Looking at musicality from an evolutionary perspective that includes natural selection, I would concur with Darwin and Levitin that an individual’s ability to make music played a role in sexual selection. However, I disagree with Darwin’s conclusion that music was originally acquired by the progenitors of humankind for charming the opposite sex. As Levitin presented, one can see a clear relationship between the mental and physical demands required in musicianship/danceship as desirable characteristics for a sexual mate in early humankind. The groupies of today offer potent testimony that musicality continues to be a biologically alluring trait. Following the argument of the peacock’s beautiful tail, there is sufficient evidence to support the theory of music as a sexual fitness display. It did and still does require a degree of skill, intelligence, memory, creativity, physical stamina, and material resources to attain proficiency in musicianship/danceship (pp252-254). Levitin presented studies of the relationship between certain mental illnesses and impaired rhythmic physical abilities; studies where women showed a preference of creativity over wealth in short-term mate selection or sexual encounter. The groupie syndrome also supports the latter. Levitin provides sufficient evidence to logically support the innate, evolutionarily derived preferences for musicality as a biological determinant in sexual selection.
Musicologist David Huron provided expert rationale as to the evolutionary basis of musicality in humankind (pp255-257). If musicianship/danceship were superfluous to survival, they should have ceased existing or mutated to a position of lesser value. They have done neither. The facts that music predates agricultural societies, with records of it everywhere human beings are, or have been are a testament to its importance to our species. Additionally, musicality is a high biological priority among multiple species.
I believe that music making preceded linguistic communication in prototype humankind as a means of signaling intent when encountering strangers. The tones, pitch, tempo, and repetition of sounds communicate intention and character with a depth and fullness lacking and unproduceable in word language. The vibrations of sounds emanating from one being/s cause a natural resonance-response in the being/s receiving the vocal communication. The natural resonance-response is language-independent, and therefore offers opportunity for a linguistally barrier-free understanding between strangers - and I believe, between species. It is logical that music, as organized sound, was the first form of communication in encounters between protohumans, and early humankind, as it continues to be for many nonhuman species. Music has a vital role in both solitary and social species, but I think humankind is using linguistic communication to limit the more expansive possibilities offered through organized sound communication.
My Questions:
1. Is possible to lie when communicating in sound? Can you disguise the Truth in sound vibration exchanges the way humankind does with linguistic exchanges?
2. Did humankind develop linguistic languages to enhance communication between individuals and societies, or as a tool to conceal hidden desires and agendas?
3. Is there a relationship between morality and linguistic languages? Did music precede morals?
4. If all beings only communicated sound-vibrationally, would concepts of morality become unnecessary?
5. Do linguistic languages function to circumvent innate morality?
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
Category and Chronological Challenges
In answering Q&A #4, I researched "Inna-Gadda-Da-Vida" by Iron Butterfly on Wikipedia. I was surprised to learn that some of my favorite bands (Iron Butterfly, Black Sabbath, Cream, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, Steppenwolf, and Queen) are considered “heavy metal” bands.
Apparently, I have not categorized music that I like into the appropriate “musical genres”. I have filed them all into the single category of “music I like”. Does this make me a category-impaired person? Given what the cognitive psychological studies have shown, how would we predict category-deficiency would manifest globally in a person’s perceptual and cognitive systems integration?
Related to ease of integration of music we are exposed to in our younger years versus exposure in our “mature” years: I remember most of the names of bands and songs, and some albums that I enjoyed listening to during the sixties, seventies, and early eighties. These were my high-growth emotional years. Now I struggle, usually in vain, to recall music titles and artists of recent and current music that I like. When someone helpfully gives me some names to choose from, I often can then remember it.
One hypothesis to explain my difficulty remembering new songs and artists that I like post-1980s is:
The music that is alive during important emotional growth times in our lives becomes an inseparable part of the flow of our lives.
Therefore, greater degrees of emotional maturity are accompanied by greater limitations in facility with musical experience.
I think this is a restatement of Levitin’s work. However, I am uncomfortable with the consequential nature attending such a reality were it to be true.
A second, also unpleasant to contemplate hypothesis is:
Emotional maturity accumulates with biological maturity in a chronological fashion. The components of biological systems have been shown to become less flexible, deteriorate, and some even die out as we age chronogically.
Therefore, this rigidity, deterioration, or die off has impaired my brain and perceptual systems integration of new musical information into memory.
MY QUESTIONS ARE:
Do you know other people of chronological maturity who also have difficulty associating names with recent music and artists they enjoy? Do you find either or both of these hypotheses to be potentially valid explanations of this phenomenon?
Do you think it is possible for a person to be category-challenged? How would category-deficiency affect a person’s world view? How do you think it would affect interpersonal relationships?
Apparently, I have not categorized music that I like into the appropriate “musical genres”. I have filed them all into the single category of “music I like”. Does this make me a category-impaired person? Given what the cognitive psychological studies have shown, how would we predict category-deficiency would manifest globally in a person’s perceptual and cognitive systems integration?
Related to ease of integration of music we are exposed to in our younger years versus exposure in our “mature” years: I remember most of the names of bands and songs, and some albums that I enjoyed listening to during the sixties, seventies, and early eighties. These were my high-growth emotional years. Now I struggle, usually in vain, to recall music titles and artists of recent and current music that I like. When someone helpfully gives me some names to choose from, I often can then remember it.
One hypothesis to explain my difficulty remembering new songs and artists that I like post-1980s is:
The music that is alive during important emotional growth times in our lives becomes an inseparable part of the flow of our lives.
Therefore, greater degrees of emotional maturity are accompanied by greater limitations in facility with musical experience.
I think this is a restatement of Levitin’s work. However, I am uncomfortable with the consequential nature attending such a reality were it to be true.
A second, also unpleasant to contemplate hypothesis is:
Emotional maturity accumulates with biological maturity in a chronological fashion. The components of biological systems have been shown to become less flexible, deteriorate, and some even die out as we age chronogically.
Therefore, this rigidity, deterioration, or die off has impaired my brain and perceptual systems integration of new musical information into memory.
MY QUESTIONS ARE:
Do you know other people of chronological maturity who also have difficulty associating names with recent music and artists they enjoy? Do you find either or both of these hypotheses to be potentially valid explanations of this phenomenon?
Do you think it is possible for a person to be category-challenged? How would category-deficiency affect a person’s world view? How do you think it would affect interpersonal relationships?
Thursday, February 12, 2009
The Conundrum of Music - Its Universal and Subjective Nature
I believe that we all started this course with the knowledge that there is universality in the nature of music, yet is experienced in a uniquely subjective manner. Whether we are born with that knowledge or we acquire it experientially through osmosis, I believe any open-minded individual reflecting on the topic would agree with us. Levitin provides us with the neurobiological and cultural reasons for music’s uniquely subjective and universal nature, yesterday’s class provided a wonderful illustration of it. Groups of us enjoyed some of the same pieces of music – but it appeared that the scale of enjoyment or appreciation of the same work varied between us. The same is true for pieces that we didn’t enjoy – from it doesn’t do anything for me to dislike. The common denominator seems to be that we all have a reaction to music, an emotional response to it. We have some immediate response when exposed to new music. We can find a musical piece tolerable, likeable, fun, rapturous, distasteful, disturbing, or execrable.
My questions are: Can human beings with sufficient functioning aural and neurobiological systems be “indifferent” to music? Can we be totally non-responsive to music, or do our neurobiological systems require an autonomic response?
Could our natural responses to music, whether culturally influenced, or introduced post-maturity, be a biological recognition system, programmed to predispose us for openness with culturally-like Others? Could it be an elastic recognition system – allowing for the evolutionary possibilities of potential future allies in recognizing some acceptableness in culturally new, never exposed to, extremely different music?
My questions are: Can human beings with sufficient functioning aural and neurobiological systems be “indifferent” to music? Can we be totally non-responsive to music, or do our neurobiological systems require an autonomic response?
Could our natural responses to music, whether culturally influenced, or introduced post-maturity, be a biological recognition system, programmed to predispose us for openness with culturally-like Others? Could it be an elastic recognition system – allowing for the evolutionary possibilities of potential future allies in recognizing some acceptableness in culturally new, never exposed to, extremely different music?
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
My Personal Definition of Music
This is my response to Kelsey McCullough’s Question - What is your personal definition of music?
My personal definition of music: Organized sound created by a being, with said music presenting the possibility of a positive co-creative interchange between beings; or, at the very least, expanding the sub-atomic vibration rate of the music maker.
I consider sound to be any sound wave capable of exciting a vibration frequency that influences beings at a sub-atomic level, not limited to their biological auditory components.
Music, for me, must provide a benefit to the music maker and/or the music receiver (if there is any being capable of such reception within theoretical earshot). Music must always be an expansive influence, never a limiting or detrimental influence.
Noise, is what I would call sound waves which negatively disrupt or injure the existing vibration frequency patterns of other beings.
My personal definition of music: Organized sound created by a being, with said music presenting the possibility of a positive co-creative interchange between beings; or, at the very least, expanding the sub-atomic vibration rate of the music maker.
I consider sound to be any sound wave capable of exciting a vibration frequency that influences beings at a sub-atomic level, not limited to their biological auditory components.
Music, for me, must provide a benefit to the music maker and/or the music receiver (if there is any being capable of such reception within theoretical earshot). Music must always be an expansive influence, never a limiting or detrimental influence.
Noise, is what I would call sound waves which negatively disrupt or injure the existing vibration frequency patterns of other beings.
Describing Petrucciani's Performance
Petrucciani begins the piece exercising the rules of pitch, key, scale, timbre, harmony, rhythm, and meter. When he abruptly altered the tempo while maintaining tonal quality and scales, he created interest. Because I could still follow the melody within his expression of the piece, I could still anticipate the key and harmony to come. He also created interest by abruptly using loudness to alter his attack of the piece. I especially enjoyed the shifts that occurred in me when he employed these particular tactics. This created an entirely different experience for me. His changes in key, tempo, and loudness throw me off balance and provide contrast. What I found the most challenging to recoup from were the two occasions I perceived as dissonant. One was a disharmonious note; the other was a discordant run. Both times his “breaking the rules” disrupted my experience of the piece. These “interruptions” caused me to lose the sense of meter and rhythm of the composition. Even though he throws us off balance by his use of contrast in keys, tempo, volume, harmony, and pitch, he does use all those elements to
return us to balance.
When I listen to Michel Petrucciani’s rendition of “My Romance,” it reminds me of Vince Guaraldi's “Christmas Time is Here” from A Charlie Brown Christmas (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6545283), which elicits pleasant memories for me. I am unsure how much this influences my positive experience of Petrucciani’s performance.
My Question: Levitin says that "real music succeeds or fails because of the relationship between the major elements of music - pitch, timbre, key, harmony, loudness, rhythm, meter, and tempo" (Page 75).
Is a relationship between these same elements necessary for music to be successful for other species, or for our interpretation of other species' music as "successful real music"?
return us to balance.
When I listen to Michel Petrucciani’s rendition of “My Romance,” it reminds me of Vince Guaraldi's “Christmas Time is Here” from A Charlie Brown Christmas (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6545283), which elicits pleasant memories for me. I am unsure how much this influences my positive experience of Petrucciani’s performance.
My Question: Levitin says that "real music succeeds or fails because of the relationship between the major elements of music - pitch, timbre, key, harmony, loudness, rhythm, meter, and tempo" (Page 75).
Is a relationship between these same elements necessary for music to be successful for other species, or for our interpretation of other species' music as "successful real music"?
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