But then you are not explaining how music is able to "directly push emotional buttons". The last time you were saying that it is explained by our responses to recognizing patterns. This time, it seems like you are saying music somehow has direct access to emotions. — hypericin

You said this in response to a (by me true) claim by PfHorrest, "Music pushes emotional buttons." (Not quoted verbatim.)

It is true. PfH only states a fact, without any actual explanation why it is so.

Many other respondents made observations how we hear our mothers' heartbeats, how we hear rhythmic noises or sounds in nature, how bird songs are attractive, etc. They fail to say why it is attractive, while in the description, in the stating of facts, they are unerring.

I have an explanation. This is what it is:

A mutation occurred at one point which manifested in music appreciation. What we call music from then onward to the mutant and to his or her offspring was pleasurable, and to a lesser degree, also useful in evolutionary terms. It turns out that texts are easier to memorize when in verse, and in meter, than straight prose. And it's even easier to memorize if it's to music.

So in those tens of thousands of years when accumulated knowledge, that helped the survival of communities and individuals within, was passed by word-of-mouth (prior to any ability to mark text on permanent text-carrier), it was extremely important to have it memorized well; and verses put to music made this possible. So the gene that manifested in the enjoyment of music, also survived, because it was an evolutionary advantage.

Food for thought...why are educators so bent on making learning "fun" and why does "fun" in this case resemble marketing tactics? — TheMadFool

Hmmm.... I can't think of examples of educators making learning fun. I know they try sometimes. For me there's an issue with people only being aware of the things that are marketed at them and almost totally ignorant about anything else. So their choice, partly because of this, is almost always based on a tiny slither of potential experience that is mainstream and foisted on them.

. Why wouldn't they enjoy ... ?

There are tunes that one listener finds sad and another finds happy. It still surprises me when it happens. So counter-intuitive! — Olivier5

The gods of music must be crazy

I used to agree with this idea that the emotional charge of a given piece of music was "obvious" or "objective" for all to hear but it is not the case. — Olivier5

What I said was a gross generalization, but I would say that it's actually dependent on the dominant cultures of a certain period. Take cinematic music for example, maybe from Marvel. Ecstatic fight scenes will usually have this certain flavor, tragic scenes its own,..etc. Having watched some Filipino, Korean, Chinese, and Japanese films, I can say that films with similar themes also have similar musical flavors. This may be a result of economic and business factors, even traditional and dogmatic, but I won't say that there's an objectivity to music.

One classic example of how music connects to emotions is the contrast between the minor and major chords: major chords ( ie C, E, G) are said to be upbeat and active while minor chords (ie C, E flat, G) are more melancholic. I have no idea why.

I agree. But depending on the composition of a piece, minors can be used for energetic moments. Take Bill Wurtz, for example, who is famous for his strange chords and unusual chord progression.

Convention, complicated by path-dependent exploration of the infinite possibilities. Creating the illusion of a natural connection. Yuk, I know. Something like that, though.

Creating the illusion of a natural connection. — bongo fury

Yeah but then, isn't illusion your default explanation for pretty much everything?

Haha, but is it disappointing that the connection isn't natural? I would be expecting to be accused of wishful thinking on this question. (Of denying the innate programming.)

Haha, but is it disappointing if the connection isn't natural? — bongo fury

Not really. It makes it more interesting.

For me too. And it was Goodman's actual point here:

The notion of the structure of a work [or any object] is as specious as the notion of the structure of the world. A work, like the world, has as many different structures as there are ways of organising it, of subsuming it under categorical schemata dependent upon some or other structural affinities with and differences from other works.
— Goodman, Problems and Projects — bongo fury

I might (later) edit in the continuation that explains how emotional analysis of music should lead to structural.

Just because things have more than one aspect or dimension or even structure, doesn't mean that talking of their structure(s) is always specious. Otherwise, by the same token, Goodman's owns ideas of the whole shebang are specious...

People keep tripping on the same contradiction all the time. Eager to burn the fields they have once toiled in vain, they proclaim that all talk of X (metaphysics, structure, lolipops, whatever) is rubbish, not noticing the reflexivity entailed by such sweeping statements.

The correct conclusion is usually that SOME talk about X may well be rubbish, but NOT ALL talk about X is necessarily rubbish.

That's the other thread, though.

Yes, we've been there.

Interested in a non-illusionary theory of the correspondences between chords and emotions.

Goodman explains "expression" as the metaphorical exemplification of properties. The chord expresses sadness in that it is a sample of metaphorically-sad things in general. Is metaphor illusionary?

Is metaphor illusionary? — bongo fury

Metaphors are us, the way I see it. I let you decide if we are illusions or not.

The chord expresses sadness in that it is a sample of metaphorically-sad things in general.

It still does not explain why minor chords tend to be heard as more subdued and less assertive than major chords.

It still does not explain why minor chords tend to be heard as more subdued and less assertive than major chords. — Olivier5

Sure it does, to the extent they do, which is grossly overstated.

It's because they have been used successfully to express sadness.

Path dependence.

Contingent on prior adoption of a classification into and of triads, as well.



... How have they been used successfully to express sadness? Good question, but a matter for analysis, which isn't at all obliged to implicate an innate correlation.

because they have been used successfully to express sadness. — bongo fury

As language therefore: the phonetics of words are in an arbitrary, culturally-constructed relationship with their meaning.

Yet music is often seen as jumping through linguistic barriers. As universal in this sense.

Yep.

Donald Trump Covfefe
Carlos Ruiz Zafon Shadow of the Wind
William Blake Tyger Tyger
Dr. Dre feat. Snoop Doggy Dogg, 'Nuthin’ But a ‘G’ Thang'
Khachaturians Adagio of Spartacus
RHCP Otherside

Can they be put under the same umbrella? Where does music begin?

With pattern-making?

At Blake then, in my listing?

When I was young, I travelled far. I listened to a lot of bizarre music, ragas with 13 beats per measure, love songs with much violins and tablas... I also got to share some Western music with people who had never heard anything like it before.

Once, on a high mountain, I met with a Gujur tribe. They are dark-skinned pastoralists situated at the lowest level in the tribal hierarchies of the Hindu Kuch, which means they live in the highest habitable region, in or above the pine forest. Over there, the poorer you are, the higher you live.

Their malek was most welcoming. We stayed in his camp for a couple of nights. At the time I was carrying around a Sony walkman as my escapist link to modernity. I would listen to it at night before sleep, specifically to Prince's Sign of the Times album. I had this cassette and Beggars' Banquet.

At some point the malek asked me if he could have the headphones. I handed them to him, a bit nervous due to his probably limited prior exposure to metrosexual electrofunk... He put the thing on his ears and I pressed Play. He listened to Prince for about twenty minutes, his dreamy eyes lost somewhere beyond the forest, shaking his heads once in a while.

At the end he took the headphones off and handing them to me he said: "It's interesting!"

I still wonder how he heard it.