Although I am due for a math post (and I would particularly like to try out my newly-acquired LaTeX capabilities), I am for the moment unable to resist pursuing a certain line of thought intimated in two previous posts. (In the future, once I have built up sizeable archives in both of my main topics [and, presumably, others as well], apologies of this sort will hopefully not be necessary.)
Noam Chomsky is one of the most important contributors to contemporary intellectual life; his name will probably come up here with some frequency, as linguistics is among my interests. (Politics, however, is generally not, and consequently I don’t have much to say about his activities in that domain, though they have earned him considerable reknown among the “general public”.) Furthermore, and perhaps even more importantly, the influence of the type of linguistics associated with him has been deeply felt within (at least some schools of) of music theory, as was perhaps most evident during the 1960s and 70s (the era that gave rise to, among other things, Westergaardian theory, of which I am a strong proponent). In particular, important analogies between Schenkerian theory and transformational linguistics were noted and, to some extent, pursued.
This is as it should be; the implications of both Schenker’s and Chomsky’s work for music theory are vast and far-reaching. Frustratingly, however, these implications do not seem to have been fully and properly grasped by either musicians or linguists. For some inexplicable reason, music theory has been almost entirely unable to shake the burden of outdated (and bad) theoretical frameworks, to the point where studies that claim to follow in the footsteps of Schenker and/or Chomsky are often nothing of the sort, but merely fancily-worded applications of “traditional” theories. (As a notorious case in point, I would cite Lerdahl and Jackendoff’s 1983 attempt at A Generative Theory of Tonal Music, discussed approvingly — to my horror — by Steven Pinker in How The Mind Works.)
Why do I bring this up? Well, recently I came across the following video (from a 1977 BBC progam[me] entitled “The Ideas of Chomsky”) in which Chomsky himself illustrates my point (with some help from Paul Hindemith):
The relevant passage is the following:
Chomsky: “Well there is a striking feature of the twentieth century in this respect, that is that the musical creation of the twentieth century I think is qualitatively different from that of say the eighteenth century, in that it lacks that immediate access, or short-term access that was true of the past. One would have to do an experiment to prove it, but I have no doubt that if we took a child of today — two children of today, or let’s say, or two groups and taught one of them, say, Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven, and taught the other one Schoenberg and post-Schoenbergian music, that there would be a very substantial difference in their capacity to comprehend it, and deal with it, and that may reflect — in fact, if that’s correct it would reflect — something about our innate musical capacities.
“Points of this nature have been discussed for some time: I remember Paul Hindemith, about 25 years ago I think, argued in lectures that to violate the tonal principle in music would be something like an effort to violate the principle of gravitation — I take it that he meant by that that it was an innate property, or well, we might say an innate property…”
The problem is that, although “points of this nature” have indeed been discussed “for some time”, it has yet to be established that these discussions are not completely meaningless! My quarrels with Chomsky’s remarks are basically three:
- It doesn’t follow from the fact (if true) that twentieth-century music is harder to grasp than eighteenth-century music that the former is therefore qualitatively different from the latter; it could be that Schoenberg’s music is just (quantitatively) more complex than Mozart’s, for example. Would Chomsky be willing to claim that the linguistic utterances of an educated adult are qualitatively different from those of, say, a typical ten-year-old?
- It is not a priori obvious how to measure musical understanding in the sense Chomsky intends when he describes the hypothetical experiment. In particular, doing so would require a halfway-decent theoretical framework for describing music (and musical competence along with it), which brings us to the third and most important point:
- By invoking something called the “tonal principle”, Hindemith (and thus Chomsky) brings into the discussion loads of inherited theoretical baggage that isn’t necessarily correct or useful (and which in fact has never proven to be worth a hill of beans, in my very humble opinion).
Just what, exactly, is this “tonal principle” to which Chomsky, via Hindemith, alludes? In vain, one consults Wikipedia:
Music is considered to be tonal if it includes the following five descriptions of tonality: (1) it uses a Major or minor (diatonic) scale system (2) it contains triadic harmonies (three note chords) (3) it has a tonic (central tone) (4) it has a leading tone (7th scale degree) (5) resolution of dissonance (that is: if a chord or note is played (like a leading tone 7th scale degree) that doesn’t sound final, the final sounding chord is played after it (like the tonic) to resolve the piece)
My issues with this excerpt (and the rest of the article) go beyond the amateurish writing style (since when does music “include descriptions” of tonality or anything else?): it has apparently gone unnoticed that no criteria are provided which could allow one to determine whether a given musical composition satisfied the above properties! None of them, in other words, are actually defined (except for (2), which is is pretty easy: every work that contains “three-note chords” qualifies!). What is the difference between a piece that “uses” a major or minor scale and one that doesn’t? Does a composition have to exactly one tonic, or at least one? (Is it even possible for a piece to have no tonics at all?) What’s an example of a work with no leading tone? And don’t even get me started on (5).
It isn’t just the Wikipedia article, of course; I have yet to see these types of questions adequately addressed anywhere, notwithstanding the sizeable literature devoted to the concept of “tonality”. The problem is that very little (if any) of this literature is devoted to establishing the proposition that there exist works which are not “tonal”; even the best of it (such as Westergaard’s work, for instance) proceeds on the assumption that a certain subset of musical works has been identified which deserves this name, and then seeks to formulate (post hoc, as it were) the special property or properties that this music possesses — not by contrasting it with “nontonal” music, but simply by studying its own internal structure. Theorists taking this approach thus often fail to consider the extent to which their theories apply outside their intended domain (it is simply assumed that they don’t), much less the question of whether the restriction in the scope of their inquiry had any theoretical justification in the first place.
The larger point here, which brings us back to Chomsky, is about the proper scope of music theory. I have argued that:
Pace Walter Piston, the subject matter of music theory is not empirical generalization about the practice of composers–that, indeed, is a task of music history. The subject matter of music theory is, rather, the processes in terms of which music is understood . (The use of the word “understood” here rather than “composed”, “performed”, or “heard”, is absolutely crucial.)
From my perspective, the most important insight of the Chomskian revolution in linguistics was that the study of language is the study of an abstract cognitive system, and not of particular human utterances. (Of course, not all linguists seem to have grasped this point, but that’s a topic for a separate discussion.) This insight carries over, almost literally, to the study of music: from a theoretical perspective, music is properly regarded as a type of thought process.
To be sure, there are (at least) a couple of important differences between music and language. One is that the language process is probably a more “basic” and “unconscious” form of human cognition than the musical process (after all, nearly all humans are experts in using language, while very few have comparable proficiency in music). Another, related to this, is that, while linguists aim to study the language faculty “objectively”, from a third-person perspective, musicians (including those that call themselves “music theorists”) are professionally concerned with engaging in the relevant thought processes, rather than studying them from the “outside”. (Studying them from the “inside”, i.e. by introspection, is itself a way of engaging in them, or so I would argue. This is why I would usually consider a “music theorist” as a species of “musician”, and “music theory” as an important part of “musicianship”.) In this respect, musicians are consequently more similar to poets and literary “critics” (I hate this use of that word) than theoretical linguists. (Note, however that a knowledge of linguistics could be very useful to poets.)
But here’s the main point: to say that one theory of music applies to Schoenberg’s First String Quartet and another, totally separate, theory of music applies to his Fourth, is to imply that the human mind must use two completely different sets of tools in order to process the sounds of the two works. I don’t buy it, I know Schoenberg didn’t buy it, and I defy any honest musician to introspect on the question and tell me that he or she buys it.
August 4, 2007 at 5:58 pm |
This really was a thoughtful post, and I’m fascinated. I’ve often considered your point that describing the musical practice of the past is more appropriate for historians than theorists, and that theorists would better study musical understanding. I hadn’t noted the lack of a satisfactory definition of tonality, however, or that theorists seldom consider how applicable their descriptive rules are outside of the repertoire based on which they were formed. Thanks for a worthwhile read!
August 5, 2007 at 7:09 am |
Musing Musicologist,
Thanks for reading! I’m glad you liked it.
August 11, 2007 at 8:29 am |
[...] depends upon a bad theory of “tonality”; that, indeed, was the main point of my Chomsky post. After all, how was it originally decided that this piece wasn’t “tonal”? [...]
July 29, 2008 at 3:12 am |
I stumbled across this post from your analysis of Schoenberg piece (from Six Little Pieces.) Earlier today, I attempted an atonal analysis of the first piece from that set. Nevertheless, I find the theories you introduce very interesting. I have only a few remarks:
If indeed tonality is “ingrained” into the human brain, why is the chromatic system so often used? Why not resort back into just intonation? I feel there is another aspect to tonal harmony, or music in general, which only exists in the chromatic scale. I myself have explored only a few of the many possibilities in the finite set of the chromaticism, and it mathematically makes perfect sense. A tonal analysis of Schoenberg seems unnecessary being no structure exist tonally in his music (expect for the early pieces.) When the chromatic system is so efficient and effective, why is it even desirable to perform analysis upon twentieth century music from a diatonic perspective?
July 29, 2008 at 8:26 pm |
If indeed tonality is “ingrained” into the human brain, why is the chromatic system so often used?
To oppose “tonality” and the “chromatic system” is to commit a category error. As far as I am concerned, tonality takes place within the chromatic system; see this post.
Why not resort back into just intonation?
This would make enharmonicism impossible, and would for example confine keyboard instruments to a very limited range of keys. In short, all the reasons you learned in music history class.
When the chromatic system is so efficient and effective, why is it even desirable to perform analysis upon twentieth century music from a diatonic perspective?
As I said, the diatonic system can perfectly well be regarded as lying within the chromatic system. But perhaps what you are really asking is this: why am I not satisfied with a purely chromatic metalanguage for twentieth century music?
The answer is that it has the same problems as harmonic theory: in particular, inefficiency. To make an analogy, imagine trying to learn to speak a foreign language by memorizing a long list of complete sentences, rather than individual words and grammatical operations for putting them together. Or, imagine trying to learn to read a language with an alphabetic writing system, such as English, by memorizing the visual appearance of complete words, as opposed to learning the phonemes represented by individual letters.
The musical equivalent of this is what we are asked to do by harmonicists like Walter Piston (with their “chords” and “formulae” ) and, apparently, by “atonal” theorists such as Allen Forte. Perhaps it is possible to memorize the sounds of the 12 distinct trichord types in Forte’s table, but who in their right mind would set about memorizing 29 tetrachords, 38 pentachords, and 50 hexachords? (And remember, of course, that these are set-classes: equivalence classes under transposition and inversion.)
But already at the level of dyads, this is the wrong approach. If you want to learn to sing or mentally imagine a complex interval such as [06], say C-F#, the proper thing to do is to analyze it as a transformation of a simpler interval. For example, you might start with C-G, which is easy to hear, and then apply the operation of descent by chromatic step motion (which is also easy to imagine) to the G.
Thus, we see that the diatonic system gives us a way of hierarchically structuring musical pitches, which is absolutely vital for learning to hear them in one’s mind. The pure chromatic system does not come equipped with such hierarchical structure, but instead treats all twelve pitch-classes as given, and examines the bare combinatorial properties of this collection, which may or may not be relevant in a particular context, but is in any case far less so than the more immediate question of what the individual notes of a composition sound like.
July 30, 2008 at 1:51 am |
I have no true rebuttal to your response. Frankly, I lack of response is due to my lack of knowledge in this specific theory; however, I am impressed and fascinated with the concepts shown on this site. I agree with you in tonality’s influence upon the chromatic system, but take a subject like neo-Riemannian theory. How, mathematically, does the relationships between a tonic chord and its L relation and a tonic chord and its dominant differ? How are the similar?
Then how exactly does tonality operate? Most music, especially post 18th century, is based upon structural contrapuntal chords. From a purely tonal perspective, how do these (contrapuntal v. harmonic chords) relate? Why can one move from I to IV to I without modulating to the subdominant?
I am very impressed with the knowledge found of this site, include your response. I don’t think I could accept all of Westergaardian theory without doubt, which is not true with set or transformational theory. Nevertheless, thank you for the complete response, and for informally introducing me to a new look upon the structure of music.
December 29, 2008 at 9:33 am |
In response to your three “quarrels with Chomsky’s remarks”:
1. I disagree, and I think you may be misinterpreting what Chomsky is saying here (correct me if I’m wrong). In fact, he is saying something quite simple. Yes, under such a controlled experiment which Chomsky hypothetically proposes (assuming the predicted result is true), it does follow that there be some qualitative difference between the music of the two eras relative to the human capacity to comprehend the music. What does not follow is that the music of the Viennese Classicists is inherently better, or more valuable, but the quality of the music is not what is being discussed here. Rather Chomsky points out quite simply humans must then have some innate capacity to comprehend music with specific constituent properties, qualitative properties–in this case of specific works by Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven–more easily than music with different constituent properties such as in the works of Schoenberg and perhaps later Serialists. These qualitative properties might include things like rhythm, harmony, melody, timbre, organization, etc. Well, this seems like it is probably true, as Chomsky surmises, but of course experiments would be needed to verify such a claim.
The quantitative difference which you suggest here, between Mozart and Schoenberg, doesn’t seem tenable. What exactly are you counting? It is true, in Schoenberg’s construction of certain pieces, that there is a quantitative element that may be seen objectively as more complex than Mozart’s. But the children in the experiment, I assume, wouldn’t be aware of the compositional devices which served the creation of the musical works they’re hearing. In fact, Chomsky’s claims are merely focused on how the children would respond to the music via aural stimulus.
As for the question, “Would Chomsky be willing to claim that the linguistic utterances of an educated adult are qualitatively different from those of, say, a typical ten-year-old?” This isn’t an appropriate analog to Chomsky’s musical comparison. (Although the answer would still be yes, however irrelevant, there is a simple qualitative distinction between their utterances.) First of all, an adult is more developed than a child. The adult’s biological linguistic system has fully matured and he/she has spent years amassing more vocabulary and comprehending a wider range of sentences. A typical ten-year-old simply hasn’t reached this stage of development, in the same way he/she hasn’t reached puberty whereas the adult has. Nowhere does Chomsky imply that Schoenberg is more developed than Mozart. A more appropriate analogy would be this, for example: “Humans have a greater capacity to form and comprehend sentences with a specific grammatical structure than other equally plausible sentences with qualitatively different grammatical structures.” His main point in this interview is that human higher mental faculties are highly differentiated, so there are many ways in which organized thinking takes place which don’t involve language, one of which is music, and yet we must have some innate capacity to deal with these other faculties as well.
2. It seems to me that you’re misinterpreting Chomsky’s rather simple proposal. Now, the notion of comprehension in music is a complex one, but Chomsky uses it here I think quite generically, on a simply instinctual level. The proposed experiment would be aimed to show that humans have the innate capacity to achieve some purely instinctual grasp of music with certain aural properties in the same way children have some instinctual grasp on certain syntactical properties of language. In fact, children would be used in the experiment for a reason. Most children won’t possess a deep critical understanding of the works they’re hearing, or any cultivated modes of listening to the harmonic or structural underpinnings of a work upon first hearing. Such advanced knowledge would introduce lurking variables into the control group, as the participants would have certain prejudices which might significantly alter the results of the experiment. Chomsky is interested in the innate human response to the aural stimuli of specific styles of music, so unprejudiced children would be the preferred subjects for such a study. He refers to comprehension on its most basic, instinctual level. It’s true, the sort of “understanding” you’re referring to would in fact require a conditioned musical competence gained through the theoretical and historical study of the musical work. But clearly Chomsky doesn’t refer to this more contingent method of comprehension. Thus, when you describe what Chomsky “intends”, I think you’re off the mark.
3. Chomsky is referring objectively to Hindemith’s ideas–never does he pass judgment on the validity of those ideas. That’s not his aim. He was merely pointing out that “for some time,” people have been studying or referring to something akin to the innate capacity for musical comprehension. In this case, Hindemith’s arguing that violating the “tonal principle” of music (on which Hindemith, not Chomsky, writes extensively in The Craft of Musical Composition) would be something like the attempt to violate the principle of gravitation. Chomsky doesn’t care about Hindemith’s preference for tonality, he cites him merely to demonstrate that there existed some discussion of an “innate property” in tonal music, i.e. “points of this nature.” It seems that Chomsky was even going to clarify exactly what he meant by “innate property” when referring to Hindemith’s “tonal principle,” but the interviewer cut him off.
It’s interesting note why the interviewer interrupted Chomsky during his discussion of an innate musical capacity. Chomsky was in fact in the middle of a tangent which began rapidly deviating away from the central subject of the interview, namely, The Ideas of Chomsky. Chomsky isn’t known for his musical ideas, so naturally the interviewer brought him back to bay. It seems silly then to be putting so much weight on Chomsky’s tangential (although surprisingly poignant) musing on the possible application of his theory of Universal Grammar to a musical realm. He was just demonstrating a point about the nature of humans’ higher mental faculties.
As for the rest of you entry, I found it quite engaging as I seem to share similar interests as you regarding the nature of musical analysis as it relates to musical aesthetics. I think a lot of issues you bring up have been addressed in recent scholarship. I would recommend you look at some of Kevin Korsyn’s and Thomas Christensen’s work, if you haven’t alread, as well as the book Rethinking Music. Also, a lot of interesting work has been done by the so-called New Musicologists, like Susan McClary, R.R. Subotnik, and Lawrence Kramer.
December 31, 2008 at 10:05 pm |
Yes, under such a controlled experiment which Chomsky hypothetically proposes (assuming the predicted result is true), it does follow that there be some qualitative difference between the music of the two eras relative to the human capacity to comprehend the music.
How so? As I said, it could just be that the music of the twentieth century is just more complex than that of the eighteenth century, but still fundamentally comprehensible in the same manner.
Let me offer what I believe to be a rather close linguistic analogy. Compare the two sentences:
(1) The cat ate the bird.
(2) Immediately after killing it, the yellow cat proceeded to consume the red bird.
In this context, I should like to say that the difference between (1) and (2) is quantitative rather than qualitative. They are both English sentences, and an English speaker should theoretically be able to comprehend them both. But (2) is somewhat more complex than (1), and a novice to the English language could conceivably have trouble with (2) despite understanding (1).
The children in Chomsky’s proposed experiment could be in a similar position with respect to the music of Schoenberg. (In this case, Mozart’s music would be analogous to sentence (1) and Schoenberg’s to sentence (2).) This is a distinct situation from what Chomsky, helping himself uncritically to conventional music theory, intends. In the conventional understanding, Schoenberg’s music is not merely more complex than Mozart’s, but subject to entirely different principles of comprehension. I hold that this conventional claim is mistaken.
2. It seems to me that you’re misinterpreting Chomsky’s rather simple proposal. Now, the notion of comprehension in music is a complex one, but Chomsky uses it here I think quite generically, on a simply instinctual level.
What does this mean? How do you measure comprehension on an “instinctual level”? My point was that this is not at all obvious, and since you didn’t bother to state how one would go about measuring this sort of comprehension, you haven’t made it any more transparent.
It seems silly then to be putting so much weight on Chomsky’s tangential (although surprisingly poignant) musing on the possible application of his theory of Universal Grammar to a musical realm. He was just demonstrating a point about the nature of humans’ higher mental faculties.
I completely understand the context of Chomsky’s remarks. As should have been clear, my point in this entry was not to criticize Chomsky for the sake of criticizing Chomsky. I was merely using Chomsky’s comments on music theory (which are not particularly specific to Chomsky himself, but rather the sort of thing one hears from a lot of people) to prompt a discussion on music theory. That Chomsky’s own linguistic work happens to have influenced music theory (particularly my view of music theory) adds some interest to his comments in this context, but strictly speaking the fact that it was Chomsky who made the comments in question was entirely irrelevant to my main point in this post.
January 3, 2009 at 10:40 am |
hmm…it’s more clear to me what you’re saying now, i initially misunderstood your point. i don’t think we necessarily disagree, actually, we’re just working with different perspectives in our interpretations. our perspectives rely on how we’re defining our terms, so our points of contention seem to be less fundamental and more semantic. for example, we’re working with a pretty fluid definition of the word “comprehension,” which seems to range from the generic to the specific, of which there are many applications and interpretations of the word. i think the basis of our disagreement is on our opposing uses of the word, and not on some fundamental principle. thus your linguistic analogy operates within a context that gives it meaning for you, and now i understand better the context you’re working with. well, i guess i was operating under different assumptions, within a different framework for interpreting chomsky’s remarks. anyway, i think further investigation might prove a little more illuminating for both of us. let’s see:
i think you would agree with me that people have a fundamental response to consonance which is distinct from and qualitatively different than their response to dissonance. i imagine there have been many studies which have produced empirical data to back up this claim. subjects in these studies would likely respond more favorably to the sound of a Perfect 5th than to a Minor 2nd. these intervals are resultant sounds produced by the interaction between sound waves with different frequencies, so my use of “favorable” is specific: it has to do with how agreeable certain combinations of sound are to our ears. fundamental tones contain overtone partials that clash with the partials of specific other tones. a slightly more complex example might prove the same results, so, i think you would agree that humans, almost universally, would find a major triad more agreeable to their ears than a chord composed of more dissonant intervals. well this tells us something about our nature. i don’t think you disagree with me on this point, but if you do, then one simply needs to conduct an experiment to find out.
okay, it is on this very basic level that i am interpreting chomsky’s remarks. i imagine when he refers to haydn, mozart, and beethoven, he’s referring to the way they treat consonance and dissonance, namely, so that dissonance must resolve to consonance. these resolutions occur both locally, in internal cadences, as well as structurally, in the deviation from and the inevitable return to a tonal center. this is patently different from schoenberg’s treatment of consonance and dissonance, as i think you would agree. schoenberg often operates without the need to resolve dissonance to consonance, allowing for a liberated harmonic palette which is shaped and configured by means of other compositional devices. well, we’re still dealing with natural acoustical phenomena, but now more specifically with regards to musical construction.
well, say chomsky’s experiment confirms that children find mozart’s/haydn’s/beethoven’s more agreeable to their ears than schoenberg’s music: this is where you make the claim that this may very well be because schoenberg’s music is quantitatively more complex than that of the former. this is where the root of our contention lies, i think. first let me ask, what is it that makes 20th century music more complex than 18th century music? well, in the case of schoenberg, it has do with the complexity of his musical construction, i.e., the system he uses for selecting and ordering pitches over time. well, is it true that there is a lurking variable here, that the complexity of schoenberg’s musical construction is impeding the children from agreeing with the natural acoustical aspects of his works? i would argue (and i did argue, in my previous post): “No”, because the children aren’t hearing the compositional construction, they’re hearing the results of the construction which manifests itself as Form. well, schoenberg’s form is certainly not complex or indecipherable when compared to mozart’s, in fact, they are both molded around rigid logical structures. schoenberg might have a more complicated system for producing the pitches and strings of pitches to use in his compositions, but the compositions themselves are internally cohesive, following simple logical structures and progressions. the form of Schoenberg’s op. 19 no. 3, to give a short example, is not quantitatively more complex than mozart’s rondo alla turca. (in fact, the converse might be true!) so then, why would the children still find the mozart aurally more agreeable? it must be, then, that there is a qualitative difference in the composers’ treatment of acoustical phenomena. well, i think it’s obvious what that is: the treatment of consonance and dissonance.
well what this tells us is that human’s must have some innate programming that triggers specific physical responses to different combinations of tones. again, as i said before, i think this is chomsky’s point, which seems quite rudimentary. of course, this says nothing musical construction–the inner bearings of what we call “artwork.” this is where the word “comprehend” goes beyond our physical reactions to natural acoustical phenomena, and enters the realm of interpretation. well, goodbye science (and chomsky, for that matter), and hello critical theory (and a whole host of people dedicated to the project of contemplating musical meaning, in a variety of enlightening ways, including you).
January 13, 2009 at 2:49 am |
A very interesting discussion. I’m not a musicologist (or a linguist) but my understanding of the interview was very similar to Ben’s as described in his post above. Specifically, I don’t think Chomsky was claiming Hindemith’s assertion about music and the laws of gravitation to be true, but rather using it as an illustration of how people have been thinking about innate musical capabilities for some time.
January 13, 2009 at 11:26 am |
Hello! I’m very glad i found this excellent post and discussion, i´ve been thinking about similar things for a while now. Unfortunately i have a bit of a problem understanding both James’ and Bens notions of “comprehesion”. To me comprehending a piece of music or a musical idiom would mean having some kind of intuitions about how the music will unfold and a reaction (pleasant or otherwise) when these intuitions are violated. The Qualitative difference between Mozarts and Schönbergs music would be that the first is written to mesh whith a (possibly partly innate) music-comprehesion-faculty while the second isn´t. This was my spontaneous enterpretation of Chomskys remarks. Am i restating things youv’e already said?
January 14, 2009 at 6:23 pm |
niklas–
i think we basically agree on what i called a ‘generic’ use of the word ‘comprehension,’ and that is, as i have showed, how i’m pretty sure chomsky was using the term. i also used the word ‘agreeable’–meaning, certain harmonies and strings of harmonies are more pleasant to our ears. I’m not sure we have some intuition about how music might ‘unfold,’ as you say, because that I think enters the more complex and conditioned realm of musical construction. that assumes we have some innate expectation that the music should or should not do anything (without conditioned experience). the untrained child, i imagine, would respond intuitively to combinations of sounds and ordering of harmonies in terms of the relationship of consonance and dissonance, but not be entirely aware of the more subtle aspects of the music’s form.
i think you’re on target when you say:
“The Qualitative difference between Mozarts and Schönbergs music would be that the first is written to mesh whith a (possibly partly innate) music-comprehesion-faculty while the second isn´t.”
if we’re using the ‘generic’ use of the word ‘comprehension’ as it relates to our intuitive responses to certain consonances and dissonances. but we should be careful. again, as i said before, “we’re working with a pretty fluid definition of the word “comprehension,” which seems to range from the generic to the specific, of which there are many applications and interpretations of the word.” i wouldn’t agree that schoenberg wasn’t composing music that meshes with our innate comprehension faculties, in fact schoenberg explicitly states that his intentions were the opposite. this goes back to my point about how schoenberg’s music is in fact extremely logical in its form–more so, at times, than mozart’s, because he consciously must find other musical sign posts to mark off significant musical moments without the use of traditional triadic harmony. in this way, he certainly intended to be comprehensible.
well in this way schoenberg’s music is quite organic, if you believe as i do *and chomsky certainly does) that humans also have an innate capacity for reason and logic. causality seems to be wired into our systems–it affects us the moment we’re born and we enter the world screaming and crying. well, in that way schoenberg’s music is entirely natural, following logical structures that are based on some inherent notion of causality.
i think you could even stretch and say that all composers, even in the most esoteric avant-garde circles, wrote music with the intent of it being comprehended in some way. now, this might depart from as intrinsic or natural state of comprehension, as in mozart’s tonality or schoenberg’s form, and enter a metaphysical realm of understanding. we are complex beings, and we have an amazing capacity to find beauty in ideas. well, in the avant-garde sphere of musical composition you will in fact find composers intentionally going against our innate sensibilities in their music, and yet, its very disarray and disagreeableness is something that we can comprehend and enjoy.
February 16, 2009 at 2:07 am |
A very interesting discussion and one I am going to sit back and ponder rather than add to, except to say this: as a musician with a particular interest in music theory (traditional), and a mother, I am very interested to watch my 2 year old daughter and the preferences she displays for music. We have a lot of music in our house and I have encouraged her to play the piano with me since she was born. She seems to get as much pleasure and stimulation from the random thumps she creates on the keyboard as she does from a CD of perfectly executed Mozart. She doesn’t display any preference for any particular genre, musical era or for tonal against atonal. I am not convinced that Chomsky’s exeriment would produce the results he assumes.