Neuromusiclab/labmeeting

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NeuroMusic Meetings

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Spring 2018

Lab Meetings: Fridays at 1PM in the Seminar Room @CCRMA

  • April 6: Aury & Irán
  • April 13: Kunwoo
  • April 20: Madeline
  • April 27: Emily
  •  !May 1! Tuesday 12:30-2:30:
  •  !May 9! Wednesday 10:30-noon:
  • May 18: Takako
  • May 25: Aury
  • June 1: Kunwoo / Takako Chapter 1 of Music and Consciousness
  •  !June 8! Start time = 1:30PM: Tysen

Music and Consciousness: Philosophical, Psychological, and Cultural Perspectives

Potential chapters of interest

Link: http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199553792.001.0001/acprof-9780199553792-chapter-018

  • Preface
  • Chapter 1: Music, phenomenology, time consciousness (David Clarke and Eric Clarke) //
    • Husserl's phenomenology in general and his study of time consciousness in particular retain currency in present-day thought, not least for consciousness studies. Therefore, and also because of its recurring references to music, it promises a productive place from which to launch an inquiry into music and consciousness. This chapter uses Husserl's rich insights to draw out the possibilities that music and consciousness offer for a reciprocal understanding, while at the same time not being oblivious to the various lacunae and (productive) theoretical contradictions of the Phenomenology. The analysis is conducted through three musico-philosophical meditations, each identifying a different standpoint from which to consider Husserl. The first draws on the ‘microgenetic’ theory of Jason Brown; the second on the structural linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure and Roman Jakobson; and the third on Derrida's seminal critique of Husserl. These meditations are to a degree autonomous; each pursues its own line of argument to its own conclusion, and tends to unfold as an essay in its own right. Yet, while the intention is not to create a higher synthesis between these three studies, there are connections between them, and their effect is cumulative.
  • Chapter 2: Phenomenology and the ‘hard problem’ of consciousness and music (Eugene Montague) // Tysen
    • This chapter compares what is termed ‘the hard problem’ in the study of consciousness with a similar issue in music scholarship. The grounds for this comparison are difficulties common to both disciplines, to do with the incorporation of subjective experience within an objective explanatory framework. In highlighting these common difficulties, it is suggested that they may be open to similar solutions. In particular, it is argued that musicology would do well to revisit theoretical perspectives that reject a fundamental opposition between objective and subjective, such as the (European) Continental tradition of phenomenology, since such perspectives have proved useful in meeting challenges posed in the study of consciousness. In this vein, the chapter takes a fresh look at Edmund Husserl's well-known analysis of time consciousness, using this analysis to provide a theoretical framework within which to understand the objectivity of a musical piece through the subjective experience of the performing body. Such an understanding can provide a resolution to the difficulties that underlie the hard problem of music. This is demonstrated through a brief analytical engagement with a Chopin étude.
  • Chapter 3: Technicity, consciousness, and musical objects (Michael Gallope) //
    • This chapter considers the topics of music, consciousness, technique, and technology from the perspective of deconstruction. A deconstructive philosophy of technology (informed variously by the work of Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, and Bernard Stiegler) complicates a phenomenological way of understanding conscious experiences of musical objects. In arguing that technology is not something that is exterior to humans, but is something that is intrinsic to life itself, this idea (called constitutive technicity) throws a sceptical light on any effort to secure a ‘transcendental’ or phenomenological description of what it means to experience music as an object. In fact, several arguments in this line of thinking go so far as to claim that a musical object may be, in a strict ontological sense, impossible. The chapter attempts to sustain the logic of these ideas long enough for them to be understood clearly. The first two sections are exclusively philosophical, engaging in a demonstration of how thinkers in the tradition of deconstruction understand technology to be integral to life. Questions specifically relating to music and consciousness turn up in the following three sections, where an attempt is made to relate the idea of constitutive technicity to issues in the phenomenology of music.
  • Chapter 4: Listening, consciousness, and the charm of the universal: what it feels like for a Lacanian (Ian Biddle) //
    • This chapter explores some of the ways in which listening has been thought about, especially with regard to what might be termed quotidian listening, or listening in/to the everyday. It also asks what thinking about listening as a specific instance of consciousness might allow us to do. These two enquiries are intimately connected, not least because they are both implicated in interesting and contentious ways in the history of musicology itself as a discipline. The core analytical resource the chapter draws on is Lacanian: that set of tools designed to scrutinize the relationship between enjoyment and discipline. It shows that when it comes to musicology's construal of listening, discipline and enjoyment are inevitably bound together.
  • Chapter 8: North Indian classical music and its links with consciousness: the case of dhrupad (David Clarke and Tara Kini) //
    • While the seemingly new Western discipline of consciousness studies wrestles with its problems of definition and methodology, it is salutary to note that consciousness has been a near continuous concern — in both theory and practice — in Eastern cultures for much of their history. This chapter argues that Indian classical music both emanates from and is able to instil deep states of consciousness, and that it is discursively grounded in ideas about consciousness consistent, even if not coterminous, with concepts from longstanding Indian philosophical traditions. It focuses on North Indian (Hindustani) classical music, since the authors of this chapter themselves are practitioners in this field. While they both practise the khyāl vocal style, and draw on this here, the principal case study examines the older style known as dhrupad, since this most powerfully illustrates the cultivation of deeply meditative states. Such states can be most notably located in renditions of ālāp — the improvised opening phase of a rāga performance that is common to dhrupad, khyāl, and other styles, but is especially developed in dhrupad.
  • Chapter 11: Music perception and musical consciousness (Eric Clarke) //
    • This chapter uses ideas from James Gibson's ecological approach to perception, Gerald Edelman's distinction between primary and higher-order consciousness, and Daniel Dennett's ‘multiple drafts’ model, to explore the consequences for consciousness of the reciprocal relationship between musical materials and perceptual processes.
  • Chapter 12: Towards a theory of proprioception as a bodily basis for consciousness in music (Alicia Peñalba Acitores) //
    • This chapter highlights the importance of the body as a basis for consciousness. The first section addresses primary consciousness as a source of awareness in the perception of ongoing musical material in which the body is involved. The second focuses on higher-order consciousness — our capacity to become self-conscious. It can be argued that both types of consciousness, traditionally studied separately, can be considered as belonging to a continuum, as stated by Merleau–Ponty: ‘all thought of something is at the same time self-consciousness’. Based on this idea of a continuum, it is also argued that primary and higher-order consciousness are both built on bodily input and that the feeling of that body is possible through proprioception. The third section uses ideas from O'Regan and Noë's sensorimotor contingency theory to offer an explanation of how musical consciousness takes place.
  • Chapter 13: Sound-action awareness in music (Rolf Inge Godøy) //
    • The links between musical sound and various body movements are so numerous and robust that researchers have come to believe that sensations of body movement are integral to musical experience as such, or to put it differently, that the perception and cognition of music is a fusion of auditory and motor sensations. In the context of music and consciousness, one consequence of this auditory-motor fusion is the belief that awareness of musical sound can be understood as an awareness of various sound-related actions. For this reason, this chapter focuses on sound-action awareness in music. It presents a spectrum of research that may shed light on this as well as some ideas on how sound-action awareness might encourage us to revise established ways of thinking in Western music theory.
  • Chapter 14: Music, consciousness, and the brain: music as shared experience of an embodied present (Andy McGuiness and Katie Overy) //
    • This chapter considers the neural basis of musical experience alongside theories of the embodied nature of consciousness. Drawing on previous theoretical work on the role of the human mirror neuron system in emotional responses to music, it proposes that the nature of the musical listening experience is of a shared subjectivity between individual listeners and performers, underpinned by innate bodily responses to musical gestures. Based on an outline of this broad theory, it offers a number of conclusions that include a reassessment of the ideas of ‘musical meaning’ and ‘musical communication’. It is argued that, while communication can be found in music, one of the attributes that distinguishes music from language is that music provides an intimately shared, embodied experience rather than communicating a specific message.
  • Chapter 18: Practical consciousness and social relation in MusEcological perspective (Tia DeNora) //
    • This chapter examines the role in music in consciousness formation understood pragmatically. This pragmatic perspective focuses on consciousness as a form of creative work. It suggests that, in common with all creative work, it is a ‘systematic function’: it emerges from collaborative social and material-cultural settings. To develop this theme and set it in its proper context, the chapter defines terms and develops a particular understanding of consciousness as taking shape through reference to things outside of individual minds. It then turns to the main topic — music as an instrument of consciousness and, as such, as part of the care of self and its connection both to sociability and, more critically, governmentality. This is explored through examples of embodied consciousness (physical orientation to environment) and musically mediated verbal awareness. The topic of musical consciousness in a mental health context is presented, specifically to consider musical consciousness as a medium for social relation, regulation, and self-presentation. Throughout, it is argued that consciousness consists of dispositional orientations for forms of action (individual and collective) and identity in the world.

Winter 2018

Lab Meetings: Fridays at 1PM in the Seminar Room @CCRMA

Picton Reading Group meet immediately afterwards or, if there is no lab meeting that day the Picton group starts at 1pm.

  • Jan. 12: Lab practices, data collection, and updates
  • Jan. 19: Picton Reading Group Chapter 1 (Tysen) | Chapter 2 (Emily) [1]
  • Jan. 26: Lab Meeting Madeline; Aury // Picton Reading Group Chapter 3 (Aury) | Chapter 4 (Tysen)
  • Feb. 1 Picton Reading Group Chapter 5 (Emily) | Chapter 6 (Iran) (meet in the NeuroMusic lab, 1-2pm)
  • Feb. 2: Lab Meeting Ben; Emily
  • Feb. 8 Picton Reading Group // Chapter 7 (Madeline) | Chapter 8 (Ben)
  • Feb. 9: Tysen (new data); Auri; Auri (brainstorm protocol) {Preceded by monthly clean up: noon}
  • Feb. 16: Iran; Iran + Kunwoo // Picton Reading Group Chapter 9 (Madeline) | Chapter 10 (Tysen)
  • Feb. 22: Picton Reading Group Chapter 11 (Ben) | Chapter 12 (Emily)
  • Feb. 23: Lab Meeting Tysen; Barbara
  • March 1: Lab Meeting in the NeuroMusic Lab - 1pm Emily, Ben // {Preceded/followed by monthly clean up: 12:30pm}
  • March 2: CCRMA OPEN HOUSE! No lab meeting.
  • March 9: Irán
  • March 16: Lab Meeting Aury // Picton Reading Group Rapid Fire Summaries: Chapter 13 (Madeline) | Chapter 14 (Irán) | Chapter 15 (Emily) | Chapter 16 (Madeline) | Chapter 17 (Tysen)
  • March 23:

Fall 2017

2 per week

  • Oct. 5: Madeline, Iran
  • Oct. 12: Emily, Iran
  • Oct. 19: Aury, Tysen
  • Oct. 26: Ben
  • Nov. 2:
  • Nov. 9: Madeline
  • Nov. 16
  • Nov. 30
  • Dec. 7:
  • Dec 14: