4 Apr
2007
4 Apr
'07
11:24 p.m.
You said:
Association is where psychoacoustics comes into play. Imagine a person who
never heard of a bird in their entire lives. What do you think would be
their first reaction? Most likely they would be alarmed, confused, and maybe
even scared. Then again, all this depends upon their prior conditioning...
It seems likely that you don't like these
sounds because of their
psychoacoustic association. To put it bluntly if every morning you were
being prematurely woken up by a beautiful bird song of a bird who lives
on a
tree next to your window, I am pretty sure that
you would eventually
learn
to dislike that sound as much as you currently
dislike the sound of your
alarm clock. All sounds we are aware of are simply a combination of
sine
tones perceptible by our ears. Therefore, the
only difference between a
sound of an ocean and a steam engine is ultimately their "recipe." If
you
consider all sounds on this, much more equal
plane, then it becomes
rather
apparent that all sounds have beauty that simply
needs to be uncovered
regardless of their source.
This is the part I don't buy: that people decide what sounds are
worthy based on association. The sound of a "beautiful bird song" will never have the disruptive effect that an alarm
clock or a
jackhammer outside the window have.
Of course if a knowledgeable person were given freedom to manipulate
these sounds with all the software in the world, they could create
something beautiful.
This all goes back to the original argument: all sounds are simply
combinations of sine tones with their respective envelopes and amplitudes.
If we take this into an account any sound is just that, a sound. Anything
else we associate with such a collage of individual frequencies is our own
personal choice, whether that be conscious or subconscious.
There is
a pretty well-developed science behind how people recognize
pattern in what they hear and experience emotions in response to it.
Yes, and it is called psychoacoustics. I teach this to my students every
year... What is
traditionally referred to as "music" didn't exist by accident;
sentient animals create it according to their experience, which means
there is a reason we respond to it. It was not just one of the many
ways to arrange sound, it was the one that drew people's attention.
Why "traditionally referred to"? Music has been always referred to this and will
always continue to be referred as such. This is why our modern
times music is different from that written 150 years ago. Industrial
Whose modern times music? Most of what I hear is not that different.
If anything it's maybe more like music written 500 years ago. I
suspect the music you're thinking of is the music of the minority.