Even though this video has some typos (:-\), it also has some EXCELLENT information on the condition known as synaesthesia:
Synaesthesia is a neurological condition that causes another sense to activate when one sense does. It's of particular interest to music psychologists because it means some people can see music.
Here's an NPR article explaining the effect on musicians.
Synaesthesia.com has good information too, as well as a synaesthesia test!
The video game Rez was made to allow other people to experience synaesthesia too. Watch this video and see if you can imagine feeling like this every time you hear music:
Friday, December 9, 2011
Taylor Swift Demonstrates Musical Schema
What are these?
The same song, right? So what's going on?
Humans like categorizing things, and that extends to music as well. Some categories are easy. You can likely tell the difference between something like this and this (even though they ARE connected in a round about way, actually!)
Sometimes pop artists will release two versions of songs, like Ms. Swift did, to appeal to both markets, in this case the pop market and the country market. It increases album sales. Shania Twain did the same thing with her album Up!.
(In relation to the last post, you can still tell that both songs are Love Story, of course, because they share the same melody with the same intervals and have the same harmonic structure, even if they're presented differently.)
The Music Genome Project is the most expansive project to classify music to date. The idea is to classify music using a list of attributes, create a list of those attributes for every song, and then determine how similar songs are to each other.
This technology allows us to have Pandora, a music streaming service that guesses what music you might like when you tell it either a specific song or a category of songs. Pandora's success as a service shows how well The Music Genome Project works.
You can see a list of attributes The Music Genome Project uses here.
The same song, right? So what's going on?
Humans like categorizing things, and that extends to music as well. Some categories are easy. You can likely tell the difference between something like this and this (even though they ARE connected in a round about way, actually!)
Sometimes pop artists will release two versions of songs, like Ms. Swift did, to appeal to both markets, in this case the pop market and the country market. It increases album sales. Shania Twain did the same thing with her album Up!.
(In relation to the last post, you can still tell that both songs are Love Story, of course, because they share the same melody with the same intervals and have the same harmonic structure, even if they're presented differently.)
The Music Genome Project is the most expansive project to classify music to date. The idea is to classify music using a list of attributes, create a list of those attributes for every song, and then determine how similar songs are to each other.
This technology allows us to have Pandora, a music streaming service that guesses what music you might like when you tell it either a specific song or a category of songs. Pandora's success as a service shows how well The Music Genome Project works.
You can see a list of attributes The Music Genome Project uses here.
Musical Pitch and Schema
Listen to these two melodies, and tell me what they are.
One
Two
Easy enough, right? I probably don't even need to tell you what the answers are. Before I go on, why do you think I've picked those particular sound files?
You're able to recognize familiar melodies, whether or not they're high or low. (In the above examples, one is very high, and one is very low. You can tell which is which, right?) The important thing is that you keep the intervals between the notes the same. You remember intervals, right?
So, then, tell me what this song is:
Three
What, you didn't recognize Mary Had A Little Lamb? I changed the intervals between the notes, but I kept the high-middle-low of the pitches the same. It still doesn't sound like it, does it?
If you were wondering, in example three, all the notes are octaves, meaning either that they're eight notes apart from each other, or that they all have the same letter name. (C, in the example.)
One
Two
Easy enough, right? I probably don't even need to tell you what the answers are. Before I go on, why do you think I've picked those particular sound files?
You're able to recognize familiar melodies, whether or not they're high or low. (In the above examples, one is very high, and one is very low. You can tell which is which, right?) The important thing is that you keep the intervals between the notes the same. You remember intervals, right?
So, then, tell me what this song is:
Three
What, you didn't recognize Mary Had A Little Lamb? I changed the intervals between the notes, but I kept the high-middle-low of the pitches the same. It still doesn't sound like it, does it?
If you were wondering, in example three, all the notes are octaves, meaning either that they're eight notes apart from each other, or that they all have the same letter name. (C, in the example.)
Thursday, December 8, 2011
12 Variations
This is a famous Mozart piece.
No, really.
What melody is it?
Being able to track the melody through all 12 variations requires the capacity for spacial-temporal reasoning. This means that you're able to hold a mental image of the melody, compare it to what you hear, and see how they match up.
You can read more about it here.
No, really.
What melody is it?
Being able to track the melody through all 12 variations requires the capacity for spacial-temporal reasoning. This means that you're able to hold a mental image of the melody, compare it to what you hear, and see how they match up.
You can read more about it here.
Ravel's Bolero
This is Ravel's Bolero.
You can hear, even in the opening few bars, the repetition of musical phrases. We call these motifs. The melody copies itself a lot. Even if you can't tell how the melody repeats, check out that snare drum!
Ravel suffered from degenerative brain disease. Scientists aren't exactly sure which ones he suffered from, but they were there. Dementia seems to be a popular theory.
Listen -- do you hear how different instruments pass the melody around? The different voices instruments have is called timbre. Scientists think that Bolero's obsession with different timbres may have something to do with the degradation of Ravel's left hemisphere. The right hemisphere is where timbre is processed.
You can read more about Ravel's brain disease and the effects on his music here.
A woman suffering from a degenerative brain disease called primary progressive aphasia became so obsessed with Ravel's Bolero that she had to paint the work. You can see the painting HERE and see an explanation of the painting as well. (All caps because I don't want you to miss the link. It's amazing!)
You can hear, even in the opening few bars, the repetition of musical phrases. We call these motifs. The melody copies itself a lot. Even if you can't tell how the melody repeats, check out that snare drum!
Ravel suffered from degenerative brain disease. Scientists aren't exactly sure which ones he suffered from, but they were there. Dementia seems to be a popular theory.
Listen -- do you hear how different instruments pass the melody around? The different voices instruments have is called timbre. Scientists think that Bolero's obsession with different timbres may have something to do with the degradation of Ravel's left hemisphere. The right hemisphere is where timbre is processed.
You can read more about Ravel's brain disease and the effects on his music here.
A woman suffering from a degenerative brain disease called primary progressive aphasia became so obsessed with Ravel's Bolero that she had to paint the work. You can see the painting HERE and see an explanation of the painting as well. (All caps because I don't want you to miss the link. It's amazing!)
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Musical Syntax
Listen to the sound files below. Pick the wrong one.
Don't worry, you'll know which one is wrong.
One
Two
Three
Which one did you say?
Three, right? Do you know how you knew?
In Western music, we like our chords to happen in a certain order. We call this chord progression. Even if you don't understand all the math and symbols in western music, you've (likely, if you can read this) heard such chord progressions your entire life to where you can remember them well enough and identify them, even if you don't have language to speak about them. (I cheated a little by putting the 'wrong' example last, so that you'd be 'reminded' of what correct chords sounded like.)
We call this musical syntax, since it's a lot like learning how to use words in a correct order to make sense as well. The third example sticks out because I broke a rule. It would be like if I not write sentence none to good. You'd notice.
If you were wondering, the first example is a simple jazz progression, and the second is a simple 50s doo wop progression. The last one throws a iii chord in the middle, which is a chord that doesn't get used often anyway, so it sticks out pretty hard.
Don't worry, you'll know which one is wrong.
One
Two
Three
Which one did you say?
Three, right? Do you know how you knew?
In Western music, we like our chords to happen in a certain order. We call this chord progression. Even if you don't understand all the math and symbols in western music, you've (likely, if you can read this) heard such chord progressions your entire life to where you can remember them well enough and identify them, even if you don't have language to speak about them. (I cheated a little by putting the 'wrong' example last, so that you'd be 'reminded' of what correct chords sounded like.)
We call this musical syntax, since it's a lot like learning how to use words in a correct order to make sense as well. The third example sticks out because I broke a rule. It would be like if I not write sentence none to good. You'd notice.
If you were wondering, the first example is a simple jazz progression, and the second is a simple 50s doo wop progression. The last one throws a iii chord in the middle, which is a chord that doesn't get used often anyway, so it sticks out pretty hard.
Music Therapy
This is a topic near and dear to my heart: music therapy in relation to Autism. I dug up some videos that I hope you enjoy.
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