wikipedia][SIZE=15px]Missed beat syncopation causes a physical effect in the body of the listener as his/her body moves to supply the missing beat. Complex syncopation has been used to overload the brain to induce abreaction and as a prelude to brain washing[/SIZE][/quote]
[font=verdana][SIZE=15px](source: _https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncopation#Types_of_syncopation)[/SIZE][/font]
That wikipedia quote is bit problematic said:
Lyrics are easy to analyze, but what about the sounds of music itself? There are many elements in music that produce all the variety. One of which is the type of music scales used... major or minor... C, G, A, etc. Major scales (especially C) seem to produce really bold and joyeous music, while minor scales seem (at least to me) to be much more subdued and sad.[/size]
I agree. There's some research done which may explain why minor key is associated with sadness, and this perhaps suggest that it's not just culturally conditioned. According to
some studies, the minor 3rd interval, -which is associated with sadness in music-, has been observed being more present in sad speech:
"In the study, Meagan Curtis of Tufts University's Music Cognition Lab recorded undergraduate actors reading two-syllable lines—like "let's go" and "come here"—with different emotional intonations: anger, happiness, pleasantness and sadness (listen to the recordings here). She then used a computer program to analyze the recorded speech and determine how the pitch changed between syllables. Since the minor third is defined as a specific measurable distance between pitches (a ratio of frequencies), Curtis was able to identify when the actors' speech relied on the minor third. What she found is that the actors consistently used the minor third to express sadness."
It would make sense that there's some aspects of music that are highly imprinted in our brains, that ties together with development of speech for example. I don't think that we associate only through cultural condition the major key with happiness and minor key with sadness. Though i would say that the key itself is not that important (e.g is C major happier than B major?), because most of us can't recognize the keys from each other, unless we have perfect pitch. Usually songs are composed to certain keys to optimize the range and playability of the instruments. Though we could recognize unconsciously if the song is in different key and it could affect slightly different way.
Maybe there's something universal in music that connects us all together. Here's interesting short clip where Bobby McFerrin demonstrates this point i think:
Like mentioned, music is build on different elements: rhythm, pitch (melody and harmony) and timbre (tone color). Different music genres and styles are defined by these elements. Each style and individual song has certain kind of rhythmic, melodic, harmonic and timbric language, that together create it's unique sound. For example in jazz music syncopated rhythms, extended and altered chords, swing-feel, improvisation, instruments like saxophone, piano and double-bass are often present.
Most music that we hear is
tonal, which means it's based on hierarchical system where different chords and tones have certain function and different "value", that will determine and limit their usage into certain situations. For instance tonic degree is sort of "magnet" where other chord degrees, especially dominant degree, like to resolve. When you sing 'Over the rainbow' second verse ending '
really do come true', the word 'true' ends on the tonic. You might notice how your ear guides the word 'true' to end on the tonic note, feeling like the melody resolves nicely. Music can be described as movement in time between tension and release. This idea is encapsulated with this resolvement from dominant degree into tonic degree.
We recognize these musical hierachies and expect and anticipate music based on these rules. Our culture affects also to these expectations; if you're raised in Indian village, you're probably more familiar with ragas and sitar music than average westerner, being able to recognize it's musical elements. Simply said: our brains seek different patterns in music that make sense. What happens if there's no pattern to found?
Harmony and melody are sort of different sides of the same coin. Harmony is vertical and melody is horisontal event. Single tones are like letters that create words and sentences when combined together. Vibration of the pitch determines name of tone. In modern classical music the tonal system was abandoned last century, which led into dominating era of atonal music. Atonality is attempt to break these tonal rules, by using different techiques which will distort the tonal centre of music. Maybe it originated from a mind of psychopath or someone with dominant thinking center, because at least for me there's no emotional elements there. In atonal music there's only tension without release from harmonic perspective.
So for me atonality is like distorting the melody and harmony in a way that we
can't really recognize any meaning in them anymore:
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.
He said: "Many people still seem to find modern classical music challenging. If that is the case, then they can relax as it is challenging for a good reason and it is not because they are in some way too musically stupid to appreciate it. "The brain is a pattern seeking organ, so it looks for patterns in music to make sense of what we hear. The music of Bach, for example, embodies a lot of the pattern forming process.
"Some of the things that were done by those composers such as Schoenberg undermined this cognitive aid for making music easier to understand and follow. Schoenberg's music became fragmented which makes it harder for the brain to find structure.
So perhaps distortion of these elements is example of less objective music in some way, from purely musical standpoint. Examples can be also found in pop music, where it's common practise to distort the timbre of natural voice by heavy autotuning and processing. Same editing often destroys the rhytmic and dynamic nuances of instruments, where everything becomes controlled, precised and numb. Then there's these unimaginative ways to create songs, -in the spirit of Orwell's 1984 'versificator' device- where same few chord structures and other song writing cliches are used over and over again. Not very creative or original.
From
latest session:
A: The 70's were the time of development of such concepts and technologies. The 80's were the period when implementation became more widespread. At present 90 percent of broadcast music has corrupting elements.
C's comment reminded me about
this article, where we can see graphs of how dramatically the lyrical content have changed during the last 50 years, and especially during the last decades. Quite telling!
Laura said:
I used to harass my mother to sing Old Man River at bedtime.
Interesting to recall that the two most impressive songs I remember from my early childhood were sung by black men and depicted the plight of black people in the racial US, more or less. One was irrepressibly cheerful and the other a soul wrenching lament.
Earliest song i remember is this traditional Finnish folk song, which my mom sung when i was young. It's called 'cii-, cii-, cigar roll', where cigar roll means baby in a swaddle
edit: added link and corrected translation!
