5 ms·
This is a pleasant hypothesis, but what does it imply? Is there a bijection between music and speech, or some sort of structure there to investigate?
by skulk 5y ago
This is a pleasant hypothesis, but what does it imply? Is there a bijection between music and speech, or some sort of structure there to investigate?
- javajosh 5y agoWell for one thing it explains why I can't speak when playing piano!
- motohagiography 5y agoThere with you. I can't formulate words and speak them while listening to music, but I can write them. Interesting that it blocks words to speech, but not words to fingers. > In particular, people never musicalize conversational speech. > (You can try, but I guarantee you will ruin the vibe of the conversation.) On this statement of his, however, I'd disagree. If you have ever watched the show Letterkenny, the banter is clearly musical. I have friends that went to school with the creators, and that style of south/central Ontario banter is very much a thing, we can do it on cue. Theatre people can have a certain way as well, where stories told by stage actors are often sonorous and rhythmic. Some British trained actors begin to speak from their lower registers (think Ian McKellen or Patrick Stewart) Then again, maybe part of being a great presence as an actor is stupefying an audience with a musical voice. I've met hypnotist/NLP practitioners who work on rhythm and tone in their speech, and this could be construed as a technique for disarming and neutralizing critical faculties. Personally, the idea that there is an out of band way to mesmerize people by turning off their critical and conversational faculties using rhythmic musical intonation is too much existential horror for me to accept. I'll stick to writing, thank you.
- memco 5y ago> In particular, people never musicalize conversational speech. > (You can try, but I guarantee you will ruin the vibe of the conversation.) I sometimes try to sing my requests to my daughter when my willpower to repeat the request has run out. It never helps improve her response, but it helps me stay motivated.
- skulk 5y agoI just tried to have a "verbal" thought while imagining music playing and it's surprisingly impossible! The only way to have any "verbal" thoughts while playing music in my head is to imagine myself singing it to the melody, or by moving a body part, say a finger, to the imaginary music. The latter feels like delegating the music to the finger, freeing up my brain to think other thoughts. This is far stranger than I ever imagined, and it also might explain why I'm able to fall asleep much faster if I just try to imagine music playing and suppress the urge to tap along with my feet.
- airstrike 5y agoSounds like someone needs to organize a new extreme debate competition in which contestants have to play completely unrelated music while presenting their arguments
- javajosh 5y agoSo it's not quite black and white - if you're playing something simple and rote, speaking is easy. But if you're playing something complicated - hard. If you're improvising, speaking is impossible. So really the debate would have to be two jazz players debating AND improving with each other. I mean, I'd watch it.