What Makes Music So Universal?
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- Опубликовано: 13 июн 2024
- Is music universal? Join me as we explore how music from diverse cultures transcends borders, making moods and melodies relatable no matter where you are from. We’ll examine the balance between monotony and chaos that gives music its captivating rhythm and structure, and take a closer look at the connection between music and human nature.
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Nicely explained. Thanks Professor Pinker.
Great episode as usual 😊
I'm always eager to hear or read anything Dr. Pinker has to say. His articulateness and felicity are virtually unrivaled. That said, I'm hoping for some improvement in the audio levels and quality in these videos, and I look forward to many more posts.
Music... sounds that are partway between "monotony and chaos". Pinker gives shapes to our nebulous, unspoken thoughts.
Thank you for finally discussing this topic, I could go on about this for hours! Balance between monotony and chaos, quite a metaphor there :) I have a unique perspective on this subject as a musician who has learned many instruments from many different cultures and there are for sure some overarching concepts. Kind of how language has basic rules/preferences for consonant and vowel combinations, how fast you talk, adding spaces between sounds to "breathe", its all very connected to music. Im interested in the lullaby recognition, quite an interesting phenomenon
I like psychedellic music because it combines monotony and «chaos». And it is quite diverse as a genre. Family members on the spectrum often wear headset with music, helps them dampen sensory overload I guess. A musician I know says «music is life», I guess he is not wrong. It sure can be used for many things.🤔😊
Looking for evolutionary advantage? Rythm helps in memorizing narratives for passing culture through generations. We would have not had the Iliad had it not been sung for centuries with the accompaniment of a lyre, before it was written down. Pitch, harmony and volume, the survival advantage of making our sentiments known to fellow members of Homo sapiens.
It depends on what (thing) in the music you are sectoring out though (dancing isn't music). When people say (music) they tend to mean (tone) or (rhythm). Tone might be more easy to isolate (octave or resonance inference), while rhythm may be more about (motor sequences and control factors for behavior). But why octave based inference? I can think of a few adaptive advantages for octave based tonal detection. The ability to detect and distinguish octave-based tonal differences likely provides significant adaptive advantages. For instance, moving through dense leaves can vary in difficulty based on the thickness or density of the foliage, which affects the sound frequencies produced (which you can infer a predators ability or your own ability to navigate that medium). Similarly, the tones formed by an animal as it jumps into water compared relative to the sound you make as you jumped into water, the resulting tonal differential can indicate its size. If the sound is an octave lower, it suggests that the animal might be twice as large. This ability to perceive octave differences can help organisms infer important information about their environment and potential threats. For example, the sound of a growl or call from another animal can provide clues about the size of the animal’s throat and, consequently, its potential threat level. This could indicate whether the animal is large enough to pose a danger, such as being able to swallow you. Recognizing these tonal differences allows for better navigation, predator avoidance, and environmental awareness, underscoring the evolutionary importance of octave-based sound detection. Octave detection shaped to detect depth or density of a physical material or medium of sound transfer = inference about one's ability to navigate within dense undergrow, water depth, or a predators ability to navigate the dense undergrowth or water depth.
It should be said that the musicologist's skepticism is toward the universality of music as content, not the universality of music as practice (that is, as a behavior people engage in). The assertion that "music is a universal language" is not far off from (the obviously redundant) "language is a universal language" -- we all know language when we hear it; setting aside some more unusual or extreme examples, we are probably mostly in agreement on what does and doesn't constitute language; we are also pretty good at judging when someone is excited, angry, sad, and so on simply from the sound of their voice.
But none of this magically gives us the ability to *comprehend* any language. Not even close. Learning to comprehend even one additional language as an adult represents a monumental task involving hundreds or thousands of hours of exposure and study.
So it goes with music, although the bar to gaining comprehension is perhaps not quite as high as with language (for many, it is certainly a more enjoyable process!). You can listen to a form of foreign music and recognize that it's music. You can likely identify rhythmic and/or melodic parallels with whatever form of music you are native to. You can make a guess as to what the music is expressing on a basic emotional level, and you have a good chance of being correct. But sorry -- that's still not comprehension. That's not experiencing the music anything like a native participant (whether performer or otherwise). Anyone who has gone through the process of musical acculturation will tell you that the way they hear/experience the music now is radically different than the way they heard/experienced it at the beginning of their journey.
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your perspective), music does not have the kind of built-in comprehension checks that language does. You can tell very quickly how well someone knows a language by simply conversing with them in that language. Musicians versed in a given tradition can also do this to some extent with other musicians. But for casual listeners/observers? Many people fully believe that they "get" a musical practice because it sounds nice to them and they can manage to locate the beat; imagine if this were the criteria for judging one's own language comprehension!
In short, this is why (contemporary) musicologists hate the "music is a universal language" trope; when we actually apply the criteria used to judge linguistic comprehension, communication, and intelligibility, it falls apart.
So, it's not auditory cheesecake any more? I think I am missing something here? Did Steven change his position on this? Books like "This is what it sounds like" by Rogers, "Your Brain on Music" by Levitin and Sack's "Musicophilia" have pointed to these findings previously. Joscha Bach seems to convey that Music might just represent the geometry needed to describe a theory of everything.
It’s still auditory cheesecake if you ask Pinker. His point is that music-universal as it may be-is not itself adaptive but a byproduct of something that is. I think cheesecake is overly specific if you want to stretch this analog; it is better compared to a music genre.
I myself suspect the broader concepts have wedged themselves deeply enough to have been captured in the genome to some extent. It’s attractive to please others with nice meals, proving you can provide and more. It’s attractive to please others with nice sounds. Both can provide cohesion. Humming has been compared to the idle noises animals make, the absence of which alerts others that something might be up. But this is still more on the level of a hunch than solid evidence. Some anthropologist is probably screaming at me, which is okay because they are less attractive for it. ;-)
I'm having a hard time understanding why a major chord sounds (on point), and I don't think it's conditioned (our brains just come with this capability), there is a cancelation of beating patterns occurring and this differential, where (higher octave frequency (Hf) - lower octave frequency(Lf)) therefore 0.25992(Hf-Lf) = length of major 3rd from root, and (0.49831(Hf-Lf) = length of fifth from root), where there is a approximately quarterly and half multiples, that are additive to the differential to reach the next octave. But how does this weird number equate to a perfect cancelation 1.49831*(differential)?... are we sure that the thing we are detecting is actually this .49831 or .5, and .25992 or .25... these are weird ratios, 2^(4/12) = 1.25992, 2^(7/12) = 1.49831?
While the major third is a fundamental interval in Western music, many musical cultures around the world use different scales and tuning systems where the major third is NOT a primary interval. Indian classical music uses intervals similar to a major third, but different. Major thirds are NOT part of traditional Japanese music. Major thirds are present in traditional Chinese music, but almost never emphasized. Indonesian Gamelan, traditional African, Native American Music -- all make little to no use of the major third interval.
@@1signal2noise3 Wherever you got this information is incorrect. The major third or shudda gandhar in hindustani music is exactly the same interval as the major third in western music. It is used in many ragas from Asavari, Bilawal, Bhairav, Kalyan, Khamaj, Purvi, and Marwa thaats. Japanese music especially Minyo uses the major third all the time. Its true that it is omitted from nagauta, jiuta, and other classical/high art forms but it is very much part of the traditional folk music of Japan. Do Re Mi Sol La is the most common scale. Traditional Chinese music is too vast a topic to be generalized, but there is definitely an emphasis on the major third in many genres. Listen to the guqin, its music emphasizes the major third all the time. Happy to provide examples to back up all this if youre interested.
@@world_musician The Gandhar can be either "shuddha" (natural) or "komal" (flat), but it is not directly equated to the Western major or minor third intervals.
Yes, would be interested to hear an example of traditional Chinese music that emphasized the third. Thank you.
Equal Temperament: Major third = 400 cents. Just Intonation: Major third = approximately 386.31 cents (for 5:4 ratio).
Indian Shuddha Gandhar (Ga) is approximately 386 cents above the tonic (Sa). These are similar, but not exactly the same.
So Jacques Brel was wrong when he sang
"Bien sûr qu'il y a les guerres d'Irlande,
et les peuplades sans musique."
I'm making universal music...
What a remarkable lack of insight! Why is this person reporting out research that adds nothing to a deeply fascinating question? Leonard Bernstein talked about the unanswered question in his Harvard lectures from more than 50 years ago. In them, he made the connection between Noam Chomsky‘s theories of language universals and universals for music. While I didn’t agree with some of what he had to say, he had some marvelous insights and intriguing questions. Steven Pinker isn’t worthy of being mentioned in the same breath…
What a remarkable lack of manners!
Imma guessing you get some brief satisfaction out of tossing off a few smug points and stomping out of the room with a steaming pile in the middle of the floor. Cultured folks tend to restrain their own ego, and walk out quietly. Dr. Pinker describes that trend in Better Angels of Our Nature.
I recommend it. Bill Gates does too.