Music and Language

The current article we are reading for class, is all about music and language. I'm going to bring up some more research on the correlations between music and Language. (Sorry, I can't help myself I'll try to tone down the Psycholingo).

Jackendoff (2009) mentions seven cognitive similarities between the learning and course of understanding music and language. Music and language necessarily involve memory, both bring together units in working memory with methodical regulations and arranged schemata, they both involve making predictions, music and language involve controlled muscle movement of the mouth or hands (mouth for talking, singing, and wind instruments; and hands for sign language, percussion instruments, and string instruments), acquisition involves the aural reproduction of what other’s sing, say, or do, we have the capability to create new words and songs, the potential to do the action of speaking and playing with other people. Jackendoff mentions that these capacities are not singularly related music and language.

One cognitive ability that is just applied to music and language that he mentions is that they both entail a pattern of time-based sounds. Yet, language relies on syllables and music relies on notes which can vary widely in length over time. Intonation in speaking, is comparably invariable because it tends to move between two secure pitches. Yet, these two pitches are not set like the first and fifth scale degree in music. Furthermore, two separate areas of the brain are in charge of prosodic intonation and musical pitch (Jackendoff 2009). Yet, contrary evidence supports that prosodic grouping involves related brain regions as music grouping-- the mental gathering and condensing of components into separate hierarchy levels (Patel, 2006).
Jackendoff claims the process of music processing does not match that of prosodic processing because music does not have syntax which is the basis of mental hierarchy. Music has no conceptual meaning so it does not have a match to this mental organization (Jackendoff 2009).

Converse to Jackendoff’s claim, Patel, Peretz, Tramo, & Labreque (1998) measured syntactic commonalities between music and language and found that music and language both have syntax.

Slevec, Rosenberg, & Patel (2009) found that musical syntax and linguistic syntax use the same cognitive resources and musical syntax and linguistic semantics do not occupy the same mental resources.

Yet, even though semantics do not occupy the same cognitive resources as musical syntax, listening to music still primes semantically related words. Koelsch, Kasper, Sammler, Schulze, Gunter, & Friederici (2004) found that words that the composers used to describe their pieces semantically primed words in a lexical decision task. (A lexical decision task is when either words on non-words are presented and participants have to quickly judge "yes" or "no" to whether it is a word or not. For example a non word would be manty. Both related and non-related words were used). So when participants listened to pieces that the composers labeled as happy, they were quicker to respond "yes" to the word happy than to sad. This shows that listening to sad music on some level makes us think of the word sad -- it semantically primes it.

I hope I didn't confuse anyone and hopefully you learned a little bit about Music perception!

Question: Jackendoff mentions eight simillarities between language and music (seven that do not only pertain to music and one that does) Can you think of any other correlations/similarities between music and language?

References

Jackendoff, R. (2009). Parallels and nonparallels between language and music. Music Perception 26(3), 195-204.

Koelsch, S. D., Kasper E., Sammler D., Schulze K., Gunter T., & Friederici A. (2004). Music, language and meaning: brain signatures of semantic processing. Nature Neuroscience, 7 (3), 302-307.

Patel A.D. (2006). Musical rhythm, linguistic rhythm, and human evolution. Music Perception, 24(1), 99-104.

Patel, A. D., Peretz, I., Tramo, M., & Labreque, R. (1998). Processing prosodic and musical patterns: A neuropsychological investigation. Brain And Language, 61(1), 123-144.

Slevc, L., Rosenberg, J. C., & Patel, A. D. (2009). Making psycholinguistics musical: Self-paced reading time evidence for shared processing of linguistic and musical syntax. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 16(2), 374-381.

RE: Peter's "Vamp's rhythmic patterns, and musical definitions"

In Pete's blog post "Vamp's, Rhythmic Pattern's and Musical Definition's" he ends with the question: "Does strange rhythmic variety detract from the piece and make it sound art?"

I do not know too much about Vamps, but I do know about uneven rhythmic patterns and the way that western brains respond to them. Uneven rhythmic patterns sound bad to us because they go against our Musical schemata (plural of schema), schemata are stored structures that we have about a body of knowledge, it is an organization of past experiences and reactions. Schemata are the frameworks in memory that shape how we think that a given story, situation, and even musical piece should go. Our tonal schemata in western countries are I-V-IV chord progressions and V-I cadences. When we encounter a new situation we retrieve our related past schemata to know how to behave in that situation. We compare the new material with our old material and if it does not fit we alter the given information to match our prior knowledge.

In music our rhythmic schemata is very stubborn, western ears do not like uneven rhythmic patterns because they do not fit in with our prior knowledge an how we expect rhythms to sound like. In a study by Hannon & Trebhub (2005) western and European participants were exposed to meters with asymmetrically spaced beats (which is found in eastern music) for two weeks. At the end of the trial they still had trouble recognizing and comprehending these culturally unfamiliar meters (Creel 2011).

Yet, in an other study it was found that our tonal systems give a little more leeway when it comes to new musical experiences. This is why we can little to Turkish pop and Bollywood music, because they have a different tonal system, yet they follow the western rhythmic schemata. If the music has an eastern culturally specific rhythmic pattern that is uneven and our tonal system on top of it, we will not find it aesthetically pleasing. Take this Turkish pop song as as an example (of a western rhythmic and eastern tonal song) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5JH8UCills

So to answer Peter's question, no uneven rhythms do not make pieces less musical or sound art, westerns just perceive them as less aesthetically pleasing because they do not fit our schemata.

Question: How do expectations in music shape how we perceive it?

Kivy vs. Hanslick

Kivy defends the contour theory of music, which states that the emotions in music are perceived because the we relate the emotions in music to the contour of human behaviors. For example we talk slowly and walk slowly when we are depressed. I found an empirical article that backs up Kivy's hypothsis.

Curtis & Bhurucha (2010) studied the relations between the intonation of speech with specific emotions and the intervals of music when it demonstrates specific emotions. In the first experiment nine female actresses read four different scripts with four diverse affects: anger, happiness, pleasantness, and sadness. (Each of these emotions corresponded to different quadrants of the RTCRR.) In each condition the participants were told that their voice recordings were going to be used in future experiments and to make sure that people could distinguish the emotion in each phase – Intonation was recorded for all four conditions. Each phrase had two syllables, sense each syllable stays on one pitch there was one interval in each phrase. Curtic & Bhurucha (2010) found that sad speech was highly correlated with the use of a descending minor third. Anger was correlated with both an ascending minor second and perfect fifth. Pleasantness and Happiness did not have consistent intervals.

Hanslick subscribes to the representational theory which states that the emotions are in the subject and form of a piece. I found another study that may or may not support this view.

Chapin, Jantzen, Kelso, Steinberg & Large (2010) conducted a study where a mechanical condition (a computerized piece without tempo fluctuations or dynamics) and an emotive piece played by a person on a piano with tempo fluctuations and dynamics. It was found that more brain regions that are asocciated with emotions were stimulated by the expressional piece. The researchers concluded that dynamics and tempo were the main forms that elicited emotions.

Question: Does the study by Chapin, Jantzen, Kelso, Steinberg & Large (2010) support Hanslick's theory?

Musilanguage hypothesis

There is a theory called the Musilanguage hypothesis that states that music and language first developed as one and then separated. Many critics oppose, but to my mind it makes sense in some aspects. Neanderthals may have started with what ever vocal productions they could make and then once they were distinguished as communication sounds and emotive sounds, language and music grew from there.
Let us look at a couple of different aspects of speech that relate to music:
Inflection/intonation: When most people speak, they fluctuate in pitch (unless they are monotone). The most common example in English is that we go up in pitch at the end of a sentence when we are asking a question, and down in pitch when we are saying a statement. This is also reflected in music as well.
Tone: Like they saying goes, "if doesn't matter what you say it's how you say it." Tone of voice can change a sentence from being serious to sarcastic, funny to stupid, etc. Emotion and dramatics could also be in this category and are definitely prominent in music and language.
Yet, there are some aspects of speech like semantics, pragmatics (things that differ beyond their literal meaning, for example: Do you have the time?), and syntax (grammatical rules) that do not have a direct relation to music. How did we acquire these if music and language were formed together? Perhaps that is the reason for their split.
Question: Do you think the Musilanguage hypothesis is valid? Why or why not?

Re: Peter Unconscious rhythm

In his latest post Peter, asked if rhythm is unconscious.
I would say that rhythm is unconscious to an extent. When it comes to intentionally writing a piece of music, rhythm would be conscious. Yet, the unconscious would still play a role. Like Peter pointed out, we had to get those ideas from somewhere. Yet, you are consciously accepting or rejecting the thoughts and ideas that come into your mind. Also, you may have unconsiously altered the the unconscious source of rhythm.
Yes, walking and typing is rhythmic, in fact when students first learned how to use a typewriter (back in the day) they did so to music. Yet, I'll argue that rhythm, whether it be unconscious or from a voluntary thought process, all goes back to organization. In music, rhythm holds everything together and distinguishes the meter. We do not like atonal music because it is not organized. In our daily actions, our brain may very well be rhythmic because that is its way of being organized. Our muscle movements are rhythmic because of the signals they get from the brain and due to the refractory periods between synapses (period before a signal can fire again). That is why we can only move our arms so fast.
To add in a little developmental psychology, rhythmicity is a type of temperament. Temperaments are personality traits that we have starting from birth that are carried out through the rest of our lives (although they may change). A rhythmic infant would be one that gets hungry the same time everyday, has the same nap schedule, and same diaper changing schedule as well. When we get older this tempernment translates to eatting, showering, using the restroom, sleeping around the same time everyday, and scheduling as well. Our daily events are even rhythmic, we make schedules to keep ourselves organized and this also may be due to memory, it is easier to remember to do something if we do it everyday. We even have patterns with in our rhymic activites like the order we do things in. You may brush your teeth before you shower for example. Since rhythm is a temperament this is evidence to the fact that these rhythmic components are at least somewhat innate.
Our biology, machines, and even the revolution of the earth and solar system are rhythmic. Yet what would it be like if they were not? I cannot even imagine. Perhaps we have evolved to be rhythmic in our thoughts, actions, and creations because of the earth's rhythm. Questions: Is that idea farfetched? What events or objects in life are not rhythmic?

Re: Peter Mitchell: Acousmatic Principle and Music Videos

In one of Peter's latest blog posts he ends with the question: "Do music videos truly change our perceptions of a song?"

This is an interesting question and I'm glad to get off the topic of computer generated music.

There are different types of music video's, some go for a literal interpretation, others make no sense whatsoever and have nothing to do with the lyrics, some take a song that would otherwise have ambiguous meaning and give it one, others do not add a meaning or interpretation to a song, etc. If one were to say that music videos tamper with one's interpretation than we would have to apply that same theory to ballets. I watched a few music videos of songs that I have heard many times and have never seen the music videos for. My perception did not change, the songs still mean the same thing to me, yet my I might have been persuaded by the interpretation of the visuals if I had never heard any of the songs before. I'm not sure how the music industry runs music videos, if the musicians themselves choose the story line of their music video or if it is some management position that decides. Yet, if it is the musicians that decide the story line they have every right to put their interpretation of their song into the visual aspect. It may change one's perception but what does all that matter? Why does a song need to be interpreted on one's own terms? Even if the directors, producers or whoever wrote the plot for a song, it is part of the art and adds quality to a song rather than takes it away.

As for ballets, one of the differences is that the music originally did not have words (at least for most ballets I can think of). So in this case, the music was very open for interpretation, yet what other interpretation can you take from a programmatic piece without a visual other than , "that sounds beautiful"? Ballet also is an interdisciplinary art, it is meant to be presented aurally and visually-- one does not distort the perception of the other, rather they work together to give one full aesthetic perception.

Question: Does watching a music video distort your perception of a piece? Should songs leave room for interpretation?

Music in life and Life in Music

This past chapter of Aesthetics & Music, has made me think about how music and life are interfused in not only by rhythmic activities but also the process of learning and performing music mirrors life.

The other day when I was practicing I began to think about the process of learning music is much like carrying out life goals. When you first get a piece it is intimidating, especially when it is outside your comfort zone. It seems impossible, and it may seem like you cannot do it but with patience and a calm approach you soon reach your goal. By slowing it down, viciously repeating it, chunking it together, and increasing the tempo gradually each day your impossible goal doesn't seem so impossible anymore. This relates to life. There is a great quote that I received in a fortune cookie one time it stated, "Every truly great accomplishment is at first impossible." Although fortune cookies are not a reliant source, I have to give the validity of this statement some credit. Like with learning a new piece, when we break down our goals into individual steps and take one step at a time, and take precision and care in each step we soon reach our goals. Of course not every goal is carried out this way, that would be unrealistic, yet a great deal are. Sometimes we may just wing it, but even that improvisation has somewhat of a plan involved, it there was not a plan how would you know if you carried out all of the steps.

Another relation between music and life is performing. The hardest thing for me, and the number one rule of performing is to keep going even if you make a mistake. Like music performance, life is spaced over time, time travel does not exist (at least yet anyways) there is no going back and fixing a mistake you made or taking back something that you said. In life you have to keep going.

Question: Other than rhythmic activities, performing, and practicing, how else is music intertwined with life and what other activities have musical qualities?