bradr@bartok.Eng.Sun.COM (Brad Rubenstein) (06/08/90)
Music-Research Digest Thu, 7 Jun 90 Volume 5 : Issue 57
Today's Topics:
Has nothing at all to DO with Mira Balaban!
IBM Ear Training Lessons
Perfect Pitch+ IBMPC<--->MIDI
Publishing of music in machine-readable form
research topics in music
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 4 Jun 90 23:36 EDT
From: "Sterling Beckwith (York University)" <GUEST4@EARN.YUSOL>
Subject: Has nothing at all to DO with Mira Balaban!
To: music-research@prg
Thanks to ye ed for allowing us to wallow a bit in high-flying esthetical
excursions from the Net re Musical Semantics. But I couldn't help wishing to
see the argument come back home eventually to roost, as it were, at least for
the readers of this somewhat more circumscribed digest.
I have a strong hunch that Handelman has allowed himself to be lured away from
his original target. He is surely well aware that in the literature of the
recent AI-and- Music pioneers, there is a very conscientious attempt to insist
on a usage of the term "semantics" that is quite special, and not to be
confused with any usual linguistic, epistemological, or esthetic sense of the
word -- all of which as many correspondents have pointed out are interminably
sticky.
Semantics, in Laske, is something else again -- tho I've never really
understood just what -- and has a lot to do with moving the analysis of musical
behavior into a domain he recognizes as having to do with Cognitive Science (of
whatever brand he may have been currently enamoured). I think -- indeed, I am
sure -- Handelman, Smoliar, et al. are among the very few people in the world
who could explain, for the ordinary musical or technical reader, just what this
peculiar sense of "semantics" is. It should certainly be much easier to give a
critique raisonnee of this very special and limited use of the term "musical
semantics" than to engage all comers in a full-swinging debate on musical
meaning . And I venture to suggest that it might also be more to the point, in
helping to sharpen the wits of those conscientious and able researchers,
particularly in Europe, who seem still to find such earlier formulations as
Laske's intellectually congenial.
The several interesting postings by Leung may well be reaching for the kinds
and levels of structural meaning in music which gave to Laske's computerish
talk of "semantics", and his special view of musical semiotics, the relevance
to real music they sometimes could be imagined to possess. Not being able to do
more than thank him for very bravely giving voice to his difficult and
stimulating thoughts, I can only hope that they too will be addressed, in any
subsequent endeavor by our high-flying philosophers of the Net to return to the
more mundane theme of Music-research-or-AI-research-or-What?
Sterling Beckwith
York University, Toronto, Canada
------------------------------
Date: 5 Jun 90 16:51:03 GMT
From: Bruce Lambrecht <bruce%sun.udel.edu@edu.udel.vax1>
Subject: IBM Ear Training Lessons
To: music-research@prg
Message-ID: <11786@sun.udel.edu>
Brian Russell requested information on ear training for the IBM.
At the University of Delaware we have a program developed by Dr. Fred
Hofstetter called GUIDO which is made up of six lessons that address
specific areas of importance to ear training. They include intervals,
melodies, chord qualities, harmonies, rhythms, and rhythmic melodies.
The lessons require an IBM PC, XT, AT or PS/2 model 25 or 30 with at
least 256K of memory (640K preferred), and either two floppy disk drives
or one floppy and one hard disk drive. A mouse, a color display, and a
color graphics adaptor are also required. Sound can be generated by the
IBM Music Feature or a MIDI keyboard.
E-mail me with your US mail address and I'll send a pamphlet describing
the program and how to order it.
Cost: $95.00 for each lesson (intervals, melodies, etc.) or $475 for
all six.
Bruce@SUN.ACS.UDEL.EDU
------------------------------
Date: 5 Jun 90 06:07:39 GMT
From: Susan Curry <curry%milton%blake%ogicse@edu.ucsd>
Subject: Perfect Pitch+ IBMPC<--->MIDI
To: music-research@prg
Message-ID: <3936@milton.acs.washington.edu>
Again let me thank everyone who wrote to me shared
their thoughts on perfect pitch and or computerized ear
training. Since so many people wrote me requesting a
summary I'll bring you up to date.
First a quick overview:
I've often had difficulty finding other musicians who
were willing to practice ear training with me. I'd read an
instruction booklet published by Mr. David Burge, on
acquiring perfect pitch, and was actually doing the
recommended exercises but was wanting for a regular practice
partner. It occurred to me that it should be possible to
rig up some sort of ear training system based on an IBM PC
and a MIDI device. The software, which I would write, would
have some low level support to control the MIDI device.
That being done, it seemed easy implement exercises from Mr.
Burge's book, or any other source, as subroutines. One
additional constraint is that since I'd be using computers
at work I'd need a serial MIDI interface, as opposed to a
MIDI card.
I telephoned KEY ELECTRONICS (800-533-MIDI) and asked
for their brochure. They have a serial port interface for
$119.95, not including cables, which is cheap I'm told.
They also have a software toolkit to control the MIDI
interface for $39.95. I'm not sure how necessary this
toolkit is. There are lots toolkits for serial
communications and I don't see why driving the serial port
to control the modem is fundamentally different from driving
the serial port to control the MIDI port. If anyone out
there has personal experience and or strong opinions on this
subject let me know.
There are NeXT computers in a computer services
building on campus. The NeXT already has an impressive
sound device built in, which is a consideration since I
don't currently own a MIDI device. Writing for the NeXT
would involve a steeper learning curve as I am a novice in C
and UNIX. Someone I spoke with briefly at the UW School of
Music encouraged me to learn LISP (!) in order to take
advantage of a music toolkit for the NeXT.
What other people had to say:
dan@mlp.scs.com (Dan Adler) writes:
>Since I work on a SUN sparc-station which has (not so good
>but acceptable) sound producing capabilities, I've
>programmed a whole bunch of stuff on it as exercises which
>I listen to by earphones at work. This includes the perfect
>pitch ones plus the ones from Burge's relative pitch
>course, which I very highly reccomend. Unfortunately, if
>you don't have a SUN workstation, you can't use my stuff.
Yes, unfortunately.
He continues:
> By the way, I thought that for a practice system it may
>be best to use something closer to pure sine waves, so that
>you don't end up listening for the `wrong' quality of a
>note (i.e. to its timbre - which results from the overtone
>compositions as opposed to the frequency).
That's interesting, is it more confusing to listen to a
"natural tone" which contains pronounced overtones, that may
influence one's perception of absolute pitch, or is it more
confusing to listen to a sine wave, which is acoustically
pure but is foreign to the musical ear. When I call the
sine wave a "foreign" sound I mean people may have some
distracting emotional reaction to the sine wave if they
don't associate that timber with music and a music making.
The situation is further complicated by the fact that many
"natural" instruments don't have a perfectly uniform timber
throughout their range. David Burge encourages people to
use the instrument they play as the sound source for the
exercises, until they have a certain fluency, and then try
to identify tones sounding on a less familiar instrument.
Commenting on my original posting:
>The gist of this color hearing is that each note has, using
>my own words, has a timber that is independent of voices or
>instruments. The notes F# and E flat have the most
>pronounced timber, F# being bright, E flat being mellow or
>dull. The exercises start out using just these two notes
Justin Shuttleworth responds:
>I have some questions. If the you're using the well-
>tempered scale, then (by definition) the pitch ratio from
>semitone to adjacent semitone is is exactly the same, no
>matter where you are in the scale (e.g. ascending ratio =
>12th root of 2). If you use a synthesiser which produces
>the same timbral content for any pitch, I don't see how
>different absolute pitches can have different "absolute"
>timbres.....(stuff deleted).....
>Where does the absolute pitch detection come from? I have
>to say at this point that I have perfect pitch, and have
>tried to explain why I say things like F# is bright.
I understand that those with perfect pitch can be very
sensitive to intonation, but as far as whether or not
perfect pitch is teachable, I'm not convinced scale
temperament is relevant at all. Certainly since the
tempered scale is what we in this century listen to, I fail
to see how it could be a confounder. Perhaps I
misunderstood his point entirely.
He continues:
>A common statistic given is that 1 in 10 people have
>perfect pitch (altough not all of them have musical
>training and hence are not aware of their ability). What's
>different about these people?
In my reply to Mr. Justin I forgot to ask about that 1
in 10 statistic. Has anybody else heard this?
Don Mullen writes:
Brian,
> I had the same trouble that you did with the Perfect
>Pitch course - no one willing to put in a little time
>everyday to be my partner. So I put it on the shelf and
>decided to wait until I got a MIDI set up and some
>programming time.
> Last week I got a MusicQuest MQX-16S card/Cakewalk Pro
>3.0 combination and the MQX programmer's toolkit. I
>discovered that I could use CakeWalk's CAL programming
>feature to randomly choose notes and play them
...(stuff deleted)
> This is easy to to with few notes (I'm just now, as of
>last night, starting out on E-flat and F-sharp), but I will
>probably write some C code to do the more sophisticated
>drills. I'll let you know how that goes.
My regards Mr. Mullen, and please *DO* let me know how
it goes!
He continues:
> Please let me know if you find out any more
>information. If I had the time, I'd develop a really nice
>MS-Windows based Perfect Pitch and Relative Pitch (did you
>get that course?) program -- maybe I will later this year.
>Someone posted that Burge (sp?) was hiring a programmer
>last year - I wonder what the result will be.....
If the new software is anything like the book it will
probably be theoretically sound, over priced, contain very
little code, and you'll need two computers to run it. ;)
These final postings I received this week and haven't
gotten a chance to follow up on them yet.
Mark Gresham writes:
>I suggest you talk to Dr. <NameDeleted> who is a research
>fellow out there at the University in Seattle. She
>developed software under an IBM grant (with a programming
>assistant doing the hacking) for teaching Modulo-12 ear
>training/theory. If you can't reach her via the
>University, you can reach find her under <NameDeleted> in
>the phone book. So she won't think you're wierd and out of
>left field, use my name. Then she'll think you're wierder
>and farther out into left field! :-) However, she teaches
>various and sundry including Dalcroze. Let me know if you
>are able to reach her.
Thanks for the tip! I'm sorry I haven't responded to
your letter personally yet. When I do you can explain to me
what Modulo-12 and Dalcroze are. BTW I didn't want to quote
your friend's name on the newsgroup until I'd gotten a
chance to speak with her.
Peter Velikonja writes:
>Brian,
>I'm pretty late in responding to your post regarding
>perfect pitch but I don't read the news too often (since it
>sucks up all my time). Anyway, I have been doing some work
>in this area, and I'm curious about replies you may have
>gotten.
(stuff deleted)
> I'm working on a program which attempts to teach basic
>ear training. It runs on a NeXT machine. Right now it just
>plays simple melodies, and you click the appropriate notes
>on screen with the mouse. If you like I can send it to
>you. I should have a Mac version of it in a few months.
>The program tries to come up with melodies that are
>appropriate to your level of expertise, and if you do well
>the melodies get harder.
(stuff deleted)
>This is probably all old news to you, but if not let me
>know and I'll send what I have. As I say, I'm interested
>in any references you have collected.
I was very eager to try out his program, and to pick
his brain further.
In his next letter:
>You can probably FTP my ET program from any NeXT computer,
>assuming you have an account on one that is on a network.
>This might be a problem for you if you don't get around
>much in UNIX (I speak from personal experience). Get
>someone in CS to help you,
He was right about it being a problem. Actually I
don't think the public access NeXT machines here are on a
NeXT network. I think people have to telenet to their
mainframe account to send mail, etc. As I said before I'm
new at UNIX and I haven't had time to check it out further.
He continues:
>Regarding hardware, you have a number of options, and they
>vary according to which computer you want to use. To use
>MIDI with an IBM or Amiga you can get the CMU MIDI Toolkit,
>which is available here for about $20 (pays for xeroxing
>the manual and for the diskettes). If you send mail to
>Roger Dannenberg (rbd@spice.cmu.edu) he can give you better
>information about what it does and how to get it. It
>essentially lets you trap notes from the keyboard and also
>to play notes from within your C program, which is what I
>guess you want to do (except maybe not in C, hmm...). Ann
>Blombach is using something with the Mac in Pascal, which
>may be more what you want. She describes it in an article:
>Tools for Macintosh Music Courseware Development: Hewlett's
>Representational System and Structured Programming.
>Journal of Computer Based Instruction, v. 16 No. 2:50
>Spring 1989.
(stuff deleted)
>I'll send you the current version of an article I wrote
>which outlies the work I have been doing, and has a list of
>references you are probably familiar with anyway. That
>will be in a mail message after this one.
So now I have quite a number of leads I need to follow
up on. They all sound very promising. Mr. Velikonja thank
you again for your help!
The article he sent is also very informative. He
discusses his software in terms of traditional problems in
teaching ear training, user interface, algorithms for
adjusting the difficulty level of the exercises in response
the user's success rates, and follows up with a hefty
bibliography.
Pending Mr Velikon's approval I'll post the address he
mentions for his software. I'll also forward to the list,
or to interested parties his marvelously written article,
again pending his approval.
Thanks again to all of you who were kind enough to
write. I'll let you know how things progress. And again,
if any of you are interested in discussing ear training or
ear training systems post to the group, or by all means feel
free to write to me personally.
Brian R. Russell
curry@milton.u.washington.edu
Seattle, WA
:
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 5 Jun 90 17:17:05 WET DST
From: CTImusic <mua006@uk.ac.lancaster.central1>
Subject: Publishing of music in machine-readable form
To: music-research@prg
Message-ID: <23734.9006051617@central1.lancaster.ac.uk>
The CTI Centre for Music has been asked by Andrew Potter of Oxford University
Press to circulate the following letter and questionnaire. If anyone has
an interest in the publication of music in machine-readable form, would they
please fill in his questionnaire and send it direct to him at the following
address.
Andrew Potter
Director, Music Publishing
Oxford University Press
Music Department
Walton Street
OXFORD
OX2 6DP
United Kingdom
Thanks,
Lisa Whistlecroft,
CTI Centre for Music
Lancaster University
..............................................................................
Start of letter
MUSIC PUBLISHING IN ELECTRONIC FORM
We intend to issue a series of music publications in machine-readable form.
You may be aware of our publishing of other types of text in this form eg
the Oxford Shakespeare and the Oxford English Dictionary.
We are currently planning our first publications in the series and would be
most grateful for your help in ascertaining the type of repertoire, the form
it should take, and the way it might be used in order to be of most use to
scholars and others in the musical community.
I append a copy of a brief questionnaire and would be grateful if you could
complete and return as many copies as are needed to reflect various projects
within your department. As you will see, we would also like to discover any
substantial encoded texts, with a view to possible publication.
Thank you for your co-operation.
Yours faithfully,
Andrew Potter
Director, Music publishing
...............................................................................
QUESTIONNAIRE
1. Contact Name ............................................................
University .................................................................
Address ...................................
...........................................
...........................................
2. Work undertaken in your department which has involved encoding music texts
into machine-readable form:
a) What music was encoded?.................................................
............................................................................
............................................................................
............................................................................
b) Which encoding scheme was used (eg DARMS, Score, etc)?
............................................................................
............................................................................
c) What was the reason for encoding it? ...................................
............................................................................
............................................................................
............................................................................
d) By what software was a) effected?
proprietary (please specify name) ..........................................
............................................................................
own software (please describe) .............................................
............................................................................
............................................................................
............................................................................
e) On what hardware configuration wa the text encoded and used?
............................................................................
............................................................................
............................................................................
f) What market would you perceive for your data outside your own research?
............................................................................
............................................................................
g) If so, would you be willing to allow OUP to publish your data in machine-
readable format?
............................................................................
3. Published Texts
a) Would it be beneficial for you to be able to buy corpora of music in
machine-readable form, such as Complete Editions, musical genres, etc, which
can be accessed by proprietary software?
............................................................................
............................................................................
b) If so, what particular music would be of most interest? ................
............................................................................
............................................................................
c) In what form? Floppy disk/CD ROM etc ..................................
............................................................................
............................................................................
d) What form of code would be most easy for you to deal with?
............................................................................
............................................................................
End of questionnaire.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 04 Jun 90 22:34 CST
From: jeff beer <UUCJEFF%bitnet.ecncdc@edu.uic.uicvm>
Subject: research topics in music
To: music-research@com.sun.eng.bartok
Message-ID: <9006050335.AA28063@Sun.COM>
i just did a master's thesis on an expert system for jazz harmonization,
but don't ask me about it because I am sick of it. i just want to do
compositions and improvisation with a computer.
but one area I recently had been reading up on that I think is worthwhile
is discussed in great deal in the publication "Action and Perception
in Rhythm and Music", papers given at a symposium in the 3rd International
Conference on Event Perception and Action, published by the Royal
Swedish Academy of Music.
Most of the papers deal with the subtle various of time and amplitude which
music occur in musical performance to give it life. Those of you
involved with sequencers and drum machines know how lifeless music
sounds if you put musical performance data in straight. In an attempt
to get around this, sequencer and drum machine manufactures have put
"humanizers" or "swing" options in their products. Often these are
to put slight random variations in performance. However, as one can
imagine, random variations may help, but one would assume that to
have a real powerful "feel", there would be some other relationship.
It is the goal of most of the research presented in this symposium
to uncover the nature of these rhythmic phenomena. One researcher,
P. Reinholdsonn, discusses the electronic equipment used to measure
these variations, and presents an analysis of a drum solo of Roy Haynes.
Manfred Clynes has a variety of charts on the pulse and amplitude warping,
and in the recorded example shows how Hayden or Beethoven music sounds
with a "pulse" other than the proper one. (i.e. Beethoven played with
a Schubert pulse) Other researchers seem to approach the same phenomena
from a variety of perspectives/ research biases, ect. On the other hand,
you might learn just as much by reading Miles Davis' autobiography,
when he talks about Tony Williams.
So this may be of interst to people involved in computer music because
1) you can use computers to measure this phenomena and 2) use this
to make a computer swing.
Jeff Beer, Chicago (scrambled eggs? it's how he scrambles them!)
------------------------------
End of Music-Research Digest
--
---Brad Rubenstein-----Sun Microsystems Inc.-----bradr@sun.com---bradr@bartok.Eng.Sun.COM (Brad Rubenstein) (06/08/90)
Music-Research Digest Thu, 7 Jun 90 Volume 5 : Issue 58
Today's Topics:
Musical Semantics (was: Re: Mira Balaban (was: Re: Workshop on Artificial inteligence and Music))
Semantics of Music? (4 msgs)
semantics questions
*** Send contributions to Music-Research@uk.ac.oxford.prg
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 5 Jun 90 22:47:08 GMT
From: Mark Gresham <mgresham%artsnet@edu.gatech>
Subject: Musical Semantics (was: Re: Mira Balaban (was: Re: Workshop on Artificial inteligence and Music))
To: music-research@prg
Message-ID: <857@artsnet.UUCP>
In article <16590@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> eliot@winnie.Princeton.Edu (eliot handelman) writes:
>In article <10589@sdcc6.ucsd.edu> pa2253@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (pa2253) writes:
>>A semantic (by both my definition and that of a convenient
>>dictionary) is an associative meaning. Musical objects can occur in
>>a variety of extra-musical contexts: i.e. theatre, automobiles, torture
>>chambers.
Like the one with the man tied to a chair, and a loudspeaker out
of which comes the words, "And now, once again, for your listening
enjoyment, Pachelbel's "Canon in D." :-) ??? :-)
[Pachelbel fans note: as extensively discussed some time ago, the
problem isn't Pachelbel's "Canon," but how incessantly it's played
(and in a smarmy manner) by classical radio stations and
environment infesting Muzak clones as well as numerous
"meditation" tapes.]
>>The subsequent experiences of musical objects by an
>>individual will be influenced by the association of object to its
>>original context.
>
>Is this a theory of the origin of musical intelligence? Do whales do their
>musical acts because they watch a lot of TV and learn this special and
>inelegant way of establishing referents? Do infants who seem to respond to
>music do so because they know how to make associations? Or is this your
>special way of listening to music, you line up all the different things that
>are associated with this music?
What do you do when you hear a loud sound? Jump?
Ultimately, the issue of semantics must deal with PRIMAL, primary
responses rather than cultivated ones. IF music had genuine
semantics, that's where it would be found rather than in cultivated,
associative responses.
>Whereas I see post-industrial society as being essentially
>musical, as being constructed through musical consciousness.
Interesting proposal. Then politicians would be arguing about
which kinds of music are legal rather than economics. (But wait,
they've already been doing that for thousands of years, eh? :-))
Check out Don Saliers' (Emory University, Candler School of
Theology) concerning the formative nature of musical experience.
(Which is also what I find as the most interesting aspect of John
Cage's work and ideas.)
"Formative nature" not being the same thing as "having semantics," BTW.
>>Obviously, some contexts are extremely
>>transparent and objects experienced in such contexts will communicate
>>little or no future associative information.
>
>If associations are the origin of the semantic you're supplying,
>why should one thing be more privileged than another? Maybe you're
>missing something in your conception? Probably overstating the
>importance of associating in the first place.
>
>>For musical semantic
>>manipulation to be successful beyond a single individual, the
>>desired associations must be common experiences among a group.
>>No two individuals experience the same music in identical contexts,
>>and therefore it is impossible to establish an absolute semantic for
>>a musical object.
>
>You think that only because you insist on semantics.
One of the problems Cage has expressed concerning much recent "new
music" is, indeed, its use of "loaded" imagery -- i.e., the fact
that it REQUIRES so much associative context for even marginal
success (social, political, violent, exoticness). Without such
associations, the music (and/or other work of performance art)
falls flat. In this sense, Cage might be considered a bit
old-fashioned :-) in that his musical creations are aesthetically
bouyant on its own (assuming you accept the aesthetic
possibilities in the first place) which might be considered akin
somewhat to the classicist notion of abstract music which has its
own integrity as pure "concept" (musical) without programme.
A difference: Cage's music allows the circumstances of the
context to "interpenetrate" his works; a Haydn string quartet,
however, might be disturbed by an appropriately :-) times cough or
a slammed door.
>You talk about
>music as though it were an abstract experiment, a sort of conditioned
>response in some lab rats with no guaranteed generality. And yet music
>is, quite obviously, the instrument of mass consciousness. Your theory
>is predicting the wrong thing.
I wouldn't want that pass by without a call for more explication
of "instrument of mass consciousness" which, I would dare guess, is
not meant to mean the same thing as "universal language" by any
means?
Cheers,
--Mark
========================================
Mark Gresham ARTSNET Norcross, GA, USA
E-mail: ...gatech!artsnet!mgresham
or: artsnet!mgresham@gatech.edu
========================================
------------------------------
Date: 6 Jun 90 11:01:26 GMT
From: Werner Icking <icking%gmdzi%unido%mcsun%sunic%luth%eru@edu.mit.bloom-beacon>
Subject: Semantics of Music?
To: music-research@prg
Message-ID: <2514@gmdzi.UUCP>
eliot handelman <eliot%winnie%phoenix@edu.princeton> writes:
>In article <2370@aipna.ed.ac.uk> geraint@aipna.ed.ac.uk (Geraint Wiggins) writes:
>>In another article, Eliot Handelman writes
>>> In article <2364@aipna.ed.ac.uk> geraint@ai.ed.ac.uk (Geraint Wiggins) writes:
...
>>> The ball's in your hands. I say "X does not exist." The only counterexample
>>> that I can think of would be "There is an X which does exist." That's
>>> your position, not mine.
>>Not really. It's up to BOTH sides of the argument to make a case. Maybe I've
>>been missing out on the discussion, but I only saw a claim, not an example or
>>counter example.
>Fine. I'm unaware of semantics in Pithoprakta. Happy now?
For BOTH sides it may be helpful to read
Nikolaus Harnoncourt: Musik als Klangrede
Nikolaus Harnoncourt: Musikalischer Dialog (both dtv/baerenreiter)
The titles already state that - long long ago - making music meant deliver a
speech or make conversation. This would be very difficult without semantics?
I hope there is a translation of the two books - ask Roger -; otherwise for a
non german-speaking reader it would be only noise without any semantics.
--
Werner Icking icking@gmdzi.gmd.de (+49 2241) 14-2443
Gesellschaft fuer Mathematik und Datenverarbeitung mbH (GMD)
Schloss Birlinghoven, P.O.Box 1240, D-5205 Sankt Augustin 1, FRGermany
------------------------------
Date: 6 Jun 90 18:02:40 GMT
From: Roger Lustig <roger%phoenix@edu.princeton>
Subject: Semantics of Music?
To: music-research@prg
Message-ID: <17030@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
>For BOTH sides it may be helpful to read
> Nikolaus Harnoncourt: Musik als Klangrede
> Nikolaus Harnoncourt: Musikalischer Dialog (both dtv/baerenreiter)
>The titles already state that - long long ago - making music meant deliver a
>speech or make conversation. This would be very difficult without semantics?
Not having read these, I can't say; but the issue of rhetoric-and-music
in the Baroque (which I assume is Harnoncourt's topic) is a very
dangerous one. Many writers spoke of musical rhetoric and musical
figures, analogous to rhetoric, figures of speech, etc., and even with
the same names; but first of all, this sort of thing was ALWAYS applied
to vocal music only, so the question of 'what's being said?' was obvious
from the start; and second, there was no agreement as to how the figures
worked, what they expressed, etc. Music was LIKENED to oratory; that
did not MAKE it oratory.
(While in E. Germany this week, I hope to get to Dresden to do some
research on one of the best writers on this topic, J. D. Heinichen. I've
written a paper on his theories, and want to check out what he did in
practice. He seems to have made a specific point about expressing
certain characteristics of a text through the harmony of the setting; I
wonder whether his music bears this out. I have 3 operas and 63
cantatas to work with, so we can hope.....)
Roger
------------------------------
Date: 6 Jun 90 23:59:44 GMT
From: Brad Rubenstein <bradr%bartok.Eng.Sun.COM@com.sun>
Subject: Semantics of Music?
To: music-research@prg
Message-ID: <136794@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
In article <856@artsnet.UUCP> mgresham@artsnet.UUCP (Mark Gresham) writes:
>Another example is a very, very serious traditional
>Japanese court music (with a name I cannot pronounce)
>which is some of the *most* serious music in the world by
>*intention*. However, the response of most Westerners on
>first hearing (without prior lecture) is to laugh.
>If there is a semantic "seriousness" in the music itself,
>why doesn't it communicate? (If music is a universal "language,"
>which I contend it is not. It is not a "language" of any kind.)
This is not unique to music. A Japanese speech synthesis program of
marginal quality "utters" a series of sounds that japanese speaker
understands as (roughly) "you are very welcome, honorable sir", but
which an english speaker understands as "dont'cha touch your
moustache". [ the sounds are roughly /doo-i-tashi-mashite/ ] The
sounds invoke a "serious" response in the japanese speaker, and a
"comic" (or perhaps "confused") response in the english speaker.
Together, these demonstrate that the meanings assigned to sound (or the
referents of sound-as-sign) are culture-specific. I don't take this to
be a revelation. :-)
Brad
--
---Brad Rubenstein-----Sun Microsystems Inc.-----bradr@sun.com---
------------------------------
Date: 5 Jun 90 11:45:37 GMT
From: Mark Gresham <mgresham%artsnet@edu.gatech>
Subject: Semantics of Music?
To: music-research@prg
Message-ID: <856@artsnet.UUCP>
In article <16576@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> eliot@winnie.Princeton.Edu (eliot handelman) writes:
>In article <2370@aipna.ed.ac.uk> geraint@aipna.ed.ac.uk (Geraint Wiggins) writes:
>>Maybe I've
>>been missing out on the discussion, but I only saw a claim, not an example or
>>counter example.
>
>Fine. I'm unaware of semantics in Pithoprakta. Happy now?
A different kind of counter-example:
Notice the tune with which Americans associate
the text "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" and British
associate "God Save the Queen." Different responses
for each when the tune is heard without text.
That's an oversimplified example, and doesn't account for
a person who hears the tune for the first time without
ever hearing the words. However,...
Another example is a very, very serious traditional
Japanese court music (with a name I cannot pronounce)
which is some of the *most* serious music in the world by
*intention*. However, the response of most Westerners on
first hearing (without prior lecture) is to laugh.
If there is a semantic "seriousness" in the music itself,
why doesn't it communicate? (If music is a universal "language,"
which I contend it is not. It is not a "language" of any kind.)
Cheers,
--Mark
========================================
Mark Gresham ARTSNET Norcross, GA, USA
E-mail: ...gatech!artsnet!mgresham
or: artsnet!mgresham@gatech.edu
========================================
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 06 Jun 90 22:15 CST
From: jeff beer <UUCJEFF%bitnet.ecncdc@edu.uic.uicvm>
Subject: semantics questions
To: music-research@com.sun.eng.bartok
Message-ID: <9006070316.AA02574@Sun.COM>
What is it that allows people to get some purpose or activity from
music that they do not get from non-musical sound?
If what we call music is a sound that represents or expresses something
beyond the sound, what is that if not something with a semantical
basis?
If you believe music has no semantic content, are you an animist?
Why do musics used in religious trance rituals always have the same
elements in common, namely repetitive polyrythms?
Does music have no semantical nature just because there can be little
value in studying its semantical nature?
... just asking... jeff beer, chicago
------------------------------
End of Music-Research Digest
--
---Brad Rubenstein-----Sun Microsystems Inc.-----bradr@sun.com---