Music’s “design features”: Musical motivation, musical pulse, and musical pitch - John C. Bispham

 Music, Communication and Affect

 

Music, like every other way of human communication, exists in and depends upon the culture and its interactions. Outside the industrialized western world –where music is usually regarded as a commodity–, music is part of important active and interactive behaviors. (Bispham, 2009, p. 30). Even though the meaning of music is the result of a specific cultural and social context, we all seem to be able to engage with and/or respond appropriately to some aspects of music outside our own culture (Bispham, 2009, p. 30).

 

This paradox is easier to understand if we accept the notion that musical engagement works at different yet possibly overlapping dimensions: such as biological, social, and cultural dimensions (Bispham, 2009, p. 30).

 

Music is commonly associated with “emotion”. Sensations of “peak experience”, “shivers” or “chills” have all been reported as evidence of strong emotional experiences with music (Bispham, 2009, p. 30)- However, there is still no solid evidence that can prove that musical emotions are in any way different from other forms of emotions (Bispham, 2009, p. 30). Maybe the most common example could be the use of music in society or in psychology as a means of altering or inducing particular moods in individuals or groups (Bispham, 2009, p. 31).

 

Musical Motivation

 

Motivation can be described as “a coordinating influence on the direction and composition of behavior”. This influence can come from a wide variety of sources such as internal, environmental or social (Bispham, 2009, p. 31). There seem to be no generic discussions on motivation in musical studies, let alone an explicit model of motivation for music. This failure to consider the motivational factors in musical engagement has had several implications on the inability to fully understand the motivational forces that sustain engagement.

 

In psychological literature, we can find two main forms of motivation: intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is often described as “a natural inclination, a spontaneous interest that represents a source of enjoyment”. While the term extrinsic motivation usually refers to the performance of an activity in order to reach some kind of outcome or reward (Bispham, 2009, p. 31)

 

Music-making can at times be extrinsically motivated, for example, auditions, seeking fame etc. However, most musical engagements are “playful” and socially exploratory. (Bispham, 2009, p. 31). Negative effects of music are nearly always the result of extrinsic pressures. And even though there are many factors, actions, and interactions in between, musical psychologists like Joel Swaine argue that musical engagement promotes positive effect (Bispham, 2009, p. 31).

 

 

Musical Pulse and Musical Pitch

 

Music and musicality cultural manifestations, rationalizations, and contextualizations are immeasurably variable (Bispham, 2009, p. 32). For example, consider for a moment the attempt to compare Tibetan monotone chanting with Japanese taiko drumming and trying to explain to an alien species why both are considered to be music, whereas a chimpanzee’s pant-hoot call is not considered to be music at all. (Bispham, 2009, p. 32)

 

Features like pulse, rhythm, melody, and harmony are widely considered to be the fundamental and distinct features of music. However, not all of them are always present at the same time. Some music is entirely non-pitch based, and does not necessarily implies melody, harmony, or the use of scales; this happens for example in monotone chanting. Musical pulse and musical pitch, however, seem to provide a framework for a “coordinating strategy”, whether or not one or the other is absent (Bispham, 2009, p. 32).

 

Musical Pulse

 

The feature unique to –and defining of– rhythm in music, both in a psychological and physiological approach is the way temporal actions are built upon a regular pulse, allowing individuals to interact through a process of “entrainment”. But what does this mean? “Entrainment” happens as individuals use the regularities in the signals to predict and direct resources towards the timing of future events “consequently following a musical rhythm” (Bispham, 2009, p. 33).


In human development, it has been claimed that even neonates show a capacity to entrain with the movements and sounds of a caregiver. However, it seems that the ability to entrain specifically with musical material does not fully emerge until after the first year of life (Bispham, 2009, p. 33).

 

The presence of a pulse in non-musical interaction does not depend on entertainment mechanisms similar to those in music. That is why there are, at the very least, features of rhythm in music that can be described as being contextually and mechanically different, and that cannot be explained as “having evolved with relation exclusively to non-musical behaviors” (Bispham, 2009, p. 33).


In contrast to non-musical interactions and similar behaviors in other species, the pulse in music is sustained over time. Engagement with a musical pulse implies the activation of the motor system in an “interactive real-time” temporal framework that can depend on the output of self or others (Bispham, 2009, p. 34).

 

Musical Pitch

 

When it comes to the universals in terms of the organization of pitch in music some ideas have been proposed like stepped scales, the dominance of and preference for certain intervals and tonal hierarchies. However, scales and tonal hierarchies are both culturally constructed and are not always necessary for a pitch-based interaction to be “musical” (Bispham, 2009, p. 34).

 

To try to encapsulate all instances of musical pitch it’s important to start by suggesting that it is built upon an ability to produce and engage with a sustained and stable fundamental frequency (Bispham, 2009, p. 34).

 

This is built on the hypothesis that musical pitch structure worldwide –monotone or florid–is organized in sustained but variable tonal areas. This means that the production of a sustained fundamental frequency as well as more complex forms of musical pitch depends on the ability to produce sound that varies in loudness, pitch, and timbre (Bispham, 2009, p. 34).

 

It seems, at least in terms of vocal production, that this ability is not shared with other primates who show a close relationship in vocalization between pitch and intensity. This ability to sustain a stable pitch appears gradually in human infant development and needs the control of several muscles in vocal production (Bispham, 2009, p. 34). Another crucial feature is breath control, which has been argued to have improved over the course of hominid evolution, both in modern humans and Neanderthals (Bispham, 2009, p. 35).

 

If we were to generalize the principles of musical pitch, we would come to the notion that all engagement with music involves some sort of “inner singing” (Bispham, 2009, p. 35). This is supported by neurological studies and pedagogies, claiming that the human voice is “a natural musical instrument” (Bispham, 2009, p. 35).

 

Similar to musical pulse, an engagement with musical pitch necessarily involves correction mechanisms such as the output of self or others, and a desire to achieve and maintain certain frequencies (Bispham, 2009, p. 35). It seems safe to state that relative pitch processing represents part of an emergent capacity for musicality (Bispham, 2009, p. 35).


Studies have consistently shown that other species naturally encode musical stimuli in terms of absolute pitch or absolute frequency content (Bispham, 2009, p. 35). But correction mechanisms in engagement with musical pitch are still not well understood, more investigations and studies involving continuous vocalization continue to be made (Bispham, 2009, p. 35).

 

On the functionality of music

 

Musical motivation, musical pulse, and musical pitch provide a framework for effective interpersonal interactions. Humans have an innate need for social interactions, and music and its features described tend to be particularly efficient means for facilitating them (Bispham, 2009, p. 35).

 

In contrast to linguistic interaction, musical pulse and musical pitch allow individuals to share more or less common, group effective interactions. Music may be considered to help in achieving socio-affective interactions. This makes particular sense when thinking about the use of music in ceremonial rituals, where the desire to achieve, by means of social engagement, a specific motivational state in large groups of people, seems particularly desirable (Bispham, 2009, p. 36).

 

However, it is important to clarify that it is not clear how this merge of social and affective states in music and ritual could have impacted upon individual or group evolutionary fitness. Studies have been made and it seems fair to assume that music, like all complex capabilities, emerged as a result of a series of evolutionary adaptations, and we can easily argue that it has embodied a multiplicity of functions in society (Bispham, 2009, p. 36).



Reference:

 

Bispham, J. C. (2009). Music’s “design features”: Musical motivation, musical pulse, and musical pitch. Musicae Scientiae, 13(2_suppl), 41–61. https://doi.org/10.1177/1029864909013002041

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