Interesting topic,
As a primarily jazz-oriented musician, I see music in
two diffrent ways- one is as a colorful picture and
the other as a dialogue.
The dialogue, to me, is the most important part
because it spells out what you have learned over the
years- In jazz, in classical, your music theory, where
you grew up, ect. In the dialog, we can hear two
soloist communicating to one another. Much as we are
speaking now.
If you listen carefully to each soloist, you may end
up hearing quotes or, snippits of other classical
music or jazz pieces. Make no mistake, theres clearly
a conversation going on there.
Learning music theory is a good way to accomplish this
aspect of playing freely, yet keeping rhythm- John
Coletrain and Eric Dolphy are the two important
figures to utillize this "Communication" extensivly.
Yet, there are "OTHER" types of music to do this.
Sorry about the jazz talk.
Cheers,
Kyo-
--- Phil James <phil@sparklingbeatnik.com> wrote:
> On one level, "music as language" is one of those
> subjects perfect for
> trivial academic discussion and obfuscation, since
> it is easy to define
> language in such a way that music is an example. But
> I'm sure there is also
> plenty of solid and easy-to-find research in
> neuroscience on what cognitive
> and language-specific brain centers and neural
> pathways are activated when
> listening to or performing music. This would provide
> the clearest empirical
> clarification of what ways music is similar to
> language, logicical
> reasoning, etc.
>
> Equally interesting and certainly more accessible to
> amateurs, however, is
> the study of how a particular musical vocabulary
> derives from the natural
> spoken language patterns of the parent culture.
> European rhythmic "quanta,"
> the duple rhythm, the triplet, the dotted rhythm,
> and the reverse dotted
> rhythm, are also the essiential rhythmic units of
> European spoken languages.
> The evenly-plodding phrases in European music mimic
> the strophic patterns of
> European verse, since everything starts from song. I
> am no expert on spoken
> Japanese, but it is immediately clear that the
> unstressed and uneven
> phrasing of Japanese music is derived from natural
> Japanese language. One
> could extend this, I'm sure, to the study of the
> overall form of entire
> compositions, to pitch, etc. etc.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Reid ." <reid1898@hotmail.com>
> To: <Shakuhachi@communication.ucsd.edu>
> Sent: Sunday, September 08, 2002 2:43 PM
> Subject: Music as Language
>
>
> > I would be interested in getting thoughts from
> this group regarding music
> as
> > language.
> >
> > I have always heard that music is an international
> language, but I always
> > interpreted that on a superficial level (e.g.,
> western notation is studied
> > and understood in most of the world). However, I
> was recently reading
> some
> > books regarding linguistics, the deaf and aphasia,
> and I now better
> > understand that language is not just for
> communicating with others, but is
> > also the tool for thinking. I am therefore
> returning to the "koan" about
> > music being a language. For example, what
> constitutes a language? Is it
> > meaningful to consider music a language? Does it
> relate to language in
> the
> > more typical meaning of the term?
> >
> > I just wanted to know if others have had any
> thoughts or insights in this
> > regard, especially since the music this group
> works with is outside the
> > western patterns of music. This, of course, is a
> large part of the appeal
> > of shakuhachi music to me. Also, the fact that
> the shakuhachi tradition
> > recognizes the core value is not necessarily
> performing for others (so it
> is
> > more like thought than communication, in a
> language connotation).
> >
> > Thanks.
> >
> >
>
_________________________________________________________________
> > Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger:
> http://messenger.msn.com
> >
> >
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