Unit 1
Time Capsule
Begin your journey with this 6000 year Time Line
Done!
Origins of Music
Step 1
- What is sound?
Sound is a composition of frequencies and vibrations that come together that can manifest itself as an audible force.
- What is the difference between hearing and listening?
Hearing is just allowing the sounds to enter your ear and recognizing that they are present. Listening is when you take apart what you hear, analyze it, and form a reaction to it in your head.
- What is music?
Trick question? Music is a collection of sounds that is interpreted to be composed in a specific manner so as to bring forth a reaction of some sort. Music is generally described as peaceful and thought provoking.
- What is the difference between sound and music?
Sound is simply the vibrations that are heard by the ear. Music occurs when those sounds are infused with intention and are situated in an exact way.
- Does music have universal characteristics?
Why, yes. It does! Music is always made with the intention to release specific thoughts or emotions onto sound. It's generally composed of a melody, sometimes with a harmony. Rhythm and intonation is also a quality that is highly appreciated in musicians.
- What is the purpose of music?
Music has so many purposes: it can be used therapeutically, to elicit a certain emotion, to represent something in the brain of the musician, and to entertain, among a plethora of things.
- What is it about music that people enjoy?
People could enjoy a fun beat that is played. Some people enjoy a complex melody and harmony, unexpected notes that may arise, the fluidity and versatility with which music can be applied to different situations.
The song was discovered in the ancient Syrian city if Ugarit in the early Fifties, and then deciphered by Professor Anne Draffkorn Kilmer. The tablets containing the notation were about 3400 years old, and contained cuneiform signs in the Hurrian language that provided musical notation of a complete cult hymn. It's thought to be the oldest preserved song with notation in the world, and predates the next earliest example of harmony by 1,400 years.
Step 2
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Use Listen 8th ed. Chapters 1-5 to build a musical elements glossary of terms (see below) as a reference for listening narratives
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Design a peer assessment with an answer key using a hybrid of testing formats; matching, fill in the blank, true/false, etc.
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Rhythm
This is the regular repetition of a beat or sound. The arrangement of duration in a particular melody or some other musical composition.
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Meter
This is the number of notes you play in a measure, defined by the type of notes played. This is the speed of the music or the constant beat of measures in a musical composition.
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Tempo
This is the speed at which a passage of music should be played. The speed music be a constant throughout the musical piece.
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Pitch
This is the frequency at which a sound is played.
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Dynamics
This is the specification in which music should be played. Eg: with feeling, crescendo, softly, etc.
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Tone Color/Timbre
This is the tone quality that a pitch is played at. Basically, the sound perceived sound quality of a note.
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Scales
This is a number of pitches, in ascending or descending order, that could represent the key is being played in, usually.
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Melody
This is the main/linear succession of notes that could be perceived to be a singularity. A series of organized pitches that can come from any key.
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Harmony
This is a combination of pitches that satisfy and are pleasing with the melody.
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Texture
How melody, harmony, and tempo is combined in a musical composition and how the way notes and rests interact with each other in a musical piece.
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Tonality/Mode
This is a scale with certain melodic characteristics. There can be both major and minor modes, and ambiguous ones, as well. This could be a tonal center where a particular group of notes always want to revert back to.
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Form
This is the overall structure and form of a musical composition.
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Phrase
This is a piece in a musical composition that gives the idea or theme of what the composition is going to be.
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Style
This is a musical genre that has a certain idiomatic musical characteristic.
Step 3
Use the following to guide your responses for each of the videos A-H
B. Oldest Flute
F. Ice Band
H. Touch of Wood in a Japanese Forest
A:
First Impression: Ermm... I felt a revulsion to the violence, but I found the message funny.
Adjectives: Neanderthal, Funny, Violent.
Theories on how music was born: Cavemen beat each other up and organized the screams by pitch.
Natural resources used: Rocks and pain.
Changes in pitch to reflect changes in mood: They screamed most mightily. Portrayal of pain, perhaps?
Use of rhythm to create special or interesting musical effects: Sudden change to represent surprise at rocks?
Emotional responses triggered from sound: Distrust and humor.
B:
First Impression: Pretty cool that people were musical even in the far, far past.
Adjectives: Simple, interesting, the impossible.
Theories on how music was born: People used their natural resources to create musical instruments.
Natural resources used : Ivory.
Changes in pitch to reflect changes in mood: N/A
Use of rhythm to create special or interesting musical effects: N/A
Emotional responses triggered from sound: N/A
C:
First Impression: It was impressive how much sound could come out of such a small instrument!
Adjectives: Different, sad, mysterious, old.
Theories on how music was born: Neanderthals used old stone tool to create instruments from animal bones.
Natural resources used: Animal bones, sharp stone tools.
Changes in pitch to reflect changes in mood: It was unexpected, which gave the music a dissonant quality.
Use of rhythm to create special or interesting musical effects: It was drawn out and echo-ey.
Emotional responses triggered from sound: Interest and fear.
D:
First Impression: Fun and happy.
Adjectives: Celebratory, cute, funny, captivating.
Theories on how music was born: Ancient humans used their natural resources to make music.
Natural resources used: Rocks, sticks, and determination.
Changes in pitch to reflect changes in mood: There are small happy changes which make the music bouncy.
Use of rhythm to create special or interesting musical effects: Very quick paced and played in cut time.
Emotional responses triggered from sound: Happiness.
E:
First Impression: I was impressed at the creativity and determination of the people in Paraguay.
Adjectives: Creative, innovative, fun, environmentally friendly.
Theories on how music was born: N/A
Natural resources used: Trash from surrounding local areas.
Changes in pitch to reflect changes in mood: Quick and staccato, to represent happiness, in my opinion.
Use of rhythm to create special or interesting musical effects: It was stylized at different parts of the video.
Emotional responses triggered from sound: Contentment.
F:
First Impression: hOW thE hEcK?!
Adjectives: What the heck, that was so cool!
Theories on how music was born: N/A
Natural resources used: Ice
Changes in pitch to reflect changes in mood: N/A
Use of rhythm to create special or interesting musical effects: N/A
Emotional responses triggered from sound: N/A
G:
First Impression: That must've taken quite some time to organize!
Adjectives: Über cool, awesome, different, funny.
Theories on how music was born: N/A
Natural resources used: Fruits and vegetables.
Changes in pitch to reflect changes in mood: Various, chaotic ones.
Use of rhythm to create special or interesting musical effects: Quick change in rhythm.
Emotional responses triggered from sound: Curiosity.
H:
First Impression: I found the music really funny and upbeat.
Adjectives: Delicate, measured, precise, awesome, perfect.
Theories on how music was born: N/A
Natural resources used: Wood and the natural tilt of a mountain.
Changes in pitch to reflect changes in mood: It varies up and down really rapidly, which is fun.
Use of rhythm to create special or interesting musical effects: It was staccato and quick.
Emotional responses triggered from sound: Playfulness and peace.
The Music Instinct
Step 1
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Read the Following
While listening to music, neuroscientist Daniel Levitin, asks the questions “where do goose bumps come from?” and “what’s going on in my brain that allows the goosebumps to happen?” Levitin leads a group of researchers as they investigate music’s fundamental physical structure; its biological, emotional and psychological impact; its brain altering and healing powers and its role in human evolution. The Music Instinct: Science and Song, a fascinating two-hour documentary on the science of music.
The Music Instinct: Science and Song is a production of THIRTEEN in association with WNET.ORG – one of America’s most prolific and respected public media providers.
Researchers and scientists from a variety of fields are using groundbreaking techniques that reveal startling new connections between music and the human mind, the body and the universe. Together with an array of musicians from rock and rap to jazz and classical, they are putting music under the microscope.
“The brain is teaching us about music and music is teaching us about the brain,” says Levitin.” Music allows us to understand better how the brain organizes information in the world. There are a lot of different factors that go into our emotional appreciation of music [like] the memories we have of a particular song that we heard at a particular time in our lives.”
Internationally renowned performers Bobby McFerrin and cellist Yo-Yo Ma describe the way musical intervals are used or combined to create melody and harmony. McFerrin, together with the “World Singers,” sing a cappella to demonstrate that basic elements of music; pitch, tempo, rhythm and melody create specific reactions in our brains. Yo-Yo Ma plays two notes and then five more notes and then plays different combinations that demonstrate the way musical intervals are combined to create a melody or harmony.
Percussionist Evelyn Glennie encounters music in a unique way, as fundamentally a “physical phenomenon.” Profoundly deaf, Glennie “hears” music not through her ears, but by feeling vibrations through the floor and in her body: low frequencies through her legs and feet; high sounds in particular spots on her face, neck and chest.
Rock stars Jarvis Cocker and Richard Hawley were asked to participate in a new experiment to reveal the difference in the brain when two people perform music together – as opposed to solo. Neuroscientists wonder how two brains interact since music is fundamentally a social activity. Cocker was asked to enter a fMRI machine, while Hawley played his guitar in the room. When the Scan was analyzed it showed a measurable difference in brain activity when Cocker sang alone compared to when he sang with Hawley playing guitar. During the duet, Cocker’s brain was more active in areas for phrasing and coordinating music as well as cognitive and emotional interaction.
Research also shows that music has enormous potential to help explore the complexities of human brain function. For example, there’s a strong connection between the auditory and motor regions of the brain, and music seems to engage the motor system in a way that other modalities do not. People with motor disorders like Parkinson’s disease have improved their ability to walk while listening to a rhythm track, and stroke patients who have trouble with speech show signs of improvement when they receive music therapy. And there’s new evidence that music can actually change the physical structure of the brain – a fact that has critical implications for both education and medicine. One thing is clear, proven and agreed upon; music has a profound capacity to influence and alter the human experience.
The Music Instinct: Science and Song is a co-production of Thirteen for WNET.ORG and Mannes Productions Inc., in association with ARTE/France, NDR, Australian Broadcasting Corporation with the participation of YLE. Award-winning filmmaker Elena Mannes is writer, director. Narrator is Audra MacDonald. Executive Producers are Elena Mannes and Margaret Smilow. Available in HD. Major funding for this program provided by the National Science Foundation, Mary Rodgers Guettel, NAMM FOUNDATION, National Endowment for the Arts, Rita and Fritz Markus, The Vital Projects Fund, the Irving Harris Foundation, Sono and Victor Elmaleh, Thea Petschek Iervolino and public television viewers.
Step 2
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Use THIS LINK or the Julie Drive to access the PBS DVD The Music Instinct: Science and Song
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Introduction
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Feeling the Sound
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The Brain Plays Music
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Our Ancestors & Song
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The Math of Music
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Music: Born and Bred
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Playing our Emotions
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Music Changes the Brain
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Can Music Make us Smarter?
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Can Music Heal?
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Music & Language
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Music & Evolution
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A Resonant World
Step 3
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While viewing the DVD, comment on the following questions
a. Can music make us smarter?
Yes, music can make us smarter. Our neurons are rerouted and our brains are able to process more information, as well as emotionally express it. Neuroplasticity makes a huge difference in this.
b. Can music heal?
Yes. Music has attributes that connect to organisms in a special way that regulates and can increase an organisms natural healing capacity. Music can positively affect the motor regions of the brain. Music is so intrinsically linked to organisms that it’s just natural for it to bring therapeutic qualities.
c. Does music serve an evolutionary purpose?
Yes. In humans, in prehistoric times, a mate could have a special songs to them that they would use to identify each other when separated for long periods of time. Music could have been a way of communication for other animals, as well. Building a society and a community with the basis of music links species in a special way.
d. Does music belong to humans only?
Heck no. If other species had music like abilities, music cannot just belong to man. Take a songbird, for instance, and look at their dependence on their musical ability. Whales, for instance, make their own music under the see (no pun intended), to build pods and to express themselves to each other.
e. Where do goose bumps come from in response to music?
Our flight-or-fight response is triggered when we are listening to a piece of a provacative song. Our brains do not anticipate change in rhythm or pitch or some dynamic in the song and reacts to produce goosebumps or some other visceral manifestation.
f. What are common musical elements found in lullaby's?
A lullaby has a repetitive pitch arrangement, to as to “lull” a child to sleep. They usually moderate their dominant or tonic harmonies, but usually always go back to their root note.
g. Can music physically change the brain?
Studies have found that children with musical training have a higher mass of a frontal lobe. This correlates with an increased amount of concentration, motor control, and comprehension of ideas. The auditory centers of the brain are enhanced, giving those who practice music higher abilities to distinguish different tonalities.
Unit Reflection
Step 1
Using unit resources thus far as well as your own experiences, embed websites, audio and/or images to support a written narrative on the validity of the following statement: "Music is the Universal Language of Mankind."
Music is the Universal Language of Mankind
With almost 7100 languages across the globe, comprehension between peoples, who may have hundreds of different languages and dialects in their countries, can be a bit challenging, especially with only about 23 languages that account for more than half the world’s population. The language that unites mankind, and we can go a step further to include all animals, is emotion. Your cat, devoid of empathy, is subject to bouts of purring and displays of affection, such as jumping on your lap when you least need them, and rubbing their head against your calves, accompanied by meowing of intense frequencies.
Take another animal: the human infant. A baby is exposed to sounds while still in the womb and retains the capacity to identify what sounds “right” (consonance) and “wrong” (dissonance).
It is not clear which came first: spoken language or music. Since we know that music is encoded into our genetic makeup, it’s apparent that it is just as important, if not more, as language.
Music’s capacity for a universal connection, the mutual emotions stirred, is a true medium for correspondence between not only humans, but between other species as well. Take a pod of whales, for instance. Their unusual underwater music could be the equivalent to our choirs.
Humans have communicated beauty and love through piano music. A good example is that of "Bach for Elephants", a true example of a loving relationship through music.
In the documentary “The Music Instinct”, a scientific expedition to North Cameroon yielded very interesting results. Individuals that had never had exposure to western music were given samples of particular types of music. It was concluded that these individuals were able to relate with the rest of the western conscience and identify particular pieces as happy, sad, or scary. This is remarkable in the sense that people from different backgrounds and exposure were able to relate to the same music.
The basis of music, emotion, brings us to the conclusion that beings with empathy have an intrinsic connection: a universal language, one could say.
