Dear all,
on Thursday and Friday (as usual at 10:00 am, room 4), Prof. Giorgio Resta (University of Bari) and M° Enrico Maria Polimanti (professional pianist) will introduce us to the very special topic of Law and Music, with particular focus on the similarities between legal and musical interpretation.
on Thursday and Friday (as usual at 10:00 am, room 4), Prof. Giorgio Resta (University of Bari) and M° Enrico Maria Polimanti (professional pianist) will introduce us to the very special topic of Law and Music, with particular focus on the similarities between legal and musical interpretation.
THIS VERY SPECIAL EVENT IS OPEN TO ALL PEOPLE INTERESTED: PLEASE PROMOTE IT AND INVITE WHO YOU WANT!
Reading
The reading is avalable online and, guess what, the author is prof. Manderson!
Enrico Maria Polimanti's CV:
Enrico Maria Polimanti was born in Rome in 1969. He studied at the Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia and at the Royal College of Music in London, and has performed as soloist and in chamber ensembles for many concert seasons and music festivals, playing a wide range of traditional repertoire but also works by lesser-known composers such Lodovico Giustini and Hyacinthe Jadin. He has played programmes dedicated entirely to Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann and Debussy. Several composers have also written works for him, one of whom is Francesco Giammusso, whose Piano Concerto he performed in Paris with the Orchestre Internationale de la Cité
Universitaire.
Mr Polimanti’s recordings for the labels Tactus and Naxos gained recognition by the critics in Italy and abroad (5 stars The Listerner and Musica) and his performances have been broadcast in Italy (Radio 3, V Canale della Filodiffusione, Radio Vaticana, RAI 3), France, Romania and Austria. Engaged in the diffusion of musical culture, he regularly gives lectures and lecture- concerts in various schools, associations and universities both in Italy and abroad. Enrico Maria Polimanti has translated into Italian Charles Rosen’s Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas and Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger’s Chopin vu par ses élèves. His essay The Earth has many keys, which analyzes the works of five Italian contemporary composers based on the poetry of Emily Dickinson has been selected for the American Literay Scholarship (Duke University Press).
Universitaire.
Mr Polimanti’s recordings for the labels Tactus and Naxos gained recognition by the critics in Italy and abroad (5 stars The Listerner and Musica) and his performances have been broadcast in Italy (Radio 3, V Canale della Filodiffusione, Radio Vaticana, RAI 3), France, Romania and Austria. Engaged in the diffusion of musical culture, he regularly gives lectures and lecture- concerts in various schools, associations and universities both in Italy and abroad. Enrico Maria Polimanti has translated into Italian Charles Rosen’s Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas and Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger’s Chopin vu par ses élèves. His essay The Earth has many keys, which analyzes the works of five Italian contemporary composers based on the poetry of Emily Dickinson has been selected for the American Literay Scholarship (Duke University Press).
Giorgio Resta's CV:Giorgio Resta is Associate Professor of Comparative Law at the University of Bari, Italy (since 2002) and former Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Law, McGill University (2010-2011). He is the author of three books and several essays on personality rights, contracts, torts and intellectual property in comparative perspective. His first book “Autonomia privata e diritti della personalità” has been selected as one of the 10 best legal books of the year 2005 by the “Istituto Sturzo – Club dei giuristi”; the second, co-authored with Guido Alpa, is part of the prestigious Treatise of Italian Civil Law, directed by Rodolfo Sacco. His last book, in English, was published in 2009 with the title “Trial by Media as a Legal Problem: A Comparative Analysis”.
He edited two books (the last one concerns the New intellectual property rights and the Numerus Clausus Principle) and the Italian translation of Hesselink’s “New European Legal Culture”; he also co-edited with Guido Alpa a casebook on Contracts Interpretation. In 2008 he served as a member of the scientific board of the Legislative Committee for the reform of third book of Italian Civil Code, appointed by the Italian Ministry of Justice; currently he serves as legal counsellor at the Ministry of Justice. He is member of the Italian Association of Comparative Law, the Italian Association of Law & Literature and co-director of the law series “Interferenze” (published by Editoriale Scientifica). He has been granted scholarships from the International Council for Canadian Studies, the Max-Planck-Institut für Internationales und Ausländisches Privatrecht (Hamburg, Germany), the Max-Planck-Institut für Geistiges Eigentum (Munich, Germany), the European Commission and the Italian Research Council. He has been invited to lecture and deliver conferences in foreign Universities, such as the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (Paris), the Duke Law School (USA), the University of Bremen, and the University of Toronto. He studied, as a visiting scholar, in several Universities, such as the Yale Law School, the Duke Law School, the Ludwig-Maximilians Universität (Munich, Germany), and the University of Cologne. In 1995 he graduated with magna cum laude from the University of Rome “La Sapienza”. In 1999 he received his PhD in Private Law from the University of Pisa. He is member of the Italian Bar.
He edited two books (the last one concerns the New intellectual property rights and the Numerus Clausus Principle) and the Italian translation of Hesselink’s “New European Legal Culture”; he also co-edited with Guido Alpa a casebook on Contracts Interpretation. In 2008 he served as a member of the scientific board of the Legislative Committee for the reform of third book of Italian Civil Code, appointed by the Italian Ministry of Justice; currently he serves as legal counsellor at the Ministry of Justice. He is member of the Italian Association of Comparative Law, the Italian Association of Law & Literature and co-director of the law series “Interferenze” (published by Editoriale Scientifica). He has been granted scholarships from the International Council for Canadian Studies, the Max-Planck-Institut für Internationales und Ausländisches Privatrecht (Hamburg, Germany), the Max-Planck-Institut für Geistiges Eigentum (Munich, Germany), the European Commission and the Italian Research Council. He has been invited to lecture and deliver conferences in foreign Universities, such as the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (Paris), the Duke Law School (USA), the University of Bremen, and the University of Toronto. He studied, as a visiting scholar, in several Universities, such as the Yale Law School, the Duke Law School, the Ludwig-Maximilians Universität (Munich, Germany), and the University of Cologne. In 1995 he graduated with magna cum laude from the University of Rome “La Sapienza”. In 1999 he received his PhD in Private Law from the University of Pisa. He is member of the Italian Bar.
Today we had a beautiful lesson about Law and Music by prof. Giorgio Resta and Enrico Maria Polimanti.
ReplyDeleteThe first composition played by Polimanti was “night piece”, the skill is in the nuances of touch and rhythm to evoke the sense of dark and foreboding(BY music room website).
Prof. Resta explains that there are three main meanings about Law and music
a) law in music: for ex. Bob Dylan ”to live outside the law, you must be honest” or in Italian music Fabrizio De Andrè “il giudice” or about labor songs Bob Marley.
b) Law of music: condition of creating and trasmitting music. Music is part of the national identity, for ex. Art. 2 French Constitution “ l hymne national est la marseilleise”
c) Law as music: score or constitution has to be interpreted in a certain way, both have leading role.
The second composition played by Polimanti was “Variazioni” composed by F.S. Haydn but I prefer the last composition: Chopin op. 26 n.2
I think that is very interesting the connection between law and music and in particular about Prof. Manderson readings when spoke about Kelsen: For Kelsen, law becomes “pure” exactly by banishing all considerations of sociology, nature, justice, morality, psychology, biology, ethics, or theology. Its purity is preserved by “excluding from such knowledge everything which does not strictly belong to the subject-matter law” (Kelsen 477-78). And here too, as a hierarchy of norms, the role of the judge is simply to “perfectly realize” the given legal text, to preserve law’s pure structure unadulterated by the real world, to “disdain to let his personality intervene in any way.”
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIMPORTANT!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteDear prof. Conte, dear dott.ssa Gialdroni. According to the fact that the end of our lessons has been anticipated, we would kindly ask you if we may reschedule our test date. Discussing in class many of us have considered the idea to plan our final exam on Friday the 17th., obviously this is only a potential request but we would like to comunicate it to you so you may consider it. Thank you in advance for your attention, yours sincerely.
I will ask prof. Conte.
ReplyDeleteStefania Gialdroni
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteBy Camilla Mottironi:
ReplyDeleteDear Colleagues,
I think I can say on behalf of all like this last series of lectures has been really interesting and enjoyable.
I couldn't, after the lesson, don't look for insights. And I found some interesting things that I want to share with you!
First of all, a book by Prof. Sette Lopes, the course of Philosophy and History of Law in Brazil, “Uma metáfora: música & direito”.. Really interesting, I avoid unnecessary comments and I leave you to read!
Here you can read an italian accurate and detailed commentt: http://bit.ly/YJScEY
And if you understand Spanish, here is an interview about: http://bit.ly/197fnbC
Then I found the text of one of our countryman, Prof. Diego Ziino, “Profili dell'interpretazione giuridica”. Unfortunately not available in our library but which I found an extract through google books: http://bit.ly/YJT8tc
The method, in the rule, for interpretation. In the law as in music. From the ancient Greeks to us. A hermeneutic process really fascinating. Until the interpretation of silence, always in law and music. Amazing! Already the index of this book hits a lot. I'm going to read it. If you then dwelled on the bibliography, you should really do a thesis!
Here the author continually draws our main reference Salvatore Pugliatti, foundamental jurist , called a "monster" for its value. To which, of course, is practically dedicated half book. It's mentioned also prof. Giovanni Iudica, which for Rivista di Diritto civile (2004, available in our library), wrote "Interpretazione giuridica e interpretazione musicale".
Also Prof. Mario Caterini, inside the magazine Le corti calabresi wrote a very interesting article “Musica, diritto e legalità. Il giudice penale tra Stravinskij e Glenn Gould” which unfortunately I found only the abstract, however, that I find really interesting: http://bit.ly/10wywjb
Finally, for its rightful and valuable quote to our Emilio Betti, I want to share an article (of this I found the pdf!) Prof. Marco Cossutta, who wrote “Sull’interpretazione della disposizione normativa e su i suoi possibili rapporti con l’interpretazione musicale”: http://bit.ly/11XMMmu
I have refrained from commenting on the articles that I found, I do not think is helpful. I hope may be of interest at least as they have affected me.
Ps
As usual, by order and brevity, I shortened with bitly all the links then to open it you should copy&paste!
About the topic "law in music", I want to mention another composer of this kind of social songs: Giorgio Gaber, a magnificent italian singer of the 60s. Emblematic of this kind is the songs:
ReplyDelete-"la legge" from the album "un'idiozia conquistata a fatica". This text was written in 1999 but is surprising the actuality of the words that seem to describe Italy today and the contradictions of italian law: "...la legge italiana che è ricca e abbondante è molto distratta e assai tollerante ma quando si sveglia colpisce a piacere, si dà un gran da fare e diventa potere...".There are so many issues that we can see from the text: the lack of identity national,the illegal immigrants,the issue of the "Mezzogiorno",the tax evasion,the situation of prisons,the timing of justice. No additional interpretations, just look at the meaning of words:
parlato:] La legge italiana è assai educativa è dolce e paterna, è un po' permissiva ma quando abbandona le buone maniere a volte fa piangere e a volte…. godere.
[parlato:] Le legge italiana che è ricca e abbondante è molto distratta e assai tollerante ma quando si sveglia colpisce a piacere si dà un gran da fare e diventa… potere. La legge in un paese antico in cui allo Stato ci si crede poco dove esplodono i valori nazionali soltanto in occasione dei mondiali dove si avverte la coscienza vaga del "vivi", del "godi", del "chissenefrega" che è l'invenzione degli italiani ma sempre nel rispetto del valori cristiani.
Ne ha parlato anche Scalfaro.
La legge in un paese amato dà per scontato il furto al supermercato e cerca anche di non disturbare l'onesto lavoro del contrabbandiere e non metter le cinture è un grave errore soltanto se il vigile ha voglia di scherzare.
La legge c'è, la legge non c'è. La legge c'è, la legge non c'è. La legge in un paese da capire con tante coste e con tanto mare dove arrivano persino coi pattini milioni e milioni di clandestini dove i nostri operai sono poco pagati grazie al buon lavoro dei sindacati dove il geniale impegno del governo è sviluppare il non-lavoro nel Mezzogiorno.
Ne ha parlato anche Scalfaro.
La legge in un paese un po' in ribasso dove le tasse sono un paradosso dove chi paga tutto proprio tutto è visto con stupore e con sospetto dove è implicita l'antica usanza di fare un buon accordo con la finanza.
La legge c'è, la legge non c'è.
La legge c'è, la legge non c'è.
La legge in un paese poco serio dove non manca niente tranne il necessario e l'idea del vero non ci sfiora affatto e sui giornali si può scrivere di tutto dove si cerca da sempre il mandante vero delle stragi di Stato e del delitto Moro.
Ne ha parlato anche Scalfaro.
La legge in un paese birichino in cui ultimamente si vota di meno dove ci sono i giochi del gran capitale che è una specie di mafia però è più legale che noi senza perdere neanche una guerra potremmo un giorno trovarci col culo per terra. La legge c'è, la legge non c'è.
La legge c'è, la legge non c'è.
La legge in un paese solidale dove s'è ingorgato lo stato sociale dove i diritti del pensionato e del malato non li sa né il funzionario né l'impiegato figuriamoci l'interessato dove le carceri son così accoglienti che non c'è più posto per altri delinquenti dove si indaga con coraggio anche in caserma purché sia salvo l'onore dell'Arma.
Ne ha parlato anche Scalfaro.
La legge in un paese alla deriva fa sì che la giustizia sia un po' riflessiva e se vuoi far valere le tue ragioni dovrai aspettare due o tre generazioni e nei tribunali in archivi segreti c'è la storia d’Italia di tutti i partiti e siccome nessuno è senza peccato si può ricattare tutto lo Stato.
Di questo Scalfaro non han parlato.
Lo Stato c'è, lo Stato non c'è. Lo Stato c'è, lo Stato non c'è. Lo Stato c'è, lo Stato non c'è. Lo Stato c'è, lo Stato non c'è.
Alice Borsacchi
ReplyDeleteLAW AND MUSIC: what kind of relationship binds them together?
it was interesting to find out during the lesson by Enrico Maria Polimanti and Giorgio Resta that two seemingly unrelated disciplines actually have strong points of contact.
During my research about the links that may exist between these disciplines, I came across a thought by J.M. Balkin and Sanford Levinson (of the Yale university) with which I fully agree; the said, talking about the relationship between law and any kind of performance, that law,like music or drama, is best understood as performance. They underline that “The American Legal Realists” distinguished "law on the books" from "law in action” : laws on the books by themselves do not constitute the social practice of law, just as music on a page does not constitute the social practice of music. Law and music require transforming the ink on the page into the the enacted behavior of others. In an important sense, there is only "law (or music, or drama) in action," in contrast to poetry or fiction, whose texts do not require performance but can be read silently to one's self. Like music and drama, law takes place before a public audience to whom the interpreter owes special responsibilities. Legal, musical, and dramatic interpreters must persuade others that the conception of the work put before them is, in some sense, authoritative. And whether or not their performances do persuade, they have effects on the audience.
So the concept of the audience and the notion of public are the keystone to understanding, without problems, the points of contact between law and music.
After all the same concepts expressed during the lesson in class last week, where the relationship between law and music has been classified through different points of view:
1) The law in music.
2) The law of music.
3)The law as music.
Each strand has its peculiarities and its development which correspond to different influences in society.
As is apparent from reading the piece of D. Manderson, law and music have many similarities that go back as soon as they appear. So much so that we are located in front of the disciplines that amazingly complement and overlap. Often people make the mistake of giving lessons of law and music lessons as if they were recipes to prepare in the kitchen: nothing more wrong!
History has taught us that both are imbued with a strong social dimension and that it should be studied as an instruction manual, but rather as key ingredients to understand the performance of the different cultures and different societies.
( ..continue.. )
ReplyDeleteThe mistake that was made in the past and continues to be committed is to understand the music as the opposite of improvisation, as a kind of calculation, a pattern delimited where it is impossible to add the element of creativity. This is terribly wrong. This perhaps was right for great classical music of the nineteenth century, when the repetition of the score was already perceived as perfection. I agree with Donald Grout which states that a musical performance we understand perfectly the state and the intentions of the musician. Nevertheless, it is still fair to say that classical music has become and remains wedded to an ideal of perfection, precision and fidelity. This is his myth, his fate and, not infrequently, his curse. But, for example, much of the greatest music of Bach can not be fully understood without an appreciation of the rich tradition of musical improvisation on which it is based. So music education should give you the basics, but also give importance to creativity and improvisation of the composer.
The same argument can be made for the evolution of the law, just as the music of the nineteenth century, the law of the same historical period condemned the exercise of judicial discretion in favor of a total submission to the legal text as written.
I'm talking of legal positivism or formalism of the various Kelsen, Austin and Berman, which continues to govern our understanding of the role of the judge and the nature of law.
We have to wait modernity, says D. Manderson, because the creative relationship between composer and performer, lawgiver and judge, the balance of power between the implementation and application of rules profoundly silent. A sort of creative collaboration has been replaced by a fission or division strongly marked by hierarchy. It is through the modernity that everything has been revolutionized and it has come to a completely different way of thinking about the texts, both of which reads music. The ideal of stylistic perfection has given way to the originality and authenticity. After the Reformation and the Enlightenment after the signing of the works, their recognition allowed us to understand if it were a work of Shakespeare or Beethoven or a section of the Civil Code or an Act of Parliament. Legitimacy, then, comes from the accurate reproduction of a text whose identity has been properly verified according to the procedures that distinguish copies from mediocre works of art or authentic legal texts.
( ..continue.. )
ReplyDeleteSo law and music continued to move almost simultaneously, characterized by a strong interpretation, emotion, identity. Perhaps both have the same goal (as Derrida tells us): to respect the rules, whether they are codes or scores, but also to destroy them if perceived as anachronistic and help reshape depending on era in which we live ...
THE END
“WITHIN THE BEATLES, WITHOUT THE BEATLES”
ReplyDeleteLAW IN MUSIC AND THE EUROPEAN COPYRIGHT
By Ylenia Coronas and Roberta Di Lorenzo
Talking after Prof. Resta and Maestro Polimanti’s lectures we have figured out that we have the same willpower to develop and go deeper into the authorship rights’ topic.
So we would like to share with you our brief research on the copyright system and especially on a very famous case: the one that concern the Beatles’ copyright sell and sharing.
First of all we would like to sum up for you, in a nutshell of course, why and where the copyright was born and how it has grown and evolved in time.
Maybe not everybody knows that the desire to control the works published in its territory came from England, and it was born in the XVI century. With the spread of automatic machines for printing, began in fact a kind of freedom of diffusion among the population of writings and volumes of each topic and genre. The government, wanting to check it, founded a private corporation of censors, the London Company of Stationers. The Stationers (publishers) granted the rights to copy of each print: the exclusive right to print and to be able to search and confiscate unauthorized prints and books. Each work, to be printed, must be recorded in the registry of the corporation.: the publishers’ corporation exercised functions of private police. Each new work was recorded in the register of the corporation with the name of one of the members of the corporation which he acquired the "copyright", the exclusive right to publish it. The right on the copies (copyright), therefore, was born as specific right of the editor, right on which the real author cannot complain about anything or earn accordingly.
However at the end of the XVII century, with the advent of liberal ideas in society, censorship policies were the breaks and it came to a gradual end of the publishers’ monopoly. Fearing a liberalization of the print and competition by independent printers and authors, publishers did assert its “moral suasion” on Parliament. So publishers would no longer profit generated by the censors on the works, but simply by the transfer of rights signed by the authors, transfer in any case necessary for the publication of the works would otherwise be too expensive.
On this basis, therefore, was enacted in 1710 the first modern norm copyright: the Statute of Anne. Since the Statute of Anne, the authors, who until then had not held any ownership rights, obtained in essence the power to block the diffusion of their works, while the corporation publishers increased the profits from the disposal of the authors of the various rights on the works. Over the next two centuries, even France, the Cisalpine Republic, the Kingdom of Italy, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and the rest of Europe enacted legislation for the establishment of copyright.:
ReplyDelete• in 1836, the Civil Code of the Regno di Sardegna;
• in 1840, on December 22, the decree of Maria Luigia, for the Ducato di Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla;
• In 1865, 25 June, in the Regno d’Italia with the law n.2337. In 1886, 9 September, was established the International Union of Berne, in order to coordinate relations in this field, of all countries members, still operating today.
In the XX century, when internet was born and the technology has gradually grown, it became very difficult to have a copyright protection as it was traditionally conceived.
After this short overview on the copyright must-know we would like to introduce you a very interesting and peculiar case that you maybe already know by reading come articles on the newspapers or on the net.
The case is the one which focuses on one of the most famous music band in the world : the Beatles.
According to what their biographers have written in time “The Beatles” are an English rock band formed in Liverpool, in 1960.
They became the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed act in the history of popular music. Their best-known lineup consisted of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr.
The Beatles utilized several genres, ranging from pop ballads to psychedelic rock, often incorporating classical and other elements in innovative ways.
They gained popularity in the United Kingdom after their first modest hit, "Love Me Do", in late 1962.
And from this famous and very well known song (which is the Beatles very first official success) we would like to tell you how the European copyright system has worked in these last years to protect and holdup the Beatles’ authorship rights.
By quoting Nate Anderson we can affirm, “the music industry has finally won its European battle to lock up in-copyright sound recordings for another 20 years. Looking forward to The Beatles' music entering the public domain as the 50-year copyright terms expires? Not going to happen.
ReplyDeleteThe Council of the European Union, where the various member state governments all have a say, voted yesterday without discussion to increase the copyright term in sound recordings from 50 to 70 years. Small countries like Belgium, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Sweden voted against the extension, but it passed anyway.
The long and winding road to this point actually began in 2008, when the European Union announced a plan to extend musical copyrights to 95 years. The stated objective was to "help aging session musicians" who had been making small amounts of money from these recordings for 50 years but were about to be cut off just when the rigors of old age were taking their toll. (Why hadn't they saved money for the future during the last 50 years like everyone else? Who knows—it was a point no one seemed keen on addressing.)
In 2009, the European Parliament passed the extension, but it was blocked from adoption at the Council level (it was also lowered to 70 years from 95 years). After several years of lobbying, enough countries switched their position on the extension to allow yesterday's vote.
And Anderson himself quotes in turn the same Council words by writing that:
“Performers generally start their careers young and the current term of protection of 50 years often does not protect their performances for their entire lifetime. Therefore, some performers face an income gap at the end of their lifetimes".
But, of course to the Council’s statements and decisions have had predictable reactions.
The most remarkable one come from the Pirate Party MEP Christian Engström, who tried and failed to give Parliament another shot at voting on the issue, took to his blog to call the decision "yet another example of how the Council and Commission of the EU are completely in the hands of the copyright lobby “.
ReplyDeleteAnd more the UK's Open Rights Group called the Council’s measure "a cultural disaster… Research showed that around 90 percent of the cash windfall from copyright levies will fall into the hands of record labels." The group also pointed out that the UK's own government-commissioned reports on intellectual property had been skeptical of extending copyright protection, though there's a long history of ignoring expert opinion on this topic.
But recalling the Beatles’ music, lyrics and songs, according to the fact that from 2011 the copyright’s defense was (not so popularly!) extended from the European Council we have to report you that the effective date of this term is January 1st 1963.
The world famous “Love me do” hit (and we also have to mention the B-side “P.S I love you”) were released and officially launched by the end of October 1962, so they are effectively copyright free and potentially ready to be sell and freely shared!
As a conclusion we have to say that we really enjoyed better understanding and figuring out something more about this topic that is often in the core of contemporary debates.
And by writing about that we have had the chance to discover something very interesting about the European authorship policy linked to the real Beatles’ music case: from theory to practice we learn how law in music really works and which are the consequences of legal interpretation when we talk about music and copyright.
Ylenia Coronas
Roberta Di Lorenzo
*comes (first line,fourth part).
ReplyDeleteTalking about the relationship between law and music,in my opinion is useful to have a look at the work of Aniruddh D. Patel (professor in the Department of Psychology at Tufts University) “MUSIC,LANGUAGE AND THE BRAIN”.
ReplyDeletePatel tries to answer four questions about the relationship between music and language:
(music and language are our two most powerful and complex communication systems. What is their relationship as mental systems? This question has fascinated thinkers for centuries, but only in the past decade has it become a focus of empirical research).
1)Why study the relationship between music and language?
As far as we know, spoken language surpasses all other animal communication systems (e.g., bird song, whale song) in terms of its degree of structure, meaning, and complexity. This makes it hard to get insight into how it works by studying the brains of other species. Yet within our own brain is a second communication rich in complexity and meaning, namely music. Comparative music-language research can help us understand our remarkable ability to make sense out of sound.
2)What are some recent trends in music-language research?
Currently there’s a lot of interest in the impact of musical training on language function. There is suggestive evidence that learning a musical instrument improves the brain’s processing of speech.
Why would musical training benefit the neural encoding of speech?
This paper offers a hypothesis specifying why such benefits occur. The work proposes the hypothesis that “benefits are driven by adaptive plasticity in speech-processing networks, and that this plasticity occurs when five conditions are met. These are: (1) Overlap: there is anatomical overlap in the brain networks that process an acoustic feature used in both music and speech (e.g., waveform periodicity, amplitude envelope), (2) Precision: music places higher demands on these shared networks than does speech, in terms of the precision of processing, (3) Emotion: the musical activities that engage this network elicit strong positive emotion, (4) Repetition: the musical activities that engage this network are frequently repeated, and (5) Attention: the musical activities that engage this network are associated with focused attention”. According to the work hypothesis: “ when these conditions are met neural plasticity drives the networks in question to function with higher precision than needed for ordinary speech communication. Yet since speech shares these networks with music, speech processing benefits”. The work suggests mechanisms by which musical training might improve linguistic reading abilities.
3)What are some of the key differences between music and language?
One important difference is that music often involves simultaneous, coordinated sound production by several people (e.g., in group singing), while ordinary language involves alternation between solo ‘performers’. Music thus has a natural way of building social bonds between people, and this social aspect of music is key to its power to unite groups and build a sense of identity in a community.
4)Which came first, music or language?
Darwin considered this question in The Descent of Man. He argued that music came first in the form of wordless songs used for courtship in human ancestors, akin to how birds use song today. In contrast, his contemporary Herbert Spencer argued that language came first. This debate continues today. While we may never know the answer to this question, modern research on the evolution of music has turned from speculation to experimental research on the musical capacities of other species, including parrots, as a way to gain insight into the evolutionary history of our own musical abilities.
(continue...)
“Music, Language, and the Brain” is the first scientific book about music-language relations from the standpoint of cognitive neuroscience; Patel argues that music and language share deep and critical connections, challenging the traditional belief that music and language are processed independently. He also synthesizes research in linguistics, cognitive science, music cognition, and neuroscience.
ReplyDeleteThis volume provides the first synthesis, arguing that music and language share deep and critical connections, and that comparative research provides a powerful way to study the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying these uniquely human abilities.
(continue..)
ReplyDeleteI choose some excerpts from the book:
“The musical and linguistic systems have little in common…both systems depend on a mental framework of learned sound categories;…that sound category learning is a fundamental aspect of human cognition..; the sound categories of speech and music tend to be different in acoustic terms…; in the case of some participants listen to a repeating speech sound8a two-syllable word) or a musical sound(saxophone tones) that were roughly matched in terms of duration,intensity and spectral content,brain scanning revealed that both kinds of sounds produced strong activations..”
In my opinion, Patel in these lines wants to demonstrates that music is the language of emotions and it has its own rules and schemes; such as language consists of terms with specific meanings based on the words.
The aim of both system is to communicate and cause emotions. They use different schemes and means to gain the same goal.
I've read several articles about what the great philosopher Plato thought about music.
ReplyDeleteIt's a bit strange to see how a cultural/popular phenomenon, very close to us and very current, actually has always accompanied the human being, although in different ways than today.
For instance, in the ancient Greece as early as Pythagoras a lot of space is given to deep and philosophical reflections, with an exaltation of the ethical value of music.
We can find many theoretical treaties which speak about music, but few concrete traces and, definitely, a lack of knowledge of tecniques used.
It's with Plato that music is somehow associated with law. According to him, music had two faces, two sides of medal: the first one was the 'real side', according to which music was made and was perceived with real means; the second one was the 'ideal side' which exerted much more charm and interest on Plato.
He, in "Republic", condemns musical practice as a harbinger of distractions and he compares it to ritual practices mold dionysiac. In his 'ideal State' there is no place for Music.
Music cannot find space cause Plato wants to ward off temptations of pleasure and to safeguard the reign of law.
We can feel the Plato's desire(or should we say concern?)to control as much as possible the musical practice, so that it doesn't lead to degeneration and to deterioration of morals.
One only is the imperative of the greek thinker: Music must be the object of Reason, not of senses, thought more than enjoyed. Music as Nomos, music as mean of education.
In this sense it is clear then that a musician can be, at the same time, corrupter of youth and educator or even maestro.
Law interpretation and music interpretation:
ReplyDeleteMany scholars think that the study of music can be useful for a better understanding of some aspects of the law. Some scholars have recently underlined that for the jurist the study of law and music is more useful than the study of law and literature:
Law and music are both 'performative' discipline and are characterized by a triangular relationship:
-law: lawmaker, judge and citizens (who are the recipients of the interpretation).
-music: composer, performer, audience.
As the jurist, the musician must solve difficult problems of interpretation; both legal text and musical score are imperfect and inaccurate. The only indication in the musical score is the exact height of the note; intensity, dynamics and all other aspects are implied or vaguely indicated.
The concept of "musical interpretation" is a modern product. The idea of overcoming improvisation emerged only in the nineteenth century.
In the mid-twentieth century important essays about the relationship between law and music and the role of interpretation began to be published:
- J. Frank underlines the incompleteness of the legislative language. He uses music in order to demonstrate that both law and music have to be interpreted. He thinks the freedom of the interpreter should not be seen as something negative, but the discretion must be brought within reasonable limits.
-On the contrary according to E. Betti the fundamental task of the performer is to convey to the listener the original composer's artistic intuition; so he has to be modest e to respect the work of art. He describes the performer as “an intermediary between the artwork and the public”.
The problem of interpretation is culturally and historically conditioned and cannot be examined independently of its context but the interdisciplinary study helps to understand the social dynamics and the role of the legal operator.
Diana Oro Nobili
I've read "FUSION FOLK: A COMMENT ON LAW AND MUSIC" by C. WEISBROD , an article from Cardozo Law Reviw that criticizes somehow the idea of autonomy, which is common to the understanding of both law and music: the idea of the autonomy of law, thought as a private enterprise with its own rules, could be compared and associated with the figure of the composer who works alone and creates masterpieces free of cultural contexts. The article consists in 2 parts. The first one is about the "FORMS OF MUSIC" as metaphors in other possible fields, and presents also a comparison between law and music (so more simile than metaphor). If we think at law such as an art and we compared it to the art of music, we can see that both have theoretical and practical aspects; there's in both a written text that can be read just by some people and not all; both are built on the past so as consequence in both we can find the development of the doctrine . Weisbrod deals with the substantive connections between law and music, too. Music, like law ,has in fact substantive and political contents. For example the folk song tradition is full of "songs of protest", such as the famous "Geordie" who will hang for killing the king's deer (whose meaning someone says to be the freedom of the American slives)or the folk song of "Rhodes" which describes the journey to Auschwitz of the Jewish community.
ReplyDeleteThe second part is about law and the folk song in the high culture represented by both ,law and music, and the question of the author is : how does the high culture (an official system) deal with folk (or unofficial) materials? One answer was given by Plato in "Laws" who argued for UNISON saying that training in music results when all the community come to one voice and to the same song, story and speech,so his idea was that of a music full of order and harmony.
Finally ,after having purpose other author's point of view on this strange but close relationship between law and music, WEISBROD brings to the end the article and explains that music could be a metaphor for law because nowadays speaking too directly could be a risk..so metaphor becames a good form of esotering writing; but we could use metaphors for the opposite purpose too.