I must admit, that I was referring to a musicological study I
happened across a million years ago in grad school. To the best of my
memory, the gist of it was that the human propensity towards a V-I
relationship was so global as to be a-cultural in nature. I can't
recall how the "testing" was accomplished, but I came away with the
impression that if one were to insert one's self into even the most
primitive of cultures, that the singing centered around the V-I
relationship and the 3-2-1 melodic relationship. I realize this is
all so vague as to be essentially useless, but somehow, it got
planted in my brain.
Dean
On Jun 2, 2007, at 4:26 AM, dhbailey wrote:
shirling & neueweise wrote:
There just seems to be an inborn need to hear a tonic chord
sounded after a dominant.
and saying such a phrase really indicates more about the
boundaries of the musical education of the person saying it --
with what period it begins and ends -- than about music and
musical perception. for example, did victoria have this "inborn
need"? what about the gregorian monks?
the "need" only arises once the identity / role of each chord and
protocols of the day are (made) clear to a listener, which is only
possible when there is a cultural reference and context
surrounding the chords. and this particular progression is only
relevant -- and varyingly -- to the predominant models over an
approximately 200-year period in western european "studied" music.
i think the original phrase could be reworded: i seem to prefer to
hear a tonic chord sounding after a dominant largely because of my
own personal musical education and background and the various
musical interests i have developed over the years.
It's the age-old nature-vs-nurture argument which is impossible of
resolution since we can't ever know for sure. Perhaps those
cultures which don't use the dominant-to-tonic harmonic motion
simply haven't discovered it yet. Certainly people who come from
cultures which lack that relationship respond favorably to music
which has it as a strong central characteristic.
It sure seems that people from cultures which have not had that
relation in their music have swarmed to Western music (I'm thinking
of the Japanese and the Chinese and the Indian cultures). While
it's easy to understand that the planet's fascination with pop/rock
music is fed by the pop-music industry, the great adoption and
learning of Western classical music is less easy to explain. And
that attraction to Western classical music happened long before the
pop-music industry grew to its current collossal size and power.
With potential incomes from Western classical music, on average,
not very high, it can't be purely economic reasoning which drives
people who grew up in these cultures to push their children into
fervid study of violin and piano.
What drove Chairman Mao (or whichever of his advisors was behind
it) to push the Cultural Revolution with such an iron fist, if not
the fact that he realized that his people were responding so
strongly to Western music, especially Western classical music?
I'm not coming down strong on either side of this argument, I just
think it's not as clear cut as either side is claiming. There's
something about Western classical music, with its predominating
dominant-to-tonic harmonic resolution which speaks to people who
have a many-centuried (millenial) native musical culture of their
own which lacks that dominant-to-tonic relationship.
I think it may be a bit more "natural" than many would accept, and
I also agree that when one's culture is hammered with such a thing
for so long, it's hard to separate what's a natural reaction and
what's a cultural-indoctrination reaction.
--
David H. Bailey
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Dean M. Estabrook
http://deanestabrook.googlepages.com/home
Of all hoaxes, the one which is my most vexing bête noire on a
quotidian basis, is the cereal box top which informs simply,
"Lift Tab to Open." Then, "To Close, Insert Tab Here ." Yeah,
right! In attempting to accomplish the first direction, not only
the tab but also the slit intended to accept the aforementioned
protuberance have both been irreparably disfigured and rendered
dysfunctional. This debacle is then amplified by the misbehavior
of the recalcitrant inner bag, which can not be unsealed sans
mangling it, and hence, will not disperse its contents without
exiting the box itself. All I wanted was a bowl of cereal.
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