East Meets West: A Comparison of Cultures and Lifestyles in Terms of Music Cognition by Ben Silverman Abstract

Music is a powerful controller of our feelings, behavior, attention, and culture. It affects our memory, ability to focus, and our emotion. I have spent my whole life experiencing the musical climate that western composers, musicians, producers, engineers, and promoters have created. I have been aware of this fact since I became a musician, and even though I have since branched out and explored the art and music of other cultures, the Western-temperament, Western scales/rules, and general sound of Western music has been imbedded in my mind. This is most likely due to the amount of Western music I was exposed to since birth, especially before I could fully understand and conceptualize what I was listening to. My goal for this case study is to determine how much of an influence a persons natural musical climate and upbringing has on the way they interpret music of their own culture, and of other cultures. I prepared two tests to carry out on four groups of people. The test was designed to highlight the differences in perception of music between non-musically-oriented minds and musically oriented minds, and people who have lived their entire lives immersed in Western music environments and people who have lived their entire lives immersed in Eastern music environments. Musical minds were able to easily identify each chord, harmony, rhythm, chord progression, and musical nuance, and they have knowledge, or an experience of this in their western music memory. Non-musicians mostly seemed to hear each sample as if it was the first time. Without knowledge of what they were hearing, they had little reference to match what they heard with. Had harder time explaining themselves, and their answers not only differed from the musicians answers, but often varied within their own group. Western listeners had experiences with Western music their whole lives, so they were able to match what they heard in the tests with similar motifs and sounds theyve been exposed to throughout the years. Their answers were fairly consistent with themselves and with the other Western listeners. When they listened to the western music, their answers were less consistent. Eastern listeners showed a similar (but opposite) consistency (though to a less significant degree) .

Overview Music has a spiritual, almost mystical ability to manipulate our emotions. Recently, there has been more serious, academic attention payed to music cognition, music psychology, and the general neuroscience of music, as people like Daniel Levitin, Oliver Sacks, Mark Tramo, enter the mainstream. here are dozens of new books examining the intersection of neuroscience and music, but even for the biggest and most elaborate studies, one crucial imperfection always exists. Emotional responses to anything are always subjective. People have different reactions to musical stimuli possibly because of their memories tied to certain sounds, various associations with other sounds and experiences, their emotional health, and countless other combinations of factors. Because of the subjectivity of human emotions, it is difficult for experimenters to find appropriate controls for tests. My goal was to compare emotional reactions to musical stimuli while taking factors of subjectivity, upbringing, and musical environments into consideration. I hoped to determine whether emotions that are caused by music are dependent on the culture that the perceiver was raised in, and if musical intervals are interpreted the same way by someone who grew up surrounded by a western-tempered twelve-tone scale as someone who is primed by an Eastern, or non-tempered scale. I used a controlled experiment setting to find out what degree responses from test subjects from various backgrounds depend on their culture and musical history. This would help to explain how much of an effect a persons culture and lifestyle has on the way their brains respond to music. Hypothesis: The cultural upbringing, and the general musical environment experienced while growing up significantly affects the way a music-listener interprets music. While our ability

to feel specific emotions from music is largely a genetic feature that all humans share, ones cultural upbringing is enough to create major differences between the way they feel from their cultures music, and the way other feel from theirs.

Background Western music has a 12-tone chromatic scale, from which chords and 7 note diatonic scales are assembled. In western-tempered music theory, the smallest possible increment between two notes is equal to a half-step (which can be expressed as 1/12 of an octave, 100 cents, or 16/15 x the first frequency). While it may be possible for different cultures to have the same tones and some of the same relationships between tones in their music, most Eastern cultures have different arrangements of their notes, different intervals between them, and a different number of notes between an octave.

Experimental Procedure I prepared a two-part experiment designed to identify whether different perceptions of music are products of emersion in a specific culture, or are simply inborn, genetic features of the brain. The first procedure of my experiment involves comparing the emotional and psychological reactions to a prepared set of musical stimuli between avid, professional musician listeners, and non-musical listeners. I have identified several willing test subjects from each category. The first three subjects are in the musical category. These subjects are current UMass music students, who teach, and play on a professional (and semi-professional) level. The four subjects

from the non-musical category include a UMass physics graduate student, a physician, and a 3D art teacher at Brandeis University, and a UMass English major. All four of the non-musical subjects claim to have never felt a connection to, or actively (and closely) listened to a piece of music. They have never played an instrument, have never purchased music (or sought it out online), and have never chosen to go to a concert. They all have explained that their experience with anything related to music has only been an

incidental, and background encounter. I teach drum lessons to the physics graduate student, who signed up on a whim, in an effort to expand her horizons and interests. Similarly, I teach guitar lessons to the physician, who received an acoustic guitar as a gift, and decided to try to learn it. The Bradeis art teacher was a co-worker of mine who I will email the audio test to. The second main phase of the experiment is to perform a similar experiment on two groups of test subjects. The first group consists of Westerners (all Americans), while the second group consists of people from other countries with a different set of musical customs and rules (different scales, chords, and harmonies, different common time signatures, different timbres of instruments, and possibly a different function of music in society). The test subjects in this group are of Chinese, Indian, Turkish, and Cambodian descent. I played two series of audio clips for the groups. The first series is a collection of clips of works by European and American composers and musicians using western-tempered scales. The second series is a collection of clips of works by Indian, Japanese, and African composers and musicians. The first series will consist of four 30-second clips of: - The second movement from Bachs Concerto for 2 violins in D minor - Lost of Love by The Bad Plus - The 5th movement (Jeux De Cits Rivales) in Igor Stravinkys Le Sacre du Printemps - Roses Are Free by Ween

The second series will consist of four 30-second clips of: - 5 in the Morning, 6 in the Afternoon by Shakti - Dhun by Ravi Shankar and Ustad Alla Rakha - The Yamato Drummers of Japan - Polyphonic Singing of the Aka Pygmies NOTE: The Eastern selection of music clips does not directly correspond to the nationalities of the Eastern test subjects. I took this into consideration and am weighing certain responses differently. I prepared a short survey inquiring about the emotional, and psychological reactions of each sample group after listening to both sections of clips. Results: Non-Musician responses to chords, scales, and chord progressions: N.S. major 3 perfect 5 major 7 minor chord at 5 min 2 suspended 2 chord augmented 5 dominant 7 minor 7
pretty pretty/other (solid) ugly/confusing depressing ugly/confusing ugly/confusing pretty/confusing pretty other (stern) confusing/other (unsettling) depressing/ confusing ugly/other (spinechilling) ugly/other (Jaws) pretty

J.K.

J.L.
pretty/uplifting pretty/confusing pretty/uplifting depressing ugly/other (sour) ugly pretty/other (soothing) ugly/other (weird) pretty/other (playful) pretty/depressing

M.S.
pretty/other (soothing) pretty/other (forceful) pretty/other (melancholy) depressing/ confusing ugly/chaotic ugly/chaotic pretty/other (mellow, soothing, smooth confusing/other (jarring) other (lighthearted, silly)

confusing ugly/confusing depressing/ confusing

ugly/confusing pretty/other (unexpected) depressing

N.S. 1 ionian 2 dorian 3 phrygian 4 lydian 5 mixo 6 aeolian 7 locrian 8 whole tone 9 mel. min. p up up/us p/us up/us up/us up/us up/r up/us

J.K. p/other (basic) p/us p/us p/us p/us up/r up/us up/us up/r p p up p/us p/us up/r up

J.L.

M.S. p/other (do re mi) p p/other (middle eastern) p p/us p/other (sad) other (sad) other (weird) us/other (changing) other (weird, middle eastern)

up/other (dreamlike) p/other (medieval sounding) us

10. superloc.

up/us

up/us

(note: up=unpleasant; us=unsettled; r=resolved; p=pleasant) N.S. II/IV 4:4 time II/III 4:4 time II/V 5:4 time IV/V 4:4 time IV/V 4:4 time
(down halfstep from prev. sample)

J.K. unpleasant pleasant/weird chaotic catchy unpleasant/ unpredictable

J.L. unpredictable pleasant/ catchy chaotic catchy unpleasant/ weird weird

M.S.

unpredictable pleasant weird pretty/catchy unpleasant/ weird

pleasant/ catchy weird/chaotic predictable/ catchy unpleasant/ catchy/weird

Musician responses to chords, scales, and chord progressions:

C.H. maj 3 perfect 5 maj 7 min chord b5 b2 sus2 chord aug5 dom7 min7 pretty other (resolved) pretty depressing chaotic chaotic pretty/soothing chaotic lighthearted pretty/ depressing

B.F.

N.R.

pretty/ resolved pretty/basic/ resolved resolved pretty/delicate depressing chaotic/ dissonant chaotic/ dissonant pretty/mellow/ relaxing chaotic/ dissonant complex/goofy pretty/ depressing perfect/ resolved pretty/longing depressing/ basic chaotic chaotic very pretty/ meditative chaotic pleasant/silly depressing

C.H. 1 ionian 2 dorian 3 phrygian 4 lydian 5 mixo 6 aeolian 7 locrian 8 whole tone 9 mel. min. 10. superloc. major/basic sad/complex sad/complex major/complex major/complex minor/basic/ resolved sad/chaotic/ unsettled chaotic/ unsettled sad/medieval altered, minor, unsettled major

B.F.

N.R. major minor minor major/chaotic major/chaotic minor/basic

minor/complex minor/complex major/complex major/complex minor/basic

unsettled/minor minor/unsettled unsettled altered/ unsettled altered/ unsettled unsettled/ dreamlike unsettled/ altered unsettled/ chaotic/minor

C.H. II/IV 4:4 time II/III 4:4 time II/V 5:4 time slightly unresolved predictable/ resolved unpredictable at rst/pleasant uplifting/ predictable uplifting/ predictable

B.F. slightly unresolved pleasant/ resolved pleasant/5:4

N.R. atypical resolved/ predictable jumpy/ predictable/ pleasant major/ predictable major/ predictable

IV/V 4:4 time IV/V 4:4 time

(down halfstep from prev. sample)

predictable/ major same, down a halfstep

Easterner responses to music clips: Section 1 Clip 1 - Bach 2 - Bad Plus 3 - Stravinsky N.S. sad/rushed sad/pretty ugly/chaotic/ fast pretty/weird M.P. 2 pretty/mostly uninteresting sad/slow ugly/ugly but enjoyable. predictable/ weird A.H. pretty/ depressing sad/pretty/slow frenetic D.G. pretty/sad pretty/sad/ lonely pretty/fast/ intense//movie soundtrack? pleasant/weird/ funny

4 - Ween Section 2 Clip 1 - Shakti

pleasant/ predictable

pretty/chaotic

pretty/ unpredictable pretty/ unpredictable intense/fast

unpredictable/ pleasant/ cheerful unpredictable/ trippy powerful

unpredictable/ fast unpredictable/ fast unpredictable/ fast atonal

2 - Shankar 3 - Yamato

pretty/chaotic unpredictable/ bombastic, powerful chaotic/ mesmerizing

4 - Pygmies

hard to listen to weird/atonal at times, pretty at other times

Westerner responses to music clips: Section 1 Clip 1 - Bach 2 - Bad Plus 3 - Stravinsky 4 - Ween Section 2 Clip 1 - Shakti 2 - Shankar 3 - Yamato beautiful/ unpredictable unrecognizable scale/intriguing complex time signatures/ impecable timing not sure of time signature or key not sure of time signature or key complex/tight/ intense fast/magical peaceful/meditative intense/intimidating M.P. minor/complex/ predictable melancholy interesting/pretty predictable/goofy/ fun N.M. minor/standard sad/beautiful bombastic/chaotic/ beautiful predictable/silly/ great M.S. predictable cathartic/pretty/ heartwrenching pretty/exciting/ unpredictable/harsh predictable/ cheerful/brown

4 - Pygmies

interesting strange harmonies/ harmonies/atonal at beautiful/interesting points

atypical harmonies/ beautiful

On the next page are the experiment forms that I asked the test subjects to fill out:

A.) Chords Immediately after hearing each sample (1-10), circle one (or more) of the following adjectives that best describes your emotional reaction to the sound you hear. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Pretty Ugly Depressing Uplifting Confusing/Chaotic

other: ________________________________ Pretty Ugly Depressing Uplifting Confusing/Chaotic

other: ________________________________ Pretty Ugly Depressing Uplifting Confusing/Chaotic

other: ________________________________ Pretty Ugly Depressing Uplifting Confusing/Chaotic

other: ________________________________ Pretty Ugly Depressing Uplifting Confusing/Chaotic

other: ________________________________ Pretty Ugly Depressing Uplifting Confusing/Chaotic

other: ________________________________ Pretty Ugly Depressing Uplifting Confusing/Chaotic

other: ________________________________ Pretty Ugly Depressing Uplifting Confusing/Chaotic

other: ________________________________ Pretty Ugly Depressing Uplifting Confusing/Chaotic

other: ________________________________ Pretty Ugly Depressing Uplifting Confusing/Chaotic

other: ________________________________

B. (Scales) Immediately after hearing each sample, indicate the emotional response that most accurately represents your experience: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Pleasant Unpleasant Resolved Unsettled

other: ___________________________________________ Pleasant Unpleasant Resolved Unsettled

other: ___________________________________________ Pleasant Unpleasant Resolved Unsettled

other: ___________________________________________ Pleasant Unpleasant Resolved Unsettled

other: ___________________________________________ Pleasant Unpleasant Resolved Unsettled

other: ___________________________________________ Pleasant Unpleasant Resolved Unsettled

other: ___________________________________________ Pleasant Unpleasant Resolved Unsettled

other: ___________________________________________ Pleasant Unpleasant Resolved Unsettled

other: ___________________________________________ Pleasant Unpleasant Resolved Unsettled

other: ___________________________________________ Pleasant Unpleasant Resolved Unsettled

other: ___________________________________________

C.) Chord Progressions After listening to the chord progression, circle the most accurate description of how it sounds to you. 1. pleasant/pretty unpleasant/ugly predictable unpredictable/chaotic catchy

other: ____________________________ notes: ________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ 2. pleasant/pretty unpleasant/ugly predictable unpredictable/chaotic catchy

other: ____________________________ notes: ________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ 3. pleasant/pretty unpleasant/ugly predictable unpredictable/chaotic catchy

other: ____________________________ notes: ________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ 4. pleasant/pretty unpleasant/ugly predictable unpredictable/chaotic catchy

other: ____________________________ notes: ________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ 5. pleasant/pretty unpleasant/ugly predictable unpredictable/chaotic catchy

other: ____________________________ notes: ________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________

A.) Music Set: 1 After listening to each clip of music, circle the most accurate description of how it sounds to you.
1. pleasant/pretty unpleasant/ugly predictable unpredictable/chaotic weird catchy

other: _______________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________ 2. pleasant/pretty unpleasant/ugly predictable unpredictable/chaotic weird catchy

other: _______________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________ 3. pleasant/pretty unpleasant/ugly predictable unpredictable/chaotic weird catchy

other: _______________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________ 4. pleasant/pretty unpleasant/ugly predictable unpredictable/chaotic weird catchy

other: _______________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

Conclusions

The musicians were easily able to identify certain intervals, scales, and patterns. This made their answers more consistent with themselves, and each other for two reasons. First, they were able to match certain musical aspects with experiences they have had or lessons they have learned. For example, many music students learn about these test items early in their education. They might originally learn or discover the formal, academic descriptions of specific musical features, and forever make associations between the sounds of the chords and scales, and the way they are intended to be used. The three musician test subjects are very proficient musicians, and have the ability to easily recognize the name and sounds of chords upon hearing them. This allows them to make the association between the name of the chord and the name of the emotion that is traditionally associated with it (for example, minor always means sad in our Western musical culture). The second reason is because they have spent years playing music, listening to music, and working on ear training. This allows them to not only correctly identify each interval they hear, but helps them to consistently identify the emotion that the sound influences. The non musicians responses seemed less consistent with their own answers, and with the rest of their group (and with the musicians group). Even though some of the non-musicians might have been exposed to many of the chords in the test (subconsciously, or actively), they demonstrated that they make fewer consistent associations between sounds and emotions than the musicians group. This is likely due to one, or more of the following three reasons:

Reason 1: They havent had training that enforces formalized connections between musical elements and emotions Reason 2: They havent spent much time actively listening to music (especially certain songs more than once). Usually, the more a listener hears a song, the more they become attuned to the general mood and atmosphere of the piece of music. Once they begin to become aware of this mood/atmosphere, they can start making connections between the mood and the actual mechanics of the music. Reason 3: Their brains are playing tricks on them. For example: major 7 chord, has an inversion of a minor 2 interval embedded in it. It is a dissonant interval, which might make a non-musician test subject treat it as an unpleasant, chaotic chord. A trained musician, on the other hand, might recognize the chord as a major 7, and know for a fact that it is a major, pleasant-sounding chord, regardless of how it sounds. These findings, to some extent, suggest that the non-musicians sometimes display a more uninhibited, honest reaction to a musical stimulus. While a music student might automatically associate a learned emotion with a chord they recognize, a non-musician with no previous knowledge of music, might simply report that a chord is ugly because it sounds ugly to them. They most likely have a shorter thought process for assigning an emotion to an audio stimulus because all they have to consider is the immediate way the sound makes them feel. There is little or no prior knowledge to influence or complicate their decision. My second test, which examined the role a cultural background plays in the perception of music from ones own culture and other cultures yielded complex, and somewhat inconclusive and inconsistent results. Although the charts in the discussion section above show the 2 sets of

clips divided clearly into East and West, they were presented to the test subjects in a random order. The test group of Western music listeners all share a similar musical background; They are all familiar with Western music and have been active listners for years. They consider music to be an important part of their lives, and each are able to easily associate emotional reactions to music. They differ, however in how actively they listen, play, and analyze music. The first Western test subject is a non-profession, casual multi-instrumentalist, the second was a classical voice minor/guitarist/singersongwriter, and the third is an avid listener of every genre of music. Subject 1 has the most technical knowledge of the mechanics of music and music theory. Subject 2 is fairly experienced in performance and songwriting, and has a relatively advanced knowledge of music theory. Subject 3, has no playing experience, not theory knowledge, but actively listens to an extremely large variety of music. All three showed similar reactions to the Western selection of music clips. While Subjects 1 and 2 attempted to apply Western theoretical terms to the Eastern music, Subject 3, consistently explained his reactions to the musical stimuli with more creative and emotional terms, and less technical terms. Most likely, due to Subject 3s lack of technical musical and instrumental expertise (Subject 3 only has listening experience),he was able to use more universal emotional terms, and relate more closely to the Eastern music, even though he is an American, like Subjects 1 and 2. This helps to demonstrate that music cognition might be a genetic attribute which can be corrupted by cultural practices (for example: formal music educations which teach you to hear something and analyze it a certain way).

The four test subjects who have been primed by music of the Eastern hemispheres cultures have different opinions and outlooks on music than the group of Western subjects. Also, each of the Eastern subjects have been in the US for different amounts of time. This will help in my study to identify more clearly how much being born and raised in a certain culture affects music perception, compared to being currently surrounded by it. (For example: how different are the perceptions of someone who spent their whole life in one country before moving here 2 months ago and someone who spent their first 7 years in a country before moving here 15 years ago.) The results of the Eastern listeners was the most inconclusive part of the test. Their answers were not as distinct from the Western listeners group as I had hypothesized. I did, however, find that their responses to both the Western music clips contained mostly simple terms about the mechanics of the pieces (I observed several mentions of the terms loud, fast, chaotic). There were also several expressions of basic emotions (pretty, sad). There were more other responses to the music from their own culture, suggesting that they might have had an easier time creatively and abstractly connecting to the music, since it is slightly more familiar to them either subconsciously or consciously. Though the evidence was relatively vague and insubstantial in this last set of the test, the evidence still points more in the direction of my hypothesis. The data also aligned appropriately with the amount of time the Eastern test subject has lived in their original country. For example: Subject 4, who moved from Cambodia to the US at age 7 showed significantly more other responses that express more complicated emotional reactions to the set of Western music. This is likely because he has spent significantly more

time in this cultural environment that the other Eastern test subjects. Also, as I hypothesized, his reactions to the Western music set were still generally less specific, and were described with fewer creative terms. The data becomes inconclusive again when considering the Eastern groups responses to the Eastern music selection. While my hypothesis outlines the correlation between ones cultural background and the way they interpret music, the answers in this section are undoubtedly less specific (and less consistent with each other and themselves) than the Westerners responses were to their own cultures music. Perhaps this can be explained by the fact that while all of the Western test subjects are American, the Eastern subjects are of different nationalities. I took this into consideration while reviewing their responses, but to supplement this experiment in the future, I would probably use groups of the same nationality/ location. I would also play music from their specific country/region, as well as other Eastern music and compare the results. Further steps that I will take will be to put these audio samples and test forms online. This will allow me to crowd source data using social media like Facebook, Twitter, and tumblr. This study is significant because it, and studies like it, help to identify the "music gene". I hope to find out whether the actual music influences emotions and feelings on a blank, open mind, or if the culture that the mind exists in primes the mind to feel certain ways from music and sounds.