Sad / not sad

This comes up every so often, and it is hard to figure why. I've always thought that major and minor constructions (I'll use that term instead of keys/chords/tonalities/etc) seem at least as dependent on non-intonational information as anything else when pinning down the mood. Cultural contexts *certainly* account for at least as much, if not more, than measuring intervals.

I think of a lonely bugle, sounding the notes of a pure major triad, playing "Taps", in many people's minds one of the saddest refrains of all.

Jon wrote:

> I think of a lonely bugle, sounding the notes of a pure major triad,
> playing "Taps", in many people's minds one of the saddest refrains
> of all.

For the record, I never said anything about the emotional
content of music. Cameron and Igs and Daniel and Gene brought
that up. I said that the 10:12:15 chord, itself, naked and
bare, does sound more sad than 4:5:6, and that this has nothing
at all to do with cultural conditioning. Plenty of people
disagreed, and they're entitled to their opinion. Now let's
stop beating a dead horse and get on with our lives!

-Carl

Carl,

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <carl@...> wrote:
> For the record, I never said anything about the emotional
> content of music.

I confess that when I titled my post, I...

1. Had not seen your "sad" comment
2. Didn't have any person or persons in mind anyway.

I agree: this is a rather fruitless topic. Better that anyone with an opinion be forced to bolster it with a composed musical example.

Note, Jon, that my stance in this matter has been the same as yours, Daniel's and Gene's. I didn't "bring up" emotion in music, I lambasted its polarization, stereotyping, etc.

Let's see if this one gets past whatever it is that is making half my posts mysteriously disappear.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <carl@...> wrote:
>
> Jon wrote:
>
> > I think of a lonely bugle, sounding the notes of a pure major triad,
> > playing "Taps", in many people's minds one of the saddest refrains
> > of all.
>
> For the record, I never said anything about the emotional
> content of music. Cameron and Igs and Daniel and Gene brought
> that up. I said that the 10:12:15 chord, itself, naked and
> bare, does sound more sad than 4:5:6, and that this has nothing
> at all to do with cultural conditioning. Plenty of people
> disagreed, and they're entitled to their opinion. Now let's
> stop beating a dead horse and get on with our lives!
>
> -Carl
>

Jon wrote:
> Better that anyone with an opinion be forced to bolster it
> with a composed musical example.

I actually disagree. As I keep trying to say, psychoacoustics
really doesn't have much application in music making. In fact
it's basically impossible to use a piece of music to establish
something in psychoacoustics, which is why music is really not
used at all in psychoacoustics research. It also explains why
musicians are generally terrible at psychoacoustics.

Cameron tried challenging me to some kind of music duel as a
result of your post, and threatened me with repercussions if
I didn't let it hit the list. So naturally I blocked it (first
one -- his previous/ongoing issues with posting are unrelated).
That's because threatening playground bully posts aren't going
to appear here while I'm logged in.

-Carl

Look: I know that in music (or at least in culture), context is capable of over-riding things like pyschoacoustic response. But I still cannot figure out where you and Cameron and Daniel believe emotional meaning actually enters music. If it doesn't come from the intervals and harmonies, where then DOES it come from? Daniel said that bare intervals are "neutral", which I take to mean "without inherent meaning". So the question becomes: how do you construct meaning with a bunch of meaningless symbols? Chords at least have to have some kind of "function" the way letters in an alphabet do, but if that function is not related to some kind of emotional gestalt, what IS it related to? I mean, I understand that cultural context has its effect, but it surely cannot account for ALL the meaning in music.

Is it not nearly a universal human ability to hear "pain" in another's voice, even if we share neither language nor culture? Is there nothing universal about human expression that might explain from when music derives its emotional content?

-Igs

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "jonszanto" <jszanto@...> wrote:
>
> This comes up every so often, and it is hard to figure why. I've always thought that major and minor constructions (I'll use that term instead of keys/chords/tonalities/etc) seem at least as dependent on non-intonational information as anything else when pinning down the mood. Cultural contexts *certainly* account for at least as much, if not more, than measuring intervals.
>
> I think of a lonely bugle, sounding the notes of a pure major triad, playing "Taps", in many people's minds one of the saddest refrains of all.
>

Carl>"I actually disagree. As I keep trying to say, psychoacoustics really
doesn't have much application in music making. In fact
it's basically impossible to use a piece of music to establish something in
psychoacoustics"

Bizarrely, I, along with Cameron and I'm sure several others, are most
likely wondering why are so many of us getting whined at for "lack of scientific
evidence", namely in terms of psychoacoustics, especially when going through the
effort of giving direct musical examples!

So if psychoacoustics is irrelevant to music IE using music as
evidence...isn't the tuning list indirectly rendered into a list purposefully
devoid of references to music?

>"It also explains why musicians are generally terrible at psychoacoustics."
Doesn't that also imply us musicians are naturally bad at "tuning"?! Oh
man...I can see why Cameron appears to be angry about this...if the goal of
tuning is NOT CONNECTED TO MUSIC...then it begs the question are we biting the
hand that feeds us by following Carl's apparent commands on "sticking to
psychoacoustics" or perhaps "either psychoacoustics or music...but never both"?

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Side note...if there was a musical duel between Cameron and you...I'd put my
money on Cameron, regardless of how many well researched studies you threw at
me. His music sounds varied and fantastic (even in a pure harmonic or melodic
sense not counting arrangements)...as does that of Carlos Serafani, Marcus
Satellite, Knowsur, Sevish, Igs, and countless others who are NOT proclaimed
masters at psychoacoustics (at least by your standards). I'm sure you'd take
the musical challenge Cameron presented if you thought you had any chance of
winning...to me not taking it is basically your admitting defeat (how many
others on this list agree?)

But please, feel free to prove me wrong by taking the challenge (Carl vs.
Cameron)...it would be particularly interesting if you two were forced to do a
song with only one instrument, exactly the same instrument sample or
virtual-instrument-and-settings with no effects or mastering, the same tempo,
only 8th notes used (with no 8th notes skipped), and no drums IE the entire
focus would be on the chords and tuning chosen (nothing to do with differences
in phrasing, arrangement, or anything else). Let's do this!
---------------------------------------------------------------------

I could dig into any of their works and find numerous examples of things like
chords that work well without pointing to a steady virtual fundamental, scales
that do not scale well to lower-limit triads or tetrads (especially those that
rely on the dyadic periodicity you have claimed is very sketchy for 3+ note
chords), and much much more. And sometime they do things that are good examples
of psychoacoustics in action...and that it can be relevant to music.

I don't agree musicians generally have bad skills at psychoacoustics (though
their ability to explain what they hear and how they do what they do may vary).
However I will say those who bow down to psychoacoustics without questioning
exceptions to it composition are very likely to sound MUCH more shallow as
musicians.

Jonsz>"I think of a lonely bugle, sounding the notes of a pure major triad,
playing "Taps", in many people's minds one of the saddest refrains of all."
Here's an example of music not conforming to "what should be" so far as
psychoacoustics. Meanwhile a major chord on a guitar or piano sounds of
happiness to many people. Again goes back to my point that psychoacoustics
works much, but not all the time, and is connected to music just not perfectly
so.

Igs,

as you must know these things are heavily debated in aesthetics and
philosophy of music. I think the musical materials themselves
cannot be literally sad or happy because only persons can be sad or
happy. I also don't think that the music must (although it can)
actually make you sad in order that you can attribute sadness of the
music. The materials are not symbols because symbols are arbitrary. I
think that the emotional descriptions of music are metaphorical. This
doesn't mean that you can just project any emotions you wish to the
music. On the contrary, some metaphors are more apt than others. I
think it is almost "correct" to describe a major triad as happy and a
minor triad as sad when you just compare them to each other but once
you have whole pieces of music this just breaks down as too
simplistic.

Kalle

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "cityoftheasleep" <igliashon@...> wrote:
>
> Look: I know that in music (or at least in culture), context is capable of over-riding things like pyschoacoustic response. But I still cannot figure out where you and Cameron and Daniel believe emotional meaning actually enters music. If it doesn't come from the intervals and harmonies, where then DOES it come from? Daniel said that bare intervals are "neutral", which I take to mean "without inherent meaning". So the question becomes: how do you construct meaning with a bunch of meaningless symbols? Chords at least have to have some kind of "function" the way letters in an alphabet do, but if that function is not related to some kind of emotional gestalt, what IS it related to? I mean, I understand that cultural context has its effect, but it surely cannot account for ALL the meaning in music.
>
> Is it not nearly a universal human ability to hear "pain" in another's voice, even if we share neither language nor culture? Is there nothing universal about human expression that might explain from when music derives its emotional content?
>
> -Igs
>
> --- In tuning@...m, "jonszanto" <jszanto@> wrote:
> >
> > This comes up every so often, and it is hard to figure why. I've always thought that major and minor constructions (I'll use that term instead of keys/chords/tonalities/etc) seem at least as dependent on non-intonational information as anything else when pinning down the mood. Cultural contexts *certainly* account for at least as much, if not more, than measuring intervals.
> >
> > I think of a lonely bugle, sounding the notes of a pure major triad, playing "Taps", in many people's minds one of the saddest refrains of all.
> >
>

I will weigh in here with this personal observation:

My understanding is that music is formalized and abstracted speech.
Therefore the emotional content one feels in music probably correlates
to speech, which then of course correlates to culture. Culture can be
powerful in its interpretation - my understanding is some places in
the world wagging your head side to side in a horizontal manner means
no - but in other places it means yes.

Now this is a personal feeling - I think there is much truth to be
found about many things if one (could) dig back into time. I
personally am interested in the very first interpretations of the
Universe / world / religion / etc./

Bringing that middle statement together with the subject at hand: - I
wonder what one could learn about the emotional interpretation of
music by examining what is left of the culture of the First Peoples.

Chris

On Mon, Sep 27, 2010 at 12:36 PM, Kalle Aho <kalleaho@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> Igs,
>
> as you must know these things are heavily debated in aesthetics and
> philosophy of music. I think the musical materials themselves
> cannot be literally sad or happy because only persons can be sad or
> happy.

Meaning in music (including emotional) of course comes "from intervals and harmonies". It appears on higher level than individual isolated notes, intervals or chords - that is from their interaction in time. Because music is time dependent art. When listening the music, we don't hear individual notes (intervals, chords, note lengths...) but their context. (Same with language - individual characters or phonems have no meaning, and we don't read individual characters or hear individual phonems, but words and sentences - this has some meaning, words itself, and words combined into sentences, and there's even hidden meaning very often there, expressed by intonation, expression, dynamics, tempo and color of the voice, and let's not forget about abstract metaphors in poems far from the real meaning of words and sentences). Shapes of melody, upper and lower peaks, opening and closing formulae... this bears some meaning. Chords and their progressions in Western music are usually connected with melody, support its shapes, accompany it and depending on chord complexity and balance of consonances and dissonances, and also depending on rhythmic structure, timbre, instrumentation, dynamics, expression, articulation, tempo changes... we feel tension or relax... All this is also connected with form of the work - motifs, themes, periods, question/answer... And there are also some typical patterns for each music style, epoch, every composer has some typical and stable constants which we can learn to recognize and enjoy... On the first hearing usually we can also hear motivic and thematic work, changes of the shape of melody, variations, modulations, changing major - minor, return of motifs, their tonal relations, procesual changes or sudden contrasts, gradation, climax, anticlimax, tempo changes, density of textures etc. Thanks to our memory we can keep motifs and other elements there and compare with the other which will come later during listening the work. This comparison which we learn by listening lot of music, and by repeated listening to the same works, is our listener's experience, in fact cultural self education. Thanks to this composer can build the composition, its form, and when we have some listening experience (even without deeper knowledge of music theory) we start to understand what composer and his/her work want to tell us. All this interaction starts to have some higher sense, logic, connection, meaning, associations, relations to the other works of the same composer, the other composers, the other musical styles, epochs... And of course intelectual understanding is one thing, but music has also emotional impact. But in my opinion it's so much connected to that constructive domain of music, that to enjoy music fully on the emotional level, we must have certain level of listening experience. And this is not universal, even not in our contemporary global village where anybody can listen any music from all over the world. We have to learn some style by active and repeated listening to it, and after some experience we can start to understand its dialect and enjoy it. If we are not ready to enjoy some style, we can't enjoy it - it sounds just boring to us.

There's nothing universal about human expression and emotions. Try to live few years in Japan (like me :-) and you will understand what I mean. Generally.

And concerning the music, Japanese have been exposed to Western music since about 1870, but until now only few of them can really understand it and enjoy.

I doubt some Borneo aborigin will be able to enjoy Mozart piano sonata or Bartok music fully... Or that we westerners would fully understand (and therefore also emotionally enjoy) some Indian raga, all those nuances hidden there... But of course we can learn to understand and enjoy it by some study and lot of listening experience.

Daniel Forro

On 28 Sep 2010, at 12:20 AM, cityoftheasleep wrote:

> Look: I know that in music (or at least in culture), context is > capable of over-riding things like pyschoacoustic response. But I > still cannot figure out where you and Cameron and Daniel believe > emotional meaning actually enters music. If it doesn't come from > the intervals and harmonies, where then DOES it come from? Daniel > said that bare intervals are "neutral", which I take to mean > "without inherent meaning". So the question becomes: how do you > construct meaning with a bunch of meaningless symbols? Chords at > least have to have some kind of "function" the way letters in an > alphabet do, but if that function is not related to some kind of > emotional gestalt, what IS it related to? I mean, I understand > that cultural context has its effect, but it surely cannot account > for ALL the meaning in music.
>
> Is it not nearly a universal human ability to hear "pain" in > another's voice, even if we share neither language nor culture? Is > there nothing universal about human expression that might explain > from when music derives its emotional content?
>
> -Igs
>

Daniel>"and let's not forget about abstract metaphors in poems far from the
real meaning of words and sentences"
Very interesting point. That is used often to explain why the English
language is so poetic with so many different words for the same general meaning,
but often used to allude to different kinds of metaphors than each other...and
same I feel goes with very similar chords made to point to different contexts.

Daniel>"every composer has some typical and stable constants which we can learn
to recognize and enjoy"
Perhaps...in the same way that the human mind tries to find patterns in
things like sentences to help it "guess" which of its several possible meanings
a word may have in a language efficiently.

Daniel>"Thanks to our memory we can keep motifs and other elements there and
compare with the other which will come later during listening the work. "
In the same way, perhaps, that we feel the flow/direction of a conversation
taking a sudden but just-with-enough-pattern-to-be-predictable turn to become a
good joke. I suspect the mind sees this as a form of reward and what makes
jokes and music work: you think something will go in one direction, but then it
suddenly changes yet you realize you saw hints to the change beforehand and feel
smart for being able to make the connection.
In music, I figure, this kind of pattern can be representing in following a
bunch of changing chords yet "cracking the code" in your mind to something like
"it can all be traced to the same 2-3 bass notes...especially, say, the 2 that
represent to tonic and dominant tones in a key". You get "the reward of the
complexity without the hassle"...just like in a good joke.

On Mon, Sep 27, 2010 at 10:20 AM, cityoftheasleep
<igliashon@...> wrote:
>
> Look: I know that in music (or at least in culture), context is capable of over-riding things like pyschoacoustic response. But I still cannot figure out where you and Cameron and Daniel believe emotional meaning actually enters music. If it doesn't come from the intervals and harmonies, where then DOES it come from?

Two things, both of which I said to Igs offlist but probably should
also be said here:

The first is that emotions themselves are far from evading scientific
analysis. For an example, see here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_factor_theory_of_emotion

The cliffs are:
1) The epinephrine (adrenaline) shot increased the intensity of
emotion felt by the participants (either playfulness or anger), unless
2) They were aware in advance that what they were being injected with
was adrenaline and what effects it would have - they attributed their
feelings to an effect from the epinephrine and not to any particular
emotion.

So this led to the "two-factor theory" of emotion. The idea is that
the two factors are "arousal" (sympathetic nervous system activation)
and "cognition" (how one interprets this activation, which is
dependent on a million things). There are apparently newer models of
emotion, but most that I can find still involve some notion of
arousal. And if we're dealing with chords that sound progressively
more dissonant and unpleasant, and that make us want to turn them off,
then the idea that we're dealing with sympathetic activation is far
from implausible - actually I think there are studies showing that
physiological arousal occurs when dissonant sounds are played.

Hence we are dealing with arousal (which is one of the building blocks
of emotion).

The second factor is cognition, e.g. how you'd label that activation,
or what cultural factors go into the emotion, end up affecting the
emotion produced. Even the knowledge that "this is a listening test
that will make you feel like xxx" will all change the end result, as
the knowledge that one was being injected with epinephrine changed the
end result.

Whether newer models of emotion usurp this is beyond the point - the
point is this is not, in general, a task that is beyond research, nor
does it conflict with anyone's creative individuality.

The second point, that a chord can sound different in two musical
contexts is also irrelevant, because if you view the chord and its
surrounding context as a unit, then that "unit" tends to lead to more
predictable results. Hence if I say "a minor chord sounds sort of
'sad' in chord progression A," and "a minor chord sounds sort of
'happy' in chord progression B," and most people agree, then that just
means that chord progressions A and B are what lead to predictable
outcomes and can hence be analyzed. Or perhaps chord progression A
sounds different in two larger musical contexts as well, which can
then be predicted. That being said, I simply want to start studying
individual chords, as a building block which can eventually lead
somewhere else.

-Mike

As I scan the medical literature as well as some sources on music
cognition, I see that my hypothesis about arousal and dissonance as a
mechanism causing it actually comes up a lot. So my train of thought
is not without precedent.

I will do a more thorough lit search when I have time and post what I
end up finding. So far my thinking is:

-The feeling of dissonance is more than just a straight correlation
with harmonic discordance
-Although beating can be unpleasant, the most universally unpleasant
sound across different cultures is that of harmonic dissonance
(http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20493704)
-The way that emotions are created through music has something to do
with the activation of sympathetic nervous activity (or "arousal",
chuckle guffaw)
-Dissonance causes arousal via epinephrine production (I believe I saw
a study on this last night, will try to find it again)
-Hence we now have a direct sound-arousal link that could play a part
how specifically music creates emotions

The last three ideas, which seem to have made me the subject of much
artistic ridicule on here, are apparently taken more seriously within
the medical community - I saw some music cognition resources earlier
that pointed to the same ideas. So perhaps someone has already taken
my train of thought and brought it to some logical conclusion, which
we could then try to generalize to xenharmonic material.

My sincerest apologies to Ozan Yarman that he'll never know any of this.

-Mike

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "cityoftheasleep" <igliashon@...> wrote:
>
> Look: I know that in music (or at least in culture), context is capable of over-riding things like pyschoacoustic response. But I still cannot figure out where you and Cameron and Daniel believe emotional meaning actually enters music. If it doesn't come from the intervals and harmonies, where then DOES it come from? Daniel said that bare intervals are "neutral", which I take to mean "without inherent meaning".

Whatever inherent meaning minor triads may have, it isn't pain. It might be serious, thoughtful, or melancholy, perhaps. Has anyone ever tried to find out, I wonder? Finding people not exposed to the music of the world would be a problem, but a cross-cultural study might be interesting.

On Mon, Sep 27, 2010 at 1:47 PM, genewardsmith
<genewardsmith@...> wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "cityoftheasleep" <igliashon@...> wrote:
> >
> > Look: I know that in music (or at least in culture), context is capable of over-riding things like pyschoacoustic response. But I still cannot figure out where you and Cameron and Daniel believe emotional meaning actually enters music. If it doesn't come from the intervals and harmonies, where then DOES it come from? Daniel said that bare intervals are "neutral", which I take to mean "without inherent meaning".
>
> Whatever inherent meaning minor triads may have, it isn't pain. It might be serious, thoughtful, or melancholy, perhaps. Has anyone ever tried to find out, I wonder? Finding people not exposed to the music of the world would be a problem, but a cross-cultural study might be interesting.

"Pain" was just a cute little term I came up for the concept of some
kind of stress response that discordance produces. Apparently the
proper term is "arousal" - see my above post.

-Mike

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Daniel Forró <dan.for@...> wrote:

> And concerning the music, Japanese have been exposed to Western music
> since about 1870, but until now only few of them can really
> understand it and enjoy.

This differs from North America or Europe how, exactly? We don't go gaga over Beethoven's Ninth here, in any case.

I also believe that culture forms a large part of emotional response to music. Music that sounds happy to a person from one culture may sound sad to another. I think there's sense in regarding music as formalised speech. All spoken words are actually sung, it's just that we don't notice the melodies most of the time. Recording a spoken phrase and playing it over and over again makes a person conscious of the melody that was always there. But there never were "first peoples". Humans evolved from the common ancesters we share with chimps and bonobos. It was a gradual process. You couldn't point to one generation and say "these are human but their parents were not" even if you could travel back in time. Many animals, including birds and probably some dinosaurs, had music before there were people. I am interested in comparing the music of other species with human music. I jam with my dog. I play mouth organ or slide whistle and he sings.

Also, Igs, you are wrong. People are not the only animals who can be happy or sad. These are the most basic of emotions. --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:
>
> I will weigh in here with this personal observation:
>
> My understanding is that music is formalized and abstracted speech.
> Therefore the emotional content one feels in music probably correlates
> to speech, which then of course correlates to culture. Culture can be
> powerful in its interpretation - my understanding is some places in
> the world wagging your head side to side in a horizontal manner means
> no - but in other places it means yes.
>
> Now this is a personal feeling - I think there is much truth to be
> found about many things if one (could) dig back into time. I
> personally am interested in the very first interpretations of the
> Universe / world / religion / etc./
>
> Bringing that middle statement together with the subject at hand: - I
> wonder what one could learn about the emotional interpretation of
> music by examining what is left of the culture of the First Peoples.
>
>
> Chris
>
> On Mon, Sep 27, 2010 at 12:36 PM, Kalle Aho <kalleaho@...> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > Igs,
> >
> > as you must know these things are heavily debated in aesthetics and
> > philosophy of music. I think the musical materials themselves
> > cannot be literally sad or happy because only persons can be sad or
> > happy.
>

Mike wrote:

> My sincerest apologies to Ozan Yarman that he'll never know
> any of this.

We don't need comments like this.

-Carl

I agree with you, Daniel, that a piece of music carries more meaning than any component of the piece, and that much like verbal language, the context can "direct" the meaning of specific words beyond their "dictionary definitions". Just as great poetry comes from "bending" the rules of proper language, great music comes from bending the rules of proper music theory. Neither Mike nor I are inexperienced musicians with thick-headed ideas that chords can only ever have one meaning that cannot change. But when you try to understand how a language works--even if it's your own language--you start with the formal/"proper" uses of the most basic components of it. Just because a single word has less meaning than a sentence, or receives a good portion of its meaning from context, does not mean it has no inherent meaning.

I think you have to agree that there is *some* meaning in a single & bare chord. Maybe not much, not enough to register as a full emotion with all its complexity...but there is still *something*. As microtonalists, I know we are *all* concerned with the subtle emotional differences between intervals and the contributions these subtleties can make to music. To understand *how* intervals are different from each other, do we not first have to understand their individual characteristic/powers? Or at least the limits of their metaphorical potentials? I mean, there just HAS TO be *some* level of meaning, however vague, to individual chords, and that is what Mike is trying to investigate.

-Igs

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Daniel Forró <dan.for@...> wrote:
>
> Meaning in music (including emotional) of course comes "from
> intervals and harmonies". It appears on higher level than individual
> isolated notes, intervals or chords - that is from their interaction
> in time. Because music is time dependent art. When listening the
> music, we don't hear individual notes (intervals, chords, note
> lengths...) but their context. (Same with language - individual
> characters or phonems have no meaning, and we don't read individual
> characters or hear individual phonems, but words and sentences - this
> has some meaning, words itself, and words combined into sentences,
> and there's even hidden meaning very often there, expressed by
> intonation, expression, dynamics, tempo and color of the voice, and
> let's not forget about abstract metaphors in poems far from the real
> meaning of words and sentences). Shapes of melody, upper and lower
> peaks, opening and closing formulae... this bears some meaning.
> Chords and their progressions in Western music are usually connected
> with melody, support its shapes, accompany it and depending on chord
> complexity and balance of consonances and dissonances, and also
> depending on rhythmic structure, timbre, instrumentation, dynamics,
> expression, articulation, tempo changes... we feel tension or
> relax... All this is also connected with form of the work - motifs,
> themes, periods, question/answer... And there are also some typical
> patterns for each music style, epoch, every composer has some typical
> and stable constants which we can learn to recognize and enjoy... On
> the first hearing usually we can also hear motivic and thematic
> work, changes of the shape of melody, variations, modulations,
> changing major - minor, return of motifs, their tonal relations,
> procesual changes or sudden contrasts, gradation, climax, anticlimax,
> tempo changes, density of textures etc. Thanks to our memory we can
> keep motifs and other elements there and compare with the other which
> will come later during listening the work. This comparison which we
> learn by listening lot of music, and by repeated listening to the
> same works, is our listener's experience, in fact cultural self
> education. Thanks to this composer can build the composition, its
> form, and when we have some listening experience (even without deeper
> knowledge of music theory) we start to understand what composer and
> his/her work want to tell us. All this interaction starts to have
> some higher sense, logic, connection, meaning, associations,
> relations to the other works of the same composer, the other
> composers, the other musical styles, epochs... And of course
> intelectual understanding is one thing, but music has also emotional
> impact. But in my opinion it's so much connected to that constructive
> domain of music, that to enjoy music fully on the emotional level, we
> must have certain level of listening experience. And this is not
> universal, even not in our contemporary global village where anybody
> can listen any music from all over the world. We have to learn some
> style by active and repeated listening to it, and after some
> experience we can start to understand its dialect and enjoy it. If we
> are not ready to enjoy some style, we can't enjoy it - it sounds just
> boring to us.
>
> There's nothing universal about human expression and emotions. Try to
> live few years in Japan (like me :-) and you will understand what I
> mean. Generally.
>
> And concerning the music, Japanese have been exposed to Western music
> since about 1870, but until now only few of them can really
> understand it and enjoy.
>
> I doubt some Borneo aborigin will be able to enjoy Mozart piano
> sonata or Bartok music fully... Or that we westerners would fully
> understand (and therefore also emotionally enjoy) some Indian raga,
> all those nuances hidden there... But of course we can learn to
> understand and enjoy it by some study and lot of listening experience.
>
> Daniel Forro
>
> On 28 Sep 2010, at 12:20 AM, cityoftheasleep wrote:
>
> > Look: I know that in music (or at least in culture), context is
> > capable of over-riding things like pyschoacoustic response. But I
> > still cannot figure out where you and Cameron and Daniel believe
> > emotional meaning actually enters music. If it doesn't come from
> > the intervals and harmonies, where then DOES it come from? Daniel
> > said that bare intervals are "neutral", which I take to mean
> > "without inherent meaning". So the question becomes: how do you
> > construct meaning with a bunch of meaningless symbols? Chords at
> > least have to have some kind of "function" the way letters in an
> > alphabet do, but if that function is not related to some kind of
> > emotional gestalt, what IS it related to? I mean, I understand
> > that cultural context has its effect, but it surely cannot account
> > for ALL the meaning in music.
> >
> > Is it not nearly a universal human ability to hear "pain" in
> > another's voice, even if we share neither language nor culture? Is
> > there nothing universal about human expression that might explain
> > from when music derives its emotional content?
> >
> > -Igs
> >
>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Mark" <mark.barnes3@...> wrote:
> Also, Igs, you are wrong. People are not the only animals who can be happy or sad. These > are the most basic of emotions.

I never said that. You're quoting Kalle, and I'm sure he was not ruling out other animals, either. He was distinguishing between "emotions as residing in the subject" and "emotion as an objective property of a stimulus".

-Igs

Dear Carl, this will be my last comment *inhsallah* on the topic which
sadly began to revolve around my person. If anything, my criticisms
and objections against these "slap-happy" theory candidates will
hopefully serve to help these garrulous and exuberant gentlemen to
concretize their claims and make positive contributions to the field
of musical acoustics & mathematics one day *inshallah*.

Cordially,
Dr. Oz.

✩ ✩ ✩
www.ozanyarman.com

On Sep 27, 2010, at 10:08 PM, Carl Lumma wrote:

> Mike wrote:
>
>> My sincerest apologies to Ozan Yarman that he'll never know
>> any of this.
>
> We don't need comments like this.
>
> -Carl

On Mon, Sep 27, 2010 at 2:08 PM, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:
>
> Mike wrote:
>
> > My sincerest apologies to Ozan Yarman that he'll never know
> > any of this.
>
> We don't need comments like this.
>
> -Carl

I see. Well, the truth is that he won't know any of it, because he
can't see my posts, because he has me put on a filter. So if you
consider my little one-liner about it to be offensive and
inappropriate, you should then address his several longer, drawn-out
posts in which he asserts I know nothing of tuning and have nothing to
contribute. I assure you these are far more insulting, as they were
intended to be.

-Mike

MikeB>"So if you consider my little one-liner about it to be offensive and
inappropriate, you should then address his several longer, drawn-out
posts in which he asserts I know nothing of tuning and have nothing to
contribute. I assure you these are far more insulting, as they were
intended to be."

Same here with Ozan's disposition to me. How come Cameron, Igs, Chris, and
so many others don't seem to have a problem with at least giving people like
myself or Igs or MikeB some credit for our (if odd) honest efforts here while a
couple of others (and virtually always the same people, who virtually always
carry a supposed "uphold the standards of academia" attitude) just whine
endlessly about how people who are giving serious effort to the art of tuning
supposedly have "no knowledge about tuning and nothing to contribute"?

I hate being "cornered" into touching on this issue every other post...but
the fact is there seems to be more effort going on toward cutting the "bad
people" out of getting an honest word in than there is solving problems. EVEN
if you (IE anyone on this list) thinks a problem posed on the list is
"stupid"...at least have the sense to let the handful of people interested in
trying to solve said problem do their thing in peace. And if no one is
interested, the topic will die out on its own. Is this really so hard to do?!

On Mon, Sep 27, 2010 at 2:17 PM, cityoftheasleep
<igliashon@...> wrote:
>
> But when you try to understand how a language works--even if it's your own language--you start with the formal/"proper" uses of the most basic components of it. Just because a single word has less meaning than a sentence, or receives a good portion of its meaning from context, does not mean it has no inherent meaning.

Haha! I should just hire you to proofread posts for me. Everything
that I end up taking paragraphs to say you can put in sentences. But
yes! That is what I mean to say.

I would have to say that the optimum tradeoff between the accuracy of
prediction and structural complexity is the chord progression. Would
you not agree? That is, Gmaj7/A is its own "feeling" in isolation (I
dunno, is it "sunny?" Is this the "sky opens up and the birdies are
chirping" chord?), but when you place it in the context of ||: Fm9
C#m9 | Gmaj/A Bm9 :||, it is much, much less so.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lECuN0XQcWk).

But what really irritates me is - of COURSE the analysis doesn't just
stop there, at that "different chords produce different feelings in
different contexts." No, it doesn't. Because we know that F#m9 -> C#m9
implies Dorian mode, which has a certain sound, and the Gmaj7/A is
borrowed from phrygian mode, which is MUCH "darker" sounding than
Dorian (I would be very, very surprised if this wasn't a universal
percept), and so that chord is extra colorful as the modal shift takes
place, and so on.

So what is really the "holy grail" for me is to find some way to
explain why the MODES have the feelings they do, and then generalize
that to xenharmonic scales. That being said, the minor chord is where
I'm digging in. It is worth noting that musical emotions are far from
being immune to testable predictions of the emotion that some musical
element will create - improvisational music basically thrives on it. I
see no reason to assume that the psychoacoustic and cognitive roots of
these predictions couldn't be derived.

-Mike

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "cityoftheasleep" <igliashon@...> wrote:
> I think you have to agree that there is *some* meaning in a single & bare chord.

... and you ended with:

>I mean, there just HAS TO be *some* level of meaning, however vague, to individual chords, and that is what Mike is trying to investigate.

I just don't understand this: WHY does there have to be some meaning to a chord? WHY does anyone have to agree with this statement? These are the kind of things that people just out and out "say", but there isn't anything more to it.

If there IS meaning to a simple C major chord, how is it that it can be used so differently, and mean different things to different listeners in different contexts? Even if one were to come up with some form of observable and repeatable effect that an individual chord might have, it would have to affect each individual the same. I don't think so.

On 28 Sep 2010, at 11:04 AM, Mike Battaglia wrote:
> Because we know that F#m9 -> C#m9
> implies Dorian mode,

Only in the case F#m is the main key, tonic.

> which has a certain sound, and the Gmaj7/A is
> borrowed from phrygian mode,

If you talk here about borrowing, then Gmaj7/A is used usually as dominant substitution, so it's from D major, that means Ionian.

> which is MUCH "darker" sounding than
> Dorian (I would be very, very surprised if this wasn't a universal
> percept), and so that chord is extra colorful as the modal shift takes
> place, and so on.
>
> So what is really the "holy grail" for me is to find some way to
> explain why the MODES have the feelings they do,

Because they have typical characteristic intervals and latent harmony, the way, how to harmonize individual tones of mode, and some typical melodic and harmonic patterns. Which we can recognize only in proper melodic/harmonic context.

Daniel Forro

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "jonszanto" <jszanto@...> wrote:
> I just don't understand this: WHY does there have to be some meaning to a chord? WHY does anyone have to agree with this statement? These are the kind of things that people just out and out "say", but there isn't anything more to it.
>

Because if a chord does not have any meaning of its own, on any level, then we should be able to change any chord anywhere in any piece of music without changing the overall emotional/semantic content of the piece.

>
If there IS meaning to a simple C major chord, how is it that it can be used so differently, and mean different things to different listeners in different contexts?
>

Well, that C major chord may mean a lot of different things, but it's not capable of meaning literally ANYTHING. The limits of what it is capable of meaning are what we are after, or specifically how those limits compare with other chord-qualities. And regardless of what it's capable of meaning in different contexts, we can make valid assessments of what it means "by itself", or in relation to "C minor" or what have you.

>
Even if one were to come up with some form of observable and repeatable effect that an individual chord might have, it would have to affect each individual the same. I don't think so.
>

No, it wouldn't. Nothing in psychology is 100%. We're looking for a strong correlation of sufficient statistical significance, not a law of nature. I mean, even in pharmaceutical research, there are wide variations in effects of every drug, and if all drugs were withheld from the market unless 100% effectiveness in 100% of cases was established...there would be no medicine.

In a recent listening test I conducted on myself, I found that I ranked an octave as more concordant than a unison. In fact, I put the unison as less concordant than a fifth. Does my one set of aberrant ears invalidate the whole of psychoacoustics?

If it turns out that we can make no statistically-significant correlation between individual chords and individual emotional responses, then you and Cameron can gloat over us in nihilistic glee and laugh about how chords are meaningless and emotion is all in the ear of beholder.

Until then, I challenge you to show me a chord progression where you can make a C minor sound happier than a C major. Seriously.

-Igs

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "cityoftheasleep" <igliashon@...> wrote:
> If it turns out that we can make no statistically-significant correlation between individual chords and individual emotional responses, then you and Cameron can gloat over us in nihilistic glee and laugh about how chords are meaningless and emotion is all in the ear of beholder.
>
> Until then, I challenge you to show me a chord progression where you can make a C minor sound happier than a C major. Seriously.

Excuse me, but I'm not the one making claims for the remarkable characteristics that these individual chords, *others* are. Unless they can show that to be the case, I call naked emperor. And I'm not in cahoots with anyone else, I'm not into "gloating", this is just my observation. Seriously.

Since this seems predominantly a Western-centric argument anyway, I'd like you to stroll down to a military funeral and, as they play taps, ask the people WTF is wrong with them, being so sad with a major triad!?

On 28 Sep 2010, at 12:26 PM, cityoftheasleep wrote:

>
> Because if a chord does not have any meaning of its own, on any > level, then we should be able to change any chord anywhere in any > piece of music without changing the overall emotional/semantic > content of the piece.

I don't think so. Chords have certain harmonic function in music context, so order of chords and their shape is important for music as a language. But harmonic functions has some substitutions, so if we use different chord from the same substitution group, basic emotional context is preserved.

>
> Until then, I challenge you to show me a chord progression where > you can make a C minor sound happier than a C major. Seriously.
>
> -Igs

Try for example Mozart - G minor symphony, Beethoven - 5th symphony, Paganini - Campanella, Chopin - lot of fast and happy works in minor tonality, Liszt - Hungarian Rhapsodies, Bartok - Allegro barbaro.... Major keys can express the same emotions like minor keys, and it can be both happiness and sadness. 50:50. Only total shape of music, melodic and harmonic context, its tempo, create final impact. And final impact is culturally dependent, and there can be of course also subjective differences how some music is perceived.

Daniel Forro

On Mon, Sep 27, 2010 at 10:04 PM, Daniel Forró <dan.for@...> wrote:
>
> On 28 Sep 2010, at 11:04 AM, Mike Battaglia wrote:
> > Because we know that F#m9 -> C#m9
> > implies Dorian mode,
>
> Only in the case F#m is the main key, tonic.

Which it is.

> > which has a certain sound, and the Gmaj7/A is
> > borrowed from phrygian mode,
>
> If you talk here about borrowing, then Gmaj7/A is used usually as
> dominant substitution, so it's from D major, that means Ionian.

Which is the same thing as F# phrygian, except they use it in this
case in a way which doesn't end up having to resolve, so there's no
reason to assume that D is implied as a tonic in any sense.

-Mike

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Daniel Forró <dan.for@...> wrote:

> Try for example Mozart - G minor symphony, Beethoven

- 5th symphony,

Which ends triumphantly in C major, of course.

On 28 Sep 2010, at 1:34 PM, Mike Battaglia wrote:
>>
>> If you talk here about borrowing, then Gmaj7/A is used usually as
>> dominant substitution, so it's from D major, that means Ionian.
>
> Which is the same thing as F# phrygian,

They just use the same notes, but it's not the same thing.

> except they use it in this
> case in a way which doesn't end up having to resolve, so there's no
> reason to assume that D is implied as a tonic in any sense.
>
> -Mike

But in fact there's a resolution to Bm, and we can suppose good improviser will play Aeolian Bm here (to keep the same notes as in previous chord). This resolution can be understood as V-VI, where VI (= Bm) is substitution for I (= D).

Another possibility is to understand those four chords like Bm is tonic (Aeolian), and C#m9 borrowed chord. Then Gmaj/A will be VII.

Anyway not so important. There can be always more explanations for some harmonic progressions. That's beauty of music.

Daniel Forro

:-) I mean beginning.

At least we can see here how important is tonal plan of composition
(in tonal music, of course).

Daniel Forro

On 28 Sep 2010, at 1:38 PM, genewardsmith wrote:

>
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Daniel Forró <dan.for@...> wrote:
>
>> Try for example Mozart - G minor symphony, Beethoven
>
> - 5th symphony,
>
> Which ends triumphantly in C major, of course.

On Mon, Sep 27, 2010 at 11:48 PM, Daniel Forró <dan.for@...> wrote:
>
> On 28 Sep 2010, at 1:34 PM, Mike Battaglia wrote:
>
> If you talk here about borrowing, then Gmaj7/A is used usually as
> dominant substitution, so it's from D major, that means Ionian.
>
> Which is the same thing as F# phrygian,
>
> They just use the same notes, but it's not the same thing.

OK, you can say it's D ionian if you want, I'm not going to argue. My
point was that the background tonal set shifts from F# G# A B C# D# E
to F# G A B C# D E

> But in fact there's a resolution to Bm, and we can suppose good improviser will play Aeolian Bm here (to keep the same notes as in previous chord). This resolution can be understood as V-VI, where VI (= Bm) is substitution for I (= D).

Right, I knew you'd say that :) You COULD analyze it that way, and if
you have built up a framework for doing so then feel free to. I tend
to think of things in terms of how they relate to the tonic, since I
think it's easier to see what notes are changing, and I think it's an
elegant framework to work in. But my point is that the shift to D
ionian is differentiated from the shift to some other ionian key by
the fact that in D ionian the G# and D# become flattened relative to
what they were. We could modulate to G# ionian if we wanted to, but it
would sound different as different notes were changing

> Another possibility is to understand those four chords like Bm is tonic (Aeolian), and C#m9 borrowed chord. Then Gmaj/A will be VII.
> Anyway not so important. There can be always more explanations for some harmonic progressions. That's beauty of music.

Indeed, much respect.

-Mike

Igs wrote:

> Until then, I challenge you to show me a chord progression where
> you can make a C minor sound happier than a C major. Seriously.

Why not just ask if Jon knows any such progressions?

-Carl

I will agree that a major chord cannot express anything but i could be talked out of that one in that a skilled composer could return to a c major chord and precede it to do just that.
But lets say it can't .
What science has to offer though is trivia to what we know as art.

For instance if i ask a psychoacoutician what is the minimal stimili needed to define a tempo, he quickly realises that the answer is monumentous beyond what he will ever be able to answer.

Why is it a composer can set up algorithm that match many of the composers and yet fail to produce a work we all want to hear more than once.

Do you believe for instance that art is nothing more than a science that has yet to be discovered?

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "cityoftheasleep" <igliashon@...> wrote:
>

> >
>
> Well, that C major chord may mean a lot of different things, but it's not capable of meaning literally ANYTHING. The limits of what it is capable of meaning are what we are after, or specifically how those limits compare with other chord-qualities. And regardless of what it's capable of meaning in different contexts, we can make valid assessments of what it means "by itself", or in relation to "C minor" or what have you.
>
> >
> Even if one were to come up with some form of observable and repeatable effect that an individual chord might have, it would have to affect each individual the same. I don't think so.
> >
>
> No, it wouldn't. Nothing in psychology is 100%. We're looking for a strong correlation of sufficient statistical significance, not a law of nature. I mean, even in pharmaceutical research, there are wide variations in effects of every drug, and if all drugs were withheld from the market unless 100% effectiveness in 100% of cases was established...there would be no medicine.
>
> In a recent listening test I conducted on myself, I found that I ranked an octave as more concordant than a unison. In fact, I put the unison as less concordant than a fifth. Does my one set of aberrant ears invalidate the whole of psychoacoustics?
>
> If it turns out that we can make no statistically-significant correlation between individual chords and individual emotional responses, then you and Cameron can gloat over us in nihilistic glee and laugh about how chords are meaningless and emotion is all in the ear of beholder.
>
> Until then, I challenge you to show me a chord progression where you can make a C minor sound happier than a C major. Seriously.
>
> -Igs
>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "jonszanto" <jszanto@...> wrote:
> Excuse me, but I'm not the one making claims for the remarkable characteristics that these individual chords, *others* are. Unless they can show that to be the case, I call naked emperor. And I'm not in cahoots with anyone else, I'm not into "gloating", this is just my observation. Seriously.
>

I'm not making any claims about any specific characteristics. I'm stating what I've noticed, and I'm stating what I consider the logical ramifications of my experience to be. I'm open to the possibility that I could be wrong, and that there's absolutely *nothing* about a single chord that conveys any emotional content at all. That that could be the case seems illogical and nonsensical to me, but I've never been one to insist that humanity and/or the universe obey my idea of logic or sensibility. All I'm saying is that you can't make a meaningful sentence out of gibberish, and that I think there has to be *some kind of* meaning to a chord that explains its ability to 1) give context to other chords and 2) receive context from other chords. As I've said: if it turns out that that meaning is more vague than conventional wisdom suggests, then so it is. But it's still worthy of study, just to figure out that little bit of meaning that may lurk in a single chord, from which larger meaning can be constructed. And we should not be so hasty to dismiss music's ability to convey meaning as "miraculous hocus-pocus" that admits of no rational or scientific explanation.

> Since this seems predominantly a Western-centric argument anyway, I'd like you to stroll down to a military funeral and, as they play taps, ask the people WTF is wrong with them, being so sad with a major triad!?
>

Well, I should think that their being at a funeral would have more to do with their sadness than their hearing a major triad. "Taps" is more frequently played as a "lullabye" than a dirge, and even in the funeral setting, expresses a "coming to peace". It's a "restful" song, not a sad one, and I can think of few triads that have a stronger claim to "restfulness" than a pure major triad. Strip the song of it of its cultural context, and all vestige of sadness is stripped away as well. Is it really so totally nuts to you that someone might want to investigate the potential meaning a chord can convey when stripped of its larger musical/cultural context?

Seriously, Jon, I'm not a simpleton. I'm not--and I never have been--arguing that all chords are stuck with fixed, narrow, absolute meanings, or that whatever meaning a chord might have will, of necessity, override a listener's own emotional state (though that may be possible in exceptional cases). I'm well aware that conditioning and association can override and in some cases create initial reactions to certain stimuli. Also, in my whole life, I've heard only one "musical" sound that can actually over-power my emotions, and that's the sound of a large gong played softly--a totally atonal sound, which never the less forced a relaxation upon me that I was powerless to resist. Certainly, though, I've heard plenty of non-musical sounds that induced other involuntary emotional responses--the sound of a human weeping, of a dog whining, a cat purring, the ocean crashing, a police siren, a fire alarm, a gunshot, etc. Humans are auditory creatures, and I think it's inarguable that the majority of us are tuned in to respond predictably to certain stimuli--why should we not expect to at least find suggestions or traces of these response patterns in relation to music?

So I ask you again, can you demonstrate a simple chord progression or melody that can make a minor chord sound happier than a major chord with the same root? If you can, I'll abandon this line of inquiry. If you can't, I'll ask you: why not?

-Igs

Igs,

Let me start with a very straight-forward statement: this is the last post I'll have on this, because I don't have anything more to add.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "cityoftheasleep" <igliashon@...> wrote:
> So I ask you again, can you demonstrate a simple chord progression or melody that can make a minor chord sound happier than a major chord with the same root? If you can, I'll abandon this line of inquiry. If you can't, I'll ask you: why not?

Define "happier". I mean that in all seriousness. You are basing - it seems to me - an awful lot on the purely subjective experience of YOU. Nothing wrong with that at all, but how you can then decide that it can be extrapolated out to all cases (within statistical normalcy, of course) is very hard to support.

If you think these individual chords possess some innate quality that is independent of context, it should affect *most* listeners this way. And I mean a big sampling, not just Westerners. I am sure there are "happy" minor triads in this world. The Bach Double, in d minor, never ceases to make me smile.

Even if - IF! - I posted some kind of progression, and said it sounded "happier" to me, what is the point? Disagree with it? Make a poll to see how many others are "happier" or "sadder"? Etc?

"Amazing grace, how sweet the sound..." But not sweet enough to keep it from causing eyes to tear up on many occasions. How weak is the effect of a major key/mode melody such as this, that it can't bring happiness?

Well, I don't have any answers to this, other than it is a very large world, and there are few absolutes. One of them is that this is my last post on the issue.

Just thought I'd throw this in, in case it adds any resolution to this
notion being discussed. A number of sociologists use the EPA - or
evaluation, potency, activity - space, on which "sentiments" (ie
non-contextual emotions) are often plotted in a spiral pattern. This comes
out of an approach by David R Heise, I believe (
http://www.indiana.edu/~socpsy/ACT/emotion_spiral.htm), based on the work of
Goffman and others. It offers a more detailed idea of "happy", "sad", and
whatever else you might consider the character of a symbol to be
emotionally. He also has mathematical ways of manipulating and solving these
systems, but he took that information offline when he published a book.

The "happy-sad" spectrum might be more useful to you, I don't know. The
scientifically responsible way to go about such a study would likely be to
use factors analysis and set up experiments, etc. I'm sure it's been done
for simple tonality structures.

Dan N

On Tue, Sep 28, 2010 at 5:03 AM, Daniel Nielsen <nielsed@...> wrote:
>
> Just thought I'd throw this in, in case it adds any resolution to this notion being discussed. A number of sociologists use the EPA - or evaluation, potency, activity - space, on which "sentiments" (ie non-contextual emotions) are often plotted in a spiral pattern. This comes out of an approach by David R Heise, I believe (http://www.indiana.edu/~socpsy/ACT/emotion_spiral.htm), based on the work of Goffman and others. It offers a more detailed idea of "happy", "sad", and whatever else you might consider the character of a symbol to be emotionally. He also has mathematical ways of manipulating and solving these systems, but he took that information offline when he published a book.
>
> The "happy-sad" spectrum might be more useful to you, I don't know. The scientifically responsible way to go about such a study would likely be to use factors analysis and set up experiments, etc. I'm sure it's been done for simple tonality structures.

Daniel, thanks for this reference. I'll give it more of a look see
later on. So it's sort of a three-factor approach then.

-Mike

Igs>>"I mean, there just HAS TO be *some* level of meaning, however vague, to
individual chords, and that is what Mike is trying to investigate."
Jon>"I just don't understand this: WHY does there have to be some meaning to a
chord? WHY does anyone have to agree with this statement?"

I wouldn't agree there's a "specific meaning" for a chord that's "always
true", but rather a range of meanings that usually follow the same mood
pattern. And, for example, I'd say the range for major chords is, on the
average, more upbeat or less startling (take your pick) than minor. Meanwhile
the most sad major is likely more sad than the least sad minor...but that's just
the tips of the scale far as those types of chords...not the average. So I
think you both are right, in a sense. :-D

Exactly, Mike, it's a 3-D approach, although I always sort of felt like the
"positive-negative" (evaluation) dimension might be further resolved. Only
using these 3 dimensions, some surprisingly accurate predictions and
understandings can be given, however. The idea is that we often come to
conclusions based on impression formation matrices defined in these 3
dimensions first, then draw in other cognitive factors to explain their
results. The difficulty can be getting from whatever the parameters are of
the system under study (eg emotional speech, vision processing and
attentional control, etc) to the 3 dimensions.

A useful outcome - at least IMO, if it were fully developed - would be the
linking of tonality structures to models of human emotional/associative
memory. One could possibly even use Heise's affect control theory (ACT) to
navigate a harmonic lattice or such - could be a useful tool. Of course, ACT
is not the only theory of emotional/associative memory; itself, it is sort
of an elaboration on cognitive dissonance. Along these lines, we might think
about how harmony relates to ideas of stress as well. In ACT, stress is
defined as the difference ("deflection") between sentiments and emotions
concerning one's own role. Of course, there are also many other theories of
stress. One predictive indicator of stress is the amount of change that has
occurred in one's circumstances (Holmes and Rahe), which might align with
the notion of musical predictability.

Whether these notions are applicable to chord structures and tuning schemes,
I don't know. Don't mean to add confusion to a tuning discussion, but
thought these notions might be useful.

On Tue, Sep 28, 2010 at 11:20 AM, Daniel Nielsen <nielsed@...> wrote:
>
> A useful outcome - at least IMO, if it were fully developed - would be the linking of tonality structures to models of human emotional/associative memory. One could possibly even use Heise's affect control theory (ACT) to navigate a harmonic lattice or such - could be a useful tool. Of course, ACT is not the only theory of emotional/associative memory; itself, it is sort of an elaboration on cognitive dissonance. Along these lines, we might think about how harmony relates to ideas of stress as well. In ACT, stress is defined as the difference ("deflection") between sentiments and emotions concerning one's own role. Of course, there are also many other theories of stress. One predictive indicator of stress is the amount of change that has occurred in one's circumstances (Holmes and Rahe), which might align with the notion of musical predictability.

That is a really fantastic idea and I'll look into that as soon as I
can. I also want to explore how emotions are constructed from a
neurological standpoint, and from what I've found so far they all
incorporate this "arousal" notion (really wish I had a better word).
So my current thinking is that "arousal" is caused partly by
dissonance. I'll look into Heise's theory to see how sympathetic
nervous system activation could play into it.

Also, consider that these patterns of arousal are sort of mimicked in
speech: when someone says a sentence and then puts an exclamation
point at the end of it! - their voice increases slowly in pitch and/or
intensity, reaches some peak, and then drops back in pitch at the very
end... sort of increasing in "arousal" and then decreasing at the end.
So it's kind of a mini-musical "resolution" in that sense, as
something like V-I does the same thing (especially if the leading tone
in V is raised).

So it would be good to explore these ideas from this new emotional
framework you've presented. By the way, I might be moving the
discussion to a side list called something like "tuning-research", you
would be welcome to join in over there if it ever actually happens.

-Mike

-Mike

Mike wrote:

> By the way, I might be moving the
> discussion to a side list called something like "tuning-research",

Good idea.

-Carl

Hi Jon,
I don't understand why you'd declare your intention not to respond further, but then continue the dialog by asking several non-rhetorical questions. That's just bad netiquette, tantamount to trolling even, and I'd expect better manners from you.

You've read an awful lot of absolutism into what I've stated is simply a line of inquiry I'm pursuing, NOT a conclusion I've already reached. I've stated plenty of times that I've arrived at my hypothesis by following the logical ramifications of things I've experienced. I've explicitly stated that just because something seems logical to me, doesn't mean I am convinced it must be so. On the contrary, you are the one who has already reached a conclusion without doing anything like a rigorous controlled study. Neither of us has anything other than anecdotal evidence right now, and while I am doing nothing more than proposing an investigation based on an hypothesis arrived at by logic, YOU are insisting that any such investigation is doomed from the get-go, based on YOUR experiences.

But for the sake of argument, I will concede that one chord on its own may have too vague of a meaning to be successfully studied. I should concede this anyway, because I recently posted audio examples of chords wherein a 6/5 above the root sounded "major", and another example wherein chords with a 5/4 above the root sounded "minor"--these examples demonstrated (at least to my satisfaction) that chord-quality is relative. But what about two chords that share all but one common tone? I've yet to see any evidence from *anybody* that there's no discernible emotional difference between a triad of 1-5/4-3/2 and a triad of 1-6/5-3/2. I'm not convinced that the one with the 6/5 is necessarily going to be sadder for everyone (at least, not any more).

But I DO suspect that for a given person, whatever emotion they associate with the 1-5/4-3/2 chord IN RELATION TO a 1-6/5-3/2 chord of the same root, no amount of *musical* (i.e. non-behavioral) context is capable of switching that emotional relationship for that person, as long as both chords are relatively present for comparison.

So: if we can't say that "chord x" has "emotional effect y" on it is own, is it at least plausible that we can say "chord x" will have "emotional effect y" if heard in relation to "chord z"?

And I really DO want to know (consider this to be the "start" of my data-gathering): have you ever heard a chord progression that can make a major chord sound sadder than a minor chord of the same root? I.e. a progression that has both a C major and a C minor in it, yet the C major sounds sadder than the C minor? I don't care if you expect me to agree or not, I JUST WANT TO KNOW IF IT DID IT FOR YOU. I've never seen it done for ANYONE before, so if you have any examples, they would make EXCELLENT data for me to analyze.

And of course, the "you" that I use in this message is really intended to mean "everyone else on the list", because I know Jon Szanto has preemptively declined further response.

-Igs

Igs,

>-- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "cityoftheasleep" <igliashon@...> wrote:
>
> I don't understand why you'd declare your intention not to respond further, but then continue the dialog by asking several non-rhetorical questions. That's just bad netiquette, tantamount to trolling even, and I'd expect better manners from you.

Then as brief as possible, I'll explain: by the time I wrote that response, a couple of situations had popped up out here in real life, and they got - as I expected - worse today. I won't have time for the foreseeable future to pay attention to the list, and if by mentioning some things that were on my mind before I left I ended up being a lesser person than you expect, I am sorry for that. Try not to ascribe any darker motivations to it than that I have to attend to my obligations to my life beyond intonation lists.

I wish you all the best in your explorations on these matters.

On Tue, Sep 28, 2010 at 1:46 PM, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:
>
> Mike wrote:
>
> > By the way, I might be moving the
> > discussion to a side list called something like "tuning-research",
>
> Good idea.
>
> -Carl

Thanks for your input.

-Mike

On 29 Sep 2010, at 3:17 AM, Mike Battaglia wrote:
> That is a really fantastic idea and I'll look into that as soon as I
> can. I also want to explore how emotions are constructed from a
> neurological standpoint, and from what I've found so far they all
> incorporate this "arousal" notion (really wish I had a better word).
> So my current thinking is that "arousal" is caused partly by
> dissonance. I'll look into Heise's theory to see how sympathetic
> nervous system activation could play into it.
>

IMHO arousal is created on the very basic level of musical language just from a sudden contrast, or processual changes. Change is the key word. Change of any kind, coming the new information. I think the same arousal is created by one connsonant chord in the row of dissonant ones as on dissonant in the series of connsonant ones.

Another important thing is a density of information, its placement in the running time.

On higher level of musical language it can be caused by interaction of motifs and themes and other musical parameters.

I would recommend to you the study of information theory or linguistics, maybe it's more near to music than neurology.

> Also, consider that these patterns of arousal are sort of mimicked in
> speech: when someone says a sentence and then puts an exclamation
> point at the end of it! - their voice increases slowly in pitch and/or
> intensity, reaches some peak, and then drops back in pitch at the very
> end... sort of increasing in "arousal" and then decreasing at the end.

This depends on the language, you talk probably about English, but there can be different intonation patterns in different languages.

> So it's kind of a mini-musical "resolution" in that sense, as
> something like V-I does the same thing (especially if the leading tone
> in V is raised).

Yes, music has this kind of connection to the language, especially in closing formulae of periods.

Daniel Forro

I'm all for this as well. If this tuning list frowns on debate so much and
MMM focuses more on completed songs and not deep tuning theory, I would
appreciate the sort of middle-ground a "tuning-research" list may provide. Just
let me know when you start it up and I'll be glad both to join and recommend
such a list.

Michael wrote:

> I'm all for this as well. If this tuning list frowns on
> debate so much and MMM focuses more on completed songs and not
> deep tuning theory, I would appreciate the sort of middle-ground
> a "tuning-research" list may provide. Just let me know when you
> start it up and I'll be glad both to join and recommend
> such a list.

If you need any help joining the new list and getting really
involved there, let me know.

-Carl

On Tue, Sep 28, 2010 at 6:41 PM, Michael <djtrancendance@...> wrote:
>
>      I'm all for this as well.  If this tuning list frowns on debate so much and MMM focuses more on completed songs and not deep tuning theory, I would appreciate the sort of middle-ground a "tuning-research" list may provide.  Just let me know when you start it up and I'll be glad both to join and recommend such a list.

It's already up, I called it tuning-research

-Mike

Jon,

Best of luck to you and Godspeed. I've had family stuff to attend to myself
a lot recently.

Chris

On Tue, Sep 28, 2010 at 4:22 PM, jonszanto <jszanto@...> wrote:

>
>
> Igs,
>
> >-- In tuning@yahoogroups.com <tuning%40yahoogroups.com>,
> "cityoftheasleep" <igliashon@...> wrote:
> >
> > I don't understand why you'd declare your intention not to respond
> further, but then continue the dialog by asking several non-rhetorical
> questions. That's just bad netiquette, tantamount to trolling even, and I'd
> expect better manners from you.
>
> Then as brief as possible, I'll explain: by the time I wrote that response,
> a couple of situations had popped up out here in real life, and they got -
> as I expected - worse today. I won't have time for the foreseeable future to
> pay attention to the list, and if by mentioning some things that were on my
> mind before I left I ended up being a lesser person than you expect, I am
> sorry for that. Try not to ascribe any darker motivations to it than that I
> have to attend to my obligations to my life beyond intonation lists.
>
> I wish you all the best in your explorations on these matters.
>
>
>

Eastern civilization is more oriented to feelings, expression,
pictures, generally right brain hemisphere. It was proofed by
scientific research, but it can be easily found from whole system of
art, philosophy, religion, mentality, behavior, even way of writing,
language...

We Westerners are more left brain oriented, more logic, construction,
less feelings, emotions...

So both culture regions expect some different experience from music.
Eastern people want expression, feelings, emotions, timbre,
meditation, fantasy, freedom, rubato rhythm, randomness... less
construction, form, processes, logic development, motivic and
thematic work, complex polyphony or complex accordics and harmony,
strict motoric rhythm as we from the West...

That's what I meant. I know from my own experience that Japanese like
most of all European music impressionistic style - Debussy, Ravel
and similar composers... also Messiaen... They prefer French music,
Roman culture, more free and based on fantasy type of invention, not
so much German composers with their complex structures. And I was
surprised how much jazz devoties are here, much higher percent of
population in comparison with Europe.

Daniel Forro

On 28 Sep 2010, at 3:52 AM, genewardsmith wrote:

>
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Daniel Forró <dan.for@...> wrote:
>
>> And concerning the music, Japanese have been exposed to Western music
>> since about 1870, but until now only few of them can really
>> understand it and enjoy.
>
> This differs from North America or Europe how, exactly? We don't go
> gaga over Beethoven's Ninth here, in any case.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Daniel Forró <dan.for@...> wrote:

> That's what I meant. I know from my own experience that Japanese like
> most of all European music impressionistic style - Debussy, Ravel
> and similar composers... also Messiaen... They prefer French music,
> Roman culture, more free and based on fantasy type of invention, not
> so much German composers with their complex structures.

And yet, when you look at what various Japanese conductors are noted for conducting, you come up with names like Prokoviev, Bruckner, Elgar or Dvorak.

Lot of Japanese study Western music, and many of them can be
successful in the West, but usually not in Japan (the reason why is
another story). But professional musicians are used to Western music,
and some understand it. I was talking about common people, generally.

Just a few links on brain hemispheres:

http://www.this-magic-sea.com/MINDBRN.HTM
(quotation)
"The left hemisphere operates the right side of the body, the right
hemisphere operates the left side. The left hemisphere, the one
looking out of the right eye and working the right side of the body,
has (in most Europeans, anyway) the speech center. The left
hemisphere does not speak, but is actively involved in music, poetry
and other forms of communication. This relationship does not hold
true for other language types. Japanese language, researchers
believe, is linked with the right hemisphere. Perhaps because it is
more tonal, poetic, less digital than European language. Bilingual
Japanese process English and Japanese in opposite hemispheres."

http://www.eric.ed.gov:80/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?
_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED187085&ERICExtSearch_SearchTy
pe_0=no&accno=ED187085
(quotation)
"Research conducted by Tadanobu Tsunoda on auditory and visual
sensation, designed to test and understand the functions of the
cerebral hemispheres, is discussed. Tsunoda discovered that the
Japanese responses to sounds by the left and the right sides of the
brain are very different from the responses obtained from people from
other countries. His tests show that a Japanese left cerebral
hemisphere receives a wide range of sounds: linguistics sounds (vowel
and consonant sounds); and nonlinguistic sounds, including cries,
emotional utterances, traditional Japanese musical instruments,
sounds of wind, waves, and creeks. In comparison, the range of sounds
received by the left hemisphere of people from western countries is
narrower, apparently limited to syllables made up of consonant and
vowel sounds. On the other hand, the right hemisphere of a Japanese
receives a very limited amount of artificial or man-made sounds:
mechanical sounds, Western musical instruments, and noise. Japanese
living outside of Japan where Western languages are spoken do not
show the typical Japanese pattern after the second or third
generation. However, the children of Americans or Koreans who are
exposed from their birth to a complete Japanese environment have the
Japanese brain functioning system. It appears that the uniqueness of
the Japanese brain functions comes from the influences of the
environment."

http://www.brainy-child.com/article/braindevcenter.shtml

http://www.cuug.ab.ca/dorfsmay/delirium/brain_hemis.html

http://www.successwaves.com/pages/activating-rt-brain.htm

http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?id=6238&action=new

http://www.tojet.net/articles/111.pdf

http://www.eupsychia.com/perspectives/articles/musicbrain.html

Daniel Forro

On 1 Oct 2010, at 4:51 AM, genewardsmith wrote:

>
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Daniel Forró <dan.for@...> wrote:
>
>> That's what I meant. I know from my own experience that Japanese like
>> most of all European music impressionistic style - Debussy, Ravel
>> and similar composers... also Messiaen... They prefer French music,
>> Roman culture, more free and based on fantasy type of invention, not
>> so much German composers with their complex structures.
>
> And yet, when you look at what various Japanese conductors are
> noted for conducting, you come up with names like Prokoviev,
> Bruckner, Elgar or Dvorak.