Week 6 Music, Memory and Place

Emotions

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Yester-Me

Memory

Music

Music, at its essence, is what gives us memories. And the longer a song has existed in our lives, the more memories we have of it.

—Stevie Wonder

bar 1 Dm beginning

bar 3 dim 5th melodic movement

bars 7-8 modulation to Am

Overview

PART 1 Music and memory

PART 2 Music and place

Conclusion

Overview

Memory

the process in which information is:

• encoded: receiving, processing, combining information
• stored: permanent record of encoded information
• retrieved: calling back the stored information to use in activity

• the mental function that allows you to receive, retain and recall impressions, information, sensations and thoughts
• occurs in 3 stages described by the duration that the information remains available

- begins as a Sensory Memory

- moves to Short-term Memory (includes Working Memory)

- stored in Long-term Memory

• not everything is retained and depends on what you pay attention to and process

Memory

"rehearsal"

Information input

Attention

Output

Sensory Memory

> 1 sec

Short-term Memory

> 1 min

Forgotten/unprocessed Information

processes information gathered through the 5 senses

holds 7 +/-2 pieces of information

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'Chunking' exercise: try to remember the next 20 names given

Long-term Memory

indefinite time

some information may be easier or harder to recall

Place

• important for producing musical styles and genres
• allows us to revisit historical periods
• helps us understand how music was received
• influenced popular music scholarship

- Charles Keil’s study of blues music in Chicago (Keil 1966)

- Sara Cohen’s study of rock culture in Liverpool (Cohen 1991)

• ‘ethnographic and microsociological detail’ about unknown local bands at grassroots level struggling for success (Cohen 1991, 6)

- Barry Shank’s book on the popular music scene in Austin, Texas (Shank 1994)

• musical scenes where people create ‘new, sometimes temporary but nevertheless significant, identities’ (Shank 1994, x)

Place

"groovologist"

Earth language

"Earth language: walking over the body of the earth, touching nature, feeling its presence and its other life, and attuning ourselves to its sensual reality" (Tacey 2000)

Anne Boyd (1946- )

The presence of a major rather than of a minor 3rd in relation to the fundamental (i.e. E instead of E flat) has a similarly profoundly consequential effect, projecting a radiant major sonority and capturing what sounds and feels like typically Australian light- brilliant, harsh even.a radiant major sonority and capturing what sounds and feels like typically Australian light- brilliant, harsh even. The words intoned by the God-like male voices are the Latin 'aurora' meaning dawn, and the Aboriginal words 'dhilbi-dhilbi', which in the Bundjalung language of north eastern New South Wales also means dawn.

The music proceeds as accumulation of texture and colour. Over the droned 5th between the didjeridu and the male voices, the shakuhachi (the traditional Japanese bamboo flute associated with Buddhist meditation) and tenor saxophone (associated with the low throaty warbles of American Jazz) intertwine in a conversational relationship based upon the articulation of a kind of sighing, singing shared melodic phrasing anchored to the drone and its 5th (C and G) (Boyd 2012: 53-54)

• a meta-language of the spirit which arises as right-brain activity based on an intuitive connection with nature, the language of place
• has little to do with the left-brain human intellectual discourse
• it is sacred, long known to artists and deeply intuitive creative thinkers from all cultures through all time
• composer Anne Boyd believes that 'earth language' connects people of diverse cultural backgrounds
• contrary the European Englightenment, which removes mystery from matter
• Indigenous Australians have developed musical ideas using earth language for 50, 000 years by listening to the land
• contemporary Australian composers have now tried to do the same

EG Ross Edwards' Dawn Mantras (1999)

- sung in various languages from Australia, Southeast Asia, the Pacific and Latin

- and global telecast at the dawn of the new millennium at Sydney Opera House

- expresses hope for peace and renewal

- sung by Australian Children's Choir with a Gregorian chant solo by a young girl from the highest Opera House sail, accompanied by mixed choirs and an intercultural ensemble

Earth language

Hei-wa, Hei-wa, Ake gu-re,

Hei-wa, Hei-wa

Hei-wa, pen-yem-buh-an,

Su-buh, u-tuh.

Heiwa (Japanese: peace)

Ake gure (Japanese: dawn)

Subuh (Indonesian: dawn)

Utuh (Indonesian: whole)

Sancti Spiritus adsit nobis gratia

(Latin: May the grace of the holy spirit be with us)

Mode: C D E F G A Bb

Drone: C

Dawn Canticle (2000) https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=94&v=3UI4IThmGic&feature=emb_logo

Ross Edwards (1943- )

Conclusion

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Scientific evidence has shown that music is inextricably linked to memory by way of emotion.

How we perceive musical events through emotions and memories depends on the individual and is often a case of perspective.

Without needing to rely on science, it is evident that the concept of place and landscape is a focal area for many artists.

The idea of space and landscape is site specific, but may also apply to transnational 'imagined' communities.

TUTORIAL

Discussion items

1. How important is music, memory and place to you as a musician/artist?

Audiovisual material

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePiiTfDCVBg&t=723s

https://www.abc.net.au/religion/watch/compass/divine-rhythms/10403892

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSgvI1sXK9k

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Week

6

4. DISCUSSION LEADERS

1 pm Ishi Jake

2 pm Newton

Brandon

Brittany

2. Is music’s connection to memory and place merely due to human emotion?

Are there any other factors involved?