Music and language as representation of the complexities of human thought (original) (raw)
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In discussing the relationship between music and other forms of articulation this paper deals first with the question of what the notion of music as alanguage might imply for contemporary composers. Secondly, it considers Albrecht \X/ellmer's thoughts on a constitutive "sprach-Bezug" (speech-reference) of music.t This leads to some final remarks on the aesthetic experience of music in its relation to other forms of human expression.
Chapter 12 Music and language : relations and disconnections
2015
Above all, music and language are forms of human communication. Since sensory function is ultimately shaped by what is biologically important to the organism, the human urge to communicate has been a powerful driving force in both the evolution of auditory function and the ways in which it can be changed by experience within an individual lifetime. The ability to extract meaning from sound requires that all aspects of the auditory system work together in concert: by considering human auditory function in the context of communication, we hope to emphasize the highly interactive nature of the auditory system as well as the depth of its integration with other sensory and cognitive systems. Through consideration of relations and dissociations between music and language we will explore key themes in auditory function, learning and plasticity. First we will look to the origins of music and language: we shall not attempt to resolve the ongoing debate regarding their evolutionary status, bu...
Signification and significance: Music, brain, and culture
Physics of Life Reviews, 2011
It is important to mention that in his pioneering work on neural correlates of musical semantics or meaning Stefan Koelsch [12] avoids the "language of emotion trap" by not reducing research on musical semantics to research on music and emotions (cf. ). He distinguishes extra-, intra-musical and musicogenic meaning. "Musicogenic" is used in interpreting "musical meaning" in the sense of significance, the value of music. Extra-musical meaning is related to N400 whereas N5 to intra-musical meaning. Event-related potentials such as N400, music closure positive shift for phrase boundaries (MCPS; cf. ) or P600 [17] indicate shared neural networks involved in common processing of language and music (cf. also ). N5, it is claimed, is an indicator for neural activities specific to processing (intra-)musical meaning. Furthermore, Koelsch intends to set up a conceptual framework for research on musical meaning. This comment focuses on the aspect of using sign theory for setting up a conceptual framework for research on the semantics of language and music considering the problem of connecting research in the humanities and social sciences to research in the brain and cognitive sciences.
Music and language: relations and disconnections
Above all, music and language are forms of human communication. Since sensory function is ultimately shaped by what is biologically important to the organism, the human urge to communicate has been a powerful driving force in both the evolution of auditory function and the ways in which it can be changed by experience within an individual lifetime. The ability to extract meaning from sound requires that all aspects of the auditory system work together in concert: by considering human auditory function in the context of communication, we hope to emphasize the highly interactive nature of the auditory system as well as the depth of its integration with other sensory and cognitive systems. Through consideration of relations and dissociations between music and language we will explore key themes in auditory function, learning and plasticity.
The Music of Language and the Language of Music
away from mimesis, Rousseau may not be that far from Rameau's physicalist approach of musical phenomena. Similarly, and in the field of music theory, David Cohen revisits how the binary of melody versus harmony, and Rousseau's conception of melody as the ruling principle of music, do not so much reject Rameau but rather accommodate his own views to Rameau's musical Cartesianism. Finally, Matthew Gelbart and I reconsider the debates on the existence (or lack thereof) of musical universals that have emerged since the Enlightenment. Whereas Gelbart ponders on the depiction of Rousseau as a cultural relativist that resulted from an oversimplification of his understanding of the concept of "nature," I argue that Rousseau's relativist views on music have been distorted through nineteenth-century positivist discourses, the legacies of which are still widely perceptible in the disciplines of neuroscience and cognitive psychology. Certainly Rousseau's intellectual output was protean. This explains why so many disparate forms of reception have coexisted (not always in conversation with one another) during the past three centuries. Our colloquy highlights that his writings still encourage a rich diversity of approaches.
jean.vion-dury.pagesperso-orange.fr
What does music convey to the mind that may possibly explain its powerful effect on human behavior? While it is already well known that music can convey emotions, there is little evidence that it can also communicate concepts. We will first describe the theoretical framework that needs to be taken into account when studying conceptual processing in music. We will then present recent results that have been interpreted as signs of conceptual processing in music: the effect of a sound or a musical context on the processing of a target word (and vice-versa) as well as a gating paradigm exploring the unfolding of familiarity in music listening.
Music, Language, and the Brain
Journal of Music Theory, 2010
Jeremy Day-O'Connell Background Among the remarkable achievements of the present intellectual age are the momentous inroads that have been made into what is arguably the last great frontier of science: the study of the enigmatic, imponderable workings of the human mind. We live in the wake of what has been called the "cognitive revolution," a surge of new theoretical concepts and methodologies that arose from a rich interdisciplinary cross-fertilization, one perhaps unequaled in modern times. The cynical behaviorist approach of the early-to mid-twentieth century, which sought to understand mental processes only through their directly observable manifestations (i.e., behavior), was overtaken with a new approach that recognized in the human mind a discoverable (albeit not directly observable) logic and structure. Benefiting from analogies to the digital computer, cognitive science imagined the "black box" of the mind as actively occupied with describable processes of representation and computation and sought to bring those processes to light through experimentation. Decades later, the black box itself would be penetrated with the help of some astounding technological advances that exposed the physical brain to the scrutiny of imaging and mapping techniques, thereby shedding new light on centuries-old questions at the heart of the philosophy of mind. During that time, in the little corner of the intellectual universe occupied by music scholarship, another revolution of sorts-apparently unrelated to the cognitive revolution, and in any case of rather different consequencewas gathering. The "New Musicology" of the 1980s and 1990s, reacting against the field's supposed sterility-its insular priorities and positivist methodologies-called for a disciplinary self-scrutiny and a reorientation toward considerations of music's value and meaning. Borrowing heavily from recent though well-established trends across the humanities, many music scholars answered this call. And while some have questioned the fairness of
Language and music as cognitive systems
Edited volume, based on a selection of talks from the event: http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199553426.do
In recent years, the fields of linguistics, musicology, experimental psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and evolutionary anthropology have witnessed an increasing interest in the comparative study of music and language as cognitive systems. This conference aims to bring together major contributors from these areas of research in order to assess the progress made, and future directions to take, in this truly interdisciplinary enterprise, and to provide researchers and graduate students from diverse backgrounds with a unique forum for discussion. The conference is structured around four core areas in which the collaboration between music and language has proven to be particularly fruitful: (1) Structural comparisons between language and music (2) Evolution of language and music (3) Learning and processing of language and music (4) Neuroscience of language and music The format of the event is designed to encourage discussion of theoretical models, empirical results, and methodological approaches to the investigation of musical and linguistic cognition. For this purpose, we have invited outstanding contributors from different research areas to serve as keynote speakers and panel discussants. We were pleased by the unexpectedly large number of abstract submissions. What was originally planned as a one-day event has developed into a three-day international conference with six keynote speakers, thirteen panellists and over 80 paper/poster presentations. We would like to thank the members of our Scientific Committee, who diligently evaluated the submitted abstracts. We would also like to express our gratitude to the panel moderators and session chairs for their contribution. Finally, the organization of this event would not have been possible without adequate funding. We would like to acknowledge the generous financial support of the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and the Humanities (CRASSH), the Society for Education, Music and Psychology Research (SEMPRE), the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC), the Faculty of Music and Oxford University Press. We would also like to thank Catherine Hurley, Gemma Tyler, Philippa Smith, Anna Malinowska at CRASSH as well as Susan Rolfe, Barbara Jones and Mike Franklin at RCEAL for their help in several important administrative aspects of this conference. Finally, we would like to thank the staff and students of the Centre for Music & Science and the Research Centre for English & Applied Linguistics for their assistance and support.