Music on the Mind

Some interesting implications here:

http://www.msnbc.com/news/433442.asp

[Kraig Grady wrote:]
> The implication is that the babies are reacting to the tester's notion
> of what is good and bad! Any testing that results in such singular
> affirmation of western theory i find suspect. Maybe a minor 2nd
> against perfect 4th, but a tritone, sorry won't buy it!

While agree that such testing could be poorly done, in such a way as to
reinforce existing prejudices of the testers, I would not dismiss it out
of hand. In fact, I've long had a wish to conduct a study on babies
that would compare their reaction to just major thirds vs. 12-tET
tempered versions, and 4:5:6:7 dom 7th against more dissonant variants.

To me it does not seem implausible that a 600 cent tritone would be
perceived as unpleasant by babies. I'd sure love to get comparative
results for a 5:7 tritone!

JdL

>http://www.msnbc.com/news/433442.asp

All fine, but the way they report this stuff... I _hope_ it's the way they
report this stuff. Anytime there's a neurological correlate of behavior,
science seems surprised. Learning music helps with math? Just math? And
why is that surprising?? Reminds me of the nutritional stuff -- 'science
has just discovered that Broccoli is good for you...'

-Carl

[Paul H. Erlich wrote:]
>>While music is of course a cultural construct and creates no
>>evolutionary stresses on its own, the basic aesthetic characteristics
>>of musical sounds could have some degree of universality. As another
>>example, clothing is a cultural construct and yet the perception of
>>certain fabrics being more comfortable than others is relatively
>>universal . . .

[Kraig Grady wrote:]
>Yes it would be nice if there was such a universality, but we are not
>so fortunate. Pleasing and unpleasant sounds are a result to a very
>large degree, cultural constructs. Otherwise i can only pity those that
>are subjected to the intervals of Pelog at an early age. I doubt this
>is the case and the same test done in Jakarta might result in the fifth
>as being perceived as unpleasant due to its lifelessness The only
>universality seems to be melody, that different tones are strung
>together as heard belonging together. Rhythm is another universal that
>seems to be cross cultural. Consonance and disconance-we can't even
>come to any consensus on this list!

Kraig, in an earlier post you raised the concern, in testing performed
on babies, that the prejudices of the tester could distort the results.
I very much agree that such a possibility exists. But it is also true
that methodologies exist to deal effectively with such problems. For
example: the babies could be played a series of tones and a videotape
made showing time and the babies' responses. Another researcher, who
does not know the order of the tones played, could view the videotape
with the sound removed, and record the babies' reactions only against
elapsed time. Such methods sharply reduce the likelihood of prejudicial
distortions of the results.

If I'm following exactly the points you're making, you seem to reject
any possibility of a universal response among babies from different
parts of the world. Though I'm far from certain, my guess is that you
are mistaken on this point. Finding the true results is the point of
research, yes? It seems likely to me that babies may be more consistent
than adults when it comes to their reactions, since they've had less
time to build cultural perspectives.

Can we at least agree that it's an open question, and that further
research might shed some interesting light?

JdL