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RE: emotion in music in general and ... (in reply to edguerin)
quote:
ORIGINAL: edguerin
IMO scientific research is - on a certain level -valuable in it's own right. Wether or not the results are "valuable" in a broader sense (i.e. "for mankind", "for industry" etc.) is a different question. Anybody undertaking the effort of research deserves our respect, and help. So quit the bashing, give helpful comments or "for ever hold your peace".
But I have a science background and this project is, in my opinion, not science.
Some statistical research can be rigorous enough to warrant the term science (in my book) but definitely not this shallow tosh. I gave helpful comments above, they were glibly brushed aside.
As for this
'Anybody undertaking the effort of research deserves our respect, and help.'
Well it sounds noble but how about for example the research into the health effects of smoking carried out by the Tobacco Industry over thirty years and finding no proven ill effects ?
It is actually our duty to reject specious research projects and subject them to ridicule.
RE: emotion in music in general and ... (in reply to annika.a)
I would respectfully suggest that if you want to explore expression of emotion in flamenco you need to consider the linguistic as well as musical aspects – and how they relate to each other. Part of the expression of emotion is a kind of raw “crying out”. It is what attracted me to flamenco in the first place – the sound (not particularly the words) made my flesh creep in a way that I had not experienced before. I have never completely worked out why – the musical cadences – the energy of the voice – the timbre? However if you look at the words you will find other interesting things about expression of emotion. It would be difficult to achieve what you are aiming at without some attempt at linguistic analysis. For example animism is common in flamenco (I asked my hat …. even the stones on the ground know how miserable I am …. the breeze said to me). There are plenty of studies in ethnography and ethnomusicology that address these issues more generally. If you can’t do this it is perhaps best to leave flamenco alone. Rob
RE: emotion in music in general and ... (in reply to edguerin)
quote:
ORIGINAL: edguerin
Ah, I wasn't aware of your MIR background ... And I found your comments a bit aloof, rather than helpful.
quote:
It is actually our duty to reject specious research projects and subject them to ridicule.
Shouldn't we leave judgement about the scientific quality of this research to the MIR community?
No. I feel we should do our utmost to understand and evaluate the the quality of design, objectives and funding of research. It is childish to reject science out of hand but also infantalising to blindly attach kudos to any media sanctioned body.
Too often people become advocates for dodgy research because they lack the training or insight to spot the flaws. Often they then invoke the 'awesome credentials' of the bodies they imagine to be signal to the bonafides of the reserach.
I feel I have understood the nature and quality of this research. Had the experimental design passed through my hands it would have been sent back for redrafting and I would be deeply concerned about the accomplishment of the designer.
RE: emotion in music in general and ... (in reply to chester)
quote:
ORIGINAL: chester
quote:
And I found your comments a bit aloof, rather than helpful.
Are you referring to this thread in particular, or all of his comments in general?
Hey man I maybe a douche but YOU can do better than this for sure. I think you have more to offer, and my input on this thread is actually earnest and heartfelt.
Posts: 1596
Joined: Dec. 24 2007
From: Siegburg, Alemania
RE: emotion in music in general and ... (in reply to chester)
This thread only.
My point was not that the study design or the method per se are acceptable, but rather that I believe a scientific community should encompass enough critical power to "cleanse itself from within" as it were. "External" attacks tend to encourage a sort of defiant zealotry.
RE: emotion in music in general and ... (in reply to Brendan)
quote:
I tried to approach the quiz in a positive spirit, but I couldn't do it. I couldn't find my listening-profile among the given categories of listener, nor could I find my emotional responses among the options given. That's not because I'm a magnificently singular case with especially deep and complex responses to music. I am no such thing. I think any adult who cares a little about music will not fit the grid used to set up this study. This is a shame, because the base-question is interesting.
Well, the choices (emotional categories) that my study offers are based on Geneva Emotional Model which was devised specifically for music. Their study was pretty huge and reliable, so the categories I consider pretty good and covering the general range of emotions people experience when listening to music.
The problem is (and probably this is what you experienced Brendan) we don't think in words of our emotions, we just feel them, and it's difficult to put this information back into words. Am I correct?
If not, was there other problem? You wanted to find other emotional categories and did not see them in the study?
RE: emotion in music in general and ... (in reply to annika.a)
On hearing the first piece of music, I felt some levity, because it was pretty silly music, some smugness, because I know how that kind of tosh is made, musically how it achieves its effect, and some mild irritation at the thought of listening to nine more pieces of trivial music. I very much doubt that I am unusual in feeling levity, smugness and mild irritation on hearing some music. In fact, I'll stick my neck out and say that it's rare for a day to go by without some member of the foro expressing one or more of those in response to a musical performance. Also absent from the Geneva list of nine are anger, envy, admiration and surprise, all of which people here have expressed in response to music. This could go on.
I see that people on other forums have made the same point.
Also, I found this:
Evaluation of basic emotions in flamenco music Author(s): Vukadinovic, M (Vukadinovic, M); Sakotic, J (Sakotic, J); Popovic, B (Popovic, B); Filipovic, D (Filipovic, D) Source: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY Volume: 45 Issue: 1-2 Pages: 159-159 Published: JUL 2002 Times Cited: 0 (from Web of Science) Cited References: 0 Accession Number: WOS:000177095500408 Document Type: Meeting Abstract Language: English Addresses: [ 1 ] Univ Novi Sad, Fac Med, Dept Physiol, YU-21000 Novi Sad, Yugoslavia [ 2 ] Univ Novi Sad, Fac Philosophy, Dept Psychol, YU-21000 Novi Sad, Yugoslavia Publisher: ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV, PO BOX 211, 1000 AE AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS Web of Science Categories: Psychology, Biological; Neurosciences; Physiology; Psychology; Psychology, Experimental Research Areas: Psychology; Neurosciences & Neurology; Physiology IDS Number: 578AP ISSN: 0167-8760
RE: emotion in music in general and ... (in reply to Brendan)
This discussion is getting so interesting.)
quote:
I felt some levity, because it was pretty silly music, some smugness, because I know how that kind of tosh is made, musically how it achieves its effect, and some mild irritation
Let me make an example. For instance, your friend is a great guitarist. You went to a concert where he is performing La Catedral by Barrios. And something happened to him, may be he is nervous or distracted, but he starts to make a lot of mistakes. You will probably feel ashamed for him because of that. But can we say that the music by Barrios made you feel ashamed? It wasn't the music itself - it was the social situation - being in a concert, expecting to hear a top performance.
I think, smugness and irritation are the same thing, though it might be harder to understand. No composer writes music in order to produce smugness, irritation, or shame in listener. I think we should just find the right listener for each type of music in order to be able to judge, what kind of emotions this music induces.
For instance, if you listen to african tribal music, it might as well irritate you by being too loud, incomprehensible, sounding out of tune, but it just means that we europeans are not the right people to judge this music.
quote:
Evaluation of basic emotions in flamenco music
Brendan, thank you for the reference, I tried to get this paper but this journal is not accessible to me. Anyways, the term "basic emotions" means they studied even less variety of emotions: anger, fear, happiness, sadness, tenderness (a common replacement for disgust in case of music, psychologists saying that people to not experience disgust as a response to music, but that's again the listener's taste question)
Posts: 15242
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: emotion in music in general and ... (in reply to annika.a)
quote:
I think we should just find the right listener for each type of music in order to be able to judge, what kind of emotions this music induces.
No, what you need are robots that have no emotion to start. Too bad it is not possible to do this type of test with people, because you have no clue how they feel inside before hearing or experiencing a piece of art or music. Take this lyric from jewel "I saw a movie, it just wasn't the same cuz, it was happy, or I was sad and, it made me miss you oh so bad...".
That is the typical type of person listening to anything, they have emotions already, and the music will affect each and everyone differently. Making generalizations will result in miss leading conclusions.
RE: emotion in music in general and ... (in reply to annika.a)
Annika,
At the risk of adding to the douchebaggery: I don't think your clarification helps. I get it, you want to look at the emotive effect of the music itself, so we abstract away the social context. But for the same reason, the composer's intentions are irrelevant. I assure you, I am capable of being surprised, irritated, disgusted or delighted by the music itself, independently of who plays it, etc..
Something that might be going on here is that five of the nine emotions on the list do not normally have intentional objects (in the sense of Husserl, if that helps), i.e. they're not about anything. E.g. joyful activation is not usually about something, whereas one is irritated at x, smug about y, etc.. The other four are ambiguous in this sense (is 'amazement' here amazement-at, or a general sense of maziness?). So maybe one way to specify the scope of your study is to say: we're looking at emotions induced by music that don't have intentional objects. Then most (all?) of the absentees from the Geneva list will lie outside the scope of your study.
That still leaves the classification of listener-types, which I can't help with. Why are you carving the space of listener-types by musical genre, rather than by (say) attentiveness, genre-knowledge, playing experience, etc? Perhaps the deep difference is not between classical listeners and pop listeners, but rather between ignorant, inattentive listeners and attentive connoisseurs.
RE: emotion in music in general and ... (in reply to chester)
quote:
ORIGINAL: chester
Someone posts a request for help. Instead of helping, everyone tells OP why the question/study/researchers are wrong/stupid/bad.
You do the math.
Your last positive comment was on the 25th July.
If you are tired of negativity start a thread.
I hope September brings you happiness.
And the next time someone in the supermarket is asking people to take part in a survey why not stand outside and shout abuse at those refusenick haters who cant spare the time for poor honest scientists.
RE: emotion in music in general and ... (in reply to annika.a)
Watch the beginning of this. Maybe you will understand that you just can not walk in here with "big"words that dont mean anything to us and expect to get something fancy out of it.
Maybe you will watch the whole documentary and then in the end, something very special is said about Flamenco. This is for you to decide and find out.
RE: emotion in music in general and ... (in reply to chester)
quote:
ORIGINAL: chester
Dude.
I guess I should feel honored that you're stalking my profile but in all honesty it's pretty creepy.
Just coz I tease don't mean I don't love.
Anyway you still owe me a funky buleria video.
Creepy, I mean it's not like I'm butting in directly after your every post to contradict you
I could say I am on the funky buleria upload but that would be a lie. Why not reccomend one with a video of your own, it might inspire me to learn a little flamenco for the first time in ages.
In fact the last time was the Cypres excerpt for Arash and I had played that before. Why not check it out and have a laugh at my terrible singing and rough timing, I get the feeling you could do with one.
RE: emotion in music in general and ... (in reply to guitarbuddha)
Ok one last thought. This emotion called Flamenco can not be captured. It is like the bible. Different for anyone. It has no time or space, but for one or more person it can mean something. This something is indescribable because it only fits that particular person or group in time.
RE: emotion in music in general and ... (in reply to guitarbuddha)
I think you guys are right. Perception of music and any of artwork for that matter is being determined by the individual´s precondition and education.
Yet, it is only fine if science tries to figure out about possible corner stones, which again certainly exist once you manage to overcome the main of individual listener precondition.
Did you know besides that the most intriguing male voice to women is not the bassy example that you might expect, but a rather juvenile and bright one? -
David,
How in the world did you manage to get stuck out of all with Chester? He is a very intelligent and understanding chap, and you can be certain that there must have occured a simple misunderstanding somewhere.
I am certain that you guys would get along great when meeting in person.
RE: emotion in music in general and ... (in reply to Ruphus)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Ruphus
-
David,
How in the world did you manage to get stuck out of all with Chester? He is a very intelligent and understanding chap, and you can be certain that there must have occured a simple misunderstanding somewhere.
I am certain that you guys would get along great when meeting in person.
Ruphus
Hi Ruphus greetings and thank you for your concern. You surely know that I am a fellow who just can't hold a grudge. Furthermore I am as keen as anyone to see more of Chester around. My initial comments on this thread were a result of my strong feelings about statistics, the scientific method and the frequent failures of systemic methodology in statistical research. Often these failures are coupled with an attempt to avoid honestly acknowledging the financial motivation for 'research'.
I felt that the characterisation of my position was out of kilter with MY intent, but then I do not often adequately explain myself. Perhaps most of all I do not explain myself fully when I attempt a bit of gentle leg pulling, but then that may be to be expected.
RE: emotion in music in general and ... (in reply to guitarbuddha)
Gotcha!
In respect of statistics a teacher of ours in school once stated that a flying wild duck missed by a hunters first shot one meter behind and with a second shot one meter ahead would be statistically dead already. ;O]
Posts: 15242
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: emotion in music in general and ... (in reply to Ruphus)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Ruphus
Gotcha!
In respect of statistics a teacher of ours in school once stated that a flying wild duck missed by a hunters first shot one meter behind and with a second shot one meter ahead would be statistically dead already. ;O]
RE: emotion in music in general and ... (in reply to guitarbuddha)
And that whilst I can´t have one myself. You can spend way over 100 bucks for a bottle here and it will still be faked hooch. Whereas genuine stuff seems to have reached the hights beyond 300 bucks.
One of the pleasing points of talking to you chaps out there is the confirmation that the world still exist.