Monday, July 11, 2005
The Day the Carnival Stood Still
Fred has posted the sixth tour of the Carnival of Music. Go visit, and find out why I've been vaporized.
Saturday, July 09, 2005
A new Carnival's in town
The blogosphere has several carnivals touring around. Here is a pretty comprehensive list of them, though it is missing one of the newest carnival's, the Carnival of Music. What is a blogospherical carnival, you may ask. Bora Zivkovic of Science and Politics provides both a definition and some suggestions on how to successfully run a carnival: "a) have a clearly stated purpose, b) appear with predictable regularity, c) rotate editors, d) have a homepage and archives, and e) have more than one person doing heavy lifting."
The Carnival of Music is starting pretty slowly, but it is doing everything correctly. The purpose is clear: to feature interesting posts on any facet of music. The Carnival has been appearing every week on Monday, with the next one to appear at The Fredösphere in two days. Thus it is predictable. After the first three editions by TexasBestGrok, there have been a rotation of editors, from Owlish Mutterings to And What Next, with future carnivals to be hosted by Podcast Bumper Music, Llama Butchers, and yours truly.* There is a homepage with links to the older editions. That leaves the final requirement. JohnL did the first and most important part of heavy lifting, now it is up to others to help (remember, use your legs - save your back).
I support the idea of building the sense of community of the bløgösphère, especially between different genres of music. I certainly can learn from experts in pop, rock, blues, world music, etc., and I like to think that they would find my musings interesting as well. If you agree, inform the weekly carnival host of your favorite posts (whether written by you or read by you), and volunteer to host a carnival. Fred wants submissions by Sunday noon for this next week's Carnival, so get cracking!
*Okay, now I have "Truly Scrumptious" going through my head, damned earworm. I'm fighting it by remembering the quodlibet version instead of the original.
The Carnival of Music is starting pretty slowly, but it is doing everything correctly. The purpose is clear: to feature interesting posts on any facet of music. The Carnival has been appearing every week on Monday, with the next one to appear at The Fredösphere in two days. Thus it is predictable. After the first three editions by TexasBestGrok, there have been a rotation of editors, from Owlish Mutterings to And What Next, with future carnivals to be hosted by Podcast Bumper Music, Llama Butchers, and yours truly.* There is a homepage with links to the older editions. That leaves the final requirement. JohnL did the first and most important part of heavy lifting, now it is up to others to help (remember, use your legs - save your back).
I support the idea of building the sense of community of the bløgösphère, especially between different genres of music. I certainly can learn from experts in pop, rock, blues, world music, etc., and I like to think that they would find my musings interesting as well. If you agree, inform the weekly carnival host of your favorite posts (whether written by you or read by you), and volunteer to host a carnival. Fred wants submissions by Sunday noon for this next week's Carnival, so get cracking!
*Okay, now I have "Truly Scrumptious" going through my head, damned earworm. I'm fighting it by remembering the quodlibet version instead of the original.
Friday, July 08, 2005
Embrace the artificial
Over at A Monk's Musical Musings, Hucbald has been showing the physical generation of various chords in tonal progressions. I found myself writing a very long comment in one of his posts, and decided to subject all of my readers to a comprehensive look at this question. Theorists through the centuries have attempted to prove that tonality is the ultimate language of music because tonality is based upon natural principles of physics and psychology. The psychology side is rather messy, so I will wait to address that one.
The physical side comes from claims that tonality is based upon the harmonic series. Since the first sixteen harmonics can make the major scale (we'll ignore harmonics 7 and 14 right now) from the tonic/fundamental, this must mean that the major scale has special significance, something that resonates right from the very nature of the notes played by acoustical instruments.
Notice that this means of generation says nothing about the minor scale (any of the three). For Helmholtz, this means that minor keys are inferior to major keys, as they are distortions from the pure generation. Rameau tried to generate the minor scale from two different fundamentals, called the "co-generation" theory. This still makes the minor scale a second class citizen to the major scale, since it requires help from a second note to generate all of its notes. Riemann believed in "undertones", patterns of frequencies that follow the same pattern as the harmonic series except going down from the fundamental instead of up. (Hucbald mentions one of his teachers, so I'm pulling out Harrison, one of my History-of-Theory teachers.) With this new series, the minor scale can be generated. However, undertones have no physical basis, despite Riemann's claims of having heard them.
The problem is that in practice, minor keys are not treated as inferior to major keys by tonal composers, and indeed are not preferenced in perception/cognition studies either. All attempts to physically generate the scale are unsatisfactory at best, and plain wacko at worst. So, when practice conflicts with theory, the theory must be questioned. (Right, PZ?) I say that we should embrace the fact that such a complex and vigorous language is the result of artifice rather than from the happenstances of physics. Long live art!
The physical side comes from claims that tonality is based upon the harmonic series. Since the first sixteen harmonics can make the major scale (we'll ignore harmonics 7 and 14 right now) from the tonic/fundamental, this must mean that the major scale has special significance, something that resonates right from the very nature of the notes played by acoustical instruments.
Notice that this means of generation says nothing about the minor scale (any of the three). For Helmholtz, this means that minor keys are inferior to major keys, as they are distortions from the pure generation. Rameau tried to generate the minor scale from two different fundamentals, called the "co-generation" theory. This still makes the minor scale a second class citizen to the major scale, since it requires help from a second note to generate all of its notes. Riemann believed in "undertones", patterns of frequencies that follow the same pattern as the harmonic series except going down from the fundamental instead of up. (Hucbald mentions one of his teachers, so I'm pulling out Harrison, one of my History-of-Theory teachers.) With this new series, the minor scale can be generated. However, undertones have no physical basis, despite Riemann's claims of having heard them.
The problem is that in practice, minor keys are not treated as inferior to major keys by tonal composers, and indeed are not preferenced in perception/cognition studies either. All attempts to physically generate the scale are unsatisfactory at best, and plain wacko at worst. So, when practice conflicts with theory, the theory must be questioned. (Right, PZ?) I say that we should embrace the fact that such a complex and vigorous language is the result of artifice rather than from the happenstances of physics. Long live art!
Thursday, July 07, 2005
How to treat an enemy
Like everyone, I was shocked and saddened to hear about the bomb attacks in London today. I send my condolences to anyone personally affected by today's violence. Naturally, there was a lot of coverage of the attacks on NPR and the BBC today, the two news sources on Public Radio that I listen to while commuting to Bloomington. In all the coverage, there were many clips of the statements by George Bush and Tony Blair from the G8 conference. These statements had me thinking about the proper way to treat or talk about an enemy.
On one hand, we as a society do not want to condone such acts of violence. We don't want any groups to think that committing terrorism will help them, otherwise groups may be encouraged to act violently to advance their cause. Therefore the acts should be strongly condemned, which usually involves condemning the terrorist groups.
On the other hand, these terrorist groups consist of people, not monsters. They are desperate and misguided, but it seems to me that most such groups are trying improve their world, not destroy it. (I admit that I could be quite naive about this, and welcome any corrections.) The best way to stop people from acting out of desparation is to give them another means of affecting change. This means communicating with these people, and they won't want to talk to governments that characterize them as inhuman: monsters, killers, no moral values, etc.
Perhaps the Christian ideal of "hating the sin, loving the sinner" should be used when talking about terrorist acts. Condemn the acts, and make clear that those involved will be arrested and charged. But also acknowledge that the terrorists were desparate because of A, B, and C. Maybe nothing can be done about A, B, and C, but it is more truthful than saying that the terrorists only want to "spread an ideology of hate."
Of course, the danger is that acknowledging the terrorists' complaints may be exactly what the terrorists wanted to achieve, so their terrorist acts would be rewarded, encouraging further terrorism. How can we break the cycle of violence, and keep from treating the terrorists as things, rather than people?
Update: John McGowan writes about this much more completely and cogently than I can, over at Michael Bérubé's blog.
On one hand, we as a society do not want to condone such acts of violence. We don't want any groups to think that committing terrorism will help them, otherwise groups may be encouraged to act violently to advance their cause. Therefore the acts should be strongly condemned, which usually involves condemning the terrorist groups.
On the other hand, these terrorist groups consist of people, not monsters. They are desperate and misguided, but it seems to me that most such groups are trying improve their world, not destroy it. (I admit that I could be quite naive about this, and welcome any corrections.) The best way to stop people from acting out of desparation is to give them another means of affecting change. This means communicating with these people, and they won't want to talk to governments that characterize them as inhuman: monsters, killers, no moral values, etc.
Perhaps the Christian ideal of "hating the sin, loving the sinner" should be used when talking about terrorist acts. Condemn the acts, and make clear that those involved will be arrested and charged. But also acknowledge that the terrorists were desparate because of A, B, and C. Maybe nothing can be done about A, B, and C, but it is more truthful than saying that the terrorists only want to "spread an ideology of hate."
Of course, the danger is that acknowledging the terrorists' complaints may be exactly what the terrorists wanted to achieve, so their terrorist acts would be rewarded, encouraging further terrorism. How can we break the cycle of violence, and keep from treating the terrorists as things, rather than people?
Update: John McGowan writes about this much more completely and cogently than I can, over at Michael Bérubé's blog.
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
Religious preferences?
Given the recent decision by the UCC to bless same-sex marriages, I became curious about the legal issues around the freedom to practice one's religion. After all, marriage is considered to be a very important part of most religions, whether it is a sacrament or only of ceremonial significance. Federal law seems to be very fuzzy in this regard. While the First Amendment guarantees the freedom of religion, various Supreme Court decisions have set precedent that the Federal government may limit religious actions and rituals if it has compelling reasons to do so. So it may be possible that the Defense of Marriage Act could be ruled constitutional because the government has some compelling reason. It is unclear to me what the exact definition of "compelling reasons" is, I'd appreciate any pointers.
Moving to my state of Indiana, Article 1, Section 4 of the state constitution states that "No preference shall be given, by law, to any creed, religious society, or mode of worship; and no person shall be compelled to attend, erect, or support, any place of worship, or to maintain any ministry, against his consent." Indiana also has a law against same-sex marriage, which would seem to run counter to this constitutional right. The law gives preference to religions that ban same-sex marriage over religions that allow same-sex marriage, by legalizing one practice but making the other illegal.
(By the way, notice the wording of Article 1, Section 2. This Section was amended in 1984, and I'm guessing "ALMIGHTY GOD" was shoe-horned in at this point, much like "under God" was added to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1963, fifty years after it had been written.)
Moving to my state of Indiana, Article 1, Section 4 of the state constitution states that "No preference shall be given, by law, to any creed, religious society, or mode of worship; and no person shall be compelled to attend, erect, or support, any place of worship, or to maintain any ministry, against his consent." Indiana also has a law against same-sex marriage, which would seem to run counter to this constitutional right. The law gives preference to religions that ban same-sex marriage over religions that allow same-sex marriage, by legalizing one practice but making the other illegal.
(By the way, notice the wording of Article 1, Section 2. This Section was amended in 1984, and I'm guessing "ALMIGHTY GOD" was shoe-horned in at this point, much like "under God" was added to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1963, fifty years after it had been written.)
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Music on the brain
Dave Munger has written two posts about music in his Cognitive Daily blog. Music and IQ relates recent research on whether musical training improves intelligence (the so-called Mozart Effect). Glenn Schellenberg presented much of this research at the Leipzig conference, making the very convincing case that music is a special case in intellectual development. By comparing music lessons with drama lessons, Schellenberg handles the objection that any extra-curricular activity would help. There is a big "But" in this study, though. The best predictor of future academic performance for grade-school kids is not IQ or current grades, but their social behavior. And acting lessons were the only activity that improved adaptive social behavior.
Some insight into how we develop preferences shows a study that found that the perception of familiarity is more important than actual familiarity on liking a piece of music. Listeners heard several pieces of classical music, followed by an hour-long pause. Then a randomized mix of new excerpts and the previous excerpts were played. The listeners indicated whether they liked each excerpt, and whether they had heard the excerpt before. They were much more likely to like the piece if they thought they heard it before, even when they hadn't. This supports the hypothesis that we like things that we are certain about, not things that create uncertainty.
Some insight into how we develop preferences shows a study that found that the perception of familiarity is more important than actual familiarity on liking a piece of music. Listeners heard several pieces of classical music, followed by an hour-long pause. Then a randomized mix of new excerpts and the previous excerpts were played. The listeners indicated whether they liked each excerpt, and whether they had heard the excerpt before. They were much more likely to like the piece if they thought they heard it before, even when they hadn't. This supports the hypothesis that we like things that we are certain about, not things that create uncertainty.
Monday, July 04, 2005
Happy July 4th
I take this day to celebrate the great accomplishments that this country has achieved, and to renew my resolve to fix the problems that currently afflict my homeland.
Great accomplishments: The Bill of Rights, The Declaration of Independence, the peaceful transition from one administration to the next every four or eight years, our great universities/orchestras/museums, the abolishment of the class system.
Current problems: Sacrificing freedom because we're afraid, equating money with happiness, the politicization of religon/education/art/morality, the destruction of socio-economic mobility.
Cudos to Spain, Canada, and the United Church of Christ (my parents' church) for promoting equality and justice. The latter is a good example of a religion that is not afraid to re-examine its morality, not surprising for the religious inheritors of Ives.
Great accomplishments: The Bill of Rights, The Declaration of Independence, the peaceful transition from one administration to the next every four or eight years, our great universities/orchestras/museums, the abolishment of the class system.
Current problems: Sacrificing freedom because we're afraid, equating money with happiness, the politicization of religon/education/art/morality, the destruction of socio-economic mobility.
Cudos to Spain, Canada, and the United Church of Christ (my parents' church) for promoting equality and justice. The latter is a good example of a religion that is not afraid to re-examine its morality, not surprising for the religious inheritors of Ives.
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