sopsych

I seriously think I could get an opinion from one of them (based on that person's online activity). It's weird if no one else sees the resemblance. By the way, judging from the last names, their ancestors come from the same small part of the world.

Rubato

To me music is just a series of coherent patterns that we've been conditioned to associate with our emotions. So I believe music to be more an evolution in communication than anything else. Whether we use maqams or western scales if they fail to form a coherent structure according to their own axioms we find it difficult to relate to them.

Take any western piece of music and you'll get a general consensus of whether it is a sad, happy or haunting piece, but I don't think it makes music an objective study, take a piece of eastern music and people tend to relate to it by it's country of origin rather than an inherit emotion, take an atonal piece to someone who hasn't formed a grasp of atonal music and every atonal piece will sound devoid of any message and just disturbing.

Salami

I'm going to have to disagree with you there. When I sit down to play some Scott Joplin on the piano or work out some finger picking on the guitar, I'm not remotely interested in whether anyone's heard me or not. I do it because it sounds pleasing to me, and I enjoy it for the sake of that. It could be considered merely releasing endorphins as a natural response from my endocrine system, but I think that if if it were something intrinsic to communication and me assuming it's connection with emotion is purely me having been "conditioned", then somehow I would feel that what I'm doing is more of a message than an "acceleration of celestial experience".

Rubato

Communication has more than one form, if Someone writes something down in their diary it's not for the amusement of the reader. If you play a Scott Joplin piece he's communicating to you, it's not a requirement that you pass it on to someone else.


*his*

Paedantic Basterd

Thought it might be the case. It was the impression I received from your manner of speaking, but I didn't want to offend you by assuming either way.

Calm

Yeh there's a lot of truth in that, though I doubt either of us are experts when it comes to the psychology of music.

I would say that it is a lot more indirect than you tend to suggest: our association of sounds with feeling probably has a lot more to do with our understanding of emotions in standard communication. So instead of learning from music itself we learn from elsewhere: be it verbal/ visual or whatever.

None of this does anything to belittle the effect of music, of course, everything we encounter is seen in the context of what we are used to/expect.

Rubato

It's just my unprofessional opinion.

I have to disagree on the link between our feelings and sound, It's the movement of frequencies, rather than the frequencies themselves that are important. you can transpose a sad piece of music to any key you want, it will still be a sad piece of music.

Salami

Don't be like that! If people listen to my opinions, yours are equally important.
True. It's just for some reason, certain keys seem more sad. This response is purely emotional and subjective, though.

Paedantic Basterd

I agree with Rubato, actually, because his/her post supports music as a spandrel of language.

Also, that was really condescending.

Salami

Actually, now I re-read what I wrote, I sound really horrible and it does talk down to you in a very mean way. Sorry about that Rubato, I didn't mean to come across like that, I thought you made an astute point.

On the other hand, I agree with Pedestrian that music is indeed intrinsic to language because language is more of a form of expression, and is about communicating that feeling.

I personally don't think that this necessitates that all music must be a form of communication, but definitely a form of expression, if a distinction can be made.

And before steveeden tries to correct me again, "necessitates" is a real word.