Music Cognition (Audiences hate modern classical music because ... )

Recent studies by Professor Nina Kraus, a neuroscientists at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, have shown that the electrical activity inside the brain while listening to music closely matches the physical properties of sound waves.

Using brain scanning equipment Professor Kraus, who presented her findings at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Diego on Saturday, said the brainwaves recorded from volunteers listening to music could be converted back to sound.

In one example where volunteers listened to Deep Purple's Smoke on the Water, when the brainwaves were played back the song was clearly recognisable.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/7279626/Audiences-hate-modern-classical-music-because-their-brains-cannot-cope.html

Article>"Using brain scanning equipment Professor Kraus, who presented her
findings at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in
San Diego on Saturday, said the brainwaves recorded from volunteers
listening to music could be converted back to sound."
Ok now here's are some questions
A) Does the translation of the sound become less perfect IE distorted as there is less periodicity or more roughness introduced in the sound?
B) Is there a larger delay on processing/generation of the waveform inside the brain when the sound is more/less periodic or rough?

Article>"She said: "When we play the brainwaves back as sound, although they
don't sound exactly like the song, it is pretty similar. It shows that
the brain matches the physical properties of sound very closely."
..which begs the question
C) Is there a secondary IE "post-processed" second signal the brain wave generates once it tries to "simplify" the sound?

article>"Much of what the brain does is to anticipate the future. Predicting
what happens next has obvious survival value, and brains are remarkably
adept at anticipating events"
Right, hence extensive motifs and such in music composition. It still leaves the question does tonal music make sense because it's periodic or because the restriction of tonal periodicity often forces composers to a smaller, more symmetrical subset of notes, more repeated motifs, etc.?

-Michael,___

Perhaps you can write these questions to the reseacher. The name and university is listed.

C
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael <djtrancendance@yahoo.com>
Date: Sun, 21 Feb 2010 08:31:49
To: <tuning@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: Re: [tuning] Music Cognition (Audiences hate modern classical music because ... )

Article>"Using brain scanning equipment Professor Kraus, who presented her
findings at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in
San Diego on Saturday, said the brainwaves recorded from volunteers
listening to music could be converted back to sound."
Ok now here's are some questions
A) Does the translation of the sound become less perfect IE distorted as there is less periodicity or more roughness introduced in the sound?
B) Is there a larger delay on processing/generation of the waveform inside the brain when the sound is more/less periodic or rough?

Article>"She said: "When we play the brainwaves back as sound, although they
don't sound exactly like the song, it is pretty similar. It shows that
the brain matches the physical properties of sound very closely."
..which begs the question
C) Is there a secondary IE "post-processed" second signal the brain wave generates once it tries to "simplify" the sound?

article>"Much of what the brain does is to anticipate the future. Predicting
what happens next has obvious survival value, and brains are remarkably
adept at anticipating events"
Right, hence extensive motifs and such in music composition. It still leaves the question does tonal music make sense because it's periodic or because the restriction of tonal periodicity often forces composers to a smaller, more symmetrical subset of notes, more repeated motifs, etc.?

-Michael,___

The question at the end of the email assumes that tonal music automatically makes sense, but this is a fallacy that is unfortunately very common.  It doesn't--there's plenty of senseless tonal music out there, plenty of badly-written tonal music, and plenty of tedious tonal music.  It takes a lot of training in counterpoint to write halfway decent tonal music, but this doesn't automatically result in interesting music, as one also needs training in melodic and harmonic organization. One can learn to write excellent songs and and short pieces still not have the knack for writing symphonies; you just need to look at the  Romantic repertory for confirmation of this statement--the entire repertory, not just the famous names who did master symphonic writing.
On the other hand, throughout most of human history, and in most cultures, humans have .been listening to and making music that made sense to them without using the tools of common-practice harmony.  
Franklin

Dr. Franklin Cox

1107 Xenia Ave.

Yellow Springs, OH 45387

(937) 767-1165

franklincox@...

--- On Sun, 2/21/10, Chris <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:

From: Chris <chrisvaisvil@...>
Subject: Re: [tuning] Music Cognition (Audiences hate modern classical music because ... )
To: tuning@yahoogroups.com
Date: Sunday, February 21, 2010, 6:31 PM

Perhaps you can write these questions to the reseacher. The name and university is listed.

CSent via BlackBerry from T-MobileFrom: Michael <djtrancendance@ yahoo.com>
Date: Sun, 21 Feb 2010 08:31:49 -0800 (PST)To: <tuning@yahoogroups. com>Subject: Re: [tuning] Music Cognition (Audiences hate modern classical music because ... )

Article>"Using brain scanning equipment Professor Kraus, who presented her
findings at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in
San Diego on Saturday, said the brainwaves recorded from volunteers
listening to music could be converted back to sound."
   Ok now here's are some questions
A) Does the translation of the sound become less perfect IE distorted as there is less periodicity or more roughness introduced in the sound?
B) Is there a larger delay on processing/generati on of the waveform inside the brain when the sound is more/less periodic or rough?

Article>"She said: "When we play the brainwaves back as sound, although they
don't sound exactly like the song, it is pretty similar. It shows that
the brain matches the physical properties of sound very closely."
..which begs the question
C) Is there a secondary IE "post-processed" second signal the brain wave generates once it tries to "simplify" the sound?

article>"Much of what the brain does is to anticipate the future. Predicting
what happens next has obvious survival value, and brains are remarkably
adept at anticipating events"
   Right, hence extensive motifs and such in music composition.  It still leaves the question does tonal music make sense because it's periodic or because the restriction of tonal periodicity often forces composers to a smaller, more symmetrical subset of notes, more repeated motifs, etc.?

-Michael,___

I find this interesting, and I would love to hear some of these recordings,
but I think some of the inferences she makes from the data are far from
valid. I do agree that there are many pieces of music in general that
require "repeated listens" to fully grasp, which I think has to do with the
brain still learning to form a "harmonic map" of what's going on - but I
disagree with her assertions that the reason people don't LIKE complex
pieces of music because they can't anticipate what's going to happen next.

It seems like every researcher these days is quick to explain every
neurological phenomenon as though it were "hard-wired" for evolutionary
reasons. Next of course will come the theory that perhaps only from the ages
of 0-2 can you form your core musical vocabulary, and from that point onward
your brain basically becomes frozen solid, right? It's cliche at this point.

I think that most of I think there are perfectly ordinary and somewhat
intuitive psychological reasons why Americans these days mght be inclined to
be stuck in the same "sound" that they like. Perhaps they associate that
sound with what's "cool," and other harmonic archetypes as "uncool." That
could have some kind of neurological correlate without it ever being a
"hard-wired" genetic trait.

If Taylor Swift started throwing in #11 chords and modal stuff in on her
next album, I bet you that people would dig it anyway, and that for her fans
at first listen it would sound "novel" instead of "unpredictable gibberish."

-Mike

On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 10:18 AM, christopherv <chrisvaisvil@...>wrote:

>
>
> Recent studies by Professor Nina Kraus, a neuroscientists at Northwestern
> University in Evanston, Illinois, have shown that the electrical activity
> inside the brain while listening to music closely matches the physical
> properties of sound waves.
>
> Using brain scanning equipment Professor Kraus, who presented her findings
> at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Diego on
> Saturday, said the brainwaves recorded from volunteers listening to music
> could be converted back to sound.
>
> In one example where volunteers listened to Deep Purple's Smoke on the
> Water, when the brainwaves were played back the song was clearly
> recognisable.
>
>
> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/7279626/Audiences-hate-modern-classical-music-because-their-brains-cannot-cope.html
>
>
>

I posted this article because I thought is was interesting.

Here is my personal take.

My assumption is that the researcher has a bias against classical music and
especially contemporary classical music. Many people do. It is a fact.

Surely Smoke on the Water is melodically as simple and clear as you could
find in the 17th century classical repertoire. It is also true some people
read T.S. Elliot, and others enjoy Peanuts. In other words I don't think it
proves crap.

What I do think is really interesting is the reconstruction of the music
from brain waves. This is a window into the true perception of music by
humans. And also a door to possibly composing music directly from from the
brain with no intervening instrument, paper or software.

Chris

On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 4:59 PM, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...>wrote:

>
>
> I find this interesting, and I would love to hear some of these recordings,
> but I think some of the inferences she makes from the data are far from
> valid. I do agree that there are many pieces of music in general that
> require "repeated listens" to fully grasp, which I think has to do with the
> brain still learning to form a "harmonic map" of what's going on - but I
> disagree with her assertions that the reason people don't LIKE complex
> pieces of music because they can't anticipate what's going to happen next.
>
> It
>

Gee, that means that people who don't like Bach's knotty, dissonant fugues or Beethoven's late works or Wagner's operas are completely justified in their opinions.  How comforting this must be to all the 19-year-old students I teach who don't want to learn chromatic progressions because they are too difficult. 
Franklin

Dr. Franklin Cox

1107 Xenia Ave.

Yellow Springs, OH 45387

(937) 767-1165

franklincox@...

--- On Sun, 2/21/10, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:

From: Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...>
Subject: Re: [tuning] Music Cognition (Audiences hate modern classical music because ... )
To: tuning@yahoogroups.com
Date: Sunday, February 21, 2010, 9:59 PM

I find this interesting, and I would love to hear some of these recordings, but I think some of the inferences she makes from the data are far from valid. I do agree that there are many pieces of music in general that require "repeated listens" to fully grasp, which I think has to do with the brain still learning to form a "harmonic map" of what's going on - but I disagree with her assertions that the reason people don't LIKE complex pieces of music because they can't anticipate what's going to happen next.

 
It seems like every researcher these days is quick to explain every neurological phenomenon as though it were "hard-wired" for evolutionary reasons. Next of course will come the theory that perhaps only from the ages of 0-2 can you form your core musical vocabulary, and from that point onward your brain basically becomes frozen solid, right? It's cliche at this point.

 
I think that most of I think there are perfectly ordinary and somewhat intuitive psychological reasons why Americans these days mght be inclined to be stuck in the same "sound" that they like. Perhaps they associate that sound with what's "cool," and other harmonic archetypes as "uncool." That could have some kind of neurological correlate without it ever being a "hard-wired" genetic trait.

 
If Taylor Swift started throwing in #11 chords and modal stuff in on her next album, I bet you that people would dig it anyway, and that for her fans at first listen it would sound "novel" instead of "unpredictable gibberish."

-Mike

On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 10:18 AM, christopherv <chrisvaisvil@ gmail.com> wrote:

Recent studies by Professor Nina Kraus, a neuroscientists at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, have shown that the electrical activity inside the brain while listening to music closely matches the physical properties of sound waves.

Using brain scanning equipment Professor Kraus, who presented her findings at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Diego on Saturday, said the brainwaves recorded from volunteers listening to music could be converted back to sound.

In one example where volunteers listened to Deep Purple's Smoke on the Water, when the brainwaves were played back the song was clearly recognisable.

http://www.telegrap h.co.uk/science/ science-news/ 7279626/Audience s-hate-modern- classical- music-because- their-brains- cannot-cope. html

Make that 18th century, apologies.

Dr. Cox,

What classes do you teach if you don't mind me asking.

Also, for what it is worth, when I went through freshman and sophomore
theory I think I was the only one who fell in love with the new harmonic
language (by 2nd year) Dr. Hanzelin taught us. People seem to be hung up on
one ideal of beauty - monochromatic thinking.

Chris

On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 5:11 PM, Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>wrote:

> I posted this article because I thought is was interesting.
>
> Here is my personal take.
>
>
> My assumption is that the researcher has a bias against classical music and
> especially contemporary classical music. Many people do. It is a fact.
>
> Surely Smoke on the Water is melodically as simple and clear as you could
> find in the 17th century classical repertoire. It is also true some people
> read T.S. Elliot, and others enjoy Peanuts. In other words I don't think it
> proves crap.
>
> What I do think is really interesting is the reconstruction of the music
> from brain waves. This is a window into the true perception of music by
> humans. And also a door to possibly composing music directly from from the
> brain with no intervening instrument, paper or software.
>
> Chris
>
>
> On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 4:59 PM, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...>wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> I find this interesting, and I would love to hear some of these
>> recordings, but I think some of the inferences she makes from the data are
>> far from valid. I do agree that there are many pieces of music in general
>> that require "repeated listens" to fully grasp, which I think has to do with
>> the brain still learning to form a "harmonic map" of what's going on - but I
>> disagree with her assertions that the reason people don't LIKE complex
>> pieces of music because they can't anticipate what's going to happen next.
>>
>> It
>>
>
>

I don't understand where this is coming from. There's plenty of simple music
that I hate, just because it's so simple that I can ALWAYS predict where
it's going to go next. This article is probably on the right track
somewhere, but it's drawing absurd generalizations from very specific
things.

I'm going to do some digging and try to find a copy of the study. And if you
read the article closely, it actually seems that the study isn't even
related to everything else: first they quote the author of some book called
"The Music Instinct" about why people hate classical music, then they ask
few more "music cognition experts" their opinions about atonal music (quite
the clever subject change), and then finally they talk about the study with
Smoke on the Water.

So this article really just expresses the journalist's opinion as a sort of
informal "research review." I would take it with a -huge- grain of salt.
Extrapolating upon it to explain why microtonal music can sound so "weird"
sometimes, for example, probably won't be very productive.

-Mike

On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 10:39 PM, Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@gmail.com>wrote:

>
>
> Make that 18th century, apologies.
>
> Dr. Cox,
>
> What classes do you teach if you don't mind me asking.
>
> Also, for what it is worth, when I went through freshman and sophomore
> theory I think I was the only one who fell in love with the new harmonic
> language (by 2nd year) Dr. Hanzelin taught us. People seem to be hung up on
> one ideal of beauty - monochromatic thinking.
>
> Chris
>
>
> On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 5:11 PM, Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>wrote:
>
>> I posted this article because I thought is was interesting.
>>
>> Here is my personal take.
>>
>>
>> My assumption is that the researcher has a bias against classical music
>> and especially contemporary classical music. Many people do. It is a fact.
>>
>> Surely Smoke on the Water is melodically as simple and clear as you could
>> find in the 17th century classical repertoire. It is also true some people
>> read T.S. Elliot, and others enjoy Peanuts. In other words I don't think it
>> proves crap.
>>
>> What I do think is really interesting is the reconstruction of the music
>> from brain waves. This is a window into the true perception of music by
>> humans. And also a door to possibly composing music directly from from the
>> brain with no intervening instrument, paper or software.
>>
>> Chris
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 4:59 PM, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...>wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I find this interesting, and I would love to hear some of these
>>> recordings, but I think some of the inferences she makes from the data are
>>> far from valid. I do agree that there are many pieces of music in general
>>> that require "repeated listens" to fully grasp, which I think has to do with
>>> the brain still learning to form a "harmonic map" of what's going on - but I
>>> disagree with her assertions that the reason people don't LIKE complex
>>> pieces of music because they can't anticipate what's going to happen next.
>>>
>>> It
>>>
>>
>>
>
>

Chris>"Perhaps you can write these questions to the reseacher. The name and university is listed."
Will do, thanks.

I supervise the theory program at Wright State University and teach the second-year course. I also teach counterpoint and composition.

Franklin

Dr. Franklin Cox

1107 Xenia Ave.

Yellow Springs, OH 45387

(937) 767-1165

franklincox@...

--- On Mon, 2/22/10, Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@gmail.com> wrote:

From: Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>
Subject: Re: [tuning] Music Cognition (Audiences hate modern classical music because ... )
To: tuning@yahoogroups.com
Date: Monday, February 22, 2010, 3:39 AM

Make that 18th century, apologies.

Dr. Cox,

What classes do you teach if you don't mind me asking.

Also, for what it is worth,  when I went through freshman and sophomore theory I think I was the only one who fell in love with the new harmonic language (by 2nd year) Dr. Hanzelin taught us. People seem to be hung up on one ideal of beauty - monochromatic thinking.

Chris

On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 5:11 PM, Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@ gmail.com> wrote:

I posted this article because I thought is was interesting.

Here is my personal take.

My assumption is that the researcher has a bias against classical music and especially contemporary classical music. Many people do. It is a fact.

Surely Smoke on the Water is melodically as simple and clear as you could find in the 17th century classical repertoire. It is also true some people read T.S. Elliot, and others enjoy Peanuts. In other words I don't think it proves crap.

What I do think is really interesting is the reconstruction of the music from brain waves. This is a window into the true perception of music by humans. And also a door to possibly  composing music directly from from the brain with no intervening instrument, paper or software.

Chris

On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 4:59 PM, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@ gmail.com> wrote:

I find this interesting, and I would love to hear some of these recordings, but I think some of the inferences she makes from the data are far from valid. I do agree that there are many pieces of music in general that require "repeated listens" to fully grasp, which I think has to do with the brain still learning to form a "harmonic map" of what's going on - but I disagree with her assertions that the reason people don't LIKE complex pieces of music because they can't anticipate what's going to happen next.

 
It

On 22 February 2010 07:52, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> I don't understand where this is coming from. There's plenty of
> simple music that I hate, just because it's so simple that I can
> ALWAYS predict where it's going to go next. This article is
> probably on the right track somewhere, but it's drawing absurd
> generalizations from very specific things.

It's a science article in the Telegraph, so I'm not prejudiced in
favor of it, but I don't see where your problems are coming from.
Yes, music can be too simple. Who would say otherwise? Nobody in the
article.

Note: the headline is over-sensationalist. Sometimes sub editors do
that. Don't judge the article by it.

> I'm going to do some digging and try to find a copy of the study.
> And if you read the article closely, it actually seems that the
> study isn't even related to everything else: first they quote the
> author of some book called "The Music Instinct" about why
> people hate classical music, then they ask few more "music
> cognition experts" their opinions about atonal music (quite the
> clever subject change), and then finally they talk about the study
> with Smoke on the Water.

Yes, the study about brain scanning doesn't fit with the rest of the
article. Probably there was only space for one article with a word
limit. That's journalism for you. The alternative was not to mention
that study at all, which would have been a shame, no?

Most of the artice is about the book. It's different researchers
commenting on the book. None of it is about hating classical music,
unless Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven aren't classical any more. It
isn't even about hating atonal music, only why it's difficult to
enjoy. And Dr Jones seems to be disagreeing with the general tone
there.

> So this article really just expresses the journalist's opinion as a
> sort of informal "research review." I would take it with a -huge-
> grain of salt. Extrapolating upon it to explain why microtonal music
> can sound so "weird" sometimes, for example, probably won't be
> very productive.

A large part of the article is quoting researchers, and the
journalist's opinions don't look that remarkable. It looks like
journalism to me. Why would you extrapolate anything from a newspaper
report? The book it talks about may well help to answer your
question. The idea of prediction makes sense to me and I want to know
why you reject it.

Graham

> It's a science article in the Telegraph, so I'm not prejudiced in
> favor of it, but I don't see where your problems are coming from.
> Yes, music can be too simple. Who would say otherwise? Nobody in the
> article.

The article makes the case that people can't appreciate classical
music these days because they can't predict what's going to happen
next. Furthermore, one of the experts cited says that this is likely
because there would have been an evolutionary advantage in us being to
predict at any moment what will happen next, and hence modern
audiences don't like classical music because it constantly invalidates
their predictions, and thus gives them no pleasure. Except at this
point in the article, they've switch gears away from ordinary
"classical" music and are now talking about atonal Schoenberg works
and such.

Where my problems are coming from? My problems are coming from that
the train of the thought paraphrased in the above paragraph is a
jumbled fragment of concepts that really doesn't fit together. To
interpret neurological data as explaining on a -psychological- level
why a listener would or would not "like" a piece of music is absurd
without that correlation being specifically identified. To really
generalize so broadly to say a listener would "dislike" the effects of
neurologically being unable to "predict" the next bar in a piece of
music involves making so many assumptions that I don't think it's an
idea worth entertaining. Occam's razor hasn't ever failed me before.

The obvious counterexample is that while many people might enjoy
listening to predictable, "easy listening" style music - I hate it and
so do many others. Psychology is a very complicated thing.

> The alternative was not to mention that study at all, which would have been a shame, no?

Perhaps I shouldn't have pointed out that the study was unrelated to
the rest of the article. But then the people in this thread who hadn't
noticed might have assumed the two were connected. Which would have
been a shame, no?

> A large part of the article is quoting researchers, and the
> journalist's opinions don't look that remarkable. It looks like
> journalism to me. Why would you extrapolate anything from a newspaper
> report? The book it talks about may well help to answer your
> question.

What question?

> The idea of prediction makes sense to me and I want to know
> why you reject it.

I don't reject it. In fact, I'm almost certain that it's happening.
What I'm rejecting is that you can make useful psychological
generalizations about whether or not people will "like" certain pieces
of music based solely on neurological data like that. Psychologically
speaking, I generally don't like a piece of music UNLESS it has
something in it that "breaks" my prediction scheme.

That all of this simply boils down to "relative predictive failure" =
"dislike" and "relative predictive success" = "like" is far too
simplistic of a statement to be made from data like this. If I were to
conduct an experiment like this myself, it would be based more off of
the hypothesis that for optimal enjoyment of music, a balance between
"success" and "failure" would have to be struck. Perhaps the study
would show that there'd be some ideal balance of predictability and
novelty that would lead to optimal enjoyment of music.

Or perhaps it would end up depending heavily on the person's
temperament and attitudes towards unfamiliar stimuli, which I think is
far more likely than any scenario previously mentioned.

Of course, all of this research might have been already done and shown
to agree with what I said above - until I see the study done, I won't
know for sure.

-Mike

On 22 February 2010 13:36, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:

> The article makes the case that people can't appreciate classical
> music these days because they can't predict what's going to happen
> next.

No it doesn't. It doesn't say that at all. At least not the article
I'm reading.

> Furthermore, one of the experts cited says that this is likely
> because there would have been an evolutionary advantage in us being to
> predict at any moment what will happen next, and hence modern
> audiences don't like classical music because it constantly invalidates
> their predictions, and thus gives them no pleasure. Except at this
> point in the article, they've switch gears away from ordinary
> "classical" music and are now talking about atonal Schoenberg works
> and such.

David Huron says something about survival advantage. He has a name.
You could try searching for his work because you may find it can be
generalized to microtonality. He also mentions facts about the brain
being good at predicting, so the five words of evolutionary
speculation are neither here nor there. Yes, he's talking about
atonal works because he's studied them. There's no gear switch. What
I see is "modern classical music" in the headline, introduction,
article, everywhere. To a general reader, that means atonal.

> Where my problems are coming from? My problems are coming from that
> the train of the thought paraphrased in the above paragraph is a
> jumbled fragment of concepts that really doesn't fit together. To
> interpret neurological data as explaining on a -psychological- level
> why a listener would or would not "like" a piece of music is absurd
> without that correlation being specifically identified. To really
> generalize so broadly to say a listener would "dislike" the effects of
> neurologically being unable to "predict" the next bar in a piece of
> music involves making so many assumptions that I don't think it's an
> idea worth entertaining. Occam's razor hasn't ever failed me before.

What neurological data? What do you know about Huron's data?

If listeners aren't predicting, what's your alternative hypothesis?

> The obvious counterexample is that while many people might enjoy
> listening to predictable, "easy listening" style music - I hate it and
> so do many others. Psychology is a very complicated thing.

Counterexample to what?

>> A large part of the article is quoting researchers, and the
>> journalist's opinions don't look that remarkable. It looks like
>> journalism to me. Why would you extrapolate anything from a newspaper
>> report? The book it talks about may well help to answer your
>> question.
>
> What question?

Explain why microtonal music can sound so "weird" sometimes.

>> The idea of prediction makes sense to me and I want to know
>> why you reject it.
>
> I don't reject it. In fact, I'm almost certain that it's happening.
> What I'm rejecting is that you can make useful psychological
> generalizations about whether or not people will "like" certain pieces
> of music based solely on neurological data like that. Psychologically
> speaking, I generally don't like a piece of music UNLESS it has
> something in it that "breaks" my prediction scheme.

Again, what neurological data?

> That all of this simply boils down to "relative predictive failure" =
> "dislike" and "relative predictive success" = "like" is far too
> simplistic of a statement to be made from data like this.

Of course it's too simplistic. So why do you keep stating it?

> Or perhaps it would end up depending heavily on the person's
> temperament and attitudes towards unfamiliar stimuli, which I think is
> far more likely than any scenario previously mentioned.

Of course it would. But there are statistical methods to control for that.

> Of course, all of this research might have been already done and shown
> to agree with what I said above - until I see the study done, I won't
> know for sure.

There has been all kinds of research, but you won't learn about it by
criticizing a newspaper article. There's a good book by Krumhansl and
you could try the one in the article. Or here:

http://www.musiccog.ohio-state.edu/Huron/Publications/huron.voice.leading.html

Graham

I wish I were able to take your counterpoint and composition classes!

Thanks for the answer,

Chris

On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 11:50 PM, Cox Franklin <franklincox@...>wrote:

>
>
> I supervise the theory program at Wright State University and teach the
> second-year course. I also teach counterpoint and composition.
>
>
> Franklin
>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> > It's a science article in the Telegraph, so I'm not prejudiced
> > in favor of it, but I don't see where your problems are coming
> > from. Yes, music can be too simple. Who would say otherwise?
> > Nobody in the article.
>
> The article makes the case that people can't appreciate classical
> music these days because they can't predict what's going to happen
> next. Furthermore, one of the experts cited says that this is
> likely because there would have been an evolutionary advantage in
> us being to predict at any moment what will happen next, and hence
> modern audiences don't like classical music because it constantly
> invalidates their predictions, and thus gives them no pleasure.
> Except at this point in the article, they've switch gears away
> from ordinary "classical" music and are now talking about atonal
> Schoenberg works and such.
>
> Where my problems are coming from? My problems are coming from that
> the train of the thought paraphrased in the above paragraph is a
> jumbled fragment of concepts that really doesn't fit together. To
> interpret neurological data as explaining on a -psychological- level
> why a listener would or would not "like" a piece of music is absurd
> without that correlation being specifically identified. To really
> generalize so broadly to say a listener would "dislike" the effects
> of neurologically being unable to "predict" the next bar in a piece
> of music involves making so many assumptions that I don't think
> it's an idea worth entertaining. Occam's razor hasn't ever failed
> me before.

I'm with Graham. The article makes perfect sense to me. Maybe
try reading it again? Jurgen Schmidhuber says beauty is the
first derivative of compression, and that certainly fits with
what these experts are quoted as saying.

> The obvious counterexample is that while many people might enjoy
> listening to predictable, "easy listening" style music - I hate
> it and so do many others. Psychology is a very complicated thing.

That's completely explained by Schmidhuber's principle.

> > The idea of prediction makes sense to me and I want to know
> > why you reject it.
>
> I don't reject it. In fact, I'm almost certain that it's
> happening. What I'm rejecting is that you can make useful
> psychological generalizations about whether or not people will
> "like" certain pieces of music based solely on neurological
> data like that.

To what data are you referring?

-Carl

> No it doesn't. It doesn't say that at all. At least not the article
> I'm reading.

That's the whole point of the article.

> David Huron says something about survival advantage. He has a name.

LOL, does he?

> You could try searching for his work because you may find it can be
> generalized to microtonality. He also mentions facts about the brain
> being good at predicting, so the five words of evolutionary
> speculation are neither here nor there.

A more precise review of his work isn't in the article. I am
responding to the article. Why you'd assume that my statements are
supposed to invalidate this guy's entire body of work, I'm not sure.

> Yes, he's talking about
> atonal works because he's studied them. There's no gear switch. What
> I see is "modern classical music" in the headline, introduction,
> article, everywhere. To a general reader, that means atonal.

You're right, I missed that nuance upon first read.

> What neurological data? What do you know about Huron's data?

From the article, nothing.

>> That all of this simply boils down to "relative predictive failure" =
>> "dislike" and "relative predictive success" = "like" is far too
>> simplistic of a statement to be made from data like this.
> Of course it's too simplistic. So why do you keep stating it?

Because that's the whole point of the article. That modern audiences
can't appreciate atonal music because they can't accurately predict
what will happen next. Are we reading the same article?

> > Or perhaps it would end up depending heavily on the person's
> > temperament and attitudes towards unfamiliar stimuli, which I think is
> > far more likely than any scenario previously mentioned.
>
> Of course it would. But there are statistical methods to control for that.

That's funny, because the article doesn't assert that that's even a possibility.

> There has been all kinds of research, but you won't learn about it by
> criticizing a newspaper article

It's a bit annoying for us to go in circles, don't you think? I
criticized the newspaper article because it paints broad
generalizations about music cognition that I disagree with. When I get
more time, I'll do more research and find the studies directly. Until
then, I don't think it would be very useful to draw any conclusions
based on this one journalist's limited interpretation of researchers'
interpretation of the data from unnamed studies.

> http://www.musiccog.ohio-state.edu/Huron/Publications/huron.voice.leading.html

Thanks for the link, I'll check it out.

-Mike

> I'm with Graham. The article makes perfect sense to me. Maybe
> try reading it again? Jurgen Schmidhuber says beauty is the
> first derivative of compression, and that certainly fits with
> what these experts are quoted as saying.

That's interesting. A quick search for Juergen Schmidhuber turns up
quite a bit of research. Can you point me to some papers in which this
concept is defined and elaborated on?

And what do you mean by "the first derivative of compression?" The
first derivative with respect to what? To time?

> > I don't reject it. In fact, I'm almost certain that it's
> > happening. What I'm rejecting is that you can make useful
> > psychological generalizations about whether or not people will
> > "like" certain pieces of music based solely on neurological
> > data like that.
>
> To what data are you referring?

"Philip Ball, author of The Music Instinct, has drawn on the latest
scientific findings from neuroscientists to show structure and
patterns in music are a fundamental part of musical enjoyment."

I'm referring to the neurological data about that I assume exists from
these findings. The data isn't actually put out there in the article,
but whatever it is, I have strong qualms against neurological data
being generalized to the psychology of any individual unless that
correlation is specifically shown.

And it very well may be. But I can't tell from the article. Once
you've seen enough pseudoscientific articles making brash claims from
a limited interpretation of even more limited data (lol nutrition),
you start to be a bit more skeptical of things.

-Mike

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> > I'm with Graham. The article makes perfect sense to me. Maybe
> > try reading it again? Jurgen Schmidhuber says beauty is the
> > first derivative of compression, and that certainly fits with
> > what these experts are quoted as saying.
>
> That's interesting. A quick search for Juergen Schmidhuber turns
> up quite a bit of research. Can you point me to some papers in
> which this concept is defined and elaborated on?

http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/beauty.html

> And what do you mean by "the first derivative of compression?" The
> first derivative with respect to what? To time?

Yeah.

> > To what data are you referring?
>
> "Philip Ball, author of The Music Instinct, has drawn on the latest
> scientific findings from neuroscientists to show structure and
> patterns in music are a fundamental part of musical enjoyment."
>
> I'm referring to the neurological data about that I assume exists
> from these findings. The data isn't actually put out there in the
> article, but whatever it is, I have strong qualms against
> neurological data being generalized to the psychology of any
> individual unless that correlation is specifically shown.

I don't understand why you feel this way, but it's off topic
here. But I'd be happy to discuss it offlist if you like.

-Carl