. Singular exceptions are a disproof in mathematics, because that is the appropriate degree of accuracy we ask of mathematical statements. They are not in most other fields, including this one. What matters is, as a historian might say, convergence of the evidence. This is no different than attempts to prove that all morality is convention by citing singular examples while ignoring the great chorus of human cultures on a number of basic principles. It is also important to keep in mind that this doesn't mean experience can't modify the underlying tendancies to some degree, because they can. For example, I am so used to equal temperament tuning that I don't have a real preference for just thirds over equal temperament thirds. Does this mean that I'm the exception that disproves the rule that equal tempered thirds are more dissonant? Absolutely not. It means that my experiences have modified that particular perception. *But* there is no doubt in my mind that the natural tendancy is to prefer just thirds for excellent physiological reasons. I've simply gotten used to equal tempered thirds in the same way that I've acquired a reasonable tolerance for hot food. One wouldn't use me as a disproof of the idea that (good) curry is hotter than mashed potatoes, either. I've come to prefer the heat, and I don't perceive it as being so hot as I once did, but I certainly can tell the difference between hot and bland. Dustin |
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31 Mar 03 - 12:58 PM (#922684) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Dustin Laurence Wilco48, It's a great question. I suspect there has been a lot of work on this from the social and psychological end that I'm not familiar with. From the physiological end, though, I would argue that the evidence is that the voice came first, at least for music as we understand it. Our ears look for equal-spaced spectra, and our voices produce equal-spaced spectra. However, our voices produce sound via driven oscillations, and are really quite committed to the equal-spacing in a fundamental way. I am not so sure our ears absolutely have to respond to equal-spaced spectra in the same way, though I really need to find enough information to work this out. But given that, I suspect that on this one fundamental point (what we perceive as a musical sound) our ears evolved to fit the sorts of sounds the voice must make. It's just speculation, but I think it is a good one. Once the basic physical mechanism is in place, of course, the can affect each other and co-evolve under whatever social pressures may arise. Dustin |
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31 Mar 03 - 01:42 PM (#922735) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: wilco When I suggest song predating a formal language, what I'm suggesting is that humans might have communicated with melodies, as opposed to having any language associated with the melodies. In other words, finding sexually interested humans to mate with might have been done with melodies? No words, just melodies that were hummed? Would this have been the next evolutionary step in communication, beyond pheromones? How would this gel with evoltionary theories? |
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31 Mar 03 - 03:49 PM (#922835) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: M.Ted I give up.. |
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31 Mar 03 - 05:32 PM (#922929) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Frankham "*But* there is no doubt in my mind that the natural tendancy is to prefer just thirds for excellent physiological reasons." Dustin, in the early forms of Medieval European church music, the fourths and fifths were preferable to the thirds. Organum and Gymel. Thirds and sixths came later in the Faux Bourdon era. "Dissonance and Consonance I think are fairly well based in physiology, and one measure of this is that the most consonant intervals are the most universal" We've got a cultural semantic problem here. Dissonance and Assonance or Consonance are interpretations. One person's dissonance may not be another's. I don't agree that you can reduce music to physics or physical interpretations of audio responses. We're talking about two different worlds. Not enough studies have been done in the world's music to indicate that there is a universal response to dissonance and assonance/consonance. The music of Bulgaria is pleasing to it's singers and the use of the minor second intervals or major sevenths is part of the singing. It's not dissonant to the singers. Frank Hamilton |
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31 Mar 03 - 05:40 PM (#922938) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Frankham M.Ted, don't give up, please. I believe you are right. Wilco, in a sense language is a kind of music. Chinese Mandarin requires the use of pitch to designate meaning. We say that French or Italian have musical qualities. I don't think mathematics or physics is very musical although maybe practitioners of those fields might disagree. Many people who have been indoctrinated with ideas about music through what we used to refer to as musical depreciation classes find some folk music and ethnic sounds discordant. But I don't think any musician sets out to create discordant music. Again, consonance and dissonance are cultural constructs. There are those with perfect pitch who can become ill at what they perceive as out-of-tune instruments. Music as a courting language? Certainly! Frank Hamilton |
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01 Apr 03 - 07:24 AM (#923324) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Pied Piper Hi M.Ted Sorry if my post came over a bit brusque I was a bit pushed for time. I don't disagree with you that we generally discuss music without reference to consonan ce/dissonance(C/D), nor that the use of this dimension of harmony is historically and geographically variable, merely that it is a real phenomenon of the Human Ear/Brain system with a fixed range. Clearly you can't get more consonant than two notes of the same frequency, but there is also an upper fix point of dissonance within the octave, at its central point, the Augmented Fourth / Diminished Fifth. The amount of C/D of notes is symmetrical about this point, so if we bend the octave in 2 such that the 1/1 and 2/1 are adjacent you get a diagram which using the first few most C least D intervals looks like this: - 1/1 7/4 9/8 6/5 5/4 4/3 Approx consonance 1to10 10 4 3 6 7 9 0 Middle of 2/1 16/7 16/9 5/3 8/5 3/2 Octave For every interval of a given C in the first half of the Octave up there is a coresponding interval with the same C in the top half down. Harry Partch wrote a fascinating book "Genesis of a music" exploring this phenomena, and its musical implications. Here is Partch's more complete and accurate diagram. All the best PP All the best PP |
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01 Apr 03 - 09:27 AM (#923449) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: wilco (This is an education for me). Thanks!!! |
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01 Apr 03 - 09:49 AM (#923488) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Pied Piper Sorry about the table folks. Would some one like to explain to me again about geting them to come out as I intend? PP |
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01 Apr 03 - 10:09 AM (#923516) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: GUEST,leeneia "In other words, finding sexually interested humans to mate with might have been done with melodies?" Right on, wilco. Go rent the Jackie Chan movie "Twin Dragons," where Jackie as John Ma, the famous conductor, courts the beautiful singer by playing Beethoven for her. See if you can find a chick or your main squeeze to watch it with you. It's very romantic. -------------------------------------- What the hell is "heterodyne" anyway? ---------------------------------------- PS You can always fast forward through the fights, which tend to go on for far too long. |
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01 Apr 03 - 05:05 PM (#923883) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Dustin Laurence Frank, You misread my words. Admittedly I could probably have phrased it more carefully (note the many hurried typos I made). I didn't claim that we innately prefer thirds to some other interval for some physiological reason, but rather that we prefer just-tuned thirds (i.e. those exactly 5/4 the fundamental frequency) rather than equal-tempered thirds (those about 1.26 times the fundamental). I was comparing thirds in different tunings, not thirds to another interval in the same tuning. I would observe that by physiological standards, fourths and fifths are more consonant than thirds (or at least have more harmonics in common), so if I'd brought it up at all I'd have used it as an example that they were more natural than thirds. But I'm not making any such claim, since both are beat-free intervals. As to consonance/dissonance; I tried very hard to separate the physiological observation of consonance/dissonance from the artistic judgement of value. You either didn't get this, or refuse to accept it. Fine, but we have to have some common language or we are making noise. *As I use it* consonance is not primarily a value judgement, it is a physical fact. By training our ears can get better at detecting it, or alternatively worse if we learn *not* to make the distinction by listening to a musical tradition which does not make the distinction. But to claim that this means it is not a physical/physiological phenomenon is tatamount to claiming that distinguishing red and green are cultural constructs (and I'm *not* talking about words here) because some men are red/green colorblind, or that tuning guitar strings to standard tuning is a matter of opinion because some people have not trained their ear to hear the difference. I like to listen to blues, which positively encourages playing minor third melody notes over major thirds in the harmony. I judge this to be musically good, but that does not change the fact that the two notes are extremely dissonant when played together. Dissonance can be better than consonance, but it does us no good to re-define them to be whichever we prefer at the moment. I do think that there is a clear *tendancy* to prefer consonance, but this *value judgement* can change depending on musical context. As for reducing music to physics, I thought I was very clear that I made no such claim. Could you point to the message where I made this claim? What I have said is that there is quite a lot of physics and physiology involved with music, and we make our artistic choices within that framework (for example, my insistence that dissonance, even extreme dissonance may be judged very desirable in a particular context). Would you claim that someone who said that "pigmentation is a matter of some substances having frequency-dependent absorption of light" is therefore trying to reduce painting to physics? It ain't the pigments, it's where you put them. :-) As for the lack of data, my understanding is that pretty much every musical tradition (and before someone uses some singular counterexample as a disproof, remember that Aristotle tells us that we're talking about universal tendancies, not a lack of a single exception, so we need trends or patterns of exceptions) has at least the notes of the major pentatonic scale, which also happens to be just about the most consonant notes one can find. Further, that such scales are particularly preferred for children's music, implying that they are particularly intelligible to untrained ears. I'm merely quoting my musical betters here, but that would support the idea that there are natural physiological tendancies involved. There is an aweful lot of major-scale music harmonized by I, IV, and V chords in the mudcat database--do you think this is purely an accident? Dustin |
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01 Apr 03 - 05:24 PM (#923902) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Night Owl Fascinating discussion....struggling to understand what's being said. A few years ago, about1998/99, there was research being done by a Neuro-physiologist(?) at a University Medical facility in Montreal. (I'm not sure if it was Simon-Fraser??) She was using some of the new brain imaging technology to record and document chemical changes in brain activity while subjects of the study listened to different musical patterns. Wondering if any one has heard of or has any more info on her research. (MTed....hope you don't give up participating in the conversation!) |
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01 Apr 03 - 05:38 PM (#923915) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Burke You can search article topics and read abstracts on PubMed for free. I think I used music & neurophysiology as my terms, then clicked on related article links. Most of the abstracts indicated that the brains of musicians & non-musicians did not respond in the same way to whatever the test was. I did not dig enough to find any that specifically dealt with harmony. I took it to mean that musicians have 'programmed' themselves to hear differently than non-musicians. My own opinion is that there is physics--all the relationships that have been mentioned & there's cultural training. There are some kinds of music that like hearing very close tones simultaneously, finding it shimmery & beautiful. The Balinese Gamelan comes to mind. We'd call the same sounds out of tune, or dissonant. There's certain ethnic musics I can't listen too very long because it sets my teeth on edge. I should think the culture that creates that music is not reacting the same way. |
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02 Apr 03 - 01:29 PM (#924627) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: M.Ted OK, I won't give up, at least not without making one last point--whatever scale system is used, the notes are just building blocks that have no particular meaning of their own--meaning comes from the way they are used by the composer and the performer-- I will even go out on a limb and say that every music system, offers the possibility of expressing the full range of the human experience in the right hands, and the possibility of expressing nothing in the wrong hands-- Comparing just intonation to equal temperament is a bit like comparing cursive script to a word processor--yes, they are very different, but Shakespeare is still Shakespeare-- |
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03 Apr 03 - 06:00 AM (#925118) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Pied Piper Let's take your example of Shakespeare. Shakespeare used the written form of spoken language, now the sound of human speech are controlled by the physics that govern the vocal tracts acoustics. Obviously Shakespeare's meaning is not contained in the sounds directly but in the words of the English language formed by the sounds. I think that in music this relationship between the sounds themselves and the meaning is stronger than in spoken language, and to some extent universal, but the degree of this universality though clearly not 100% is not negligible either. All the best PP |
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03 Apr 03 - 06:11 AM (#925124) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Wolfgang I have reread a bit about the physiology of the ear. The hair cells of the inner ear do not differ between people from different cultures to the best of the present knowledge. What can be modified by cultural influence, that is musical experience, are the synaptic connections in higher regions of the brain. Those who stress the physical limitations do not at all deny that there are big cultural differences in the scales used. But they point to the fact that of all theoretically possible scales only a small subset is used (still alowing for many differences) and that there are physical reasons for that. Now, lets make the step from physics to physiology. If a tone of a certain frequency is heard the hair cells in the inner ear at a certain place 'fire' more than with the base rate of firing that is they are active. Each cell that is active adapts to the stimulation that is it fires less per time unit with prolonged stimulation. If a new tone comes another subset of the hair cells is active and fires along. Now the picture that only at one single place the cells fire with one tone is not entirely correct. Also cells at other places fire and therefore adapt. When a new tone comes that is an octave from the other tone, the two subsets of hair cells that fire are quite similar that is the total firing of cells, the sum of neural activity, is minimal in comparison to other intervals. And so it goes on. The intervals which are in a physical sense simpler lead to less neural firing. The same goes for chords. The 'agreeable' chords are linked to a minimum of neural activity. Intervals or chords that lead to a high level of activity are arousing and often 'unpleasant'. They are very good as warning signals. Any mother or father in any human culture soothing the child or singing it to sleep uses without conscious decision those intervals that keep the neural activity of the child at a low. There is a lot of freedom within the constraints of physics and physiology allowing for different cultures to find their own musical expressions. But each culture keeps its individual rule of music making within the natural constraints. One of these constraints is that what is close to a minimum in neural activity in the hair cells is found usually more pleasant. Wolfgang |
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03 Apr 03 - 10:10 AM (#925247) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: wilco Wolfgang: Please conjecture as to why our listening strategies have evolved to " ... a minimum in neural activity in the hair cells is found usually more pleasant." Thanks. |
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03 Apr 03 - 10:23 AM (#925252) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Wolfgang Wilco: A sustained state of arousal, attention and vigilance is not healthy in the long run (stress, cardiovascular damage). Sustained high neural activity is linked to arousal and attention. We tend to avoid such states due to health reasons. (A complete lack of arousal can be bad too, but that's a different part of the story). As often in nature we find pleasant what is helpful for us (sex, eating). We seek good stimulation without being consciously aware that we do. Nobody can feel the activity of the hair cells. We react on a different level and seek what is pleasant to us. Wolfgang |
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03 Apr 03 - 09:19 PM (#925724) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: M.Ted By that same logic, the greatest works of art would have been painted in primary colors- |
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07 Apr 03 - 07:01 AM (#927724) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Wolfgang No, but by the same logic, in colour vision, people from all cultures (even those that do not have colour names similar to 'red' etc.) pick the same red (blue,...) as the most typical of all 'reds' (when presented a choice of reds) or perform best at recollecting one particular (of many) reds. This red is exactly the red at which the so-called red+/green- cells fire at a maximum. Physiology is very far from being all of the story but disregarding with uninformed mockery all input from that source of information leaves away an interesting part of the picture. A refutation of a parody is only a parody of a refutation. Wolfgang |
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09 Apr 03 - 01:25 PM (#929674) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: M.Ted Wolfgang, I apologize if my attempt at humor seemed dismissive--re-reading, I tend to come off as anti-scientific, which I certainly am not. In the study of composition, there is an emphasis on creating and resolving tension-- some musical elements establish tension and some resolve it--elements of both kinds are necessary to create a sense of movement in the music--I think that it is important to understand that this process, the creating and resolution of tension, is the one that needs to be examined, not simple the concept of what might seem "pleasing" to the ear-- |
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09 Apr 03 - 02:23 PM (#929732) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Wolfgang M.Ted, I think if someone has to apologise it is me. I have overreacted to what I considered an anti-science bias and I am glad you write it wasn't meant this way. I should never have used the word 'uninformed' in connection with you here. I know as everybody else following threads about music theory that you have a vast and well-founded knowledge on this field. We are all glad you share it with us. Even when I meant it only in respect to neurophysiology (which I had failed to make clear in my post) the choice word was very wrong and I am sorry about that. As for the tension and resolve in music, I'd love to know whether anybody has used e.g. neuroimaging methods to find out what the respective level of brain activity is. I wouldn't be surprised if tension was linked to high activity. People don't always go for low levels of neural activity. In my colours example, kids go for colours leading to a high level of activity. Sensation seeking (especially by male youths) also is an activity which has a high level of neural stimulation concomitant. Perhaps a too low level of stress can be as damaging to our health as a sustained high level. Still, I'd say whenever a resolve is felt the concomitant neural activity is at a minimum or close to a minimum across all cultures. But part of this claim is speculation. And I'd be very surprised if not also across cultures the lullabies were not at a low of inner ear neural activity. Wolfgang |
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09 Apr 03 - 03:17 PM (#929791) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: M.Ted My old guitar mentor often pointed out that the silence in between the notes was as important as the notes themselves--this resolution, at least, would be the same across all cultures-- The thing that interest me most would be more psychological than physiological, though, and it has to do with the length of musical phrases--in folk music, phrases of about eight counts seem to be ubiquitous--composed music seems toprefer them as well, though uses many little tricks to stretch them out--There is a related phenomena that I am also curious about, and that is repetition that is stretched out over time in such a way that it is not perceived as repetition-- |
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09 Apr 03 - 03:32 PM (#929810) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Wolfgang If I remember I'll ask a guy who knows more about the psychology of rhythm than most others in Germany. I know only that much from what he once told me: it is close to impossible for participants in studies not to fall into a rhythm (the task could be, e.g., finger tapping as uniformely in time and strength as possible). The measures are both the intervals between tapping and the strength/loudness of tapping. Usually each fourth beat was prominent in same way (I forgot if the interval before this beat was longer or shorter than the other intervals). Eight is four times two. But beyond this (superficial?) similarity I have nothing to offer. Wolfgang |
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09 Apr 03 - 06:22 PM (#929953) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: wilco This is a great discussion! I go back to the idea that music structures have a basis is neuro-physiology, and it is in some way measurable. It is probably in hair cells, respiratory rate, hormone production, and all areas of neuro-chemistry. I'm not scienticically traines, but I would be very curious about the studies in brain imaging. I wonder if it is cross-cultural, related to age, and the differences in brain disorders like autism. Can you imagine the ramificatons if science developed a "data base" for music structure that could be used as a "baseline" for neurological disorders? |
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09 Apr 03 - 07:25 PM (#929998) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: M.Ted That there is a basis in neurophysiology is, in one aspect, a no-brainer, after all--before you can respond to something, our central nevous system has to perceive it--we aren't going to be able to hear sounds outside the audible range or see colors outside the visible range--When it comes to how we process this stuff, it moves toward the psychological realm, and when it comes to finding meanings in it, that slides into philosphy-- Although the interrelationship between brain and mind seems, perhaps a bit daunting, the musical structures themselves are remarkably easy to measure, to organize, and to replicate--best of all, you can alter them any way you want! |
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09 Apr 03 - 08:00 PM (#930024) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Mary in Kentucky Lots of good thoughts here. I'll have to study up a bit before I can summarize or analyze the conversation thus far. In the meantime...try a Google search using PET, brain, music...(a PET scan is the brain scan which demonstrates brain activity). I found a link (http://cogweb.ucla.edu/EP/Music_Leutwyler_01.html) with some facinating information. How does the brain process music? Are there special neural circuits dedicated to creating or interpreting it? If so, are they, like language, unique to human beings? Or do other animals possess true musical ability? Why is an appreciation for music practically universal? Has it conveyed some evolutionary advantage through time? The field of biomusicology is still fairly young, but during the past few years, it has started to answer some of these questions. From these studies they concluded that musicality resided primarily on one side of the brain—the right hemisphere. The scientists found that people with damage to the left temporal lobe had difficulty recognizing changes only in key, whereas those with damage to the right side struggled to recognize changes in both key and contour. ...used positron emission tomography (PET) to monitor the effects of changes in pitch. What they found—much to their surprise—was that Brodmann's areas 18 and 19 in the visual cortex lit up. These areas are better known as the "mind's eye" because they are, in essence, our imagination's canvas. But music goes much deeper than that—below the outer layers of the auditory and visual cortex to the limbic system, which controls our emotions. The emotions generated there produce a number of well-known physiological responses. Sadness, for instance, automatically causes pulse to slow, blood pressure to rise, a drop in the skin's conductivity and a rise in temperature. Fear increases heart rate; happiness makes you breathe faster. By monitoring such physical reactions, Carol Krumhansl of Cornell University demonstrated that music directly elicits a range of emotions. Music with a quick tempo in a major key, she found, brought about all the physical changes associated with happiness in listeners. In contrast, a slow tempo and minor key led to sadness. I better quit copying and pasting before I get in trouble. Following the paragraph above, there is a paragraph about consonant and dissonant patterns of notes causing the limbic area to light up -- you guessed it -- As expected, dissonance made areas of the limbic system linked to unpleasant emotions light up in the PET scans, whereas the consonant melodies stimulated limbic structures associated with pleasure. ******hehe******* I have no idea how they defined consonant and dissonant, but I may trace the references cited (when I have more time.) ...the canyon wren's trill cascades down the musical scale lie the opening of Chopin's 'Revolutionary' Etude." That same bird sings in the chromatic scale, which divides the octave into 12 semitones, and the hermit thrush sings in the so-called pentatonic scale. There is much more in this one link. |
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10 Apr 03 - 08:27 AM (#930343) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Wolfgang Wilco, what you are at that is (I translate a German expression for it fits in this thread:) music of the future. (1) Neuroimaging of human brain activity at this time is either very precise in location and therefore very unprecise in time (which isn't a good start especially for music) or very precise in time and at the same time very unprecise in location. (2) The neurophysiologists start now with imagining the processing of very simple things. More complex things like music tend to be less localised than simple things. And if large parts of the brain are active over a period of time and you only can integrate over time you get not very telling pictures. (3) Images that are precise both in time and location can be made but they need intrusive methods and therefore, for ethical reasons, are only made in animals. We do not mind comparing animal visual perception of simple objects or animal perception of simple noises with that of humans but somehow animals are not considered a very good study object for music perception (and other more complex perceptions). I guess in twenty years there are more responses but what you write sounds more like a longtime research program than like readily answerable questions. But I alsways enjoy interesting speculations. Wolfgang |
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10 Apr 03 - 04:09 PM (#930621) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: M.Ted An interesting article, though I should point out that after reading the complete article, one comes away with a somewhat different view than you summary convey-- For instance you said this"From these studies they concluded that musicality resided primarily on one side of the brain—the right hemisphere." and the article actually goes on to say that recent studies have cast doubt on that particular idea-- |
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10 Apr 03 - 09:27 PM (#930804) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Mary in Kentucky Ha! You caught me. (I'm pleased someone read the article.) Actually I originally had that statement along with the one that the brain does not appear to have a "music center" (instead, there is more overall firing/activity). But alas, my copying and pasting was quite long. (I could sense Joe breathing down my neck.) Instead of summarizing the article, I tried to just pick interesting snippets. I completely left out most of the animal stuff...;) |
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11 Apr 03 - 01:35 PM (#931264) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: M.Ted I always try to read the links that people post, and tend to poke around to see what else is there, as well(which explains why I never get anything done)-- I understand the problem though, it takes a lot of time to do a decent summary of anything, and, of course, discussion thread posts are really conversational, and not research papers, so it isn't really appropriate to invest a lot of your life in it-- I personally wish that Joe and the clones would be more accepting of the posting of entire articles--especially since newspaper articles are only available for a week or so, and then disappear--there are a number of threads that are based on newspaper articles that are no longer availble, and there have been threads like this that were active after the articles they were based on were no longer available-- |
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22 Apr 03 - 05:10 AM (#937632) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Wolfgang I would have loved reading that link (I was away for a couple of days) and it is gone now. If someone refinds it, please post. BTW, long copy and paste posts are actually invited here as long as they are about music as the article in question was. Wolfgang |
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22 Apr 03 - 10:44 PM (#938204) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Mary in Kentucky I've been away too, (got a tan to prove it!). For some reason I can click on the link above, then click on the link to Cogweb, then use the back arrow on my browser and it gets to the old page. Here's the cut and paste anyway. ******************************************************************* 22 January 2001 Exploring the Musical Brain Music may be even more ancient than the human race, over which it holds tremendous sway. Scientists are beginning to find out why. NEANDERTAL FIREPLACE in France may have offered warmth to our ancestors as they joined to play and listen to the animal-bone flutes recently found in the area. The remarkable musical instruments are as much as 53,000 years old—more than twice as old as the famed cave paintings in Lascaux. It can bring us to tears or to our feet, drive us into battle or lull us to sleep. Music is indeed remarkable in its power over all humankind. Perhaps for that very reason, no human culture on earth has ever lived without it: people making music predates agriculture and perhaps even language. Take, for instance, the recent discoveries in France and Slovenia of surprisingly sophisticated, sweet-sounding flutes, made by our Neandertal cousins. Some of these instruments, carved from animal bones, are as much as 53,000 years old—more than twice as old as the famed cave paintings in Lascaux. Despite the ancient and primal nature of music, though, scientists have struggled with some very fundamental questions about its origins and purpose. How does the brain process music? Are there special neural circuits dedicated to creating or interpreting it? If so, are they, like language, unique to human beings? Or do other animals possess true musical ability? Why is an appreciation for music practically universal? Has it conveyed some evolutionary advantage through time? The field of biomusicology is still fairly young, but during the past few years, it has started to answer some of these questions. Perhaps most basic, researchers have discovered that music—like language—stimulates many areas in the brain, including regions normally involved in other kinds of thinking. For this reason, Mark Jude Tramo of the Harvard Medical School argues in a recent issue of Science that the brain doesn't have a specific "music center," as others have suggested. As an example, he points to the left planum temporale. This tiny brain region is critical to the golden musical gift of perfect pitch—the rare ability to recognize by ear a perfect middle C hit on the piano, or the E of a passing car horn. But the left planum temporale also plays an important role in language processing. Thus, Tramo writes, there is "no grossly identifiable brain structure that works solely during music cognition. However, distinctive patterns of neural activity within the auditory cortex and other areas of the brain may imbue specificity to the processing of music." Some of the patterns Tramo talks about have revealed themselves through neuroimaging studies—others through tests on patients that, like the subjects of Oliver Sacks's popular books, have suffered unusual forms of brain damage. In the late 1990s, for instance, Isabelle Peretz at the University of Montreal and Catherine Liégeois-Chauvel of INSERM in Marseilles ran several experiments on 65 people who, because of epilepsy, had had part of one or the other temporal lobe surgically removed. From these studies they concluded that musicality resided primarily on one side of the brain—the right hemisphere. The experiments were simple: Peretz and Liégeois-Chauvel played different songs for each patient twice. Sometimes the melodies were exactly the same. Other times, they had changed in one of several attributes, which researchers describe as "dimensions": first among them is pitch, which pertains to the actual frequency of a particular tone; the second is rhythm, or the duration of series of notes; the third is tempo, the overall pace of a piece; the fourth is contour, which describes the shape of a melody, or its pattern of rises and falls in notes; the fifth is key, or the set of pitches to which notes in a melody belong; other dimensions include timbre, loudness and spatial location. The scientists found that people with damage to the left temporal lobe had difficulty recognizing changes only in key, whereas those with damage to the right side struggled to recognize changes in both key and contour. Later imaging studies showed a similar bias toward the right hemisphere—particularly among nonmusicians—although Tramo notes that more recent work calls some of this "musical hemisphere" hypothesis into question. "The belt and parabelt areas [of the auditory cortex] in the right hemisphere discriminate local changes in note duration and separation," he writes, "whereas grouping by meter involves mostly anterior parabelt areas in both hemispheres." From Mind's Eye to Emotion's Seat HUMPBACK WHALES use many of the same rhythms and patterns as human composers in their songs, tempting some scientists to speculate that a universal music awaits discovery. For certain, it is becoming apparent that unexpected and unsophisticated areas of the brain are sometimes involved in interpreting, writing, feeling or performing music. As some research has showed, even the visual cortex sometimes gets into the act. Hervé Platel, Jean-Claude Baron and their colleagues at the University of Caen used positron emission tomography (PET) to monitor the effects of changes in pitch. What they found—much to their surprise—was that Brodmann's areas 18 and 19 in the visual cortex lit up. These areas are better known as the "mind's eye" because they are, in essence, our imagination's canvas. Any make-believe picture begins there. Thus, Baron suggests that the brain may create a symbolic image to help it decipher changes in pitch. But music goes much deeper than that—below the outer layers of the auditory and visual cortex to the limbic system, which controls our emotions. The emotions generated there produce a number of well-known physiological responses. Sadness, for instance, automatically causes pulse to slow, blood pressure to rise, a drop in the skin's conductivity and a rise in temperature. Fear increases heart rate; happiness makes you breathe faster. By monitoring such physical reactions, Carol Krumhansl of Cornell University demonstrated that music directly elicits a range of emotions. Music with a quick tempo in a major key, she found, brought about all the physical changes associated with happiness in listeners. In contrast, a slow tempo and minor key led to sadness. Robert Zatorre and Anne Blood at McGill University corroborated Krumhansl's findings with PET imaging experiments. They created original melodies containing dissonant and consonant patterns of notes, and played them for a group of volunteers willing to be scanned at the same time. As expected, dissonance made areas of the limbic system linked to unpleasant emotions light up in the PET scans, whereas the consonant melodies stimulated limbic structures associated with pleasure. That music strikes such a chord with the limbic system—an ancient part of our brain, evolutionarily speaking, and one that we share with much of the animal kingdom—is no accident, some researchers assert. In another recent paper in Science, Patricia Gray, head of the Biomusic program at the National Academy of the Sciences, and several colleagues from around the country propose that music came into this world long before the human race ever did. "The fact that whale and human music have so much in common even though our evolutionary paths have not intersected for 60 million years," they write, "suggests that music may predate humans—that rather than being the inventors of music, we are latecomers to the musical scene." Humpbacks, Hummingbirds and Human Composers SINGING BIRDS often pitch their songs to the same scale as Western music—which may explain at least in part why people find them so attractive. Gray and company note that humpback composers employ many of the same tricks human songwriters do. In addition to using similar rhythms, humpbacks keep musical phrases to a few seconds, creating themes out of several phrases before singing the next one. Whale songs in general are no shorter than human ballads and no longer than symphony movements, perhaps because they have a similar attention span. Even though they can sing over a range of seven octaves, the whales typically sing in key, spreading adjacent notes no farther apart than a scale. They mix percussive and pure tones in pretty much the same ratios as human composers—and follow their ABA form, in which a theme is presented, elaborated on and then revisited in a slightly modified form. Perhaps most amazing, humpback whale songs include repeating refrains that rhyme. Gray and her colleagues say that whales might use rhymes for exactly the same reasons we do: as devices to help them remember. As a recent study showed, whale songs are often rather catchy. When a few humpbacks from the Indian Ocean strayed into the Pacific, some of the whales they met there quickly changed their tunes—singing the new whales' songs within three short years. Back on land, birds, too, make music much like people. "When birds compose songs they often use the same rhythmic variations, pitch relationships, permutations and combinations of notes as human composers," Gray and her colleagues write, citing work done by their late co-author Luis Baptista. "Thus, some bird songs resemble musical compositions; for example, the canyon wren's trill cascades down the musical scale lie the opening of Chopin's 'Revolutionary' Etude." That same bird sings in the chromatic scale, which divides the octave into 12 semitones, and the hermit thrush sings in the so-called pentatonic scale. It is perhaps because these birds pitch their songs to the same scale as Western music that people find them so attractive. Why would such different creatures—with such different physical means for making sound—all adopt such astonishingly uniform patterns for their melodies? Gray and her colleagues conclude that the similarities "tempt one to speculate that the platonic alternative may exist—that there is a universal music awaiting discovery." But in fact, there is currently considerable debate over the purpose of music, and whether it was adaptive for humans in evolution or not. "Auditory Cheesecake" or Evolutionary Advantage? Linguist Steven Pinker of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has proposed that music is merely "auditory cheesecake," or "an evolutionary accident piggy-backing on language," as Daniel J. Levitin at McGill University explained in a recent issue of the journal Cerebrum. But many scientists—Levitin among them—don't agree. "Some researchers are finding that listening to familiar music activates neural structures deep in the ancient primitive regions of the brain, the cerebellar vermis," Levitin writes. "For music so profoundly to affect this gateway to emotion, it must have some ancient and important function." Geoffrey Miller of University College London has proposed that musical ability—like broad shoulders or showy plumes—may serve to demonstrate fitness to a potential mate. After all, singing or playing an instrument well requires dexterity and good memory. Another suggestion Levitin makes is that music functions as communication, perhaps mimicking the rhythm and contour of our species' primitive calls. So, too, he proposes that perhaps music conveys an advantage through stimulating our primitive timing mechanisms. Most interesting, he suggests that music stimulates our drive to find patterns in the environment. "Our brain is constantly trying to make order out of disorder, and music is a fantastic pattern game for our higher cognitive centers," he writes. "From our culture, we learn (even if unconsciously) about musical structures, tones and other ways of understanding music as it unfolds over time; and our brains are exercised by extracting different patterns and groupings from music's performance." It is this very kind of pattern recognition—which is extremely important for making sense of the world around us—that Keith Devlin suggests in his book The Math Gene gave rise to language and stands behind mathematical ability as well. To be certain, researchers won't agree on the purpose of music anytime soon—which fortunately shouldn't stop any of us from enjoying it. —Kristin Leutwyler ©2001 Scientific American RELATED LINKS (external): Whale Song Revolution Birds Show Strong Musical Preferences Let Sleeping Birds Sing Perfect Pitch Return to CogWeb's Music index |
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23 Apr 03 - 05:30 AM (#938322) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Steve Parkes This talk of "universal music" puts me in mind of Arthur C Clarke's short story The Ultimate Melody from Tales From The White Hart. This is one of a collection of anecdotes told by a research scientist at his local, The eponymous White Hart. They all manage to stay just this side of Baron Munchuasen, but each has a little niggle that doesn't quite add up: are they true, or is he simply telling very entertaining porkies? In TUM a researcher is tring to extract the fundamental essence of melody from popular tunes, which he believes match rhythms in the brain's operation. He feeds them into his computer (i.e. a room full of wires and valves [tubes]), which searches for common elements; it puts the results together into a tune, which he then evaluates. As this was the Fifties -- Kips or even Cips, not Mips -- he has to leave it running overnight, and listen to the results the next morning. As you've guessed, he comes in one morning and hears the Ultimate Melody, which instantly takes over his brain. He is found later in a catotonic state with a dreamy expression on his face, by one of the lab assistants, who turns of the computer before going for help. See if you can spot the niggle! Steve |
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23 Apr 03 - 09:11 AM (#938418) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: Wolfgang Thanks, Mary, a very interesting reading for me. Wolfgang |
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23 Apr 03 - 12:24 PM (#938582) Subject: RE: Neuro-physiology and music structures From: wilco What a wonderful placed are mudcat!!!! Many of us would possibly never see this kind of information, if it weren't for these forums!! Thanks!!! |