4 ms·

What, if anything, is universal to music cognition? (2024)

45 points by Hooke 11mo ago

brudgers 10mo ago
Consider 4'33". "Universal music cognition" requires a strong exclusionary premise about what counts as music and more importantly what doesn't count as music. Sure maybe you don't consider 4'33" music. That does not mean other people do not experience it as music in the normal ways people can experience music such as buying tickets, putting on fancy clothes and sitting in a performance space at an appointed time and as an excuse to go out to dinner and/or on a date. But if your musical interest extends much beyond a Methodist hymnal, there are probably people who will opine that the subject of those interests are not "real" music. To be clear, I am not opining that *4'33" is or isn't "real" music. Only that in a scientific context, there is no objective way to distinguish between music and non-music. Some cultures have practices that we can label "music" but within the culture they do not play a language game that includes the label "music." Which is to say that any ecumenical approach to music in a scientific context is so broad as to be meaningless. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4%E2%80%B233%E2%80%B3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4%E2%80%B233%E2%80%B3
- wisty 10mo ago
  I think music is more universal than you suggest (or people may think you're suggesting). Trying to classify things as music is a normative approach - saying what music should be. There's always exceptions to rules, as you point out, and people will always disagree and find exceptions. The article is a descriptive approach - it studies what people think music is. You can treat music as information. If it's not information, it's just noise. Sometimes it has a low information density. People like to sing along to stuff they recognise. Sometimes it has higher density - a surprise bit of syncopation or an unusual note. Music is a variation in pitch and rhythm (etc) that is boring enough (in the context of the priors) to be familiar, but not too boring. OTOH look at how tone poems flopped. There are patterns that are naturally easier to learn - rhythms (in the article) and maybe scales and harmonies (though this is clearly a bit more complex - not every culture has the old Mesopotamian diatonic scales that the Pythagorians formalised). But like Chomsky theorised with grammar, there might be defaults (or a range of defaults) that humans are naturally drawn to as the priors.
  - pontusrehula 10mo ago
    > You can treat music as information. If it's not information, it's just noise. In information theory we have: A message has maximal information content if (and only if) its symbols are statistically indistinguishable from random noise. Noise or noise-like elements are also important part of many kinds of music.
    - robot-wrangler 10mo ago
      This is why a better acronym for IDM is Information Dense Music, it's less pretentious and it explains why it's very close to noise ;) Of course, I'd argue Bach and Debussy are very information-dense too but they somehow manage to stay uncluttered. The really great thing about music is that encodes information on many different levels, Claude Shannon notwithstanding
- js8 10mo ago
  Working in an almost open office, 4 and half minutes of silence is a music to my ears. :-) If anything it should be longer.
- Uhhrrr 10mo ago
  433 was more of a statement/exercise in listening. It's interesting to explore the edges of what counts as music, but in practice, people can tell when something is music made for enjoyment by other people.
  - telesilla 10mo ago
    Enjoyment is a strong word! Some music is written to share ideas and experiments, so it might not be 'enjoyable' to listen to, but 'interesting' - kind of like the difference between reading a Harry Potter book which is engaging and doesn't ask too much of you, and Spinoza, which requires your full attention.
- Libidinalecon 10mo ago
  I forget anyone takes 4'33" seriously. Imagine a chef making a dish of just an empty plate. It is just stupid. Even the biggest food hipsters wouldn't fall for something that stupid. At some point one should have listened to enough music in their life to call 4'33" out for the bullshit that it is.
- spider-mario 10mo ago
  This sounds like a potential continuum fallacy. https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Argument-of-the-Beard https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Argumen...
nelox 10mo ago
[flagged]
- dr_dshiv 10mo ago
  And a strong tendency for integer ratios in chords. So is this about compressibility?
  - codeulike 10mo ago
    Integer frequency ratios in chords are probably favoured because of the way overtones line up and make the cilia of the inner ear vibrate
  - IsTom 10mo ago
    Many just intonation chords (where ratios are actually integers, not approximations of them) will sound out of tune to most people.
    - dr_dshiv 10mo ago
      Out of tune or just cold?
      - IsTom 10mo ago
        Typical person on the internet will be really used to 12 tone equal temperament, for just tuning most intervals are 10+ cents off even if you allow pretty large ratios: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_equal_temperament#/media/File:12ed2-5Limit.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_equal_temperament#/media/Fi...
    - derpified 10mo ago
      But the whole point of 12-TET is it is a close approximation of those just intervals while still allowing multiple keys to be played without retuning the instrument. If the close mathematical approximation didn't exist, there would be no reason to tune your instruments with a logarithmic recurrence relation.
hmokiguess 10mo ago
Very interesting problem to even consider. That said, I don’t think we even understand the what, how, and why of music. The rhythm precognition aspect mentioned in another comment makes me think it’s just a byproduct of time and counting with pattern recognition, not necessarily a music thing just a correlation by virtue of physics and the laws of the universe.
GuinansEyebrows 10mo ago
for a really illuminating look into some of the more "social" aspects of this field of study, i would highly recommend the book "Musicking" by Christopher Small [0]. it dives into many ways that humans interact with and experience music, using the foil of classical western concert music against many other forms of traditional and popular music (including the popular phase of what's now considered classical). really interesting stuff! [0]: https://www.weslpress.org/9780819572240/musicking/ https://www.weslpress.org/9780819572240/musicking/

45 points by Hooke 11mo ago

Consider 4'33". "Universal music cognition" requires a strong exclusionary premise about what counts as music and more importantly what doesn't count as music. Sure maybe you don't consider 4'33" music. That does not mean other people do not experience it as music in the normal ways people can experience music such as buying tickets, putting on fancy clothes and sitting in a performance space at an appointed time and as an excuse to go out to dinner and/or on a date. But if your musical interest extends much beyond a Methodist hymnal, there are probably people who will opine that the subject of those interests are not "real" music. To be clear, I am not opining that *4'33" is or isn't "real" music. Only that in a scientific context, there is no objective way to distinguish between music and non-music. Some cultures have practices that we can label "music" but within the culture they do not play a language game that includes the label "music." Which is to say that any ecumenical approach to music in a scientific context is so broad as to be meaningless. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4%E2%80%B233%E2%80%B3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4%E2%80%B233%E2%80%B3

wisty 10mo ago
I think music is more universal than you suggest (or people may think you're suggesting). Trying to classify things as music is a normative approach - saying what music should be. There's always exceptions to rules, as you point out, and people will always disagree and find exceptions. The article is a descriptive approach - it studies what people think music is. You can treat music as information. If it's not information, it's just noise. Sometimes it has a low information density. People like to sing along to stuff they recognise. Sometimes it has higher density - a surprise bit of syncopation or an unusual note. Music is a variation in pitch and rhythm (etc) that is boring enough (in the context of the priors) to be familiar, but not too boring. OTOH look at how tone poems flopped. There are patterns that are naturally easier to learn - rhythms (in the article) and maybe scales and harmonies (though this is clearly a bit more complex - not every culture has the old Mesopotamian diatonic scales that the Pythagorians formalised). But like Chomsky theorised with grammar, there might be defaults (or a range of defaults) that humans are naturally drawn to as the priors.
- pontusrehula 10mo ago
  > You can treat music as information. If it's not information, it's just noise. In information theory we have: A message has maximal information content if (and only if) its symbols are statistically indistinguishable from random noise. Noise or noise-like elements are also important part of many kinds of music.
  - robot-wrangler 10mo ago
    This is why a better acronym for IDM is Information Dense Music, it's less pretentious and it explains why it's very close to noise ;) Of course, I'd argue Bach and Debussy are very information-dense too but they somehow manage to stay uncluttered. The really great thing about music is that encodes information on many different levels, Claude Shannon notwithstanding
js8 10mo ago
Working in an almost open office, 4 and half minutes of silence is a music to my ears. :-) If anything it should be longer.
Uhhrrr 10mo ago
433 was more of a statement/exercise in listening. It's interesting to explore the edges of what counts as music, but in practice, people can tell when something is music made for enjoyment by other people.
- telesilla 10mo ago
  Enjoyment is a strong word! Some music is written to share ideas and experiments, so it might not be 'enjoyable' to listen to, but 'interesting' - kind of like the difference between reading a Harry Potter book which is engaging and doesn't ask too much of you, and Spinoza, which requires your full attention.
Libidinalecon 10mo ago
I forget anyone takes 4'33" seriously. Imagine a chef making a dish of just an empty plate. It is just stupid. Even the biggest food hipsters wouldn't fall for something that stupid. At some point one should have listened to enough music in their life to call 4'33" out for the bullshit that it is.
spider-mario 10mo ago
This sounds like a potential continuum fallacy. https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Argument-of-the-Beard https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Argumen...

nelox 10mo ago

[flagged]

dr_dshiv 10mo ago
And a strong tendency for integer ratios in chords. So is this about compressibility?
- codeulike 10mo ago
  Integer frequency ratios in chords are probably favoured because of the way overtones line up and make the cilia of the inner ear vibrate
- IsTom 10mo ago
  Many just intonation chords (where ratios are actually integers, not approximations of them) will sound out of tune to most people.
  - dr_dshiv 10mo ago
    Out of tune or just cold?
    - IsTom 10mo ago
      Typical person on the internet will be really used to 12 tone equal temperament, for just tuning most intervals are 10+ cents off even if you allow pretty large ratios: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_equal_temperament#/media/File:12ed2-5Limit.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_equal_temperament#/media/Fi...
  - derpified 10mo ago
    But the whole point of 12-TET is it is a close approximation of those just intervals while still allowing multiple keys to be played without retuning the instrument. If the close mathematical approximation didn't exist, there would be no reason to tune your instruments with a logarithmic recurrence relation.

hmokiguess 10mo ago

Very interesting problem to even consider. That said, I don’t think we even understand the what, how, and why of music. The rhythm precognition aspect mentioned in another comment makes me think it’s just a byproduct of time and counting with pattern recognition, not necessarily a music thing just a correlation by virtue of physics and the laws of the universe.

GuinansEyebrows 10mo ago

for a really illuminating look into some of the more "social" aspects of this field of study, i would highly recommend the book "Musicking" by Christopher Small [0]. it dives into many ways that humans interact with and experience music, using the foil of classical western concert music against many other forms of traditional and popular music (including the popular phase of what's now considered classical). really interesting stuff! [0]: https://www.weslpress.org/9780819572240/musicking/ https://www.weslpress.org/9780819572240/musicking/