Music & Language Studies

Rhythm appears to be a fundamental capacity of humans. Rhythm plays a role in the prenatal environment and the early socialization of infants (Bertoncini, et al., 1995; Fassbender, 1996; Hargreaves, 1986; Papoušek, 1996). It has been implicated in the coordination of motor activity and locomotion (Iverson & Thelen, 1999). Rhythmic processing is a late deteriorating function in neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s (Beatty, et al., 1999). Rhythm appears to be a basic element in the construction of more complex human behaviors and interactions, such as music and language (Iverson & Thelen, 1999; Patel, et al., 1998), and has been implicated in aspects of memory (Brower, 1993; Payne & Holzman, 1986; Patel, et al., 1998).

A greater understanding of rhythm processing will therefore benefit from joint explorations across these domains of human behavior, in particular in music and language because of their universal presence across cultures and throughout the lifespan. Both music and speech share the same acoustic medium. Both are processed by the same perceptual apparatus. I find it reasonable to assume that the cognitive heuristics used for making sense of music and speech are at least similar, because we lack sufficient evidence to suggest that humans have evolved two entirely different mental modules for music and for language. To the contrary, there is great evidence to suggest that the distinction between music and speech is only achieved at higher levels of processing (Patel, et al., 1998).

There are many aspects of temporal processing that are relevant for this examination, and which necessarily impact an understanding of the subject. Unfortunately, well-formed and agreed upon definitions are in short supply. Paul Fraisse (1982), for instance, has written: “The task of those who study rhythm is a difficult one, because a precise, generally accepted definition of rhythm does not exist.” (149) What’s more, the definitions that occasionally arise lack consistency in what they describe. In an attempt to clarify and tease apart the various aspects of temporal organization, I provide my own definitions of certain aspects, which I trust are no less nor more arbitrary than most. I make no attempt however to be exhaustive in these definitions, in part because there appear to be many equally valid ways to divide up the temporal domain. I merely seek a first approximation of terms to address those aspects which will most facilitate questions dealing jointly with music and speech. Read the rest of this entry »

A call for papers for the Annual Meeting of the German Society of Linguistics (DGfS), 28 Feb-2 Mar 2007, with a special workshop on speech prosody standards has been added to the Conferences page.

Denoting the Voice: Text and Context in Music and Language

Jonathan G. Secora Pearl
Fellowship proposal, submitted to the NEH

The Problem

Charles Darwin was wrong, at least about music. In “The Descent of Man,” he wrote: “As neither the enjoyment nor the capacity of producing musical notes are faculties of the least use to man in reference to his daily habits of life, they must be ranked amongst the most mysterious with which he is endowed.” (Darwin, C. 2004 [1879]: 636) One might have expected more, knowing his wife Emma was a fine pianist, who in her youth had studied in Paris with Frédéric Chopin. Generations of scholars, from outside the field of music, have compared it to other human behaviors, and found it lacking, a mere artifice, insubstantial, ornamental, irrelevant. Some have dismissed it as a byproduct of something ostentibly more useful to the species, like language. (Pinker, S. 1997: 528) To hold that music is useless, but that language is not, one must understand how they differ. It is a simple thing to claim they are not alike, but far harder in practice to define the ways. Music and language remain twin aspects of civilization, found in all known human cultures, across time and place, embracing us from our earliest days until the ends of our lives. Speaking and singing are found everywhere and everywhen. Wherein lies the distinction?

The greatest difficulty in answering this foundational question is that we are often deceived by written forms of music and language into believing our object dwells within them, rather than in the sounds that inspire them. On the page, they appear far more distinct than they do in sound.Text without context is a world without air; yet context alone remains the unanalyzable chaos of everyday experience. The trick is to find the balance between too much detail, and too little. Most important is a self-reflective understanding of the specifics regarding what each system captures and what it leaves out. Standard Western music notation gives preference to pitch classes and length, dealing more with intention than with execution. Written language may highlight phonetic details and word order at the expense of intonation and timing. Comparing music and language in these forms is speaking at cross-purposes. Read the rest of this entry »

The In Progess pages have been update to include a recent NEH fellowship proposal, Denoting the Voice: Text and Context in Music and Language.

Links have been added to the Software page, including links to the tools EXMARaLDA and PRAAT.