Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

To: SeekAndFind

What is characteristic of and for all people, at all times, and in in all places, that’s a universal?


8 posted on 07/17/2018 9:36:09 AM PDT by aspasia
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]


To: aspasia
Correct me if I'm wrong, somebody, but I think he'd say, the universals are physical: people having the same basic parameters of hearing acuity, maybe the perception of harmony or dissonance based on frequencies, which is a mathematical ratio and physics thing.

FTA: "[The] overlap of coding between 100-1,000 Hz, is precisely the frequency range over which human hearing is most accurate. This pitch perception dual-mechanism is a good candidate for a universal in human auditory perception, and has many implications for the design of musical instruments. (Dane L. Harwood, "Universals in Music" Ethnomusicology 20, no. 3 (1976), 525.)

Leonard B. Meyer calls such universals "bio-psychological" and argues that they are rooted in acoustic universals:

Acoustical stimuli affect the perception, cognition, and hence practice of music only through the constraining action of bio-psychological ones. (Meyer, "Universals," 6.)

He suggests, for example, that the reason music in every culture is based on similar melodic, harmonic, and scale ... to take an obvious case, the minimum distance in frequency between pitches in a scale depends on human auditory discrimination. As a result, intervals smaller than a half-step almost always serve to inflect structural tones. (Ibid.)"


Check this at the .38 mark. This is a Mongolian throat singer hitting pitches vocally where you or I probably couldn't go. It's still constrained by bio-acoustic limits, but the Mongolians don't just vibrate their vocal folds. They employ other soft tissues in the larynx as well as in the oral cavity. That's why it's called "throat singing."

10 posted on 07/17/2018 12:37:40 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson