Re: [microsound] memory and melody

[dbuchwald <dagmar.buchwald@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Vadim,

interesting questions.  I kept wondering for years why my ears are so much tuned to melody that I hardly hear much less remember anything else in a musical composition -- only the melody.  On the one hand this is certainly a matter of musical training: those trained in harmony and orchestral composition certainly listen differently.  In my case, the whole thing switched as soon as I got more involved with abstract electronic music  without melody (it didn't change with Western classical music because there is still melody and I immediately decoded it in terms of "voice").  Only if everything remotely reminding of melody is removed this fixation opens and I begin to hear the layers, the
occurrences of single tones, the events (that's why microsound is almost therapy to me).  At least in my case it's sadly true that whenever I have the slightest chance to hear something like a melody or words even that is what I decode, even if it's not there for others. Since this has puzzled me for quite a while I looked for answers.

With fifteen I heard Steve Reich's "Music for 18 musicians" on radio and recorded it.  That was a completely new experience to me and seemed to open up something in the brain.  I noticed areas of hearing I never noticed before but then it all fell asleep again for many years until abstract electronic music and some kinds of 'world Music' (horrible term) came along.

Answers? One is, that it's partly in the physiological/genetical makeup of sound producing animals: a lot of birds sing in melodies and Deleuze/Guattari -- when discussing territorialization and the effect of territorialization via refrain -- also referred back to birds.  As far as I know every male blackbird develops his unique melody in modulation of melodies heard during an especially receptive maturation and learning phase in his life.  His melody, and its subtle variations are his identity and define his territory.  (On the other hand, that is OUR reception of it and how we interpret it; we hear a melody; I have no idea whether this is what the blackbird hears).  All this business of
national anthems etc hints at the territorializing effect of melody.  Imagine a national anthem without melody!  Thus melody seems to be closely related to a definition of borders and identity.

In terms of memorizing cadences, repetition and rhyme are equally important: when you learn a poem by heart those are the features which help you to memorize it.  How closely they are connected to the melody-faculty of our brain, I don't know.  Very close I guess.

The next thing that struck me was that there is obviously a gender difference in decoding music and voice.  As far as I know women (in modern Western cultures) tend to process sound events predominantly in that area of the brain which is responsible for decoding language, whereas men (in modern Western cultures) partly process them in brain areas more geared towards abstract patterns.  Whether this is due to the overwhelming dominance of mothers teaching songs to their children and teaching them the language (thesis: 'nature' disposed females rather towards the language processing end because that is where their main occupation lies -- sorry, not a very feminist viewpoint but close to the
history of human cultures) I cannot say: at least it cannot explain why boys taught by the same mother still develop (or bring with them) a different way of processing sounds than their sisters.  I always wondered whether this was the reason why there are so few female composers, much less than painters or writers.  Although musical training ought to tip the balance.  Since there are many female musicians (not composers) they ought to have the ability to hear more than melody when playing or listending to music. :)  And this fixation on melody is certainly not restricted to females (see the male blackbird).

But what about other cultures?  I think Deleuze and Guattari also made the point that the territorializing effect of refrain and the hegemony and imperialist character of western cultures somehow go together.  I simply can't imagine imperialism together with gamelan music.  Gregory Bateson made the observation -- also in Bali if I remember correctly -- that there are cultures not driving towards climaxes but aiming for a continuous balance of dispersive forces, surfing so to speak the wave between chaos and order; while melody and compositions striving for a development and culminating with a climax are much more interested in creating a strong difference between inside and outside of  a system:
inside the song and the identity -- outside 'other', 'nature', 'not-me'.   Very sweeping claims -- but, please, blame my poor summary and not Bateson's much subtler description.  I have no idea whether mothers sing songs with melody and refrain (songs in the western sense of the term) in all cultures.  Would be interesting to know.  If not, these cultures would certainly not foreground melody as much as we do.

I think I added even more questions to yours than answered them.

Dagmar

vadim sprikut wrote:

> hi all.
>
> i was thinking about music and memory. more specifically, why its easier for most of us to remember melody rather than other elements like timbre, tone, rhythm (although this one is debatable), etc.
>
> the first thing that comes to mind of course is how we encode information. for instance, the average number of things (numbers, words, etc) one can memorize in one string is about seven. anything more than that, and we're in trouble. my musical language is pretty weak, but i suspect its something to do with the arrangement of a melodic part. thats why most of the 'memorable' music has been pop or classically oriented.
>
> but it seems like there should be more to it than that though. not just how the melody is arranged but the characteristics of the melody as well. that brings another question to mind: are we predisposed to process melody over those other elements? kind of like being born with the capacity for language that is eventually nurtured into complex speech through interactions with parents (and exposure to language in general). or is this a totally learned mechanism? for instance, if you were able to raise a child with no exposure to melody but instead played it abstract compositions (such as some of the music we discuss here), would it be able to remember elements of abstraction better than melody?
>
> take a piece of music like vladislav delay's "anima" for instance. beautiful work, but i have a hard time retaining it's specific structures in my head. i can remember certain sounds, tones, etc but i wouldnt be able to reproduce it for anyone unless i actually played it. however, take his luomo project, and its a different story. i can hum certain parts because ive managed to retain certain melodic elements.
>
> maybe someone into psychoacoustics can shed some light on this.
>
> v'
>
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