 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: FDF
Date: 2007-01-14 21:21
Read a news item that said that people who speak two languages ward off dementia by at least four years. Mental activity is the key to success. However, the study made me wonder if reading and playing music is similar to a second language. Do you have any information, studies, empirical research, or observations about music as a second language?
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2007-01-14 22:09
Pappy,
I think it is simpler that that.
What do they call someone that speaks three languages? Trilingual.
What do they call someone that speaks two languages? Bilingual
What do they call someone that speaks one language? An American!
HRL
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Author: FDF
Date: 2007-01-14 22:33
tictactux, your last link did lead to some powerful conclusions that suggest that music does require high levels of thinking similar to language skills.
Hank, you got me! My wife's response was, "Music is a universal language." By George, I think she got it!
William, living close to the Canadian border as I do, I agree . . . eh!
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Author: GoatTnder
Date: 2007-01-14 22:49
I was a psych major. And that of course qualifies me to make sweeping statements about how people think and process information... Of course it does. Actually, language processing is something I've studied quite a bit. I am by no means an expert, but here's something:
Most language processing is done in the left hemisphere of the brain. The more commonly known Broca's area is directly involved in word formation, but there are many more areas. There is an area in the frontal lobe that identifies meaning of words. There's an area near the top of the brain that is involved with contextual meaning and discourse processing (that is, what the entire group of words and sentences mean). There is another area of the brain very close to where optical processing takes place that is used for recognizing letters and words. And many more areas besides. A nifty thing I did for a presentation about speech was highlighted on separate slides different areas of the brain and how that area is used in language and communication. And then at the end, I put them all on the projector at once, and more than half the brain is highlighted. It's pretty cool...
OK, music. Several studies have been performed to see what areas of the brain are activated when listening to music. In non-musicians, the right hemisphere is used almost exclusively (the right hemisphere is usually the more artistic and emotional side, the left is more analytical and concrete).
In musicians, both sides of the brain are used to great extent. The right is used to experience the mood and emotion of the music. And the left is used to analyze the music according to key, tempo, time signature, etc. Not necessarily conscious of what they are doing, the musicians think of music in terms of form and (gasp!) math. The most interesting part is that many of the areas used to analyze the music are the same ones used to analyze language. Does that mean playing music is the equivalent to knowing a second language? Not necessarily. But considering you have to read, listen, "speak", and respond in music, it would make sense that it uses the same areas as speech.
Seacrest out!
Andres Cabrera
South Bay Wind Ensemble
www.SouthBayWinds.com
sbwe@sbmusic.org
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Author: hans
Date: 2007-01-15 03:31
FDF,
Since I've learned four languages, I hope that your news item is correct.
It's my understanding that a major cause of dementia (not Alzheimer's) is a deficiency in blood circulation to the brain. If that is indeed the case, I don't see how reading and playing music, or learning more languages, would affect the disease much. A healthy diet, not smoking, regular exercise, and inheriting good genes are likely to be more important, IMO.
Regards,
Hans
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Author: FDF
Date: 2007-01-15 06:11
Andy, thanks for your interesting account of your study of the brain and the reasonable conclusion you draw between the mental activities used for speech compared to music. Also, appreciate your sense of humor.
hans, interesting enough, the research comes out of Ottawa, Canada, and says, in part, "Researchers said the extra effort involved in using more than one language appeared to boost blood supply to the brain and ensure nerve connections remained healthy -- two factors thought to help fight off dementia."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070112/hl_nm/dementia_bilingual_dc
Thanks,
Pappy
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2007-01-15 07:23
Well, we all know that our brain is the biggest energy sink in our body (roughly 1/5 of total energy consumption).
So the harder you think, the more blood (ie oxygen and sugars) must rush through your brain.
Maybe the best exercise would be what the Bersaglieri Corps musicians do - play while running...
--
Ben
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2007-01-15 11:49
Hi,
I recall hearing about a study concerning continuing cognitive learning in our later years. It seems that "exercising" the brain in that way deters dementia and the usual accompanied Alzheimer's disease.
While I do not know the physiology associated here, continuing to study music or learning another language would seem to qualify as high-level cognitive processes. Do we have a psychiatrist or cognitive psychologist in the audience that might know?
HRL
PS I'm not sure casual reading (newspapers, magazine, etc.) would be the same as serious intellectual study. I guess I am trying differentiate between toning a mental muscle versus exercising.
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Author: skygardener
Date: 2007-01-15 12:11
FDF: "However, the study made me wonder if reading and playing music is similar to a second language. Do you have any information, studies, empirical research, or observations about music as a second language?"
To answer your original question (I think), music is not a language. Lots of people say that it is the "universal" language, but it really isn't.
There is no connection to communication of outside information; THAT would make it a language.
-S
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2007-01-15 12:21
Andy Cabrera wrote,
>>The most interesting part is that many of the areas used to analyze the music are the same ones used to analyze language. Does that mean playing music is the equivalent to knowing a second language? Not necessarily. But considering you have to read, listen, "speak", and respond in music, it would make sense that it uses the same areas as speech.>>
The idea that music might be *literally* another language fascinates me. I can't offer any scientific proof of what I'll admit is essentially a belief, but I do have strong hunch that music must be the modern survival of humankind's first language. Music isn't a literal language today in the generally accepted definition of "language"--unless we stretch the definition of music to include strongly-intoned languages, such as Chinese, or unless we're talking about the fine 1938 Hitchcock movie, "The Lady Vanishes," or some other spy yarn where a particular combination of notes conveys a particular message--but a need for music seems so basic to human nature, and an ability to learn music seems so nearly universal, that music almost has to be one of those interesting monsters still swimming around near the bottom of the human gene pool.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2007-01-15 12:48
Wait a minute!
In using language to communicate, there is a conveyance of meaning back and forth. With music, the is no exchange only intake by the listener (and affective valuing). There is no return response to the originator so how could there be language-based communication for meaning? That would seem to be the reason we use language in the first place.
HRL
PS I just corrected this above by inserting "no" before "return response." Now it makes more sense.
Post Edited (2007-01-16 11:32)
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Author: skygardener
Date: 2007-01-15 13:00
the 1 thing that would make it a language would be to refer to things other than other music. music is more like math- a hypothetical study built upon, one generation after another, but with variables that are essentially self-referant.
-S
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2007-01-15 13:05
Hank,
not quite true IMO.
Of course, what an orchestra is doing with the audience is a monologue or a speech (but when the audience boos you have a crude musical form of response). But what musicians are doing in a jam session (or similar, think of the Banjo scene in "Deliverance") is some kind of dialogue. And think of kids on vacation in a foreign country - they play with other kids although they might not speak the same language.
The drawback of these nonverbal languages is that they convey only a very limited set of information. With growing complexity in society, we needed a more complex way of communicating. And just look how "specialized societies" (computer people, musicians, lawyers etc) built their specialized language on top of what everyone is using. The way to express oneself has evolved and haven't finished doing so.
--
Ben
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Author: Markael
Date: 2007-01-15 14:03
Music is not, strictly speaking, a language. When we call music the universal language we’re using a metaphor, albeit a very good one.
The term “body language” is used to describe non-verbal communication, which is not actually a language. (Actual sign language is a different matter altogether.)
Music study and language study do have similar ways of preserving brain function. I’m not a scientist and don’t know how this operates on the electro-chemical level, except that I do know that the human brain has more than one potential pathway for processing information. So to speak: as we stretch our minds, our brain builds new roads. Some deterioration may take place in the old roads, but alternative routes are always being built.
In both music and language, we must:
1) Learn new concepts.
2) Initially associate new concepts with familiar concepts until the new
concepts are in long term memory.
3) Learn to be conscious of several concepts and processes simultaneously.
4) Take things apart. (Analyze various elements)
5) Put things together. (Mentally organize disparate elements into patterns and systems.
To put it all in a nutshell:
Both disciplines force us to think.
Watch a beginning piano student and you will be reminded of how difficult it is to remember, on the fly, rhythms, notes in two clefs, dynamics, treble versus bass clef, fingerings, while operating the two hands independently of one another.
Eventually, random notes vertically placed on the page become chords. Random notes placed horizontally become musical phrases. Something similar happens aurally.
Beginning language students get the verb right and the subject wrong. Or, sometimes my concentration becomes divided between listening carefully to the speaker and formulating how to respond.
Eventually, letters become words, words become phrases and sentences. Subject and verb agreement becomes automatic.
In this case science only affirms what common sense tells us.
Post Edited (2007-01-15 14:05)
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Author: Brenda Siewert
Date: 2007-01-15 18:50
Whatever the belief about music as a second language, it is indeed the universal language. I learned a few years ago that reading and playing music on an instrument (together at the same time) develops the brain in exactly the same way as performing algebra problems. Since I'm a bit on the slow side for math and don't comprehend algebra very well (simple math ok, no algebra), I feel reading and playing clarinet make up for that. I've also heard the theories about music and therapy.
Bottom line, it's good for us. Keep on keeping on as long as we can.
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Author: skygardener
Date: 2007-01-16 05:50
to Ben- as far as I can tell, a jam session is not a dialogue. It is a kind of
'playing' with sound. the phrases evolve and grow and change but there is no referance to anything except other sounds.
And Brenda- "it is indeed the universal language."
Here is an example of language- If I say the word "dog" to anyone with a basic English ability they get an idea of an animal. Maybe my idea of "dog" is different from yours, but in all cases "dog" refers to something other than the sound "dog".
However, if I play for you an E, there is no idea you can get except for the idea of the sound itself and maybe other Es you have heard before or perhaps you might even be reminded of a piece in which E is very important.
The base requitrement of "language" is that it must refer to things other than itself. In all reality, the sound of the word "dog" and the animal itself are totally unrelated.
There are very few situations in which sound can be directly recognised to mean one or another thing. In an example of laughter, we can all know very quickly the meaning; "I am happy". In this case, the sound of laughter is used as a representation of an emotion that you want people around you to be aware of.
Music does not have this one important quality for language.
It is good brain excercise, though. =)
-S
Post Edited (2007-01-16 06:38)
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Author: EuGeneSee
Date: 2007-01-16 12:42
"The base requirement of 'language' is that it must refer to things other than itself."
Woof. Screech. Plunk. Thud. Vroom. Buzz. Meow . . . (etc.)
So, onomatopoeic words violate the base requirement and therefore are not truly a part of language?
Eu
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2007-01-16 13:01
According to wikipedia, "a language is a system, used for communication, comprising a finite set of arbitrary symbols and a set of rules (or grammar) by which the manipulation of these symbols is governed." Well, music falls into this category too, I think.
"These symbols can be combined productively to convey new information, distinguishing languages from other forms of communication." Ah, here the road is forking. The emphasis is on "new information".
So "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" was just fiction? ![[tongue]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie6.gif)
--
Ben
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Author: EuGeneSee
Date: 2007-01-16 13:17
. . . and then the tone poem? Does the trickling of the little stream at the beginning, and then building up into a river, the Moldau, not provide an example of combining (musical rather than phonetic) symbols to convey new information. I could close my eyes, sit back, relax, and watch that river grow and flow.
I won't even ask what he was "talking" about when Leroy Anderson put together a bunch of musical symbols and named them "Chicken Reel."
Eu
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Author: skygardener
Date: 2007-01-16 14:49
Eu- "Woof. Screech. Plunk. Thud. Vroom. Buzz. Meow . . . (etc.)
So, onomatopoeic words violate the base requirement and therefore are not truly a part of language?"
Not really, because they have to be joined with other words or a picture to give a message. And to be honest there is no similarity between the sound of a door slamming and the word "bang" that we associate it with.
You want to go with onomatopoeic examples... Let's just take the example of the sound of glass breaking. If we hear it there is no thought in our mind except for "there is glass being broken nearby", but if we hear the sound of glass being broken and then a scream, we think "there may have been some sort of glass related injury or a house has been broken into nearby. Maybe I should try to get help because a scream is a call for attention and or help when something bad happens or is expected to happen to the screamer".
THAT is language, communication of something other than itself.
And the Moldau. I don't know that piece, but I will assume that it doesn't have the sound of actual water. In that case, the connection to water is made by using another language to tell you that water is being represented (just like Symphonie Fantastique; we must be TOLD the story in a real language and THEN we see the pictures in our head). And even The Moldau does have the sound of real water, we get to the same thing. The sound of water representing water= not a language.
Sorry.
-S
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2007-01-16 14:51
Ben,
Please check Wikipedia for the word communication.
In Close Encounters, there was a reply. Differing pitches and rhythms were the vehicle. However, IMHO that type of exchange does not happen in a jam session as you suggested earlier or in listening to music. Thus considering music as a language may be a long stretch.
HRL
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2007-01-16 14:59
EuGeneSee wrote:
> . . . and then the tone poem? Does the trickling of the
> little stream at the beginning, and then building up into a
> river, the Moldau,
The communication is ambiguous. Without the hint "Moldau" you may as well be drifting through the stars as flowing down a river.
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Author: skygardener
Date: 2007-01-16 15:32
Hank- "In Close Encounters, there was a reply. Differing pitches and rhythms were the vehicle. " I agree. In that type of case, tones and rhythms can be used for communication.
To do that we would all (or even just a few of us) have to agree on the representation of different pitches, rhythms, and what they "really" mean. In that way we could create an actual "musical language". Eg. 4 reapeated Gs quickly is "dog" and 4 repeated A-flats quickly is "cat", etc.
That would be a language. If we did that we could make a real story with sound, just like someone standing on stage and reading a book or poem. But we have to agree on an exact way to represent at least 200 vocabulary items in the real world (if we want to have only emotional vocabulary, then maybe 100 items are enough). THEN we can start to have a musical "language".
-s
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2007-01-16 16:07
-S,
The "agreement" is the sticking point.
HRL
Or should I say E C EEFEEC (if you play this, you will find -spaces imply a rhythm - So Long, It's Been Good To Know You).
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Author: EuGeneSee
Date: 2007-01-16 16:32
Yeah, I see your point, Mark . . . that could have just as easily been a few ants comming upon a dropped cookie, then slowly building into a swarm of 'em carrying crumbs back to the nest -- or a trickle of cars on the freeway early in the morning, building up into the rush hour crush -- or . . . ad infinitum.
But, maybe the general idea of something with a tiny beginning then growing into something bigger?
Then maybe I should leave those straws lie! Eu
(edit to kerrekt spellun)
Post Edited (2007-01-16 16:44)
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The Clarinet Pages
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