What's next, violin lessons for cats?

I really enjoyed this week’s readings. I did not have a strong opinion of The Manual for the Performance Librarian last week, but this week I really thought it was practical, concise and useful. The scope of the writing is limited, and very much geared toward a classical performing body. I think it could be interesting to people outside of the field that are curious about what goes into running an orchestra, chamber ensemble or other performing body. The audience is undoubtedly small, however. I happen to be one of those people who are interested in working with such a group, either as an intern, staff or volunteer. I was impressed with how many details the author included about what information to give to who, or to request of whom. That detail could make the book an excellent reference.

I also felt I was part of the target audience for our second reading assignment from This is Your Brain on Music. I am a musician, and I have studied some science and am interested in the overlap between the two. Part of my musical education included music theory, acoustics and discussions of non-traditional tunings. So far, nothing in the introduction and first chapter were new to me, but I was impressed with how well written it was. One concept in the first chapter was puzzling to me, however. The author asserts that loudness, “is a purely psychological construct” (p. 16). This is hard for me to understand. Can volume not be measured quantitatively in decibels? If so, then how is that psychological as opposed to physical?

I hope to finish reading the rest of this text, but I do not know if I will be able to until the semester is over. I am curious if the author discusses tone in more depth later in the book. From the chapter titles and descriptions, it does not seem so. I found myself wishing for a more in depth discussion of tone and intonation. One of the music professors I worked closely with as an undergraduate was Kyle Gann, who writes music using just intonation. Generally, Western music is now played in equal temperament, where each semitone is the same distance apart. This means the interval between notes is not usually expressed in whole numbers. Before the 20th century, this was not true. Playing in equal temperament means that each major key sounds the same and transcribing between keys is easy and you get the same sound each time. This is related to Levitin’s discussion of how our brains make pitch for us, and we approximate the overtones even when they are not exact. Just intonation uses whole number intervals, sometimes referred to as ‘purer.’ Trained ears can definitely hear the difference, though most ears are not used to anything but equal temperament in Western cultures. The piano is one reason equal temperament has taken such hold. I gathered from Levitin’s discussion he would not be a huge supporter of just intonation, but I am curious what he would have to say.

One last comment about Levitin’s book. He discusses how certain animals can recognize an octave, like cats and monkeys (p. 31). First, wow. Second, I guess I’m not that surprised as I’ve witnessed animals who appear to be moved in some way (annoyance, pleasure, etc.) by music – usually our cats when practicing piano or violin as a child. Third, how did they figure that out? I am sure it was a scientific study of some sort, but how was it run? I don’t imagine there were scientists observing a piano teacher giving cats or monkeys beginning piano lessons. With monkeys, I could see designing some sort of test that humans would be asked to take to see how well they recognized pitch. But cats?