Musicians, I found a cool radio show

[SteelBlue]

that I think several of you (Farrah are you reading?) would find really interesting. It's from the Radio Lab show that I mentioned a few months back. Deals with the links between language and music, perfect pitch, etc... Here's the link:

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2006/04/21

It's show #202 and you can listen to it right from the site. The first 20 minutes are really fascinating.

[FarrahWaters]

Nice find, I must have missed your post about this before. I listened to show #202, and also the Sound as Touch program, which I found to be really interesting. I especially liked the neurological analysis of the Rite of Spring about halfway through the show.

[SteelBlue]

I've become addicted to their show. I have subscribed to the podcast for several months now and I've never heard a poor episode. Creekster, I think you'd find episode #202 really interesting.

[bluegoose]

I love Radio Lab. This along with "This American Life" are my favorite subscription podcasts.

SteelBlue also directed me to "Stanford on iTunes" and I have found some excellent talks. The recent ones that I've enjoyed are "Misquoting Jesus" by Ehrman (sp?), the evolution one by a Stanford Chemist, "Seeking the Good Life" by a Philosophy prof, and "The American Jesus". It also reminds me how bad some of my lecturing professors were at BYU. These guys are as hilarious as a chemist and philosopher could possibly be. And Ehrman gives a great lecture btw. I would highly recommend checking it out.

[creekster]

Originally Posted by SteelBlue

I've become addicted to their show. I have subscribed to the podcast for several months now and I've never heard a poor episode. Creekster, I think you'd find episode #202 really interesting.

I just saw this. I iwll give ti a listen later on. Thanks, it looks great.

[SteelBlue]

Originally Posted by bluegoose

I love Radio Lab. This along with "This American Life" are my favorite subscription podcasts.

SteelBlue also directed me to "Stanford on iTunes" and I have found some excellent talks. The recent ones that I've enjoyed are "Misquoting Jesus" by Ehrman (sp?), the evolution one by a Stanford Chemist, "Seeking the Good Life" by a Philosophy prof, and "The American Jesus". It also reminds me how bad some of my lecturing professors were at BYU. These guys are as hilarious as a chemist and philosopher could possibly be. And Ehrman gives a great lecture btw. I would highly recommend checking it out.

Can you give me the name of the evolution one? I'd like to check that out.

[SteelBlue]

Originally Posted by FarrahWaters

I especially liked the neurological analysis of the Rite of Spring about halfway through the show.

I had a question for you about that segment. Can you explain a bit about dissonant sounds? Especially their place in music. I found it odd that noxious chords (or whatever they were) existed.

[creekster]

Originally Posted by SteelBlue

I had a question for you about that segment. Can you explain a bit about dissonant sounds? Especially their place in music. I found it odd that noxious chords (or whatever they were) existed.

I'm not Farrah, but I'll boldly respond anyway. Farrah can clean up the mess later.

Think about making a fist and hitting a piano keyboard. That makes a chord. It is a dissonant chord. And you probably won't like it, but that is still a chord. This is sort of what they are talking about.

I have yet to finish listening to this piece, but it is indeed fascinating. We are highly inoculated in our modern world with dissonant sounds. The particular chord in Stravinsky's piece was shocking compared to the music of the classical or baroque periods, etc. Indeed, most composers went to great length to avoid any dissonance and would only use dissonance as a passing tone, or some such, in a piece. IN fact, a seventh chord is really a diminished seventh but in the day they did not like the dissonant sound of a true seventh so they called it major seventh and used the diminished seventh as a regular seventh, which does resolve nicely to the dominant. Bach and others even went to great lengths (remarkably so, given how his music works) to avoid parallel movement in his compositions.

The other thing that I wonder about in listening to this is that they analyze dissonance in terms of the western 12 tone scale (e.g. a minor second, which they call dissonant, only has that meaning in the 12 tone scale). With different intervals, the degree and quality of dissonance would be different. I wonder what this would do to the neurological response? The dissonance of smashing metal, for example, is probably not expressible with full accuracy in a 12 tone scale, but it would likely, it seems to me, cause the same sort of dopamine response that they discuss.

[SteelBlue]

Originally Posted by creekster

Think about making a fist and hitting a piano keyboard. That makes a chord. It is a dissonant chord. And you probably won't like it, but that is still a chord. This is sort of what they are talking about.

I have yet to finish listening to this piece, but it is indeed fascinating. We are highly inoculated in our modern world with dissonant sounds. The particular chord in Stravinsky's piece was shocking compared to the music of the classical or baroque periods, etc. Indeed, most composers went to great length to avoid any dissonance and would only use dissonance as a passing tone, or some such, in a piece. IN fact, a seventh chord is really a diminished seventh but in the day they did not like the dissonant sound of a true seventh so they called it major seventh and used the diminished seventh as a regular seventh, which does resolve nicely to the dominant. Bach and others even went to great lengths (remarkably so, given how his music works) to avoid parallel movement in his compositions.

The other thing that I wonder about in listening to this is that they analyze dissonance in terms of the western 12 tone scale (e.g. a minor second, which they call dissonant, only has that meaning in the 12 tone scale). With different intervals, the degree and quality of dissonance would be different. I wonder what this would do to the neurological response? The dissonance of smashing metal, for example, is probably not expressible with full accuracy in a 12 tone scale, but it would likely, it seems to me, cause the same sort of dopamine response that they discuss.

Thank you. I guess I just never considered that a random mashing of notes would still be considered a chord. You bring up an excellent point about our inoculation to such sounds. I found it fascinating that Stravinsky's original audience actually rioted because of a chord that I thought sounded pretty cool.

As an aside, I think you're even more of a musician than I thought you were. You seem to know theory a lot better than any bass player I know.

[creekster]

Originally Posted by SteelBlue

Thank you. I guess I just never considered that a random mashing of notes would still be considered a chord. You bring up an excellent point about our inoculation to such sounds. I found it fascinating that Stravinsky's original audience actually rioted because of a chord that I thought sounded pretty cool.

As an aside, I think you're even more of a musician than I thought you were. You seem to know theory a lot better than any bass player I know.

They talked about how quickly the brain can adapt to and accept the sort of input provided by dissonant sounds. (I thought the stuff about the sound of sound travelling to your brain along your auditory nreve was particulalry fascinating. The sound of sound. WHat'll they think of next?) OTOH, they didn't really examine the socail aspect of music back int he day. The premier of new music used to be much bigger deal than it is now. Before dissonance was such a common tool in the chest of composers, women fainted, and men screamed at compositions by Beethoven, Bach, Handel, chopin, etc. While their claim that the release of dopamine might have resulted in an overly excited audience that rioted may be true, I would guess a big part of it was probably social. People were put off by the sounds and so acted out their displeasure, as audiences had done many times before.

As to my musicianship, I must sadly say that I am afraid you're wrong. I am not a real musician, I don't paly one on TV and I didn't even stay at a Holiday Inn last night. I just like it and have read a little.