Experiment - inherent meaning in music

"Thus, music CAN carry inherent meaning as long as a context exists and a listener is capable of either hearing and understanding it or perceiving it through some experience where they have encountered the event before. Without either, the listener and the meaning to them is wholly lost in a furry of sounds they do not connect with the event. The absence of context and extrasensory connection is, perhaps, what Pliorius was referring to when he mentioned, "'Inherent meaning in music' is heavily underconstructed."

Hmmm...maybe, but maybe not. One could say that the human imagination is capable of many things. One could surely imagine what it would be like to soar: the wind rushing past your hair, the excitement and nervousness of understanding that if you fall, *splat*, etc.

"his only mistake is to take an absolutist stance on it. "

That's probably true, come to think of it ^_^ I tend to think of things in absolutes, despite the fact I'm well aware that many things are not, in fact, absolutes. It's just my brains natural thought pattern, unfortunately :(

"his only mistake is to take an absolutist stance on it. "

That's probably true, come to think of it ^_^ I tend to think of things in absolutes, despite the fact I'm well aware that many things are not, in fact, absolutes. It's just my brains natural thought pattern, unfortunately :(

i say it's still too little experience in matters dealing with problems/things of such type.

so, the best things are still waiting far far in future ;)

Meaning is only 'inherent' when a context exists to define that meaning. ...Music doesn't inherently carry 'meaning' of any kind on its own. The listener is the one who creates, perceives, or otherwise builds upon meaning that already exists.

You and I know that! ;)

It's all relative to the eye of the beholder...or the ear of the behearer.

....

My experiment (should) go to prove that it's impossible to extract "meaning" from musicl; however it is possible to impose "meaning" - based on context, personal experiences, etc...

I could expand the experiment (I may have mentioned this) to ask what emotional content each listener got from each melody. I suspect the variances in opinions would further prove your perspective. :)

Thus, music CAN carry inherent meaning as long as a context exists and a listener is capable of either hearing and understanding it or perceiving it through some experience where they have encountered the event before. Without either, the listener and the meaning to them is wholly lost in a furry of sounds they do not connect with the event.

So can the meaning be inherent if some people lack the necessary life experiences or neurology to experience or perceive that meaning? I think the answer to that question, one of mere definition, determines wether music can possibly have inherent meaning.

My perspective on music is that it is code and, like all codes, is meaningless without a corresponding cypher or program to interpret it. So if you consider the music on it's own, it is meaningless. However, if you consider the music in the context of a specific cypher or program, particularly the one it was intended for, then the music absolutely has an 'inherent' meaning.

actually this whole thing is pretty off from the start. concept 'inherent meaning' is very dubious by and on itself, and not because it's musically related. for nothing, really, has any inherent meaning. 'meaning' is meaning precisely because it has meaning to something/someone. there's no meaning non related to someone/something that operates with it. so what this experiment will achieve is just various modes of how people make (or are made) meaning in them headz.

Since I think the same way, I'd like to repeat it. Clearly said. It's the subject that assigns meaning, purpose, etc.

My perspective on music is that it is code and, like all codes, is meaningless without a corresponding cypher or program to interpret it. So if you consider the music on it's own, it is meaningless. However, if you consider the music in the context of a specific cypher or program, particularly the one it was intended for, then the music absolutely has an 'inherent' meaning.

Is that not exactly what I just explained using Weca's example of Williams' flying scenarios (instead of code)? :huh:

You and I know that! ;)

It's all relative to the eye of the beholder...or the ear of the behearer.

....

My experiment (should) go to prove that it's impossible to extract "meaning" from musicl; however it is possible to impose "meaning" - based on context, personal experiences, etc...

I could expand the experiment (I may have mentioned this) to ask what emotional content each listener got from each melody. I suspect the variances in opinions would further prove your perspective. :)

The only difference is that your experiment already assumes its outcome. It serves virtually no purpose other than to assume what it seeks to prove.

The method I might try would be to use a medium or context and attempt to measure experience and context against musical content. This may indeed prove that inherent meaning exists in music when these variables apply. Using that as a control, you can then remove experience and/or context from the experiment to come up with a meaningful measurement of what variables are necessary for inherent meaning to exist in music at all.

Since people like language/music comparisons so much, why not look at how it works there? Symbolic interaction is after all a major part of things and it can work in any number of ways.

Take the word "dog." If you don't speak english and you don't know what that word means, both the text and the sound are going to mean nothing to you. Sure you may know they're part of a language you don't understand, but that can't be inferred from the word itself at all. It's the exact same thing with music. There are symbols attached to a variety of musical gestures/styles/etc, but like the word "dog," it takes knowing these symbols in some form rather than just listening to the gestures on their own to see what they may "mean."

And, of course, "dog" may mean one thing in english, but it may mean something entirely different in a different language. Obviously asking which language is correct about it is nonsense, and so is asking this crap about music.

Since people like language/music comparisons so much, why not look at how it works there? Symbolic interaction is after all a major part of things and it can work in any number of ways.

Take the word "dog." If you don't speak english and you don't know what that word means, both the text and the sound are going to mean nothing to you. Sure you may know they're part of a language you don't understand, but that can't be inferred from the word itself at all. It's the exact same thing with music. There are symbols attached to a variety of musical gestures/styles/etc, but like the word "dog," it takes knowing these symbols in some form rather than just listening to the gestures on their own to see what they may "mean."

And, of course, "dog" may mean one thing in english, but it may mean something entirely different in a different language. Obviously asking which language is correct about it is nonsense, and so is asking this crap about music.

:D

Possibly one of the most clear and apt explanations of all time.

Thanks !!

The results:

Melody #1: 58%

Melody #2: 42%

INTERESTING....

Not terribly conclusive, but still tending towards Melody #1 !!!

:hmmm:

Now, which one did you pick - I'd like to know!!!

I think that falls within what you'd expect out of random chance, pretty much. That was the prediction, wasn't it? You'd have to do a couple more tests and get similar results and then we can call it an actual experiment.

I think that falls within what you'd expect out of random chance, pretty much. That was the prediction, wasn't it? You'd have to do a couple more tests and get similar results and then we can call it an actual experiment.

Yup. I kinda expected it to be a bit more evenly distributed, but there you go.

FYI: #1 was the "actual" melody. The other was invented on the spot for this test.

I picked the 1st one.

You sly dog Robin! You didn't fool me.

It's inconclusive whether the results are random or not. A stat test shows p = 0.40. That is, if we ran 1000 simulations (in which the votes were decided by random coinflips), 400 of them would be just as deviant (from an expected 50-50 split) as our observed results in this thread (or even more deviant).

However the hypothesis that people were choosing nonrandomly (p<0.1), that is finding meaning in the music, certainly isn't supported, so robin wins :D

FYI: #1 was the "actual" melody. The other was invented on the spot for this test.

And I win too! :cool:

My vote was based on the sheet music, not the midi. The first melody has more elements of graphical notation, such as the barline. The second doesn't even have a time signature. So I certainly didn't base my vote on meaning in music...

My vote was based on the sheet music, not the melody. The first melody has more elements of graphical notation, such as the barline. The second doesn't even have a time signature. So I certainly didn't base my vote on meaning in music...

:pinch:

Cheater.

Yup. I kinda expected it to be a bit more evenly distributed, but there you go.

FYI: #1 was the "actual" melody. The other was invented on the spot for this test.

Well it COULD be, but we need a margin of error. To get that margin of error you need to do randomized tests with the same sample size and get an average that gives you your error margin. In this case I suspect it could be 10 or so (then again, according to probability calculations for the standard deviation of binomial events (like coin tossing) the deviations can fluctuate wildly, so getting this result is more than within what's acceptable ...)

6 is not enough, and we know already one was acting on factors outside of the scope of the experiment so that's 5. Not convincing at all.

"Margin of error" & confidence intervals are actually not relevant to this experiment. :) The question is the statistical significance of the result, not the sampling error.

I already explained how you can use a Monte Carlo sim to test the statistical significance of the results. Expected is [18,18], observed is [15,21]: 40% of points on a binomial probability dist fall this far or further (stdev equal or greater) from the mean.

To improve the experiment simply show the survey to more people (without letting them see this thread). As more people vote, assuming the ratio stays the same (that is it approaches 150:210 and then 1500:2100) the statistical significance obviously increases tremendously because we are effectively going more and more stdevs away from the mean. The probability that 15 of 20 coinflips will be heads is much much more than the probability that 150 out of 200 will be heads.

However I personally doubt it will stay the same; instead I think your ratio will approach 50/50 with an eventual p of 0.7 or even 0.8, effectively proving your null hypothesis that people cannot tell the difference and are choosing in a manner indistinguishable from randomness.

6 is not enough, and we know already one was acting on factors outside of the scope of the experiment so that's 5. Not convincing at all.

The amount of detail someone puts into their notation is an insight into how much they've worked on the piece, and has even been used in MW decisions :D

BTW SSC I am interested in how you voted and why ;)

I picked #1 too. The 2nd one didn't feel like something someone would spend months on, and it felt incomplete.

I picked #1 too. The 2nd one didn't feel like something someone would spend months on, and it felt incomplete.

Which was exactly why I voted for #2. It doesn't conform to common musical patterns as much as #1 (with its clear period structure, cadence formula, varying melodic ornaments etc.), so I thought that this was the "highly personal" choice, whereas the other one seemed more like the "nicely balanced and sophisticated melody" you'd expect someone to write in order to prove a point :P

Frankly, I was mildly disappointed hearing that #1 is the one now. No offence, Robin!

I voted for #1 because #2 sounded like the theme to The Incredibles.

BTW SSC I am interested in how you voted and why ;)

I didn't vote at all, why bother? It didn't matter which one was the right one, the chances of me picking that up are as good as tossing a coin.

I didn't vote at all, why bother?

Aw, now that's no fun.

If you're up against absurdity, at least have some fun with it, right? :P

Aw, now that's no fun.

If you're up against absurdity, at least have some fun with it, right? :P

I think I've participated enough as it is, actually. Who says I'm not having fun?

I didn't vote for the same reason SSC didn't vote. However, I would've picked number 1. The second one just felt incomplete to me and something someone could rattle off in a few minutes.