Subject: Re: Dissonance with integration? From: Matthew McCabe <mccabem@xxxxxxxx> Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2010 16:54:59 -0400 List-Archive:<http://lists.mcgill.ca/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=AUDITORY>This message is in MIME format. The first part should be readable text, while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without MIME-aware tools. ---2092932544-461345743-1285448099=:10045 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=iso-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE Martin, I think you are forgetting the importance of mental states and priming in= =20 music perception. Certainly there are biological "bottom-up" processes=20 that you suggest below, but i think we are using the same words in=20 different languages here... "Pitch" and "chroma" to me are nameable bits of musical information -=20 without higher order cognitive functions, pitch and chroma cannot be=20 categorized or sorted -- or indeed, even recognized. species with more=20 highly developed cognitive function have octave recognition, others do=20 not... it's escaping me who did the study on Tamarins' preferences for=20 consonance/dissonance... i think you are referring to the auditory system's capability of=20 extracting surface-level features such as frequency relationships and=20 harmonicity -- "Pitch" is a cultural phenomenon, as Kevin has suggested.=20 Frequencies and harmonic relationships are, more or less "physics" that is= =20 processed by the auditory pathway until its arrival at the auditory=20 cortex. speaking of which -- have you read the paper about plasticity in tonotopic= =20 maps? perhaps this has something to do with perception about consonance=20 and dissonance. i'll see if i can find it... the finding was that in A1=20 the tonotopic map is not organized as once thought, is different across=20 individuals, and has L/R/ lateralization differences... are we speaking about consonance as "Harmonically related" and dissonance= =20 as "not harmonically related"? i can see that as a point of confusion=20 between disciplines. I agree that there are hard-wired responses to acoustic phenomena=20 (fight/flight/etc), but music is, for the most part, unnatural. Using=20 comparisons to animal calls is interesting, but at the end of the day, not= =20 the same thing. without cognitive processes such as memory, music=20 perception would be fleeting. Mental state has as much to do with=20 receiving musical information as the timbral content of the sound...=20 regardless of the style or level of dissonance the particular culture has= =20 imparted on particular organizations of sounds -- also a "top-down"=20 process. i guess i'm confused as to why it can't be looked at both ways... -m On Sat, 25 Sep 2010, Martin Braun wrote: > "As I understand it, the first level of nerves from cochlea to brain are= =20 > something like the telephone wires that run by my house. Do they interpre= t=20 > the impulses or [simply] transmit them?" > > Before musical information reaches the "language top" of the brain (same= =20 > level as manages phonemes) the "lower machinery" has already extracted pi= tch,=20 > consonance, dissonance, chroma, and nearly all of the "emotional byproduc= ts".=20 > In fact, if it was possible to black out the products of the "lower=20 > machinery" (say, by anesthesia), the "language top" of the brain would ha= ve=20 > no cue whatsoever that it was music that was in the air. > > > "I'm not sure what would make a memory chip happy or sad." > > If a chip has the same life span with noise as with music, I would regard= it=20 > as being equally happy with either. Just yesterday I learned that in East= =20 > Germany average life span of humans has increased by six years after=20 > Communism's fall in 1989. Here the noise before 1989 was not so much an= =20 > acoustic one, of course. > > Martin > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > Martin Braun > Neuroscience of Music > S-671 95 Kl=E4ssbol > Sweden > email: nombraun@xxxxxxxx > web site: http://www.neuroscience-of-music.se/index.htm > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kevin Austin" <kevin.austin@xxxxxxxx= =2Eca> > To: "Martin Braun" <nombraun@xxxxxxxx> > Cc: <AUDITORY@xxxxxxxx> > Sent: Saturday, September 25, 2010 9:13 PM > Subject: Dissonance with integration? > --- matthew mccabe <mccabem@xxxxxxxx> visiting assistant professor / music tech :: columbus state university ph.d., music composition :: uf college of fine arts lab member :: reilly cognition and language lab :: uf phhp http://plaza.ufl.edu/mccabem/ http://www.euph0r1a.net/ ---2092932544-461345743-1285448099=:10045--