Quote:
Originally Posted by Neapolitan
I was not asking you to begin a test, I was hoping you would rely on people with far more money, time, resources, and experience than any of us have. 
I don't totally disagree with you, that someone from an entirely different culture would not (might not) relate to a musical passage (for example) happy or sad, whimsical or serious, etc etc. Because I believe some of those things are conditional. Say that every time you watched a movie as a kid when you heard motif that used tubas and kettle drums you would see an elephant walk by, fast-forward as adult you heard the same motif and was asked what does that sound like you mostly likely respond "an elephant." But if you played the same motif to someone else in another country who didn't have the chance to watch movies you've seen, you would probably not get the same answer, maybe he had a similar experience with a different movie and employed a similar motif. |
Much the point.
What you're essentially discussing is the beginnings of semiotics - A discipline of study rooted in discovering how we come to define meaning.
Its seperate, of course, to the studies which concluded there is no universal meaning behind music beyond agitation and calmness, but its extremely related.