I've always assumed this 'gravitational pull', but it's wonderful top
hear that someone has sort of verified it
KS
On 01/01/2008, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> From a footnote [p.242]in Oliver Sacks's new book, Musicophilia...
>
> 'What makes the music of Sir Edward Elgar sound so distinctively English?'
> they [Iversen, Patel and Ohgushi of the Neurosciences Institute] ask. 'What
> makes the music of Debussy sound so French?'
>
> Patel et al. compared rhythm and melody in British English speech and music
> to that of French speech and music, using the music of a dozen different
> composers. They found, by plotting rhythm and melody together, that 'a
> striking pattern emerges, suggesting that a nation's language exerts a
> "gravitational pull" on the structure of its music.'
>
> The Czech composer Leos Janacek, too, was greatly exercised by the
> resemblances between speech and music, and he spent more than thirty years
> sitting in cafes and other public places, notating the melodies and rhythms
> of people's speech, convinced that these unconsciously mirrored their
> emotional intent and states of mind. He attempted to incorporate these
> speech rhythms into his own music - or, rather, to find 'equivalents' for
> them in the classical music grid of pitches and intervals. Many people,
> whether or not they speak Czech, have felt that there is an uncanny
> correspondence between Janacek's music and the sound patterns of Czech
> speech.
>
> Sacks's bibliography is packed with research journal items, but I note this:
>
> Patel, Aniruddh D. 2008. Music, Language and the Brain. New York: Oxford
> University Press.
>
> In other words, forthcoming...
>
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