Update: Make sure to check out the comments section of this post for some good dialog going on.
Jim Aikin, former senior editor of Keyboard magazine, posted the following on the SynthSights list. It's an interesting perspective on why many people will identify more with melody over texture of sound - why musical hooks will usually get stuck in our heads more likely than synth soundscapes. I asked Jim if I could post this and he gave me the ok. Thanks Jim! Title link takes you to Jim Aikin's website.
"My suspicion is that our ability to sense and respond to pitch inflection
(i.e., melody) has evolutionary roots in our ability to understand language.
Even in languages that use pitch inflection to distinguish one word from
another, I'm sure speakers and listeners understand the difference in affect
between a sentence spoken in a high, rapid tone with exaggerated pitch
changes and the same sentence spoken in a low, hesitant monotone.
Musical perception uses the same brain mechanisms.
Textures can be instantly identifiable, even before the entrance of motivic
content, and can carry a profound emotional charge. But I doubt that a
texture stays in your head and comes back to you at odd moments the way a
melody by Mozart or Lennon & McCartney will.
Again, it's evolution at work. A melody uses syntax, so it gets "filed" by
the brain using the same ultra-sophisticated language-handling modules that
allow you to remember, word for word, what your Significant Other (or, for
that matter, a total stranger) said to you last week. Most listeners don't
have the mental equipment to handle texture and tone color in that way.
The weakness that I've observed in far too many synth-based CDs (and I used
to listen to a lot of them when I was at Keyboard) is that while the opening
texture is beautiful and stimulating, the music never goes anywhere. The
melodic and harmonic structure, if it exists at all, fails to hold my
attention.
I suppose this is ultimately an elitist position in favor of the
old-fashioned virtues taught in college-level composition courses. But the
music itself doesn't have to be elitist...
Them's mah 2 cents, and ah'm stickin' to 'em."
--Jim Aikin
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
11 comments:
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I totally agree with Jim.
ReplyDeleteMany people that get into synths do so because they love sound, creating and mangling and playing with synths. That's all well and good, but their tracks often end up musically unfulfilling, with no real work to developwhat the music is doing.
I like interesting soundscapes and atmospheres as much as the next guy - but I need the music to be fulfilling to move me. And it takes more than just twiddling a few knobs and setting up some loops in a sequencer to make good music.
(Of course, it's all subjective - what mvoes me won't be the same as what moves other people. I know people who get emotionally affected by the most extreme glitch, and that's cool - it (mostly) does nothing for me but that doesn't mean it's not a valid form of musical expression.)
Ok, I'll stop rambling here... ;)
The connection between melody and language is surely true.
ReplyDeleteThis, in turn, gives rise to other interesting questions; do people with different native languages have different possibilities in experiencing and recognising melodies?
When discussing the fact that Sweden, a country of only 9 million people, has the third biggest music export in the world (following the US and the UK), pop theorist Andres Lokko claims that there is one thing that stands out when analysing Swedish music - namely its strong sense of melody. In everything, even in the most minimal techno, there is a unique melodic quality to it.
And indeed, Swedish is a language that uses pitch inflection to distinguish one word from
another. Not as much as Chinese does, but the phrases do have melodies that carry a meaning.
Hearing is an interesting sense.
[ The music industry is tough, and China is a great new player on many fields these days. Maybe China is the next musical superpower? ;-) ]
no title link? huh?
ReplyDeleteRegarding the title link, I forgot to remove that bit of text when I added one. It's updated. Thanks. : )
ReplyDeleteIn regards to melody and the content of the post, something very interesting happened to me years ago. I kept beating myself up because I couldn't compose worth a damn. I finally gave up and decided to just explore and have fun. That's when I realized it wasn't about making purposeful music to me. It was simply about drifting and exploring sound. I'll get lost in a specific loop (usually hand played, not sequenced - something about imperfection and inflection when I play this way), drift into something else, and then not be able to come back to the original loop. It used to frustrate me, but now it doesn't. It's all real time and somewhat cathartic for me - just kind of playing my mood and letting it flow however it wants to the time; like a stream of consciousness with sound. A LOT of the time it is all about texture - no rhythm and no melody. And sometimes it is all about melody. But... My goal is never to compose a specific piece of music. It's just not one of my talents and not something I really enjoy doing - at least not at this point of time.
I'm a firm believer that people are different. Sounds like a duh statement, but when you think about the arguments people have on difference of opinion, you have to wonder. Different people have different interests and different talents. You need to realize what yours are and develop and enjoy them in my opinion. Don't force yourself into a box, unless of course that's your interest and your talent. : )
But... This is just one small facet of Jim's thoughts. It think he nailed the analogy of melody to language, there is just something soothing about it. In a way I think of melody as the cognitive consciousness of language and texture as the subconscious context behind our language. And sometimes I think of them as the reverse. The textures of the CS80 in the Blade Runner soundtrack stand out for example.
Music is a language. In Matrix' example, he chooses to ad lib using a limited vocabulary for his own enjoyment. No problem there. That IS the largest sales market for music instruments. It's not pros and never has been.
ReplyDeleteBut Matrix hit on a point that he might not even be aware of.
A language is not easy to learn and while learning, it can be painful.
It's not fun and if you're not disciplined or carrying a specific goal, it's difficult to master such a language.
It's much easier to go for immediate gratification.
But the interesting thing is that what a pro does isn't much different than what an amatuer does: he speaks as well as he can within his known vocabulary.
The difference is the practice and work beforehand, when it was hard to do.
But afterwards, knowing how to phrase oneself well is as easy as what an amatuer does when noodling. It becomes easier and easier to do with practice.
I don't have to think about how to play most scales and chords, for example.
It's like exercise. Hard at first, but later no effort for increased performance.
This is what seems to be one issue hugely overlooked or plainly dismissed.
Learning the basics and practicing them. Laying down a groundwork of understanding of what makes music and why it works or doesn't.
But once you know, it's far less mystical and intimidating.
It becomes second nature.
Good performance musicians don't have to stop and think about what note to hit.
They just know what will sound good or not for the given situation.
And in their case, if you have to think, it's all over. :)
So, my point is that what appears to be hard at first is where the longterm growth and value reside for later on. The immediately easy stuff is what anyone and everyone can do and has been exhausted. A push button mentality won't make good music for very long.
I still practice playing keyboards almost every day and challenge myself to do things I'm not sure I can pull off. While I've not had a goal of being a musician for decades, I now have chops that even many of my clients don't.
That's a weird place to be when you're just an instrument tech, but it backs up a saying I've had for years: "If you do something for 20 years, you'll either get good at it or you're a damn fool for still trying." ;-)
My 2 cents.
As an avid composer of melodies, I tend to agree with Jim as well. But I would even suggest that the emotional responses we have to certian textures (timbres) may have evolutionary origins. Consider someone whispering the word 'help' versus someone screaming it. In both cases, the pitch and inflection of the word can be the same, yet we're probably more likely to have a visceral reaction to the scream. Different vocal timbres give our words different contexts, allowing us to better communicate.
ReplyDeleteI think the same is true in music. The texture of a melody is its context. The same melody will not alway elicit the same emotional/intellectual reaction when played on different instruments (or with different sounds, as the case may be).
I've always tended to think music as a whole is better at giving context to an environment than direct communication, whether that 'environment' is a lyric, a situation, or simply one's thoughts. The better the music is, the clearer the context will be. But I digress.
Really good point Kevin. You are right. It's like opening up doors. I might be able to let the sound drive me, but I might not be able to translate that into what I'm actually playing if I haven't developed the technique. I remember how much learning basic chords and scales opened up. When you show that to someone that knows nothing about them, they are usually surpised at how easy it is and how much better they can now play.
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting topic in that there are so many perspectives. We aren't just talking about two things here. There is melody vs. texture, music vs. sound, musician vs. sound in driving the music, and technique.
Interesting perspective Wilson. I remember studying common facial expressions accross different cultures as well. Things like pain, anger, fear, happiness and so on are common. I would agree with you that the same applies to sound. You can trigger certain emotional responses with sound.
ReplyDeleteWhat's interesting is how you can change the emotional response of music. One piece that really fascinated me was Mike Oldfield's Tubular Glass. I first heard it as the soundtrack for Halloween. In the movie, it conveys a number of emotional responses including that sense of lucidity in not quite knowing what will be next - living life on the edge. It also conveys a sense of sinister fear and insanity in the movie when you associate it with either Michael Meyers or Jamie Lee Curtis' character Laurie Strode.
But, if you listen to the complete composition separately from the film, you realise it's something completely different.
With facial expressions, crying comes to mind as it can either be greif or happiness. With sound there seems to be a much larger range of potential meanings.
I remember following musicical compositions that told a story in college music courses. There is no doubt that certain compositions are meant to tell a specific story and elicit a specific response.
Nice! Add meaning and emotional response to the list.
11:31 AM
This is a totally fascinating discussion.
ReplyDeleteI have posted my rather lenghty contribution at my blog if anyone is interested.
Thanks,
Gnostic Rocket
Nice post gnostic rocket. Love the shots. ; )
ReplyDeleteFrom Gnostic Rockets post:
ReplyDelete"What is the dividing line between "texture and tone colour" and "melodic" features of any given piece of music? "
Some of the intros by Enigma's first CD come to mind along with Chris and Cosey. The melody and hooks are textures and it's the texture that actually make the hook and melody.
Hmm... This whole cross posting with this post, Seth's post on Music Vs. Sound and now Gnostic Rostic is interesting in that we can actually have these conversatios going. What would be interesting is if you could actually cross post comments like an RSS feed. Hmm... Someone ought to develope that for "Web 2.0"