a bit of music psychology
As I want to continue my studies in Finland and most of the members of my familiy doesn't give me any kind of real support in order to do it, things look not that interesting right now for me. I guess that the best thing to do right now, instead of waiting for apples to fall from the sky, is to keep on doing what I love to do: writing, listening to music, reading about music and performing some music too.
I'm profoundly interested in a problem that comes around when we say that music is a language. We obviously need to use words in order to say what we want to say, and we use to agree with the theory that says that our language has something to do with the words that we use. And as we are able to say things with music, we can actually say things about music. Any of this writings on music will not be music, but they can say things that some of us will understand with a musical meaning.
And that's how the great John Sloboda comes into my mind and helps me a little bit to put some things in order. Musical meaning is just one of the dimensions that can be explained about music when we say that there is a musical language. When we try to define musical meaning, we need to ask ourselves a bit about language theory. Then we will get in touch with the classical language theory. I don't know who said that we can divide our study in three fields: fonological, syntactical and semantical. The question is not only what are we listening to, but when are we listening that and why are we listening this. For example, we're listening to the Goldberg Variations played in a harpsichord, and it actually sounds like that. I know this is a harpsichord and I don't need to read how a harpsichord sounds like in order to recognize that it's a harpsichord. I will also expect to hear 30 variations of an aria that is played at the beginning and the end of the variations, and most of them will be in G Major, but three of them will be in G minor. If what we get is actually a harpsichord and not a clarinet, then we can say something strictly fonological about the music we're hearing to. If there are 30 variations, some of them are canons and most of them finish with a Major chord, well, then there were no syntax errors for us. Now let's analize the semantical part and we will see that here we have to ask people about this. What does this music mean for me? Why do I feel this or that when I hear a canon made by Bach? Why can we say so little about what music makes us feel? Sloboda analized what could we say about musical experiences and he found out that we use to remember musical experiences where our emotions are profoundly involved. The most interesting thing is that the emotion that is attached to our musical memory before we turn 10 years old will serve as a condition for our future movements in musical life. Our relationship with music depends on these singular experiences. Which experiences? For example, the first time I heard the Goldberg Variations.
I'm profoundly interested in a problem that comes around when we say that music is a language. We obviously need to use words in order to say what we want to say, and we use to agree with the theory that says that our language has something to do with the words that we use. And as we are able to say things with music, we can actually say things about music. Any of this writings on music will not be music, but they can say things that some of us will understand with a musical meaning.
And that's how the great John Sloboda comes into my mind and helps me a little bit to put some things in order. Musical meaning is just one of the dimensions that can be explained about music when we say that there is a musical language. When we try to define musical meaning, we need to ask ourselves a bit about language theory. Then we will get in touch with the classical language theory. I don't know who said that we can divide our study in three fields: fonological, syntactical and semantical. The question is not only what are we listening to, but when are we listening that and why are we listening this. For example, we're listening to the Goldberg Variations played in a harpsichord, and it actually sounds like that. I know this is a harpsichord and I don't need to read how a harpsichord sounds like in order to recognize that it's a harpsichord. I will also expect to hear 30 variations of an aria that is played at the beginning and the end of the variations, and most of them will be in G Major, but three of them will be in G minor. If what we get is actually a harpsichord and not a clarinet, then we can say something strictly fonological about the music we're hearing to. If there are 30 variations, some of them are canons and most of them finish with a Major chord, well, then there were no syntax errors for us. Now let's analize the semantical part and we will see that here we have to ask people about this. What does this music mean for me? Why do I feel this or that when I hear a canon made by Bach? Why can we say so little about what music makes us feel? Sloboda analized what could we say about musical experiences and he found out that we use to remember musical experiences where our emotions are profoundly involved. The most interesting thing is that the emotion that is attached to our musical memory before we turn 10 years old will serve as a condition for our future movements in musical life. Our relationship with music depends on these singular experiences. Which experiences? For example, the first time I heard the Goldberg Variations.
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