This isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually a part 2. This is a completely different musing about music.<\/p>\n
Western classical music has this thing where you expect all the tension in the piece to end on a soothing note in the right key, but sometimes it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re stuck there, while the music moves on, building more tension.<\/p>\n
[I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not making any claims that Eastern music or Western Rock music is different. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m just limiting this post to Western classical because I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to think too hard.]<\/p>\n
Finally, when the composer is ready (and not a second before), the piece provides the note you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been waiting for, and you can relax. The tension is released and all is well.<\/p>\n
But why do we wait for that note? Why does that note sound right, releasing tension, while others don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t?<\/p>\n
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nothing new to say that music is a language of its own. And when I hear most Western languages spoken, I notice a rhythm and intonation that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not completely different from music. Even if I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t understand the words being spoken, I can often tell whether the sentence has been cut off, or there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a pause with an expected finish to come.<\/p>\n
The typed word can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t help you hear it, but imagine someone saying the following, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153That is, if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going without me….\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
The ellipsis tells us that the person isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t finished. It also tells us that the sound of that sentence, when spoken, is different from the following:<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153That is, f you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going without me.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
I suggest that even if you didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t speak the language, hearing the first of those phrases would leave you in a state of expecting more to come, while hearing the second wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. This may not work in tonal languages, like Cantonese, but I think it works in any Western European language.<\/p>\n
So now we move to Western European music. To me, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not surprising that music, which can convey meaning just as language can, causes expectations in the listener.<\/p>\n
My guess is that even someone who has no experience with Western classical music (but does have experience with Western language) will note musical tension, and be able to pick out when it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s resolved.<\/p>\n
So my theory is that the affect that music has on us (that is, our ability to communicate using music) is directly related to our ability to use language. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not just a metaphor to say that music is a language. They come from the same place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually a part 2. This is a completely different musing about music. Western classical music has this thing where you expect all the tension in the piece to end on a soothing note in the right key, but sometimes it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re stuck there, while the music moves on, building more tension. [I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment","category-evolution-and-such"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}