Does Melody Even Matter??

[IncarnateX]

the problem of induction.

applies here in the biggest way

Oh, there are problems of deduction too, interpretation, reframing, development of hypothesis, inference, making valid conclusions from true premises etc. I am impressed that you take time to deal with it. To me, it is but conjecture hidden in pretentious terms of rigorious science that belongs to a completely another field of study with another methodology, and where he evidently shows no consciousness of even that. This besides from being anything but rigorous. But what do I know? I am a “fraud” since I insist that his delusions of objectivity does not belong to the field. And at the end of the day, what he really wants to say is that importance of melody depends on cultural and personal preferences. Do know about you, but I really take this as a premise of life and need no textwalls after another with misrepresentative statements or pseudo-arguments to ensure me that.

[Deep Purple]

he also got parodied, which in turn was parodied.

Parodied, lost.

John milked 'em

[vurt]

does to ice cream men.

[donkey tugger]

does to ice cream men.

[Musicologo]

I think it's quite inadequate compared to a study of music itself

What is music itself? Which music?

Only a musician has a musical practice; or do you not even know what the two words together mean?

I don't know what these two words mean because ALL man are musical and all man have a musical practice. This is musicology 101. "What do you mean you can't sing? you have a mouth, you can't eat?" - "How musical is men?" - John Blacking.

You can only study music itself, when you first understand WHAT it is that people are calling music and the behaviours associated with it. What you're calling music Jan, it is not what many others are calling music.

That's why I quoted the methodology: "concept, behaviour, sound". You study the SOUNDS, the texts, produced by humans, only those that are relevant to that culture and only those people are calling "music".

So everything that you study is INCLUDED in musicology, inside the context. That's why you have not one music theory but hundreds and thousands of music theories.
To study the music of zappa you have to use some tools and concepts, to study the music of Irving Berlin you have to use others, to study the music of folk fado singers you use others, to study indian rags you'll use others....

but you KNOW this, because you've done that. You know perfectly well, as you've shown in many threads when you talk about different musical practices and the concept and behaviours they use. It would make no sense to explain indian ragas using counterpoint rules or functional harmony.

Part of what musicology has done was to indentify all those cultures and describe and explain all those theories in their own terms, all those cultures lomax identified and many other scholars among the years.... from XVII century aztec musics, to a conservatory culture in NY late xxth century, to venda tribe music in Africa....

The musical industries and technologies changed a LOT during the 20th century and of course induced cross- culturality a LOT, but all that has been studied and explained. The study of musical industries itself and their influence in shaping the repertoires and musical practices is linked as well.

I agree with you on the problems of induction: but that is the same in every science. that's why you have statistics and models and they are all reductions. What is a census anyway? What is "the average american"? does it even exist? Yet we see all those kinds of reductions applied everyday and many of them work quite fine for their purposes.

I think in the end it really depends on what questions are you trying to answer.
If I just want to make music in the style of Zappa, well I read about the life of Zappa, his context, listen to his records, transcribe his music...

But often I'm trying to answer: What was zappa calling music? why did zappa played? why he played what he played and not something else? what concepts did he use? And this are more fascinating and broad questions...

So the question "does melody matter?" is quite complex becuase it never stated the to whom, when and where? therefore it is too broad a question. If the question was "does melody matter to Zappa in 1970?" or "Is melody important to Suya in Amazonia 1980?" It would be much more straitforward a question...

I can only study music itself when it is linked to a whom, when and where first. Then, I can start in some place.

[IncarnateX]

Okay. I will add an example too to illustrate my points. It is unbearable but how will he learn otherwise?

Regarding psychology of music, deutsch has a very large and good book that I've read.

Yes, but you are not going to tell us what it is about? FYI, mainly auditory illusions.

The problem with all those studies is that they study the brain and sounds. They don't study music, because since music is a cultural understanding of sounds

And the brain has absolutely nothing to do with the processing of cultural understandings of sound?

That they do not study music is thus a false premise, since it is about how our brain is effected by music and therefore they study an important aspect of music if we want to understand how we react to it. They do not study music as an art or the cultural values attached to it beyond what can be meassured by cognitive psychological methods, but that is another erea, so no wonder.

it is mainly expressed externally and can't be observed internally

False. Sound is processed by the brain and the results can be accesses internally, The method of introspection (self-observation) was the core of the birth of academic psychology along with such disciplines as psychopshysics (look it up). In introspection, You train people to observe their inner life and describe it as detailed as possible in given categories. Someone saying that he likes a melody is in principle providing an introspective report. You can also make people react to sound as indication that they heard it.

Therefore the rest of your assertions are likewise ungrounded and false whether you managed to infer them correctly (which you don’t) or not:

you have to grasp it by observing people, listening to them, reading their discoursed, observing their behaviour and then analysing the sounds IN context, and in the terms of the culture you're analizing. You can't just do it in a lab.

Sorry to sound harsh, but I have dealt with papers from students in 22 years and this is not even close to undergraduate entry level. It simply seems juvenile to me.

AND: at the end of the day we cannot even infer from that pile that the value of melodies depends on cultural and personal preference or vice versa. At best, you have already taken it as your premise and are now making invalid inference and conclusions from it. And that “best” is not a good one if you want to pass any exam at university level.

[jancivil]

What I meant about imitators not being valued was - more often than not (a generalization, probably might be exceptions) jazz musicians don't value someone who transcribes a mile davis solo or a coltrane solo and then goes on stage to reproduce it verbatim as if it were a classical musician. If you value this move,

Well, I never heard of anyone doing that. I've heard of Youtube covers. This isn't worth talking about, since I gave you an example which belies your supposition already.
There are arguments about the sort of musicological approach of Wynton Marsalis but this is aesthetics. It's essentially conservative. He's not Miles Davis, so...

There is that one white kid, whose name escapes me, with some virtues going for him but he produces jazz via overdubs, playing only with himself (yes you may draw the inference) which is misguided, and what we have is the synergy of interaction with others is missing.

Looking for a quote (because I want to get that bit off my chest as well*) I find:
"homologies... and eventually a "real" theory for musics..."
Feck off. We did that one already. Music theory is theory like literary theory. You aren't being real at all, you have conjecture and supposition and argumentum ad culum, it sums to nothing useful to a musician. The impression I get is you don't know anything about music really. We've not seen you discuss music much at all, it's this other business. I mean you finally have a little talking about what pop must do today, but one could parrot all of that.

*: A bit offensive to me was

... and [your] belief that here are "people who don't care how music works".
ALL people have a musical practice, but THEIR musical practice might not have the same concepts and behaviours than yours, and that's the whole starting point. So they wouldn't care how YOUR music works, because they are not sharing your values, but are caring how THEIR music works.

Beyond the utterly silly and indefensible "ALL people have a musical practice", I want to say this: I don't have any expectation most of my music is going to be understood by many people, or for them to care. However I must point out that the people who do understand and know some things the vast majority of people don't, even if it's from somewhere in them deeper than information or knowing things. This is how it works. This is real.
You're bullshitting us telling us everyone comes from a practice. It may be you don't have the word 'practice', I don't know. People who do not do music, may simply be passive consumers manipulated by forces they're never aware of. So, the musical quality as a whole in the world suffers, when people are not more exposed like we were once upon a time, and people are as a whole less and less aware. This is something a social science-oriented person could study that would be of some use.

I really don't care to read your stories. You can believe whatever, I don't expect to sway you, but it's just anecdoctal argumentation. It's not scientific at all. You are a believer. There are very clear criticisms of what you take as gospel available to you, but I don't see you as being rigorous, I mean the consequence of whatever it is you find is working is that it isn't really. The impulse driving you to make ignorance equal to knowing is very suspect.

[Musicologo]

IncarnateX, first, let me adress a prior subject: I never called YOU "fraud". I was using that term referring to all those who present findings as science and never testing them. Things like homeopathy, astrology and the sorts.

Second, I can answer everypoint.

Yes, but you are not going to tell us what it is about? FYI, mainly auditory illusions.

False. The book I was referring and posted the link "THe psychology of music 3rd ed" is a huge survey of over 20 chapters and 800p to about every aspect of brains processing sounds. The problem is that is often starts with "ethic" concepts namely as "pitch", "tone", "key", etc.. as if they were universal and relevant and most often than not, that's not the case.

False. Sound is processed by the brain and the results can be accesses internally,

Again you're confirming what I said. The book studies SOUND and how sound is processed in the brain. It is a study of brains and sound. Not music.

What does music has to do with sound? This is taken for granted. Sound is a relevant part of most musics found in the world, but you cannot start from there. That's why I read the book, two times actually, and mantain what I said. The book is a great book and it is a great survey on the study of how brains process sound. That is only a SMALL part of what would be the study of music as culture and in culture. It can be included as a small subset of musicology, regarding the part of "sound", inside the methodoly "concept, behaviour, sound", historically constructed, socially mantained, individually experienced.

You guys seem to be taken for granted western concepts of what "music" is for a start, and what is a musician, a musical practice, etc... Musicology makes no such assumptions. IT has to find them first and define them afterwards in the terms of the culture that it is studying.

[jancivil]

"more exposed" in school, as we were once upon a time. Today there is so much more available but the people who want Adele Hello are stuck in that.

... because since music is a cultural understanding of sounds

This is a rather poor definition of music.

You need to reduce it to your own means, and to your own end. This kind of thing could be remedied by real involvement, real study of music as an object, but you find talking about culture, and social norms, and things which drive behavior preferable to it. I don't. I'm a musician, music is much richer and infinitely vast while this is severely limited.

[Aloysius]

If melody didn't matter, there would not be a word for it.

[Musicologo]

Beyond the utterly silly and indefensible "ALL people have a musical practice",

Why is this silly and indefensible. This is a CORE concept in musicology. The very act of "passive listening" (what is that???) is a musical practice. That's why I said music is akin to food, walk, sex, dress... it is something we all DO everyting. it is an expressive behaviour.

Musicologists study ALL of those practices (all those expressive behaviours, again, concepts, behaviours sounds). from the simplest ones to the most complex ones.

But I get it. as a musician you care only studying musics that are relevant to you and that you identify with your own practice... I study them all... the other day I just learned about a folk singer i like before radio existed, that he shaped melodies from street cries from vendors in the streets. Then i went to study the street cries of my city. If you dismiss street cries as musical practices then you wouldn't even understand the more complex folk practice that evolved from it... Again, it really depends on what questions you are trying to answer.

[jancivil]

...but the people who want Adele Hello are stuck in that.

Many if not all of whom reside in exactly the same culture as I. Many will have very parallel experiences to me, same ethnicity, same social standing, you-name-it.

What's the difference: AGENCY. Human agency.

[Musicologo]

Jan, how many musical cultures are in your country? and your city? and in your building? The problem after globalization is just that. The people that are stuck in Adele don't share your musical culture believe me, and you know it. In order to understand WHY they value Adele so much you have to understand their musical culture. Of course human agency is shaped by prior possibilities, education, prior exposure in infancy, etc... you can try to explain that. Certainly the agency of someone who had the possibilty of playing stevie wonders songs by age of 10 compared with someone who never played a keyboard will be very different.

[Musicologo]

and again, "real music as an object"... gosh... musicology studies human behaviour. There is "no real music" without humans. the "object" is historically constructed, socially mantained, individually experienced. You can reduce it, by picking one - study the music of zappa in the 70's, study the music of brahms in the 1850's, study the music of a irish shepherd in the 30's, study the music of aunt marge in the shower in the 1980s... not all of them will be interesting to you, but that's a problem of narrow scope. So musicology is not limited, it is almost boundless... the interest of individual musicians is the one that seems rather narrow, cherry picking just a pair of musical practices they care about. But musicology includes them all, you will find studies for every musical practice you care about I'm sure.

Here take one about zappa...
http://researchblog.andremount.net/wp-c ... in-Pop.pdf

4 people have 20 years and live in the same american city. One goes to the conservatory and plays piano, other has a garage rock band and no formal training, other has a jazz combo and other sings folk songs in karaoke. They belong to 4 different musical cultures derived from 4 different expressive practices. They might share some values, some repertoires, but they all will value different things and differerent parameters.

[IncarnateX]

The problem is that is often starts with "ethic" concepts namely as "pitch", "tone", "key", etc.. as if they were universal and relevant and most often than not, that's not the case.

Says who? Assertion without argument.

False. Sound is processed by the brain and the results can be accesses internally,

Again you're confirming what I said. The book studies SOUND and how sound is processed in the brain. It is a study of brains and sound. Not music.

I am not anywhere near confirmning that these studies have a problem like you said:

The problem with all those studies is that they study the brain and sounds. They don't study music, because since music is a cultural understanding of sounds

Neither did I confirm that they cannot be accessed internally:

it is mainly expressed externally and can't be observed internally

what do you think culture is? Something external flying around your brain detached from it?

And there is deffo no “again” either.

What you said here is that the cultural understanding of music is what makes it music and that the brain has thus nothing to do with it. Wrong, what is accessed by these studies is partly how culture has effected our brain.

Your own reduction of all this to the pseudo-confirmation above is juvenile too methinks.

Sound is a relevant part of most musics found in the world, but you cannot start from there.

Says who and why should I believe it?

used as a small subset of musicology, regarding the part of "sound", inside the methodoly "concept, behaviour, sound", historically constructed, socially mantained, individually experienced.

This is rethoric and does not say anything at all.

You guys seem to be taken for granted western concepts of what "music" is for a start, and what is a musician, a musical practice, etc...

WE take something for granted here. Now that was a good one.

I have a deal for you. I shall no longer deconstruct your “ideas” in public if you stop answering to my posts now. Take or leave it, but if I shall go another round with you on this, I may lose my temper
and write something, which could impact your culturally constructed self-esteem severely for life. And I do not want to do that really. i just want you to get that science word out of your mouth. You are not worthy to use it yet.