Tiger C. Roholt

Philosophy of Music Talks at Montclair State U

I'll be chairing a Philosophy of Art session at the New Jersey Regional Philosophical Association Conference, which is held this year at Montclair State University (MSU is 20-30 minutes from Manhattan). The conference will take place on Saturday, Nov. 14,  9AM-5:30PM (registration at 9, sessions begin at 10,  Phil of Art session at 2:40PM).  The location of the phil of art session is University Hall, Room 2007, 2nd Floor.  

Papers:
“The Mind’s Ear: Musical Imagination and Musical Imagery”
Margaret Moore
(Ph.D. Candidate, Temple University)

“Authority and Musical Interpretation"
Jonathan Neufeld
(Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Vanderbilt University)

“On What Art Is,”
Rick Kamber 
(TCNJ)

Conference Details and mass transit instructions from NYC after the fold. 

Body Movement and Rhythm Perception (Groove)

My dissertation—Groove: The Phenomenology of Musical Nuance (2007)—has to do largely with rhythm perception. One of the claims I made is that body movement is not merely a reaction to hearing rhythms but that moving our bodies influences the way we hear rhythms; body movement is a part of the perceptual structure.  Tapping your foot, e.g., affects the way you hear a given swing rhythm. (To musicians and phenomenologists, this is not an outlandish claim, but many analytic philosophers do not accept it.) 

Interestingly, recent work by psychologists Jessica Phillips-Silver and Laurel J. Trainor provides experimental evidence that body movement influences rhythm perception. In their paper, "Hearing What the Body Feels: Auditory Encoding of Rhythmic Movement," they describe recent experimental findings to the effect that body movement affects subjects' perception of ambiguous rhythms.  

This is their summary of the experiment. "We trained adults, while listening to an ambiguous rhythm with no accented beats, to bounce by bending their knees to interpret the rhythm either as a march or as a waltz. At test, adults identified as similar an auditory version of the rhythm pattern with accented strong beats that matched their previous bouncing experience in comparison with a version whose accents did not match" (Phillips-Silver and Trainor, p. 533; Cognition, 105, 2007). [thanks, Bill]

Whereas Phillips-Silver and Trainor are concerned with the effect of earlier body movement on later interpretation of rhythmic structure, my specific concern has been more qualitative, with the way we hear fine-grained, performed, rhythmic variations (timing nuances) while we move. Very briefly, I believe that hearing grooves (the feel of a rhythm as  "leaning" or "pushing," e.g.) involves feeling, in the body, early or late notes as thwarted rhythmic expectations. Our experience of expectations of rhythmic regularities becomes deepened through body movement which is in accord with the regularities. When slightly early or late notes disrupt regularities—if we are moving—we experience the thwartings in our bodies, more qualitatively than if we had been perceiving in a detached manner.

The Ripening of Nick Lowe

I've always been a Nick Lowe (and Rockpile) enthusiast, but I'm a bit blown away by the patient minimalism of his recent arrangements and solo performances.  Lowe's songs are so well-written that it is no surprise that they sound good with only guitar accompaniment, but what is a shock (to me) is that this manner of presentation seems to fit many of his songs even better than his old pop and roots, guitar-bass-drums arrangements.  Call it a ripening, because he is more open now (than in his earlier acoustic performances) to leave space, to go very slowly, to rest without vocal flourishes, and to embrace his sparse guitar style.  More than ever, he seems to be as plainly as possible presenting his songs—which is fresh air in this American Idol era of over-singing. 

"All Men Are Liars"  (2008) (written by lowe)

(Click "watch the video")

"I Read a Lot"  (2008) (written by lowe)

"The Beast in Me"  (2008) (written by lowe)

"Heart"  (2007) (written by lowe)

OLDER:

"So It Goes"  (1978: Nick Lowe and Rockpile) (written by lowe)

 

"Three Time Loser"  (1979: Dave Edmunds and Rockpile)

"Cruel to Be Kind"  (2007, originally released in 1980?)

Finally, here is a bad radio interview of Lowe and Elvis Costello in 1978.

The Beatles' Jesus Incident

In the mid-sixties, John Lennon said to a friend (who also happened to be a reporter):  "Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that; I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first-rock 'n' roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me."  Subsequently, all hell broke loose in the U.S.A, where the Beatles were about to embark on their second tour.  There were death threats, radio stations banned Beatle records, and there were Beatle-record burning events.  Below are links to a 25 minute, British, 1966, news report about the controversy and the Beatles' concerts in Memphis. The documentary includes an interview with the Klu Klux Klan Imperial Wizard [!], who calls the Beatles "mop heads," and says that he can't tell whether they're white or black. The documentary ends with an interview backstage with the Beatles in Memphis after their performances—they are c.r.a.n.k.y.

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four

Here is the portion of the Beatles' Anthology—Director's Cut—that deals with this time period (featuring interviews with the three Beatles and George Martin, filmed around the turn of this century).

Anthology, Episode 6, Part 2

1966 Chicago Press Conference (raw footage)

To end this post on a positive note, here are two live performance clips from 1964. When people say that Ringo Starr invented Rock drumming, they have these sorts of performances in mind. Don't miss his playing on the guitar solo of the first track, and notice that his heel is not resting on the kick drum pedal. 

"I Saw Her Standing There"

"Long Tall Sally" 

Windows Music

Here is music created entirely with the sounds of Windows XP and 98. (The sounds we hate most made into something interesting.)