i know this tune. Its nice. It reminds me of The Field.
PETRAN
quote:
Originally posted by Floorfiller
PLURing my face off to positron right now...:gsmile:
Positron is a classic. Anything by Cygnus-X and Brainchild ;)
Noisician
quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
I don't have a number of studies, this is just my hypothesis lol. Although i'm inspired by some other studies out of the context of music, such as general perceptual psychology (in have worked mostly in vision and i have encountered some similar stuff in perception of complex versus simple scenes ). But these are just my thoughts in the end, nothing more, nothing else. Hey i can do some experiments and you can come as a subject (although i wouldn't call you now because you know the nature of the study lol). We are talking about aesthetics here, a domain which is not extensively investigated in scientific ways (but more in philosophical ones)
eh? we're talking about potential correlations between auditory signals and emotional abilities of an individual. both sound like subject matters of cognitive psychology to me. but if you feel that this topic is out of the domain of science (and therefore unfalsifiable), then maybe you shouldn't call your hypothesis, well, a "hypothesis" :P
quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
No, not moods, emotions (they are different). This is exactly what my hypothesis says that a higher musical complexity would tend to correlate with higher emotional complexity up to a certain point. But i emphasize. Emotion and Enjoyment are not identical. More emotions don't imply a higher enjoyment (call it invigoration or whatevr you want). Its like when you get pleasure by eating different foods (or having sex with different types of women lol). You can get an equal pleasure (depending on your appetite) by eating a big Mac and some nice and complex delicatessen dish, despite the fact that you probably gonna experience a "poor" mixture of flavour with the big mac compared to the delicatessen dish . The final enjoyment could be the same though despite the variety of the experience in eating those two dishes. Why? Because your brain at that particular time (for whatever reason) gave a big "weight" to the mixture of elements that comprise the big mac. Whilst the key is in the mixture of elements (in music is the same) you will expience more rich flavours with a more rich dish (but not necessarily a higher enjoyment)
why does pleasure have to always incorporate some emotional content, anyway? sometimes pleasure amounts to as little as absence of discomfort or pain. i believe that's exactly how epicurus(sp?) defined pleasure in his "principal doctrines".
quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
Exactly. Pleasure. Enjoyment. This is why you do everyhing you do in the end! Its just that some people would tend to get more pleasure with a simple musical (structurally) piece and less emotional complexity whereas others would go for the opposite, or the same individual would go for both and everything in between depending on his/her mood, thoughts, energy, personality, time of day etc.
i wrote that in response to your conjecture as to why i might enjoy it ("e.g. anger") to show that i'm not seeking emotional gratification. once again, why does pleasure need to be interwoven with emotions? think of it as an auditory pseudo-sexual experience. i, like many other people, often do not engage in sexual activities for an emotional boost. i do it for physical gratification (but shhhh, don't tell that to my girlfriend). same with listening to noise. it involves the kind of pleasure that does not rely on emotions.
quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
My situation? I try not to base my opinion in just my situation but in various observations. Musical complexity as in number of organs used, chord-changes, melodic complexity those stuff. The first one was structurally more complex than the second one which was in turn was more structurally complex to the third one.
your hypothesis holds that musical complexity is directly proportional to emotional complexity... so if, using your definition of complexity, i make a composition that features dozens of intruments, wild chord changes and multifold melodies, would it be guaranteed to induce "complex emotions"? obviously not. it would probably come out as a cacophonous mess. well would it at least be MORE likely to induce such emotional complexity? that's not so obvious either. so i'm asking you, is this variation in complexity really a (the?) variable that should be looked at here? is it at all relevant to the complexity of human emotions that a given piece may evoke in the listener? so far i haven't seen any substantial evidence for this beyond personal anecdotes.
creon444
Too many essays, too few unicorn pictures. :o
Noisician
quote:
Originally posted by creon444
Too many essays, too few unicorn pictures. :o
fine! :mad:
the tiesto unicorn:
the minimal unicorn:
the oklahoma unicorns:
PETRAN
quote:
Originally posted by Noisician
eh? we're talking about potential correlations between auditory signals and emotional abilities of an individual. both sound like subject matters of cognitive psychology to me. but if you feel that this topic is out of the domain of science (and therefore unfalsifiable), then maybe you shouldn't call your hypothesis, well, a "hypothesis" :P
No, i'm saying that it is not extensively investigated and that is a new subject-matter of science. Yes it does belong to cognitive psychology (and cognitive neuroscience), researchers like Zeki and Ramachandran have investigated some visual stuff but not musical, i'm just saying that this is a very new subject-matter-experimental aesthetics or the cognitive psychology of aesthetics, and that there is not much bibliography around (other than the clasical philosophical stuff).
quote:
why does pleasure have to always incorporate some emotional content, anyway? sometimes pleasure amounts to as little as absence of discomfort or pain. i believe that's exactly how epicurus(sp?) defined pleasure in his "principal doctrines".
Exactly, this is what i'm saying that pleasure and enjoyment are different to emotional complexity man! I'm just talking about the number of emotions you'll get (and the mixture of emotions), not the intensity of the experience, simple as that. That in listening to classical symphony by Tchaikovsky ,you could go up, you could go down, you could go in the middle, you could feel sad, you could feel happy, you could feel sorry for yourself whatever, but that not necessarily you'll go high up or way down (depending on various factors from your personality to your current mood etc.) In listening to a noise track you'll probably not go through all those emotional states. But this wouldn't really matter because you could get the ultimate mystical experience from it-if you really like the simple feeling it creates for whatever reason! (Just because for whatever reason your minds likes it-the qualities and mixture of sounds in relation your personality etc.)
quote:
i wrote that in response to your conjecture as to why i might enjoy it ("e.g. anger") to show that i'm not seeking emotional gratification. once again, why does pleasure need to be interwoven with emotions? think of it as an auditory pseudo-sexual experience. i, like many other people, often do not engage in sexual activities for an emotional boost. i do it for physical gratification (but shhhh, don't tell that to my girlfriend). same with listening to noise. it involves the kind of pleasure that does not rely on emotions.
I completely agree with you, you just didn't understand my theory lol.
quote:
your hypothesis holds that musical complexity is directly proportional to emotional complexity... so if, using your definition of complexity, i make a composition that features dozens of intruments, wild chord changes and multifold melodies, would it be guaranteed to induce "complex emotions"? obviously not. it would probably come out as a cacophonous mess. well would it at least be MORE likely to induce such emotional complexity? that's not so obvious either. so i'm asking you, is this variation in complexity really a (the?) variable that should be looked at here? is it at all relevant to the complexity of human emotions that a given piece may evoke in the listener? so far i haven't seen any substantial evidence for this beyond personal anecdotes.
Haha no. My hypothesis states that emotional complexity is proportional to musical complexity (not the other way round) UP TO A CERTAIN (relative) POINT. And i say relative because it would vary from individual to individual, depending on the cognitive effort he/she is willing to pay (which in turn could depend on other factors such as his attentional capacity, memory span, attentional control, personality, mood etc.). So this "cacophony" you describe could also occur to someone who doesn't give the cognitive effort that is needed in order to listen to a symphony, perhaps perceiving it as too complex and hence cacophonous and disturbing. There would be an objective point though, after which all individuals would perceive something as cacophonous, like you said. ;)
But i tell you, emotional complexity is a seperate variable to enjoyment/pleasure, like you said. Well, enjoyment/pleasure is a feeling that could be part of a more complex emotion, but it is a seperate factor- "the intensity" or "arousal" (not in naughty terms lol).
PETRAN
This is the real minimal unicorn!
:mad: :D
nefardec
quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
No, i'm saying that it is not extensively investigated and that is a new subject-matter of science. Yes it does belong to cognitive psychology (and cognitive neuroscience), researchers like Zeki and Ramachandran have investigated some visual stuff but not musical, i'm just saying that this is a very new subject-matter-experimental aesthetics or the cognitive psychology of aesthetics, and that there is not much bibliography around (other than the clasical philosophical stuff).
PETRAN, try to track down these papers if you can:
they have more of a basis in social anthropology, but there is some cogpsych in there as well
Needham, Rodney. Percussion and Transition. Man, Vol 2. No 4. (Dec 1967) pp 606-614
Tuzin, Donald. Miraculous Voices: The Auditory Experience of Numinous Objects. Current Anthropology. Vol 25. No 5. (Dec 1984) pp 579-596
Noisician
quote:
Originally posted by PETRAN
No, i'm saying that it is not extensively investigated and that is a new subject-matter of science. Yes it does belong to cognitive psychology (and cognitive neuroscience), researchers like Zeki and Ramachandran have investigated some visual stuff but not musical, i'm just saying that this is a very new subject-matter-experimental aesthetics or the cognitive psychology of aesthetics, and that there is not much bibliography around (other than the clasical philosophical stuff).
you should really make that the topic of your thesis then. see if you can convince them your theory is sound (oh and send me a copy, kthnxbye).
quote:
That in listening to classical symphony by Tchaikovsky ,you could go up, you could go down, you could go in the middle, you could feel sad, you could feel happy, you could feel sorry for yourself whatever, but that not necessarily you'll go high up or way down (depending on various factors from your personality to your current mood etc.)
that is fine, but why should it be a universal pattern though? if you took a simple piece and played one part of it in one key immediately followed by that same part in a different key, wouldn't that produce a similar effect? does complexity matter?
quote:
Haha no. My hypothesis states that emotional complexity is proportional to musical complexity (not the other way round)
yeah, i mistyped that part by accident. my apologies. i meant to say that the musical complexity is the independent variable.
quote:
And i say relative because it would vary from individual to individual, depending on the cognitive effort he/she is willing to pay (which in turn could depend on other factors such as his attentional capacity, memory span, attentional control, personality, mood etc.). So this "cacophony" you describe could also occur to someone who doesn't give the cognitive effort that is needed in order to listen to a symphony, perhaps perceiving it as too complex and hence cacophonous and disturbing. There would be an objective point though, after which all individuals would perceive something as cacophonous, like you said. ;)
i have yet to see some evidence that a complex piece would necessarily evoke a greater number of emotions (no matter their extremity). this is the part (the only part!) that i'm skeptical about. i am not concerned over the intensity of said emotions. all i'm asking is what data there is to support the view that musical complexity and emotional complexity are correlated in the first place.
