#uhassignment

[dorianpchgrx-blog]

Annotated Bibliography

This bibliography can seem quite broad because it assesses different lines of questioning within my project. I took the liberty to add titles and connecting notes to the different items so that the logic chain is more clear to the reader.

Music psychology and philosophy

1) Emotion and Meaning in Music Meyer, L. B. Univ. Chicago Press, Chicago, 1956.

This is the core of my research, Meyer’s stance is so elegant that it still makes for the authority in the field.

He begins by dismissing previous debates on the subject. Meyer argues that the two different ways the brain forms thoughts (phenomenological and reflective) are two sides of the same psychological process, so they are not contradictory (as we previously debated about) but complementary.

What is elegant about his work is that he presents a modern theory of emotion and applies it to music. His central thesis states that emotion is stimulated when a desire is prevented. Emotion in music lies in the structural building of tension and release, so in that sense, it can be universal.

This new way of redefining music certainly impacts on how I perceive it. It also changes how I think about how my brain works and that was unexpected.

2) Music and Emotion: Theory and Research Juslin, P. N., and Sloboda J. A. (Eds.) Series in affective science, New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Music and Emotion: Theory and Research is the modern update of Meyer's work. It presents how Meyer reflected in different works during the years, what other authors with similar objectives wrote, and confirms its authority. It expands and challenges the knowledge of the 50s with modern experiments.

The book seeks a wider perspective by presenting approaches in different fields (philosophy, musicology, psychology, anthropology, biology...) delivered in chapters written by one expert in each field. There are so many different points in those approaches that I certainly could have used each chapter as a different source in my bibliography.

Juslin and Sloboda helped me have a wider point of view on what is written on music and emotion, which work stands out the most, and where are we researching now. They address criticisms that were very welcome for this bibliography.

3) The Language of Music Cooke, D. New York: Oxford University Press, 1959.

Deryck Cooke attempted to do exactly what I wanted my research to conclude on. His thesis is that composers have used similar musical parameters to express similar emotions, so we can deduct a language, a lexicon, a dictionary of music. His assumption is that no matter the instrumentation, the emotions expressed stay the same, thus, we can link expressed emotions with text in vocal works with their associated melodies in instrumental versions. He bases the lexicon expressivity in tonality, each interval of the scale has an associated meaning.

However, Cooke's method is heavily based on extramusical aspects, it does not consider a potential emotional quality inherent in music. It does not take into consideration the musical context around those intervals he talks about, which can completely modify their meaning. Additionally, music significance may not be as fixed as language significance.

4) Analysing Popular Music: Theory, Method and Practice Tagg, P. Popular Music, Vol. 2, Theory and Method (1982), pp. 37-67 Cambridge University Press, 1982.

Within the same range of ideas than Cooke’s (i.e. decode music with language theories), Philip Tagg brings the term of "musemes" to label musical parameters used to express specific emotions. He raises two methods to test musemes effective reality: by confirming that the emotion and meaning expressed have been exactly identically comprehended by two different listeners (inter-subjective comparison); by comparing every association between the musical parameters studied and its meaning expressed in extra-musical ways (inter-objective comparison).

Same criticisms can be applied to both Cooke and Tagg approaches. However, reading about their theories and their limits taught me a better understanding of what music really is and isn’t. It changed my mind about the possibility of building a lexicon of music.

Along with the philosophical approach, I wanted to know what science had recently found on the subject of music in the brain.

Music and neurology

5) Music, the food of neuroscience? Zatorre, R. Nature 434, 312-315 (17 March 2005). Available from: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v434/n7031/full/434312a.html

Zatorre made me realize that the neurological approach is by no means less complex than the philosophical approach. We know which parts of the brain are associated with musical skills but we don't know how they work essentially. The article also taught me that music recognition was surprisingly innate, this is important to identify the importance of music to humans.

Evidence of psychological mood changes and physiological changes caused by music are mentioned. One hypothesis to what brain responses can explain those effects is that we tend to imitate the behaviour of the music we listen to. To scientists, it is surprising to see how deep human's response to music is compared to how little it is useful to survival.

6) Exploring the Musical Brain Leutwyler, K. Scientific American, a division of Nature America, Inc. (22 January 2001). Available from: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exploring-the-musical-bra/

The difficulty with the lack of research on the subject is that many articles relate the same piece of information between each other. I will focus on the differences.

Leutwyler assesses the importance of music and how deep it is implemented in nature. In the human world, music seems to predates farming, but it also exists in the animal realm as well (e.g. birds, whale), thus it is not an ability specifically human but rather an intricate part of life. What is most surprising is that animals share a lot of musical preferences with humans.

This article also relays the famous assumption that dissonance seems unpleasant and consonance seems pleasant with scientific evidence.

Leutwyler ends by presenting the debate about music purpose between S. Pinker who thinks that music is nothing more than an "auditory cheesecake", an accident in speech evolution, and D.J. Levitin who believes that something that has such profound effect on emotions must have an important purpose. Levitin best suggestion is that music is an aspect of our cognitive tendency to make order out of disorder.

7) Music And The Brain Weinberger, N. M. Scientific American, a division of Nature America, Inc. (1 September 2006). Available from: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/music-and-the-brain-2006-09/

Weinberger's article seems to be the continuation of Leutwyler's article, as it begins with the debate between Pinker and Levitin.

Here we have the first occurrence of what has been widely researched on recently: Brain damaged patients seems to unexpectedly recover long lost brain functions thanks to music, suggesting that music runs even more deeply than others cognitive skills.

The article then presents the path of music from the ear to the brain, which is what I primarily started my research on. Weinberger studies confirm philosophical intuitions, such as we interpret tones differently according to context.

Supported by many studies, the article goes on about how musicians are better at playing and listening to music than non-musicians. However, I think this is an expected result of cognitive training and as we can't conclude on musicians having better brains than non-musicians.

Those neurological approaches draw a map of what music can expect to produce in the brain of the audience, supported by scientific evidence. We even have a new line of questioning about how old is music and what is its purpose.

Thoughts on film scoring

8) Sound Design is the New Score Kulezic-Wilson, D. Music, Sound, and the Moving Image, Vol.2, Issue 2, 127-131, 2008. Liverpool University Press. Available from: http://online.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/abs/10.3828/msmi.2.2.5

The content of this article develops the approach of my master course on a quite different topic than previously covered yet very relevant to my project. Kulezic’s main idea is to get out of the traditional way of making music for films which have become too predictable and too heavily sentimental and lean progressively into sound design which is much more suggestive and discrete. The article illustrates with a range of examples from directors Aronofsky (for a hip-hop inspired editing style) and Gus Van Sant (for using musique concrète instead of traditional music).

My research with Meyer's book taught me the distinction between music that gives meaning via itself and music that gives meaning via extra-musical references. I believe that in film scoring, music always uses the latter. In that regard, this article suggests using the very powerful denotative and connotative potency of sound design to express extra-musical meaning.

9) In The Blink of an Eye: A Perspective on Film Editing Murch, W. Silman-James Press, 2001

I believe it is an essential part of the composer’s job to understand film mechanics, especially editing.

Water Murch provides a hierarchy of importance of factors in editing decisions, emotion being the most important factor. What is so stunning about his work is that he allies editing with technology and neurology, albeit keeping a very easy to read style of writing. It doesn't feel like he is imposing manifestos, he writes like he shares orally his personal finding so that we can actually follow his train of thoughts.

One of his most insightful findings is that the moment we naturally blink is a great moment to cut, because the action of blinking is a consequence of the way we comprehend the world.

Walter Murch is also the inventor of the term of sound design. Those reasons are why I couldn't avoid to put him in my bibliography.

Research specific to the live project

10) Stress Recovery during Exposure to Nature Sound and Environmental Noise Alvarsson, J. J., Wiens, S., and Nilsson M. E. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2010, 7(3), 1036-1046. Available from: http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/7/3/1036/htm

Linking the power of sound denotation with supporting scientific evidence, this study proves that nature sound helps recover from psychological stress better than a noisy environment. The study also assesses previous research in the area which focused on the effect of nature visuals. Conclusions are that the idea and projections of nature relieve human beings.

There is a part of my live project where I wish the audience to be relieved from stress as much as possible and I was looking for the best way to emulate it. I plan on using nature sounds and visuals to achieve such results.

11) A Comprehensive Review of the Psychological Effects Of Brainwave Entertainment Huang, T. L., and Charyton, C. Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine; Aliso Viejo Vol. 14, Iss. 5,  (Sep/Oct 2008): 38-50. Available from: http://www.machineswww.mindmodulations.com/resources/STUDY-ComprehensiveEntrainment.pdf

Still with the objective to find the best way to relax an audience, this article gathers various studies rigorously selected which suggest that brainwave entertainment (BWE) benefits people suffering from a list of different negative disorders such as stress, anxiety, mood and behavioural problems.

BWE consists of presenting auditory or visual repetitive stimulation - such as a pulsing tones or lights - to the patient whose brainwave will resonate with the frequency. Brainwave frequencies are associated with states of alertness, it goes gradually from delta frequencies (1-4 Hz) associated with deep sleep, to high beta frequencies (20-32 Hz) associated with intensity or anxiety, going through alpha frequencies (8-12 Hz) which are associated with conscious calmness.

I could use this therapeutic tool to lower the audience's brainwave frequencies and thus progressively ease them down. Now I just have to found speakers that goes below 20 Hz.

12) The efficacy of psychodynamic psychotherapy Shedler, J. American Psychologist, 65(2), 98-109, 2010. Available from: http://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2010-02208-012.html

This article gathers empirical findings that support the efficacy of psychodynamic psychotherapy. I wish my live project to be based as much as possible on scientifically supported methods. This is why the first part of the narrative structure of my live project follows the psychodynamic psychotherapy.

Like in therapy, we would begin by focusing on expressing emotions and labelling feelings, before exploring the attempts of the mind to flee unpleasant thoughts and feelings. The goal is to identify recurring themes and patterns of avoidance. We would talk about how past experiences and interpersonal relations could be themes and causes of patterns.

We may have to skip the part of the therapy where it focuses on the relationship between the patient and the therapist as it would take a widely different form in the live show.

Once negative thoughts are externalized, we would then encourage the positive thoughts, which is the second part of the live project.

13) Differential effects of mindful breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, and loving-kindness meditation on decentering and negative reactions to repetitive thoughts Feldman, G., Greeson, J., and Senville, J. Behaviour Research and Therapy Vol.48, Issue 10, October 2010, 1002-1011. Available from: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0005796710001324

The second part of the live project would consist of proposing the audience to engage in stress-reducing methods accompanied by sounds and visuals. This article compares a well-known method (mindful breathing) with two alternative stress management techniques (progressive muscle relaxation and loving-kindness meditation) and provides further evidence towards the superior efficiency of the first method.

The objective of mindful breathing is to clear the mind of repetitive thoughts in observing internal sensations caused by breathing without controlling or judging them.

The article also gives us the notion of decentering which will be the main theme of the second part of the narrative structure of my project. The idea of decentering resides in learning to view thoughts as events in the mind rather than necessarily being reflections of reality or accurate self-view.

[dorianpchgrx-blog]

Critical Analysis

This is a critical analysis of a passage page 33-35 of Leonard B. Meyer's book Emotion and Meaning in Music, introducing the problem of meaning in music. Despite being a rather old source as it has been published in 1956, it still is the main authority on the subject and is still widely referenced in 2017. It may be because it is predominantly philosophical and thus does not depend on technological achievements. Meyer strength comes from the fact that he is the first to merge musicology with psychology.

The book is highly informative in its entirety, I chose this particular text because it gives the best argument I found to the core stake of my research: How is music linked to emotion and meaning?

Meyer starts by dismissing the debate that stood between referentialists who think that meaning in music comes from extra-musical sources, and absolutists who think that meaning in music comes from music itself. The author brings to light two fallacies that generated such disagreements on what the second meaning can be: Predecessors dismissed potential different types of meaning and they focused on only one type of meaning which is using an object (e.g. a word) to call another object of a different kind (e.g. an idea).

Meyer resolves both fallacies by presenting Cohen's (1944) quite complex definition of meaning where it is "not a property of things”. Meaning is acquired by anything when the full nature of such thing is revealed by a connection between an object and an interpretation of such object. Subsequently, the author illustrates the definition furthermore with examples.

Then he returns to the content of the debates and examines which points entered in contradiction with the definition. The major mistakes of predecessors were that they tried to identify separately which one held the meaning between the object, what it points to, and the observer. Meyer concludes his examination using Cohen (1944) and Mead's (1934) concept which states that meaning is in fact established in the relationship between the three formerly separated elements.

Moving on, the author assesses another difficulty from predecessors to make themselves understood between each other because of a missing distinction. Meyer differentiates designative meaning which is the one type of meaning predecessors focused on, and embodied meaning which is using an object to call another object of the same kind (e.g. a musical event). He succeeds to identify what predecessors were really talking about within his newly created structure of definitions and distinctions. The text ends with this narrower and precise identification of meaning in music that Meyer will expand on further in his book.

The text provides a primarily deconstructive argument as its title states "The problem of meaning in music". In that sense, it rather answers the stake of how not to link music to emotion and meaning. Those moments of the book were the most informative to me because they challenged my own conceptions that I undoubtedly inherited from musicology courses. I recall being very excited about "how this author is dispelling such classic conceptions" and "what is he going to propose instead?".

Thus, despite its deconstructive aspect, the text still has a positivist approach as it overcomes previous failures with new concepts. The structure of the argument can be schematized as firstly identifying confusions, then introducing a brighter definition, subsequently using the new definition to examine the mistakes that caused confusions, and concluding with a better overall concept. Meyer does it two times in the text, but they don't finish the same way. The second time, the argument ends on an overture for the book to continue on.

The main ability of Meyer to end debates resides in suppressing fallacious distinctions, namely considering that what was opposite beforehand is in fact complementary.

One of the most important occurrences in his book is when he allies expressionism and formalism, meaning that the phenomenological and reflective parts of the brain are intertwined like two faces of the same entity. In that respect, emotion and meaning are interlinked. This idea will reflect in the totality of the book, including the chosen passage, and it is precisely what makes Meyer's theories so foundational.

However, those associations are never arguments to moderation as he supports them with psychological and philosophical theories. We have one occurrence in the text when he states that "Meaning, then, is not in either the stimulus, or what it points to, or the observer. Rather it arises out of . . . the "triadic" relationship between [them]".

The objective of the text is to clean conceptual confusion to dig out what mystery we should focus our attention on. Meyer uses a very subtle and elegant way to introduce the reader to this mystery.

When calling out the two first fallacies he argues that "there has been a tendency to locate meaning exclusively in one aspect of the communicative process" and then explains what is that one aspect without mentioning what is the other aspect. Meyer could have called out the mystery right away for clarity's sake but the reader has to read through six other paragraphs before finally earning the answer the whole text seems to point to: The embodied meaning.

The six paragraphs are all very necessary to the argument, but we may appreciate a certain writing style which was fairly unexpected in what seemed to be an exclusively rigorous logical chain. It is pleasant to acknowledge that Meyer is experimenting on the reader the main thesis of his book which claims that emotion is created when a desire is inhibited.

A blurry point of the text is the way the definition of meaning is introduced. The first definition doesn’t include the observer. Thus the second definition is more complete, and it makes for a difficult argument to understand clearly. Meyer’s overall writing is dense and complex, but it is highly informative and rewarding.

Here is the text :

Source's references:

-Morris R. Cohen, A Preface to Logic (New York: Henry Holts & Co., 1944, p. 47. -George H. Mead, Mind, Self, and Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934), p. 76.

[dorianpchgrx-blog]

Blog discussion #5

I feel like I have failed the blog assignment. After achieving the two other assignments the last few days, the annotated bibliography and the critical analysis, I have a much more precise idea of my project. It is more advanced than what my blog shows. In a way, it means that the blog doesn’t really follow the state of my research. I have fought to make it right, but in 2 months time, I didn’t manage to implement it into my routine. I think it may have to do with the pressure of the deadline. I thought about this blog and wrote on this blog with the idea of being read by tutors, and it completely shaped the blog.

However, I am fairly optimistic. Now that the deadline passed, I can take the time to make this blog right, more concise, more personal. I guess now I am talking to the few people who may one day be interested in the making of my project so that is a very different perspective. I believe the blog is a good tool to formulate ideas and gather sources, it has been useful to go back here to recall things and thoughts.

I had trouble falling asleep last night because I was invaded by new ideas and deductions from the annotated bibliography and the critical analysis. It feels like I reached a new step and I believe that I can start experimenting with practice from now on. I will post the two other assignments on the blog because they represent pivot points in the making of my project.

[dorianpchgrx-blog]

Blog Discussion #4

After another conversation with tutors, they suggested that I start creating for my live show music wise and deduct results of what is efficient or not by experimenting. It is true that I am totally focused on gathering theories and not trying them yet. However, this is the core of the method I want to try for this particular project. All previous projects were derived from my personal instinct and sensitivity. I know I can very well make 30 minutes of live music that aims at relaxing the audience. It would not make any improvement in my skills. Moreover, there is a risk that I grow attached to what I firstly make and that it would be too much of a hassle to have to modify and destroy it because I would find more efficient or contradictory techniques during my research.

By researching first I am trying a different approach that I never have and I believe it would result in a better way. Of course, this is the first part of the creation of this project. By researching before creating, I am feeding my mind with seeds that will grow through time. There will be a step where theory will meet practice and they will then assist each other. I am just not there yet.

[dorianpchgrx-blog]

Psychotherapy inspirations

The structure and overall concept of the live show will be inspired by psychodynamic, existential and transpersonal psychotherapy.

Firstly we will focus on expressing emotions, i.e. talk about putting words on feelings, before appreciating the power of the mind to flee unpleasant feelings, what it can do consciously and unconsciously. The goal is to detect patterns of avoidance and what are objects of such avoidance.

The second part will be about introducing the idea of accepting the human condition, the tension between limits and possibilities, and embracing existence as a blessing.

We will finish with applying those concepts of acceptance on objects of previous avoidance. Of course, there are many things that a live show can’t reproduce. Such psychotherapies demand personal one-to-one sessions over several weeks or months. If the show can help some people that will be unexpectedly awesome, the expected minimum will just that people will learn a bit about psychotherapy and what approach can they engage, which tools can they use in everyday life. Sources: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/psychotherapy/how-it-works/ http://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2010-02208-012.html http://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2010-05168-005.html http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0197455606000219

[dorianpchgrx-blog]

Music and Emotion: Theory and Research

Yesterday, I have been skimming through a more recent book than Meyer’s Emotion and Meaning in Music. : It is called Music and Emotion: Theory and Research by Patrik N. Juslin and John A. Sloboda. It has been released in 2001 so it should be more up-to-date than Meyer's book.

Music and Emotion is divided into several chapters written by different authors that approach the theme of music and emotion in different fields. There is the philosophical approach, the musicological one, the psychological, anthropological, biological, etc. Moreover, there are chapters about how this theme develops with different points of view in relation to music, such as the composer's, the performer's, and the listener's point of view.

I have found an incredible insight into Meyer's work in this book. It confirms my suspicion about the authority status of Emotion and Meaning in Music. The musicological chapter gives me the full bibliography on the subject and what are the strengths and weakness of each book. Therefore, I have learned about Deryck Cooke's The Language of Music (1959), that tries to build a lexicon of music which was precisely what I wanted my research to results on. I have learned the existence of Philip Tagg's (1982) method which applies semiotic theory to music and then verifies his interpretation with "inter-subjective comparison" and "inter-objective comparison". I've been introduced to Jakobson's (1971) "introversive" and  "extroversive semiosis".  I will be honest, for now, I am just written them down for a future understanding.

Other names appeared, such as Kivy (1993), Newcomb (1984), Davies (1994)... It made me feel like I was emerging in a sea of knowledge and meeting my masters for the first time. Thanks to this book, I finally have strong foundations on the subject to expand my bibliography.

To be continued.

I was also pleasantly surprised to discover that Meyer himself wrote the first chapter of Music and Emotion about the listener's point of view.

Sources

Juslin, P. N., & Sloboda, J. A. (Eds.). (2001). Series in affective science. Music and emotion: Theory and research. New York: Oxford University Press.

[dorianpchgrx-blog]

Emotion and Meaning in Music

Throughout my research online I found one particularly recurrent source: Emotion and Meaning in Music, by Leonard B. Meyer. Despite being released in 1956, it has been cited by 4937 peer-reviewed books and articles, including 188 this year. It shows how much it stands as an authority on the subject and how relevant it still is today. I may use this book for my critical analysis.

I'm reading the book out loud while noting on a file every piece of information I got out of it. It is pretty dense, I can’t just skim through. I don’t think I can take a portion in the middle without reading the entire book first because I would then miss key definitions from the beginning and I would lack perspective on the whole thing. Unfortunately, it makes my reading particularly slow so I don’t have enough time to finish the book before the deadline. Again, I feel like this is a side of my rigorous positivist approach that I will have to sacrifice to submit my work in time. But there’s no point of reading if I don’t understand it, so I’ll have to compromise.

This is what I have been noting during my reading.

Preface The ability of music in giving meaning without any forms of language asks the question of what exactly is meaning and communication.

“Meaning and communication cannot be separated from the cultural context in which they arise.”

First part: nature of emotional and intellectual meanings, the conditions which give rise to them, and how these conditions are fulfilled in the response to musical stimuli.

Second part: social and psychological conditions under which meaning arises and communication takes place in response to music. Third part: evidence.

Theory

Divide between absolutists (music give meaning by itself) and referentialists (music give meaning in calling extramusical references). Could be a false dilemma. Depends on the work of art.

Second divide between formalists (musical meaning is intellectual) and expressionists (musical meaning is emotional).

Three errors in the psychology of music: hedonism (confuse aesthetic experience with pleasurable sensation), atomism (try to explain music as a succession of separable sounds and sound complexes), universalism (attempt to explain music as a physical, quasi-acoustical phenomenon that would be universal).

You can’t explain happiness/sadness with dissonance and consonance.

Understanding is a matter of grouping stimuli into patterns and relating them to one another. The particular organisation in Western music is in no means universal. Subjective Evidence

The only evidence that music does convey emotions is that human attests it does, by introspective discovery. That says nothing about the stimulus which created the response.

Confusion between emotion and mood. Verbalizations of emotions, particularly those evoked by music, are deceptive and misleading. Emotional states are much more subtle and varied than are the few crude words which we use to denote them. Distinction between the emotions felt and the emotional states denoted by different aspects of the musical stimulus.

Emotional response felt could not be caused by music but just catalysed, enabling the response to take place without determining the experience.

Objective Evidence

Observe changes in behaviour and psychological states. But the same emotional response could result in different behaviours, so we can’t use it has a mean to identify emotions. Social context guides behaviours. But then they are forms of communication rather than reflex reactions.

Effect on pulse, respiration and blood pressure, delays muscular fatigue and has an effect on the psychogalvanic reflex. No matter the music: same response. Mental attitude has an impact on the perception of music. It is pre-emotional and pre-musical.

Evidence cannot be used. We need a hypothesis.

The Psychological Theory of Emotions

Central thesis: Emotion or affect is stimulated when a desire is prevented.

Supporting theories: 1894 J. Dewey "The Conflict Theory of Emotion"

Emotion may be felt without becoming manifest as overt behaviour.

It is the prevention of the expression of instinct that leads to intense affect.

There are two cases: Either the tendency  (instinctive desire) cannot reach completion because of a physical or mental reason, or the tendency is prevented by an opposing tendency, resulting in a affect + doubt, confusion.

The mind tends to resolve confusion in clarity, even if it means abandoning all previous tendencies.

Confusion may induce new tendencies.

Now we still don't know what is physically an emotion but we can talk about how it works.

The differentiation of affect:

We recognise a variety of emotions.

How the affect can derive into several forms?

Each affect does not have its own physiological composition.

Much emotional behaviour, including posture, facial expressions, physical reactions, are actually learned. It serves the main mean of communication. The behaviour is clearly differentiated but it tells nothing as to the affect from which it derives.

It's possible that the behaviour depends on the situation and not on the affect. So it could take place in the absence of affect.

The more intense emotional behaviour is, the less control exerted by the ego and the greater the probability that the behaviour is automatic and natural.

The more intense affective behaviour is, the less differentiated such behaviour tends to be. Weeping may accompany grief, joy or any intense emotion.

Thus the more automatic affective behaviour is, the less differentiated it tends to be.

Hebb: There are no pleasant or unpleasant emotions. There are only pleasant or unpleasant emotional experiences.

Situation plus reaction characterize a specific emotion. The reaction itself is not sufficient to differentiate the emotion.

The difference between pleasant and unpleasant emotional experience is that the pleasant is resolved.

But if it was the case we would only know if it's one or the other after it's over.

The pleasantness seems to lie not so much in the fact of the resolution itself as in the belief in resolution, whether true or false.

Falling through space is unpleasant, a parachute jump in an amusement park is pleasant. Because we believe that the outcome is either positive or negative.

In music: it is wrong to assert that we have differentiated reactions to music but rather differentiated emotional experiences.

Musical stimuli are non-referential. They do not represent any of the concept associated with the reality of the human experience.

Sources

Meyer, L. B. Emotion and Meaning in Music (Univ. Chicago Press, Chicago, 1956).

[dorianpchgrx-blog]

Blog discussion #3

After another talk with tutors, I have again been surprised by what can fit into the blog. My point of view and blog method came from the impression I got reading the blog examples on the university server. They were messy, filled with uncertainty and obscure, I wanted to make the reader job easier and reward him with every sentence read.

Unfortunately, I have been working on foundations in my corner for too long. It makes my blog appears as an empty space that doesn't reflect my work progress. Every information and sources I post have been thoroughly pre-selected. I am actually making my best to be as rigorous as possible.

The assignment is due in two weeks, so I'll be posting what was on my mind and research that I didn't post because I thought it was not good enough to publish :

-I will start with a post about Emotion and Meaning in Music, by Leonard B. Meyer, that I am reading. -Then, I will post about how the structure of the live show follows the psychologist procedure. -I will finally talk about where a lot of my knowledge and analysis skills come from.

I will force myself to post whenever I am thinking about something related to my research, I expect to write one post every two days through those next two weeks, should them be smaller and messier.

[dorianpchgrx-blog]

Live show structure and concept

Idea for title of the show: “Therapy” Objectives At the end of the show, the audience stress and anxiety levels should be lower and they should have learned a few tips to improve their daily life. The show shall not be presented as a new scientific method of healing anxiety but as a live music show first and foremost, with an anxiety reliever intent.

Structure

The structure is based on psychologist procedure when meeting a patient. It starts with expressing concerns and finding sources of stress and anxiety before working on the mindset of the patient to finally find a solution. Such procedure takes months to be effective so the show would only be an introduction to the process of healing, giving first keys that the audience would then work by themselves at home. I would like to introduce stress-reducing techniques such as mindful breathing that would be synchronized with the music. The music would help to give an engaging impact on meditation. Such technique is supposed to last for 10 minutes so that gives a first indication of the show’s duration.

Part 1 - “Expression/Catharsis”: Start with engaging an energetic material. The goal is to “get it out”, express and exteriorize anxiety by dancing, screaming, violent movements… 10 minutes. Part 2 - “Meditation/Breathing”: Stop everything and start over gently. Introduce mindful breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, and loving-kindness meditation. The goal is to clear the mind of the audience. 10 minutes. Part 3 - “Solution/Mindfulness”: Progressively turn into a “bigger-than-life” loving and caring experience. Still using relaxation techniques but expend them to mix with the music. The goal is to give the audience a mindful appreciation of the world, of the people around them and of themselves. 10 minutes.

Visuals

The show needs a screen to project the relaxation methods.

Music will be synched to visuals and vice versa. Either with a concrete and/or abstract film, an animation movie, or live VJing...

I leave this section intentionally empty so that my future collaborators will have space to explore how they will want to express the narrative.

Narrative

A narrative could be proposed.

Would a narrative improve the experience?

It could be a character in a narrative that follows the structure of the show.

It could be a woman at her psychologist appointment. She would start with expressing what’s bugging her in her life and the psychologist could introduce relaxation methods. Then the camera enters her head and we see abstract visuals, memories, dreams, nightmares...

Interaction

In introducing relaxation methods, I invite the audience to interact with the live show. Synchronize audience’s breathing inducing mindfulness will be one key element of the experience.

The fiction and reality could mix together and thus provide a more engaging experience for the audience.

What if we put the main actor of the movie in the audience?

Would an online mini-game improve the experience? The mini-game would have an impact on the lights/sounds/movie. What gameplay would express the objectives?

I could use multiple narrative possibilities that would follow the same structure but have different themes. Before the show, I would ask the audience to vote for which theme/narrative suits them the best. There could be a narrative about death, another one about heartbreak, about discrimination, lack of will, etc…

I could use a survey to emphasize on the scientific approach of the show. It would ask specific questions about how the audience is feeling before and after the show and what did they learn if they learned something.

Why is this project important to my work?

I hope to find determining knowledge on how effectively transmitting emotion and meaning through music. This project is one possible application of such skill, it helps conducts my research to a definite destination. That skill would then be useful for any kind of project I will work on in the future. Note: This blog post is outdated. Please refer to this more recent blog post: https://dorianpchgrx.tumblr.com/post/169033247219/new-ideas-for-the-show

[dorianpchgrx-blog]

Non music stress reducing methods

I am looking for activities to give to the audience to do during the live show. I think that proposing an interactive action will improve the experience. The goal of the show is to reduce anxiety and stress levels of the audience, so I looked for stress-reducing methods.

I have found three common and well-researched methods: Mindful breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, and loving-kindness meditation. Mindful breathing Being self-aware of internal physical sensations. Sensing what breathing is doing to the body without trying to alter it. Working on the mind wandering, be aware when it focuses on something. Being an observer. Intentionally paying attention to the present moment. Fully committing the focus on these thoughts and nothing else. I could use metaphors, labelling or explicitly explain what is decentering: View thoughts as events in the mind rather than reflections of reality or accurate self-view. Mindful breathing may help reduce reactivity to repetitive thoughts.

Progressive muscle relaxation Starting with slow breathing. Then moving the mind focus around the whole body, starting from one point of the body through the opposite point, taking the necessary time to feel each body part individually. The focus will detect muscle tension and aim to relax them completely. Giving a strong sense of weight and existence.

Loving-kindness meditation Using autosuggestion technique, mentally repeat “May I live in safety. May I be happy. May I be healthy. May I live with ease.”. Then imagine a person and working in wishing him well with the same series of sentences. Starting with someone close and friendly, and ending with someone irritating. Taking the necessary time for it to be sincere. Finally, wishing for wellness to every being.

Each method is 10-15 minutes long.

Commentary

Those methods are inspired by traditional spiritual techniques, often from Buddhism. There is a ton of paramedical and pseudo-scientific website that uses those techniques in a spiritual way. This is not the intent, I am not speaking about “shakra”, “energic waves” or “quantum meditation”. I think the spiritual interpretation can be used as a tool - like metaphors can be - but it’s important to me to not derive into actual spiritual beliefs. I believe those techniques are efficient, and we have proof to believe so. It may have to do with a form of placebo. I strongly believe there is a great potential in what the mind can do to the body. We can work on ourselves to be less stressful, happier, and that’s what I want to present on my live show. In that sense, I believe happiness is a choice, and I want to help people make the choice or at least work on it.

Sources :

-http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965229906000434 -http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0005796710001324

[dorianpchgrx-blog]

Blog discussion #2

I think I am doing yet another mistake. I am withholding information on my research blog because I want the posts to be clear and clean. I am working on them so they are truly significant before posting them. I figured this is not what the blog is supposed to be, it’s supposed to follow where I am in my research and what am I looking at. So I’ll be posting the drafts I am working on today. I would love to modify them for additional information so they are richer and more meaningful but it would not advocate for the continuity of my research. Therefore I will post additional information in additionals blog posts (as I am supposed to do). My method I have been introduced to the distinction between positivist and phenomenological method of working. This is pretty hard to learn as I don’t believe the distinction to be really clear. Yet there are so many words to help identify the differentiation, it’s the same between cerebral and corporal, conscious and unconscious, intellectual and emotional, conceptual and experimental, reflexion and instinct... At first, I believed I was a positivist purist. This is flashing all around the blog with my intent to deliver something solidly based on science. Unfortunately, in the musicology and psychology fields, there is no defining knowledge as we don’t know about the human brain enough yet. There is only empirical knowledge. Then it got even more blurry as I realized so many of my founding premises came from personal preference more than logical deduction. Is it even possible to reduce anxiety with music? How can I play universally effective music if its appreciation depends so much on culture? There is so much going on in my way of thinking that I am unconscious about. We were talking about my research project but what about the work I do in music? Sure, I apply specific music codes to specific emotions on screen but I am mostly following my instinct and sensitivity in my choice of music codes. Can scientifically accurate knowledge applicable only to a specific culture or a person? Even though science is supposed to be universal? Am I trying to bring science where it doesn’t belong?

I think I may be confusing concepts here. To be continued.

[dorianpchgrx-blog]

Blog discussion

I try to be as direct and concise as possible. I don’t want to lose the attention of the reader in my never-ending questionings. Moreover, it helps me move forward and be surer of what I think. To the reader’s discretion: Keep in mind that I’m not as sure as it reads. However, for tracking purposes, I need to speak about the first research path I took and how it wasn’t the best. I have tendencies to look for building perfect foundations before moving further. When I wanted to explain how the brain interpreted sound, I figured I had to explain how we perceived sound with our ears and body, then I figured I would have to explain what exactly was a sound. I started listing sound proprieties, and as a lot of my predecessors, I struggled to define exactly what timbre was. I wanted a scientific definition as precise as what we have for sound frequency, amplitude and duration. When I was looking for how we perceived a sound I couldn’t find how hair fibers interpreted fluids movement in the Cochlea. I wanted to have a clear and exact understanding of the conversion between sound waves and electric neuronal impulses. Then, I figured I didn’t really need to know, even if those are deeply interesting topics. I realize I was not supposed to write a book nor prepare a presentation. I don’t need to draw foundations. I don’t have the time to do this deep and exact work. Now I’m looking for what the music does to the brain, how we respond physiologically and emotionally, and most importantly, how can I use this knowledge in my work. It really helps me define what exactly is my project and what do I need to know to succeed. In my second blog post “Objectives” I talked about what I am aiming to accomplish using this research studies: I want to build a live show using sound and picture on a screen, and I’m looking for implementing interactive elements between the audience and the scene. My project is growing more and more precise in my head : The goal is to immerse the audience into a powerful therapeutic experience which aims to give them the strength to fight their bad tendencies such as laziness, uncertainty, and depression, and be more conscious and caring for themselves and others. The research assignment will help me find out what musical elements may I use to obtain such a reaction from the audience.

[dorianpchgrx-blog]

I just released my fifth album “CINQ”. I can now finally focus on the UH assignment. What is interesting and different about this release is that I didn’t just did a list of tracks and gave them names when they were done, I told a narrative that I’ve decided before composing. So each track corresponds to a “chapter”, a part of a wider story told throughout the entire album. The exercice’s core is to experiment ways of transmitting a defined meaning/feeling through music and sounds.

CINQ tells a story of decay towards madness (Miviludes, BHEIDH, Midazolam) and then hopelessness (Zugwang), followed by an encounter (Уральская Рябинушка, viens) that leads to an awakening and a fight (Momentum, Roko’s Basilisk, Oxymore) to finally resolve into sanity again and curiosity (16 septembre, Orfeu). This is vague by choice, I didn’t want the story to be too precise because then you lose the sense of appropriation and interpretation. Though, I carried out a strategy: each track has its own little story that works in parallel with the whole narrative. For example, the first track “Miviludes” is the first part of the descent into madness. So, you can hear an interview with a man who talks about his spiritual beliefs albeit trying to base them with science. It really is just gibberish but what fascinates me is that he really believes in what he says and there are people that are ready to follow him. So the music supports you in trying to understand the man, it’s like you’re entering his mind, everything gets very cosmic and then very blurry, confusing, dangerous. Towards the end he speaks about people that had deep psychotics troubles and who came to him to heal, he says that “if a person suffered from rape or incest, they can’t squat and one cannot touch their feet because feet are the most sacred part of the human body”. That level of faith and/or ignorance really scares me, that is why I needed to warn people about it. That exercise made me choose and use specific music elements to match with the meaning/feeling I wanted to transmit. For example, still with the first track, I used repeating chords progression to give a sense of never-ending spinning, I used quintuplets instead of classic semiquavers to have an imbalanced and uncomfortable feeling, as if something were not right. To really empathize with the spinning and dizziness I added panning arpeggios and a sort of wind that pitches up and down. I added a lot of FX on the voice itself to blur the text even more, the voice is spinning around your head, whispering in your ears. When the man talks about “crossing black holes to meet our own individual eternal creator” is when the Big Bass comes in. I wanted a gigantic cosmic, mystical event to occur to grasp just how far the man’s beliefs and madness have gone. Then he talks about incest and rape so I added harshness and progressively added reverberation to everything to blend it into a big colossal mess. I applied the same method to all tracks, all of them have different stories. Some are static, some build bridges, some are clear, some are confusing... I found it is really difficult to transmit meaning with music because it is abstract and subjective, so I helped myself with movie extracts here and there to guide the attention of the listener. To me, music and sounds, as camera work, light, gameplay, dialog, acting, is a way of transmitting feeling and meaning. I need to learn more about it to do it better.

I want to learn how to use sounds and music to convert meaning with academic knowledge, not only coming from my own instinct and sensibility, to make more efficient and universal work. I want to understand which properties can be universal, which ones cannot and why. I want to learn what is going on biologically and psychologically when hearing sounds and music.

[dorianpchgrx-blog]

Objectives

I am deeply moved by how music is linked to emotions. I don’t understand it.

1. Learn what music does to the brain.

To complete the experience of my audience and to be able to communicate effectively on my music project, I need to define a visual universe, a narrative, maybe a character, that resonates with my music.

2. Define visual identity.

The next step in my project is the live performance. I don’t want to hit the play button around pretty lights, I want to offer a full experience with an engaging narrative and interactions between the audience and the stage. I want it to be eye-opening.

3. Build a live show.

[dorianpchgrx-blog]

Research assignment feedback

This whole blog was originally created for a research assignment within my master degree. I finally got the feedback from the tutor and I am glad to share it here:

Excellent set of blogs, informative, mostly aesthetically pleasing and reflective. More variety of images and links would have developed it further.

The sources in the annotated bibliography contained an excellent mix of sources – different perspectives and materials on your research interest. Each review was excellent and your communication clear and well structured.

The contextualisation of the chosen text within the critical analysis was detailed. You evaluated your chosen text closely and took a critical stance. Excellent piece of critical writing.  I particularly liked the text chosen as it was clearly linked to your research and practice interest. Mark : 75