Motivation

Today I was prompting my students to think of reasons why the subdominant chord (IV) is more common than the supertonic chord (II) as a predominant within the standard phrase model. As part of this, we talked about what motivates people in the creation of systems and languages. I was aiming at ease of use, pointing out that IV chords are the same quality as tonic chords, and therefore will be easy to play with the same hand shape for most chord-based instruments. But students also brought up the desire for stability brought about by redundancy of information. So the repeated chord quality will emphasize and stabilize the major or minor mode of the tonic more than the II chord. This redundancy is also seen in the tonic note shared between the tonic and subdominant chords.

But all of these stabilizing features also give the IV chord a less effective predominant function. The IV chord shares so much in common with the tonic chord (I) that it can easily move back to the tonic with no real disappointment of unrealized expectation. Thus it doesn't have as strong of a push to move to the dominant chord (V) as the II chord. Thus the choice of predominant is really a choice of motivation. Easiness and stability vs. tension and movement.

Go Badgers

Today we went to a Wisconsin Huddle in Indianapolis for the Big Ten Tournament. Our presence was recorded on YouTube, in the second video on the Huddle on this page: http://www.bigten.org/blog/mens-basketball/tournament/ I am in the upper right corner, bouncing with the youngest sitting on my shoulders. Alas, the Badgers lost, but the pep band sounded great.

To shut up the crickets

I was finding I had many more interesting things to do rather than write this blog last summer, so I stopped. Every once in a while I would feel a twinge to start blogging again. One major guilt trip came during the annual conference of the Society for Music Theory. The meeting of the Music Cognition Interest Group was spent celebrating 25 years of existence, with remembrances of the state of music cognition research back then and comparing it with today. In doing so, Helen Brown of Purdue University was listing all the places music cognition research can be found nowadays, and passed around copies of the last few posts of this blog! This was awkward/funny for four reasons: 1) She didn't know it was my blog. 2) I was sitting right next to her. 3) I wasn't really paying attention to her speech at that point until halfway through her description of my blog, when I looked up in horrifying realization.* 4) My last post before this one is called Sexy Theory, which Helen relished in announcing to all of our colleagues. The awkwardness factor collapsed with Leigh Van Handel's (Michigan State) reminder to everyone that it was indeed my blog. Thanks, Leigh!

The second time came with the Grammy's, and an offer by my fiancée to help live-blog the event again. Yes, I have a fiancée now, along with three more children in a lovely Brady Bunch home. We even have our own Alice, except her name isn't Alice. Our schedules made watching the Grammy's impossible, much less live-blogging about them.

But finally, I got an itch to start writing the blog again. I've been stimulated by enthusiastic students, the prospects of my sabbatical, my upcoming wedding, and a friend who just e-published her first book. Speaking of which, my** first book came out last October. So, I plan to post about times a week. Lock up your interwebs and hide your backlinks, Musical Perceptions is back!

*Leigh, who was sitting right across from me, says the transition in my face was priceless.
**Mine, and nine other authors.

Sexy Theory!

I've been listening to Dave Matthews lately, thanks to my nephew and my girlfriend. I even went to a live concert last Friday, which was actually my first authentic rock concert. I've been to blues festivals that have included some rock acts, seen plenty of small rock groups, and even played in two rock bands. But I had never been to a venue where I had to be patted down, carded, and exposed to that much pot smoke.

It is no mystery that many of DMB's songs are about sex, with lyrics like "You come crash into me/
And I come into you /I come into you /In a boys dream /In a boys dream" or " Sour as my fingers /Dirty pick pocket /I can still taste you /I won’t wash my hands." But I noticed that those songs seemed to share particular musical features, so I've been starting to catalog those features. Things like hypermeter, melodic contour, syncopation, these all tie together to mimic the sexual experience in subtle ways, or sometimes not so subtle ways. This research will take some time, as I haven't done much with popular music before, so I need to familiarize myself with the current state of research.

Virtuosity as Vice

This weekend I went to a Folk Music Festival, and got into a
discussion about amateur vs professional attitudes about music. At
first we talked about musicians on the stage who were clearly non
pros, but then it shifted to the observation that even the pros (those
who perform/teach folk music as their main source of income) had a
certain roughness or plainness to their singing and playing. I came to
the conclusion that in at least some genres of folk music there was a
disdain for polish or virtuosity. Authenticity in these circles was
shown by knowing lots of songs in the canon, and through communal
performances. Time spent by oneself working on performance craft is
less time spent performing with others. I wonder what would happen if
classical music took more of that attitude, valuing community over
individuality and broader knowledge over specific virtuosity. Jazz has
more of that balance, respecting individual skill but also valuing
communal improvisation and memorization of the canon.

The Great Art/Pop Divide

Finally catching up on some blogs the other day, I was reading 8bb's blog and came across an interesting idea in the comments, written by composer Stephen Hartke. Stephen writes,

And, guys, I’m sorry, but the art music experience is not the same as the pop music experience. Art music is about a one-on-one communication between the creator of the music via the performers to individual members of the audience. (Stravinsky said that he didn’t care about the audience, but that he did care about the individual souls that made up the audience.) Pop music is much more about a group dynamic — and I don’t say this as a criticism but rather as an acknowledgment of a fundamental aesthetic and cultural reality — in which the continuous and active participation of the audience is an intrinsic element of the art form itself.

This is an interesting definition of the difference between art music and popular music that I hadn't really considered before. I can see where he is coming from, with our desire to have absolute silence during an artistic performance so we can be totally immersed in the music. But that itself seems to be a group experience, one based on mass silent devotion rather than mass dancing or mass singing. Just as people gathered in silent prayer at a church, temple or mosque are a very different experience than praying alone, the idea of listening silently in an audience is not the same as sitting alone in front of the stereo or with earbuds in. Our behavior is different when we are in a group, thus any musical work will affect people differently in a live group situation rather than a recorded individual setting.

I've listened to rock music very carefully on my iPod, getting totally immersed in the experience of the music rather than in any audience participation (including my own physical reactions). I've sung along to classical music, and danced madly to opera. I've been distracted by the music enough to forget to clap at the end of an improvised solo at a jazz concert, and felt the strong desire to whoop and clap at the end of an inner movement of an orchestra concert.

Looking at Stephen's definitions more carefully, I think he is suggesting the intent of the composer rather than the actual behavior of the listener. When a composer is creating an artistic work, s/he is intending the listener to react on an individual basis. When a composer creates a popular work, s/he intends the listeners to react in a group way. With that definition, we can find some symphonic works that would be labeled as popular, and some rock songs that would be labeled as art, thus providing some informative worth. This creates some interesting questions, like how the original intention of a composer might be superseded by shifts in cultural behavior. Waltzes that were originally intended to be group dances are now performed in the concert hall. Concert works are mashed-up at raves. Does the current state of cultural behavior redefine the pop/art aspect of the work, or is it still dependent fully on the composer's original intention? If we cannot find any direct evidence of the composer's original intention, what indirect evidence is considered most reasonable?

Does anyone know of any musicological work in this area? It seems likely that someone has already addressed this issue.

SatPod: May

Happy May Day, everyone!

1. "But Who May Abide" from the Messiah by George Friedrich Handel, performed by Samuel Ramey and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra led by Andrew Davis.

2. "First of May" by Jonathan Coulton on Best. Concert. Ever.

3. "May It Be" by Enya on the Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring soundtrack.

4. "Maybellene" by Chuck Berry.

5. Mayn Yingele by Frederic Rzewski on Rzewski Plays Rzewski.

6. "Now is the Month of Maying" by Thomas Morley, performed by the King's Singers on Madrigal History Tour.

7. "Sheep May Safely Graze" by Johann Sebastian Bach, performed by Rolf Smedvig and Michael Murray.

8. "You May Be Right" by Billy Joel on Glass Houses.