Secondly - Levitin prepares a highly informative and interesting account of the brain and its/our relationship to music. Doing so though, he constantly puts music in the position of having to have a use, a purpose, an end towards which it can be put.
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I think an interesting point of discussion from the Levitin readings we can elaborate upon is the relationship between this scientific, neurocognitive reading of music in the physiological structures of the human mind and its implications on a more philosophical way of reading. Is this neurological and evolutionary way of thinking about music reductive to the point of diminishing music, or art and the humanities in general, to the language of utility? This might be contrasted with neuroscience itself as a field that studies an emergent phenomenon, where the whole of human activity on an individual scale as well as in a form of life greater than the sum of its parts? (the atomism of neurological structures, individuals, single notes) Or does this reading in some way enhance our philosophical understanding of music? Certainly there are many points in the Levitin readings that recall the writings of the philosophical works we have discussed in class. For instance:
“Across all these examples, a common thread emerges: Knowledge songs tell stories, recount an ordeal, a saga, a particularly noteworthy hunt -- something to immortalize. The demonstrated power of songs-as-memory-aid has been known to humans for some thousands and thousands of years. We write songs to remind ourselves of things (as in Johnny Cash’s ‘I Walk the Line”) or to remind others of things (as in Jim Croce’s ‘You Don’t Mess Around with Jim’ or Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Don’t Stop’). We write songs to teach our young, as in alphabet songs and counting songs. We write them to encode lessons that we’ve learned and don’t want to forget, often using metaphor or devices to raise the message up to the level at which art meets science, making it at once more memorable and more inspiring. . .”(The World in Six Songs 177)
-Levitin talks about how music played an evolutionary role in the survival of early humans, and music as an organizing social force. Compare this idea with how Nietzsche sees music as within the sphere of the Dionysiac, the force that combines individuals into oneness, and also as a diagnostic indicator for the health of a society. Another connection to Nietzsche can be found in the way Levitin describes the systems of the human brain as generating something illusory in our everyday perceptions. A similar idea can be found in Nietzsche’s On Truth and Lying in the Extra-Moral Sense. Does Levitin’s analyses point to a domination of the Apolline drive which subsumes art and music under the Baconian need to explain everything that can be known? Levitin continues in a somewhat Nietzsche direction when we writes about the social utility of music as an example of an emergent phenomenon, capable of directing masses of people:
“Up until this point, I’ve been considering songs as they are recalled and sung by one individual at a time. But knowledge songs -- from Huron’s yellow school bus songs to Torah cantillation-- are more typically sung by groups of people. In this context their position as a foundation of culture and their durability become even more apparent. I’ve already described the social bonding that comes from synchronous music making, and the neurochemical effects of singing, but there are manifest cognitive benefits that are conferred to the group-as-whole, apart from any benefits to the individual when people sing together.”(World 180)
The most, if you'll pardon the pun, elementary example of music as a tool happens when Levitin is talking about children sining songs to learn facts, “The children’s television show of the 1990s Animaniacs featured songs that a generation of kids used to learn such things as the states of the United States and their capitals . . . and the nations of the world” (The World in Six Songs p. 150). So, for your viewing, listening, and informational pleasure, we present to you the Warner Brothers, and their sister Dot!
Levitin ties music to the brain, but his interest is in the mind so he shies away from a one to one correlation and brings up the brain's plasticity and parallel processing abilities, “There is no single language center, nor is there a single music center. Rather, there are regions that perform component operations, and other regions that coordinate the bringing together of this information.” (Brain on Music p. 85). He mentions speech aphasia but, somehow, neglects to mention one of the most fascinating treatments for it. The clip should skip to the relevant section. The man speaking had a stroke and for several years could not talk at all until he could sing and, in fact, still cannot speak today. Listen to him explain what he's doing. This is the utility for music to convey information carried into the extreme.
But just because music CAN be used in ways that make it seem like a utilizeable tool does not make it such. The key difference between music and other things we think of as tools is that most tools are not open to interpretation on the recieving end. Music, however, for Levitin is, “My reading of this verse is that Cash is not in fact singing the song to her, but to himself. The ironic underpinning is that in fact he doesn’t find it very, very easy to be true. He wants to be, but it is a struggle” (The World in Six Songs p. 155).
libel! slander! infamy! And a counter to music as a tool. Tools are given their essential toolness by the user, not the receiver. It is not the nail which makes the hammer a bludgeon, but the action of swinging and making it such. Indeed, having a bunch of nails everywhere won’t make a pancake a hammer but having a hammer in hand might make all your problems look like nails. If it is up to the nail what effect the hammer has on it, than the hammer is not a tool. This clumsy analogy, hopefully, will come across better in class. For instance, at occupy Cal, after Reich’s speech, there was a dance party on the steps of Sproul. In the mix was this classic piece about the power of dance to stop violence by MJ, or is that what it is about. . . (if stupid Vevo let's me embed it)
The power of music, when usable as a tool, to inspire emotion is not in dispute. However, whether that translates into more than simply the experience itself seems to be taken for granted. As amazing as this commercial is to me, I do not own a pair of addidas shoes.
All these underlying assumptions and understandings taken as givens result from, well, what our boy Nietschze would call knowledge lusting. We want to know what things ARE. That means we need to know where they come from, what they do, and every step in between. But as Xeno pointed out, there is no end to intermediate steps. So when Levitin ends with “The topic of musical expressions is perhaps the area in the cognitive neuroscience of music that most harmoniously unites music theory and neural theory, musicians and scientists, and to understand it completely, we have to study how particular patterns of music give rise to the particular patterns of neural activations in the brain.” (This Is Your Brain on Music p. 108). He has concisely encapsulated the problem, because he does not view it as one.
Yet where to begin? But, of course, the demand for an origin point is a part of this whole problematic process. The cleverness of harmoniously uniting musicians and scientists (science, as I will never grow tired of saying, comes from the Latin root scindere meaning to cut, divide, separate) has a goal and a purpose other than itself. It is to understand music completely. And to do that it must make things particular and understand them particularly. This leads to an infinite abundance of new horizons to conquer, and an illusion, if you will, of progress. But the thing about horizons is that as you approach them a new one appears. The neuroscience of music as Levitin explains it is embarked on a crusade that will make lots of progress and never get anywhere. Like trying to count to infinity.
And, finally, this goes out to a very special someone in the audience here today (Paige, you better be here damn it!).
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