This is interesting........

Music and speech share a code for communicating sadness in the minor third

By Ferris Jabr Jun 17, 2010 05:45 PM 40

Here's a little experiment. You know "Greensleeves"—the famous English folk song? Go ahead and hum it to yourself. Now choose the emotion you think the song best conveys: (a) happiness, (b) sadness, (c) anger or (d) fear.

Almost everyone thinks "Greensleeves" is a sad song—but why? Apart from the melancholy lyrics, it's because the melody prominently features a musical construct called the minor third, which musicians have used to express sadness since at least the 17th century. The minor third's emotional sway is closely related to the popular idea that, at least for Western music, songs written in a major key (like "Happy Birthday") are generally upbeat, while those in a minor key (think of The Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby") tend towards the doleful.

The tangible relationship between music and emotion is no surprise to anyone, but a study in the June issue of Emotion suggests the minor third isn't a facet of musical communication alone—it's how we convey sadness in speech, too. When it comes to sorrow, music and human speech might speak the same language.

In the study, Meagan Curtis of Tufts University's Music Cognition Lab recorded undergraduate actors reading two-syllable lines—like "let's go" and "come here"—with different emotional intonations: anger, happiness, pleasantness and sadness (listen to the recordings here). She then used a computer program to analyze the recorded speech and determine how the pitch changed between syllables. Since the minor third is defined as a specific measurable distance between pitches (a ratio of frequencies), Curtis was able to identify when the actors' speech relied on the minor third. What she found is that the actors consistently used the minor third to express sadness.

"Historically, people haven't thought of pitch patterns as conveying emotion in human speech like they do in music," Curtis said. "Yet for sad speech there is a consistent pitch pattern. The aspects of music that allow us to identify whether that music is sad are also present in speech."

Curtis also synthesized musical intervals from the recorded phrases spoken by actors, stripping away the words, but preserving the change in pitch. So a sad "let's go" would become a sequence of two tones. She then asked participants to rate the degree of perceived anger, happiness, pleasantness and sadness in the intervals. Again, the minor third consistently was judged to convey sadness.

A possible explanation for why music and speech might share the same code for expressing emotion is the idea that both emerged from a common evolutionary predecessor, dubbed "musilanguage" by Steven Brown, a cognitive neuroscientist at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby (Vancouver), British Columbia. But Curtis points out that right now there is no effective means of empirically testing this hypothesis or determining whether music or language evolved first.

What also remains unclear is whether the minor third's influence spans cultures and languages, which is one of the questions that Curtis would like to explore next. Previous studies have shown that people can accurately interpret the emotional content of music from cultures different than their own, based on tempo and rhythm alone.

"I have only looked at speakers of American English, so it's an open question whether it's a phenomenon that exists specifically in American English or across cultures," Curtis explained. "Who knows if they are using the same intervals in, say, Hindi?"

John's Dad

Here's a picture of me Dad (the one with the trumpet!) at the Queenstown Jazz Festival this Labour weekend

These guys are good...

A new Start

Thanks David for this effort, and your summary of last night. This is a significant change in our M.O. I am sure L3 will benefit from this initiative.
John L

Creativity is alive, will survive...........

John (et all):

These are the hip hop street dancers I referred to in our conversation on Friday night. Obsessive focused talent wherever you look. Art flourishes in all its forms in the human mind and heart. You don't need a generation, an age, a description, a promoter, a stage. It was and will ever be thus..........

Discussions last evening

Some of Level Three attended the lock-up last night. There was no practice but a lively discussion concerning the organisation of the band.

There was general agreement that, whilst there was some significant individual talent in the band, we seldom achieved to output that talent, our chosen material, and the sound delivery systems to a standard that members found satisfying. There seemed to be consensus that our individual and collective payback from band membership lay mostly with being stretched, with aspiring to individual and collective improvement. Whilst muddling along, enjoying playing and practicing to our present standard is an enjoyable option; those present articulated dissatisfaction with the current reality, and a desire to reengineer our approach. The position is we know we can, and we want to improve.

Specifically, we have a propensity to practice a song, arrive at an agreed format, practice that a few times, come back to it a couple of weeks later, f#@k it up, practice it a few times till its right again, come back to it a couple of weeks later, f#@k it up, practice it a few times till its right again: then take it to a performance where we f#@k it up!

Some of us struggle to find motivation to practice frequently with or without the band; to strive to improve personally, when the above pattern appears to be the SOP (standard operating procedure) for Level Three.

Our discussion dug into this and other pertinent observations about our SOP – the upshot being that we had a stab at defining for the contribution, approval and refinement of the whole band – a replacement SOP.

We found general agreement on some key points:

1.       We introduce new material, each song has a “song boss,” each song has a chart that is accessible to both music readers and non-readers, readers can use the music chart, non-readers can use the alternative chart but all will be looking at the same song structure, key, tempo, and original mp3 file.

2.       The backup materials for a new song will be distributed (say) four weeks before it is first practiced. Musicians are expected to come to that first practice ready to perform that song to the required structure. Any queries arising related to that song should be discussed with the song boss in advance of the first practice.

3.       We practice that song until we have knocked it off. It then goes into the performance list and does not get practiced again unless a performer specifically requests it for some reason. Members should keep themselves fresh with the performance list.

4.       In this manner we can introduce new material at a higher rate, keep the performance list fresh and stretch each of us toward improving our repertoire and skills.

5.       Dynamic – the band lacks dynamic in almost all materials. We play at a monotone volume and musical “colour.” Developing a creative dynamic is essential to improving our performance. In pursuit of this dynamic, the song boss will act as musical director at practice to get the band performing the sound he or she already hears in his head. And achieving a dynamic will require a step-change in the services of our sound engineer.

There was general discuss on the principle of synergy. You know….. when energy or ideas systems come together to cooperate the outcome can be:

 (a) 1 + 1 = 2; or it could be
(b) 1 + 1 = more than 2; or it could be

(c) 1 + 1 = less than 2.   

We think we are at (c) at the moment, the total of the band equals less than the sum of its individual parts. We think this can be improved.

That’s enough for a first post.

We wanted to communicate that there is some traction around the idea that we can and want to improve; and that we think improvement required significant change to our method and SOPs.

Toodel-pip!    

Gig Promotion (from Levelthree.co.nz)

Here is a reposting of the gig publicity info that is contained in the Members resources section of the Levethree website.

Below are the details of Level Three promotions leading up to a gig:

www.jagg.co.nz Just Another Gig Guide is a Christchurch printed and online gig guide distributed to cafes and record stores around the city.

Got to the JAGG website and submit our gig in the month prior to it happening. The printed guide is published monthly, so to meet the deadline it needs to be submitted around the 15th of the month prior to the event.

www.bethere.co.nz This is the CCC events team website of what is on in Canterbury.

www.thebigcity.co.nz Christchurch arts, music and culture website.

username = levelthree

password = unit30

Every gig should be put up on these gig sites, plus updated on our website and facebook page.

If you have a FB account or know someone that does, get them to join our group.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=103292267838

The idea...............

Hello

Welcome to the Level Three Bog Site.

This is intended to be a place where we can communicate, exchange ideas and so on. Specifically, I wanted to eliminate the tiresome Level Three email noise that clogs up the inbox. You have all been added with Author credential so you can add and edit your own posts.

The idea is that we use this blog space to communicate in place of email, although the immediacy of email will always have its place, as attachments cannot be exchanged via the blog. That said, attachments can be distributed via the Dropbox account that Level Three members have been invited to join.

Let’s see if these new tools help us improve our communications.

Try it………… you know you want to. Blog away!