Trehub beings by arguing against Pinker’s idea that music in much less important from an evolutationary point-of-view than language. (Toward the end of the chapter she goes into greater detail regarding the biological significance of the findings presented in this paper, making good arguments for the evolutationary development of biological musical abilities). She then describes research with infants, mostly using a conditioning procedure where the child hears something on a speaker, repeatedly, and then looks (or fails to do so) at the speaker when something changes in the music. She cites research using this technique and others that infants recognize tranposed melodies, retain the ability to recognize a melody when the tempo is altered upon repetition, and are especially sensitive to recognition of melodic contour. Apparently contour is a feature of music where little difference is made by musical training (unlike interval processing), and Trehub makes the case that contour of melody may be especially important due to importance of such recognition while a mother is singing or speaking (in the typical style in which a mother speaks to a young child – generally higher pitch and also greater pitch variation).
She makes a good case that “…infants, children and adults detect interval changes more easily in the contxt of smaller-interger rations – the octave (2:1), perfect fifth (3:2), and perfecct fourth (4:3) – than in the context of large-integer ratios such as the tritone (45:32)” (p. 6). This suggests the importance of these intervals in Western music (and music of other cultures) may have a biological basis.
Trehub discusses scale structures, noting that “… scales with unequal steps… enhanced infant performance…” (p. 7) and that adults also have an easier time recognizing poorly tuned tones in scales that have unequal steps – a potential explanation of why the music of most cultures employs such scaler structure.
Trehub then discusses maternal music. Emphasizing the importance of a mother’s singing to her child, she explains the many effects of such singing on both infant and mother – in terms of bonding, arousal/attention levels, infant cortisol levels, to cite but a few. Music in this context, she argues, is a medium for mood self-regulation of both mother and child, a medium that is then used by adolescents and adults as they progress to other types of music used for mood self-regulation
In the conclusion, Trehub summarizes some of her findings nicely: “It is clear that infants do not begin life with a blank musical state. Instead, they are predisposed to attend to the melodic contour and rhythmic patterning of sound sequences, whether music or speech. They are tuend to consonant patters, melodic as well as harmonic, and to metric rhythms. Surely these predispositions are consistent with a biological basis for music…” (p. 14)
Personally, I found the article very clear, well-written and convincing. I had never encountered so much information about infant’s musicial abilities, as well as mother’s singing research. This was a nice dove-tail with the Huron article questioning whether or not music is an evolutionary adapation.
I found Pinker’s arguments uninformed, insulting, and downright ignorant. It is hard to read statements like ‘as far as biological cause and effect are concerned, music is useless’ (3) and ‘music could vanish from our species and the rest of our lifestyle would be virtually unchanged’, and not feel deeply offended. An adult’s inability to sing in tune does not render them unmusical! This is a perfect, albeit extreme example of what Cross talks about in ‘Music, Science, and Culture’ where science and musicology take very separate standpoints. Pinker, an experimental psychologist, takes a purely scientific standpoint without considering the role of music in heritage and culture. Contrastingly, Trehub supports the role of music in growth and development of an infant because of the correlation between music and mood. A happy baby will sleep, eat, and learn more efficiently.
ReplyDeleteI found the discussion on pitch contour quite interesting although I feel I must challenge the statement that ‘adult listeners, contour processing seems to be fundamental and relatively impervious to musical experience’. It has been my experience, although I do not have sound research to corroborate my argument, that trained musicians are able to distinguish pitch contours in terms of accents far more acutely than non-trained musicians. Again, this is simply my observed opinion.
Reading the concluding sentence, ‘infants begin life as musical beings’ (14), has enlightened my thought process on early musical development.