theconversation.com: I open my eyes to the sound of a voice as the twin-engine Pakistan Airlines propeller aircraft flies through the Hindu Kush mountain range, west of the mighty Himalayas. We are cruising at 27,000 feet, but the mountains around us appear worryingly close and the turbulence has woken me up during a 22-hour trip to the most remote place in Pakistan – the Kalash valleys of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa region.
6 comments:
I found this article to be insanely interesting. It was well written but more importantly it went into a great amount of detail on the process and the steps taken to find out the overall conclusions. Ultimately it points out something that seems obvious once hearing it, that your culture and background affect your reaction to the music you listen to, however it is not something you think about before being pointed towards. The idea seems obvious, like of course what you associate a song to in your childhood will affect you however seeing how removed the phenomenon is from previously hearing songs to just an overall difference in the way different cultures have melodies was very interesting to read. Exploring 2 different cities in pakistan that do not have any connection to "western" music and seeing their emotional connections is something that was very enlightening and is something we as designers should also think about when designing things for different cultures or different countries. I wonder what the reaction would be showing these cultures music to an american audience would be and expanding this research.
I am someone who experiences the world through my senses. Things I can touch, smell, hear, see, or taste are how I like to process my surroundings. Because of this, interacting with these senses can elicit strong emotions inside of me. Sound does this the most strongly. I can go from feeling fairly sad when listening to a sadder song to feeling fairly happy when listening to a happy song. Sound is an incredibly powerful tool to me, and I have an interest in pursuing a major in sound design. Because of this, I was very interested in this article! As I have interest in sound design, I have to understand how the sounds I create will be interpreted by the audience as it can change how someone understands a scene. Cultural differences in sound is not a perspective I have yet to consider when analyzing how one might perceive music. It is something I will be aware of now moving forward, and will help me a better sound designer.
I think this is possibly one of the more interesting News Quiz articles I’ve read. I really enjoyed reading and discovering every step this process took. I am not by any means, a sound designer. However, I have a bit of experience creating and designing sound. I think we all know that the most important things sound designers are thinking about is how this will make the audience feel. As with everything, it is impossible to know every audience members reactions and inclination towards any one thing their senses process due to variation in memories. I think this study shines a really interesting light on this exact thing. I think the gap between the two tribes is really interesting to me, at first I thought it was confusing because things inherently sound positive or negative. However, if different cultures only associate music with specific traditions the meaning behind those traditions and feeling around those events will take the cake over the general mood of the piece. It was really eye opening to me to read about this.
This study is really cool! Initially I thought it a bit odd that they felt the need to go so far as to contact communities with no exposure to Western society, but I am glad that it led them to the undeniable conclusion that Western musical standards and norms are not inherently natural. That said, I feel like even if they went to a less isolated society in the East, they would've come up with similar results. After all, other countries don't even use the same scales to warm up as us! They have different notions of what music sounds like, and their songs are, accordingly, often in minor keys.
On a smaller note, it makes me giddy to hear that 1980's speed metal brought more joy to the Kho and Kalash participants than opera music did. I think it says maybe something about the west, but especially something about changing tastes over time. We have our own cultural values wherein opera is traditionally "good" music and 1980's speed metal might be characterized antagonistically as "noise," and it makes me so happy that outside observers shredded right through that notion and exposed our cultural bias in that way.
Music plays a huge role in my day to day life: I am listening to music at least a few hours a day, when I’m walking to or from campus, cleaning, sometimes reading, doing homework. I turn to music for comfort, or just generally to support whatever emotional headspace I’m in at that moment. So, I found this article to be incredibly interesting. As Akshatha said, it was very well written, and I appreciate them taking the time to explain their methods and reasoning for how they conducted their research. To me, it is so important in their findings to understand that some of the ideas about universality of music were actually western culture-centric, and did not really take into account other cultures. The emotional connections to major and minor sounds are based in culture; as the article states, understanding harmonies as cheerful or sad is not a universal law of nature, but instead based in our cultures and our own music.
I did not know that the principle of nature versus nurture applied to aspects of design, but that does make a lot of sense. Especially in this context, where we have such strong representations and associations and I think that may cause a sort of boring common quality to music as it all goes towards the same sense of style. This exploration of the musical practices of different societies comments more on us in my opinion. It shows that while the universal qualities of music such as rhythm, melody, and harmony may bridge cross-cultural differences, the specifics and even the broad social effects are vastly different in their function in society. I feel like the western world, and this is largely my experience, treats music like a hobby, or entertainment where worlds such as the ones explored in this article associate it with deep power and emotion that we can never truly understand.
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