Music, mind, thought and emotion

[Detlof]

I posted this about 12 years ago somewhere else and the questions entailed still occupy my mind. Hopefully this post can elicit some responses:

There is not a society on this planet, never has been, nor probably ever will be, which is without some form of musical expression, often linked with rhythm and dance. Here my interest is focused on music however.

What I keep on pondering boils down to this:

What is music and what does it do to us?
Why do we differentiate music from random noise so clearly and yet can pick up certain samples within that noise as musical?
By listening to music, no matter if live or reproduced, we find some perhaps interesting, some just noise and some we would call "musical"
What then differentiates "musical music" from "just music" and this again from "noise".

And in a more general sense:

If music, other than sound, has an impact on us, what is the nature of our receptors for it. Or better: Who, what are we, that music can do to us what it does?

What would be the nature of a system, that most of it would agree upon, that it imparts musicality" best? (Some say Kondo san in fact did, or Vladimir Lamm with his theories, put into practice without listening sessions, on human hearing).

And finally: If such a system would exist, could this quality be measured?

 

[Steve Williams]

I posted this about 12 years ago somewhere else and the questions entailed still occupy my mind. Hopefully this post can elicit some responses:

There is not a society on this planet, never has been, nor probably ever will be, which is without some form of musical expression, often linked with rhythm and dance. Here my interest is focused on music however.

What I keep on pondering boils down to this:

What is music and what does it do to us?
Why do we differentiate music from random noise so clearly and yet can pick up certain samples within that noise as musical?
By listening to music, no matter if live or reproduced, we find some perhaps interesting, some just noise and some we would call "musical"
What then differentiates "musical music" from "just music" and this again from "noise".

And in a more general sense:

If music, other than sound, has an impact on us, what is the nature of our receptors for it. Or better: Who, what are we, that music can do to us what it does?

What would be the nature of a system, that most of it would agree upon, that it imparts musicality" best? (Some say Kondo san in fact did, or Vladimir Lamm with his theories, put into practice without listening sessions, on human hearing).

And finally: If such a system would exist, could this quality be measured?

Well there are many objectivists here who tell us if it can be heard it can be measured. Having said that, like you I too have the same questions. Sadly these type of threads devolve rapidly into a subjectivist vs objectivist flame war. I too am convinced that each of us have different receptors in the brain that light up under those hearing conditions. Why do some people only listen to classical music whereas some say classical gives them a headache and prefer instead heavy metal at high spl and never get a headache.

I remained convinced that the future will serve to enlighten us with answers to these questions but as we have it now such questions all too often serve to antagonize both camps. Like you I was trained in human science not in the electrical engineering where things are either square or round and if the answer doesn't fit in one hole or another the question never IMO creates anything but angry discourse. So once again welcome to WBF. Nice to see we share some common gear

 

[JackD201]

I am fascinated by the science but in my opinion when it comes to understanding the human response to music and sound in general, mics are stone age tools. One will be surprised to see how much material is on the web from the field of neuroscience dealing with the very topic. Brain mapping anyone?

 

[Groucho]

I wonder if music is 'cartoons for the ears', or perhaps performs the same functions as paintings and graphic art. Kids love cartoons for their bright colours and simplified representations of familiar scenes. 'Visual artforms' can stylise, simplify or exaggerate the familiar. People are naturally attracted to patterns and symmetry. An artist is effectively pre-interpreting the scene and filtering out the complexity, serving the result up for easy digestion. Music shares some of those qualities, I would say.

 

[Detlof]

I am fascinated by the science but in my opinion when it comes to understanding the human response to music and sound in general, mics are stone age tools. One will be surprised to see how much material is on the web from the field of neuroscience dealing with the very topic. Brain mapping anyone?

Yes sure, this can tell you where but not tell you why.

 

[Detlof]

no thanks iv just eaten

lol

 

[Detlof]

I wonder if music is 'cartoons for the ears', or perhaps performs the same functions as paintings and graphic art. Kids love cartoons for their bright colours and simplified representations of familiar scenes. 'Visual artforms' can stylise, simplify or exaggerate the familiar. People are naturally attracted to patterns and symmetry. An artist is effectively pre-interpreting the scene and filtering out the complexity, serving the result up for easy digestion. Music shares some of those qualities, I would say.

Interesting thought, which might really be true for many kinds of music, not so though, I would think, if the complexity of for example Bachs triple of quadruple fugues come to mind.

 

[amirm]

With respect to classical music, this great TED talk by Michael Tilson Thomas (currently director of the San Francisco Symphony) gives some insight to the question:

As he says, music is what tells us we are alive. And how 37 Hz is the difference between happiness and sadness! Give it a listen.

 

[Detlof]

With respect to classical music, this great TED talk by Michael Tilson Thomas (currently director of the San Francisco Symphony) gives some insight to the question:

As he says, music is what tells us we are alive. And how 37 Hz is the difference between happiness and sadness! Give it a listen.

Wow Amir, thanks for sharing this with us! What a lovely man, what a beautiful mind! why did I never pose his central question of what happens to us when the music stops? Probably because I am so full of what music did and does which are part of my being, which perhaps have always been there and which music has brought to the fore and yes, more often than not, when I got up from my seat put the rig and myself to sleep after an evening full of music!

 

[amirm]

I am glad you liked that talk. I was enthralled by it just the same.

Perhaps another way we could tackle the question is from the creator's side. Where do these songs come from? Another great talk by none other than Sting addresses that question in how he broke his five year writer's block:

In that sense, music is more than well, music. It is also storytelling. And markers for memories and experiences.

 

[Detlof]

Thanks once more Armir! I would paraphrase it such: Music is story telling in the sense that emotions are put to music and thus transferred to our emotions, which will move us, some more deeply than others, if we let them. Clumsy, I know, but I cannot say it better.
Detlof

 

[amirm]

I think any description that comes from your heat regarding music has to be right . Speaking of one's heart this is another video, this time from a super smart kid who got his pre-med at age of 17 and degree in music two years later from Yale. He had to choose between being a neurosurgeon and violinist:

 

[Detlof]

How true. We experimented in the same field he is talking about many years ago in Zurich, Switzerland, using my rig to try and loosen what were mutistic blockages in psychotic patients with very good success, even if sometimes only short lived. Very unorthodox at the time, but me and my friends had superiors who were open minded, bless them. My preferred LP was Jarret's Koeln Concert which had just come out or parts of Bach's "Well Tempered Clavier" played by Friedrich Gulda.
Thanks again Amir for pointing out this amazing site for us. I am keen to discover more.....

 

[Migo]

Wow Amir, thanks for sharing this with us! What a lovely man, what a beautiful mind! why did I never pose his central question of what happens to us when the music stops? Probably because I am so full of what music did and does which are part of my being, which perhaps have always been there and which music has brought to the fore and yes, more often than not, when I got up from my seat put the rig and myself to sleep after an evening full of music!

+1

 

[amirm]

This is what our kids and countless others danced to back in 1980s:

Pretty sure this doesn't read on our hobby

 

[Detlof]

spectacular missing of the point lol never mind carry on communicating through video. expressing original thought thats yours lol ever crossed your mind?

It is a matter of the heart not of the mind, Spaz. That is why we use metaphors or videos to hide behind. It does not answer the question, but it enriches it. At the same time of course, it does make the questioning more acute and more pressing

 

[amirm]

spectacular missing of the point lol never mind carry on communicating through video. expressing original thought thats yours lol ever crossed your mind?

Maybe there is a cultural barrier. So how about this one?

You think they should have used Mozart instead?

 

[amirm]

whats the difference?

I don't know. I just work here...