Comments for Music & Language Studies http://www.musiclanguage.net Dedicated to the integrated study of music and language. Wed, 04 Apr 2007 21:59:59 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 Comment on Voices for entertainment and beyond by yaxu http://www.musiclanguage.net/2007/04/02/voices-for-entertainment-and-beyond/comment-page-1/#comment-586 yaxu Wed, 04 Apr 2007 21:59:59 +0000 http://www.musiclanguage.net/2007/04/02/voices-for-entertainment-and-beyond/#comment-586 Agreed. Non-photo-realistic rendering is common in computer graphics, why not non-realistic speech synthesis? Humans have described instrumental sounds with words for hundreds if not thousands of years, for example Canntaireachd in pipe music and Bol syllables in tabla music. With this in mind, creative use of techniques from speech synthesis does seem a largely untapped resource... Agreed. Non-photo-realistic rendering is common in computer graphics, why not non-realistic speech synthesis?

Humans have described instrumental sounds with words for hundreds if not thousands of years, for example Canntaireachd in pipe music and Bol syllables in tabla music. With this in mind, creative use of techniques from speech synthesis does seem a largely untapped resource…

]]> Comment on Other Researchers by Music & Language Studies » New updates http://www.musiclanguage.net/contact/other-researchers/comment-page-1/#comment-118 Music & Language Studies » New updates Fri, 02 Feb 2007 21:12:43 +0000 http://www.musiclanguage.net/other-researchers/#comment-118 [...] New updates to “Other Researchers” and “Where to Study” pages. Please forward any suggestions or questions to Jonathan. [...] [...] New updates to “Other Researchers” and “Where to Study” pages. Please forward any suggestions or questions to Jonathan. [...]

]]> Comment on Music & Language: Parallels & Divergences by Jonathan G. Secora Pearl http://www.musiclanguage.net/2006/11/30/music-language-parallels-divergences/comment-page-1/#comment-94 Jonathan G. Secora Pearl Tue, 05 Dec 2006 21:41:04 +0000 http://www.musiclanguage.net/2006/11/30/music-language-parallels-divergences/#comment-94 Hi Bruce, Thanks for the comments. Having never yet done work with other primates, I must defer to those who have. I was citing Merlin Donald\'s comments. I still need to read his more recent \"A Mind So Rare\" which I hear fills out his thinking on that point a bit more. What you say about gelada baboons is intriguing. On a related point, Don Hodges showed a video tape of a chimpanzee (I think) playing a scale on an electronic keyboard (as part of some project by Peter Gabriel, I believe), and pausing rather committedly on the tonic. From what I can tell many of the studies and experiments that would be able to answer questions regarding the capacities of other animals have not yet been systematically done. As I suggested in this talk as comparison to the various chimp-language experiments, we should conduct a project putting primates in an Orff studio of sorts, to see what they come up with. Maybe Merlin Donald is wrong. Hi Bruce,

Thanks for the comments. Having never yet done work with other primates, I must defer to those who have. I was citing Merlin Donald\’s comments. I still need to read his more recent \”A Mind So Rare\” which I hear fills out his thinking on that point a bit more. What you say about gelada baboons is intriguing. On a related point, Don Hodges showed a video tape of a chimpanzee (I think) playing a scale on an electronic keyboard (as part of some project by Peter Gabriel, I believe), and pausing rather committedly on the tonic.

From what I can tell many of the studies and experiments that would be able to answer questions regarding the capacities of other animals have not yet been systematically done. As I suggested in this talk as comparison to the various chimp-language experiments, we should conduct a project putting primates in an Orff studio of sorts, to see what they come up with. Maybe Merlin Donald is wrong.

]]> Comment on Music & Language: Parallels & Divergences by brucerichman http://www.musiclanguage.net/2006/11/30/music-language-parallels-divergences/comment-page-1/#comment-93 brucerichman Tue, 05 Dec 2006 21:32:13 +0000 http://www.musiclanguage.net/2006/11/30/music-language-parallels-divergences/#comment-93 Bruce Richman wrote: Hi Jonathan, I read your talk on Parallels and Divergences of music and language and I really think it's great! It parallels a lot of my thinking and what I'm writing in my origins of language book. The big thing missing in most people's thinking about music and language is to be clear exactly what these social, collective behaviors really are. As social behaviors they merely are points on a continuum of collective human vocal behavior. In Plato's The Laws he says that mousike is the collective, rhythmical behavior of groups of people, coordinated movements of the body, including the voice! Dance, song, gesture language, and spoken language all fit that definition! One minor quibble: you say that animals don't show that they can produce and imitate arbitrary rhythmic patterns. That may be true; but some animals, particularly gelada baboons (whose vocalization patterns I studied for years) and some duetting and group singing songbirds, produce complicated vocal patterns whose rhythms other voices, other baboons and birds, try to follow along with and imitate, synchronize with, and alternate their rhythmic contributions with. You definitely see the beginnings of collective rhythmic behavior in these animals. Anyway, hoping to hear from you, Bruce Bruce Richman wrote:
Hi Jonathan,
I read your talk on Parallels and Divergences of music and language and I really think it’s great! It parallels a lot of my thinking and what I’m writing in my origins of language book. The big thing missing in most people’s thinking about music and language is to be clear exactly what these social, collective behaviors really are. As social behaviors they merely are points on a continuum of collective human vocal behavior. In Plato’s The Laws he says that mousike is the collective, rhythmical behavior of groups of people, coordinated movements of the body, including the voice! Dance, song, gesture language, and spoken language all fit that definition!
One minor quibble: you say that animals don’t show that they can produce and imitate arbitrary rhythmic patterns. That may be true; but some animals, particularly gelada baboons (whose vocalization patterns I studied for years) and some duetting and group singing songbirds, produce complicated vocal patterns whose rhythms other voices, other baboons and birds, try to follow along with and imitate, synchronize with, and alternate their rhythmic contributions with. You definitely see the beginnings of collective rhythmic behavior in these animals.
Anyway, hoping to hear from you, Bruce

]]> Comment on Other Researchers by Music & Language Studies » Other Researchers page updated http://www.musiclanguage.net/contact/other-researchers/comment-page-1/#comment-85 Music & Language Studies » Other Researchers page updated Wed, 05 Jul 2006 23:24:00 +0000 http://www.musiclanguage.net/other-researchers/#comment-85 [...] Additional links have been added to the Other Researchers page [...] [...] Additional links have been added to the Other Researchers page [...]

]]> Comment on Priming and polysemy by Eric Ederer http://www.musiclanguage.net/2006/04/10/priming-and-polysemy/comment-page-1/#comment-56 Eric Ederer Mon, 17 Apr 2006 23:02:20 +0000 http://www.musiclanguage.net/2006/04/10/priming-and-polysemy/#comment-56 Terrific idea! As an ethnomusicologist I'm researching a transfer of symbolic meaning (Otherness) ascribed to a particular musical instrument in Turkey, and its recent shift in associations from several minority ethnic groups (Others in re: Turks) to the majority ethnic Turks (Others in re: Europeans). Not ostensibly a language question, but I think the concept here will be very useful to me... please let me know whom I may credit the idea. Thanks! Eric Ederer Terrific idea! As an ethnomusicologist I’m researching a transfer of symbolic meaning (Otherness) ascribed to a particular musical instrument in Turkey, and its recent shift in associations from several minority ethnic groups (Others in re: Turks) to the majority ethnic Turks (Others in re: Europeans). Not ostensibly a language question, but I think the concept here will be very useful to me… please let me know whom I may credit the idea.

Thanks!
Eric Ederer

]]> Comment on Belin, et al. (2000) by The uniqueness of the human voice | The Articulate Child http://www.musiclanguage.net/2006/03/24/belin-et-al-2000/comment-page-1/#comment-45 The uniqueness of the human voice | The Articulate Child Tue, 04 Apr 2006 18:01:47 +0000 http://www.musiclanguage.net/2006/03/24/belin-et-al-2000/#comment-45 [...] Published in 2000, in the journal Nature (Belin, Pascal, et al., 2000, “Voice-selective areas in human auditory cortex,” Nature 43, 20 January 2000: 309-312), is a brief report on three experiments by a team of researchers, regarding the brain’s response to human vocal sounds: [...] [...] Published in 2000, in the journal Nature (Belin, Pascal, et al., 2000, “Voice-selective areas in human auditory cortex,” Nature 43, 20 January 2000: 309-312), is a brief report on three experiments by a team of researchers, regarding the brain’s response to human vocal sounds: [...]

]]> Comment on Petitto (2000) by To what is a baby predisposed? | The Articulate Child http://www.musiclanguage.net/2006/03/22/petitto-2000/comment-page-1/#comment-42 To what is a baby predisposed? | The Articulate Child Sat, 01 Apr 2006 04:29:45 +0000 http://www.musiclanguage.net/2006/03/20/petitto-2000/#comment-42 [...] Here’s a little tidbit for you to contemplate. Laura Ann Petitto and colleagues have studied language acquisition by children exposed to both spoken and signed language inputs (Petitto, Laura Ann, “On the biological foundations of human language,” in Emmorey et al, Eds., The Signs of Language Revisited, Lawrence Erlbaum, 2000). While some theories have posited that the human animal is predisposed toward spoken language by its neurological and physiological structure, it has never been clear what these theorists consider language to be. The first matter of defining our subject has too often simply been skirted. It has been tacitly assumed that language means speech. From this, many theories have been hatched explaining some of the changes to human physiology in terms of their selection for speech. [...] [...] Here’s a little tidbit for you to contemplate. Laura Ann Petitto and colleagues have studied language acquisition by children exposed to both spoken and signed language inputs (Petitto, Laura Ann, “On the biological foundations of human language,” in Emmorey et al, Eds., The Signs of Language Revisited, Lawrence Erlbaum, 2000). While some theories have posited that the human animal is predisposed toward spoken language by its neurological and physiological structure, it has never been clear what these theorists consider language to be. The first matter of defining our subject has too often simply been skirted. It has been tacitly assumed that language means speech. From this, many theories have been hatched explaining some of the changes to human physiology in terms of their selection for speech. [...]

]]> Comment on Petitto (2000) by Cyberspace Rendezvous :: The Articulate Child :: March :: 2006 http://www.musiclanguage.net/2006/03/22/petitto-2000/comment-page-1/#comment-41 Cyberspace Rendezvous :: The Articulate Child :: March :: 2006 Fri, 31 Mar 2006 06:53:09 +0000 http://www.musiclanguage.net/2006/03/20/petitto-2000/#comment-41 [...] As Dr. Laura Ann Petitto asked: “Might the occurrence and developmental timing of this behavior in all infants suggest something about the “ready-state” nature of the human body to express language from multiple pathways?” [...] [...] As Dr. Laura Ann Petitto asked: “Might the occurrence and developmental timing of this behavior in all infants suggest something about the “ready-state” nature of the human body to express language from multiple pathways?” [...]

]]> Comment on Belin, et al. (2000) by Babbling | The Articulate Child http://www.musiclanguage.net/2006/03/24/belin-et-al-2000/comment-page-1/#comment-40 Babbling | The Articulate Child Thu, 30 Mar 2006 00:06:18 +0000 http://www.musiclanguage.net/2006/03/24/belin-et-al-2000/#comment-40 [...] The task for an infant is to figure out how to focus their attention, as well as how to approximate and imitate the elements of language. This is no mean task. In the child’s biological favor is a specially-evolved ability to select out certain types of information. For instance, researchers in Canada have identified selective neuron activity, which occurs only in the presence of human vocal sounds. See Belin, et al., “Voice-selective areas in human auditory cortex,” Nature 43 (20 January 2000): 309-312. An interesting question (so far unanswered) would be if there is similar brain activity involved in the processing of human hand gestures. [...] [...] The task for an infant is to figure out how to focus their attention, as well as how to approximate and imitate the elements of language. This is no mean task. In the child’s biological favor is a specially-evolved ability to select out certain types of information. For instance, researchers in Canada have identified selective neuron activity, which occurs only in the presence of human vocal sounds. See Belin, et al., “Voice-selective areas in human auditory cortex,” Nature 43 (20 January 2000): 309-312. An interesting question (so far unanswered) would be if there is similar brain activity involved in the processing of human hand gestures. [...]

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