# Repetition: the best thing that has ever happened to music



## Philip (Mar 22, 2011)

Daft punk - around the world





Nyan cat





UNDERSTANDING MUSICAL ACTIVITIES: Readings in A.I. and Music The AAAI Press, Menlo Park, CA, 1991 Mira Balaban, Kemal Ebcioglu, Otto Laske, Eds.

FOREWORD
Interview edited by Otto Laske. A Conversation with Marvin Minsky [...]

The Need For a Variety of Methods [...]

_OL: You were saying that in listening to music, a lot of things are happening, and we have to understand the interrelationship between the different structures and rocesses that are involved in those reactions and understandings._
MM: Yes, and we can still only guess what some of them are. Certainly, our musical apprehensions involve quite a few partially separable processes involved with, rhythm, melody, harmony, timbre, texture, and many other local phenomena -- and each of these appear to involve multiprocessing aspects of their own, such as timbral and contrapuntal voice separation. Sometimes it seems that one can sense some of the distinctness of those processes , as when it seems that one part of the mind is annoyed at the monotonously repetitive rhythmic structure of a certain composition -- while other parts of the mind don't mind this at all -- perhaps because they treat those repeating structures as structures not deserving attention themselves but serving as skeletons or scaffoldings, like a branching Christmas tree on which you hang the decorations. In this view, the significant features are the higher level differences between musical portions or segments that are otherwise extremely similar or analogous. It is those higher-level recognitions that let us treat the repetitive spects of the music not as an irritating monotony but merely as a textural background.

_OL: Well, in all media of communication we have a lot of redundancy, to get across those few gems._
MM: Precisely. But still, perhaps among all the arts, music is distinguished by this sublimely vulgar excess of redundancy, and we should try to understand its possible neurological consequences. I think Lukas Foss once remarked that anything repeated often enough can become interesting. Perhaps this phenomenon can be seen not as a paradox but as evidence that supports the idea of multiple processing levels. The function of the repetition is then to anesthetize the lower levels of cognitive machinery. (We know that this is the usual rule in neurology: decay of response to constant or repetitive signals.) But the result of this could be to suddenly and strangely free the higher levels of the brain from their mundane bondage to reality -- to then be free. to create new things. [...]

http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/papers/Laske.Interview.Music.txt


----------



## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Is this talking specifically about commercial music? Because I wouldn't charge classical music with repetition that demonstrates a "vulgar excess of redundancy".


----------



## Philip (Mar 22, 2011)

Polednice said:


> Is this talking specifically about commercial music? Because I wouldn't charge classical music with repetition that demonstrates a "vulgar excess of redundancy".


Minsky is a computer scientist in the field of artificial intelligence, so his use of the term "redundancy" may not only refer to repetition in general, but also to repetition that occurs at the information (or data) level, for example the way measures and rhythm repeat in time in a score.

Yes, the examples i've given are hyperbolic. But i think that demonstrates how there's been a trend towards repetition in music, whether it be contemporary classical (minimalism) or popular music (verse/chorus form). I believe it is not a coincidence if the most popular genres of music today are highly repetitive. Form is extremely important in music, and repetition plays a big part in it, perhaps for the cognitive reasons Mr. Minsky addresses.


----------



## Philip (Mar 22, 2011)

Polednice said:


> Is this talking specifically about commercial music? Because I wouldn't charge classical music with repetition that demonstrates a "vulgar excess of redundancy".


...but you could probably label all of the most famous classical pieces in popular culture as repetitive, the Canon in D, Moonlight, No. 5, Hallelujah Chorus, etc. and if they're so popular, it's not because they've been pushed down our throats, commercially, but rather because of their natural appeal... i'd say


----------



## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Philip said:


> ...but you could probably label all of the most famous classical pieces in popular culture as repetitive, the Canon in D, Moonlight, No. 5, Hallelujah Chorus, etc. and if they're so popular, it's not because they've been pushed down our throats, commercially, but rather because of their natural appeal... i'd say


I think there's definitely something in that. I don't quite get if this repetition is supposed to be a 'bad' thing though? Perhaps vulgar and excess are just being used in a jargony way?


----------



## science (Oct 14, 2010)

It seems like Minsky feels he's got an interesting hypothesis about the effect of repetition on our minds rather than a discovery to announce. 

I'd be surprised if he isn't on to something with at least a little validity: the fact that we are intuitively familiar with the musical conventions of our culture, so that we can take them for granted as we listen, could "free" our minds to focus on other aspects of the music. 

But I'd also be surprised if we're going to get any profound scientific insight from that line of enquiry. The question I feel more likely to be productive of understanding is, why did we evolve the neural structures that enable us to understand music? And, why do we enjoy music so much?


----------



## LordBlackudder (Nov 13, 2010)

Music seems to be a way of showing emotion and speaking to people. I think just like a book the mind enjoys this learning and playfulness.

Just as a song can be dark or offensive it can also be cheerful and bliss. So it makes sense that you would enjoy that over and over.

Perhaps it was unfashionable at the time to repeat a lot. Maybe they all had the same teachings.

I don't know if it's the best thing that happened. That would mean it never existed before. I'm pretty sure the most ancient music has some repetition.


----------



## Philip (Mar 22, 2011)

science said:


> It seems like Minsky feels he's got an interesting hypothesis about the effect of repetition on our minds rather than a discovery to announce.
> 
> I'd be surprised if he isn't on to something with at least a little validity: the fact that we are intuitively familiar with the musical conventions of our culture, so that we can take them for granted as we listen, could "free" our minds to focus on other aspects of the music.
> 
> But I'd also be surprised if we're going to get any profound scientific insight from that line of enquiry. The question I feel more likely to be productive of understanding is, why did we evolve the neural structures that enable us to understand music? And, why do we enjoy music so much?


I know that the way i proposed the idea, it might seem as though i would think that Minsky thinks he's onto something here... but in reality this is just a snippet of a casual interview, much longer than the citation itself, which in turn is only the prologue of a computer science book that has nothing to do with the cognitive concepts of repetition.

Therefore his view mustn't be taken as a hypothesis or theory that should have any scientific bearing whatsoever -- It's just brainstorming, if you will. It is simply my own view that i try to support in this discussion.

I _personally_ thought that repetition was insanely beautiful, and omnipresent in music, and that classical music enthusiasts shouldn't be so quick to disregard its power (ie. by saying that pop is repetitive and thus it has little substance), especially when it is currently at the center of the music scene; hence that little quote about cognitive science an AI, awakening my feeling on the matter.


----------



## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Philip said:


> I _personally_ thought that repetition was insanely beautiful, and omnipresent in music, and that classical music enthusiasts shouldn't be so quick to disregard its power (ie. by saying that pop is repetitive and thus it has little substance), especially when it is currently at the center of the music scene; hence that little quote about cognitive science an AI, awakening my feeling on the matter.


Well, I think we can agree that repetition to some extent has always been present in what we can loosely term 'classical music' right? So it is just a matter of_ how _repetitive the music is? Or _how the repetition itself is used_? For example if I just repeated a D note again and again at equal intervals of time for several minutes do you think that would be an effective piece of music? I'm guessing no. I would also like to point out that too much repetition can make music lack excitement, and decrease the long-term enjoyment of a piece. So I would argue in a sense over dependency on repetition can often make music more disposable. Though in many cases it can make music more quickly _accessible_. I would suggest proper use of repetition can make a piece of music more effective, but this process is dependent on many factors and clearly it is not simply a matter of adding more repetition to the music. Otherwise secretly all of our favorite composers would be the minimalists and the majority of posters here would just be stroking their egos and lying to themselves to suggest otherwise?

Do you think the modern pop music that is currently in your words 'the center of the music scene' is the best thing that has ever happened to music?


----------



## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Verse - Chorus - Verse - Chorus - KEY CHANGE! - CHORUS!

Wash. Rinse. Repeat a thousand times.


----------



## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Polednice said:


> Verse - Chorus - Verse - Chorus - KEY CHANGE! - CHORUS!
> 
> Wash. Rinse. Repeat a thousand times.


OMG guys, that key change gets me every time!


----------



## Philip (Mar 22, 2011)

tdc said:


> Do you think the modern pop music that is currently in your words 'the center of the music scene' is the best thing that has ever happened to music?


The best thing that's ever happened to music was the existence of J.S. Bach.

I think there's probably more garbage commercial music than ever before available to us. What i'm saying is, like the most famous classical pieces, the most popular genres of music today are highly repetitive, and perhaps this has always been the case.

However, even if most music is a ripoff, it's still a ripoff of something that works. Believe it or not, there are some genuine artists out there, such as Daft punk, which have pioneered the type of music that is popular today -- 20 years ago.



Polednice said:


> Verse - Chorus - Verse - Chorus - KEY CHANGE! - CHORUS!
> 
> Wash. Rinse. Repeat a thousand times.


Isn't it fascinating that after centuries of development, music, more particularly songs, have come down to this?

Although, let's not forget that the main reason for music, in a song, is the accompaniment of a text.


----------



## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Do you believe though that songs are the culmination of all things musical? This is a vague and perhaps not well thought out thought, but I think its just the efficiency of the song that suits our culture. 

I think Phillip Glass utilizes too much repetition. I don't find his music beautiful, but bland. A short while ago, Xaltotun made a most mind blowing point in Sid James's thread about Sublime and Mundane in music. The sublime he equated to easily decipherable pattern and the mundane to chaos or noise that can't be separated from mundane sounds. Certain music finds an elegant or interesting balance between the two that is satisfying and interesting to hear.


----------



## Rasa (Apr 23, 2009)

violadude said:


> OMG guys, that key change gets me every time!


It's so emotional and uplifiting!



> Isn't it fascinating that after centuries of development, music, more particularly songs, have come down to this?
> 
> Although, let's not forget that the main reason for music, in a song, is the accompaniment of a text.


This statement seem inaccurate. Popular, simple and/or vulgar music has always existed and probably in greater quantity then the few top pieces of art music that have filtered through the ages.


----------



## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

^You have some good points Philip, while I can agree with you that not all overly repetitive music is garbage, and there perhaps is something very powerful about repetition itself in music (perhaps producing a type of hypnotic effect?). The title of your thread is quite controversial and to me the equivalent of making a statement like: _Sugar: the best thing that ever happened to food_. One could make a strong argument that the addition of refined sugar to food has created some of the most delicious tasting pieces of food. Another may point out with equal validity that the addition of sugar is a terrible thing to add to food - it is addictive and depletes the nutritional value of the food - so who is right? However most natural foods already contain sugar in its natural balanced state, its when large amounts of refined sugar are added to the food, the food becomes more like a drug than a piece of nutritional sustenance - still it may seem heavenly in small doses. Like repetition in music sugar in food is something that may work well sometimes and may even be precisely what the food needs in other cases but making a statement like its the best thing that happened to food, is probably too much of a blanket statement to be accurate because people make different types of music and food to accomplish different things. It depends what a chef/artist is trying to accomplish with that food/music.


----------



## Philip (Mar 22, 2011)

clavichorder said:


> Do you believe though that songs are the culmination of all things musical? This is a vague and perhaps not well thought out thought, but I think its just the efficiency of the song that suits our culture.


No. That's not what i said. There are songs, and there's the western music culture. Western music has had it's own development. Again, the observation i'm making is: the most widespread application for music today, is the song; the repetitive kind.



Rasa said:


> This statement seem inaccurate. Popular, simple and/or vulgar music has always existed and probably in greater quantity then the few top pieces of art music that have filtered through the ages.


I fail to see the inaccuracy. I could reformulate it for you in tautology form:

_Isn't it fascinating that after centuries of development, music, more particularly songs, have come down to this?_ Reformulation: The song has evolved into what it is today.

_Although, let's not forget that the main reason for music, in a song, is the accompaniment of a text._ Reformulation: A song consists of lyrics and music.

tdc, you're being too reasonable.


----------



## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Philip said:


> Isn't it fascinating that after centuries of development, music, more particularly songs, have come down to this?


It's fascinating, but I don't find it surprising. Although in the classical music community we are accustomed to respecting composers and works who 'develop' the form and push it in new directions, I don't think that this is an essential attribute of music. Science develops, art is just the creative reworking of things already said and done.

Besides, I don't think for a second that people who listen to commercial music think (or even want to think) that they are engaging in art. It's just like taking prozac - music is a sonic drug, good for your mood, and who would change the formula of prozac once they know it works?


----------



## Philip (Mar 22, 2011)

Polednice said:


> It's fascinating, but I don't find it surprising. Although in the classical music community we are accustomed to respecting composers and works who 'develop' the form and push it in new directions, I don't think that this is an essential attribute of music. Science develops, art is just the creative reworking of things already said and done.
> 
> Besides, I don't think for a second that people who listen to commercial music think (or even want to think) that they are engaging in art. It's just like taking prozac - music is a sonic drug, good for your mood, and who would change the formula of prozac once they know it works?


That's true, but let me play the devil's advocate: consider an experiment where we observe the audience of a classical recital vs the crowd at a rock concert, which one of them is more "engaged"...? obviously this is difficult to quantify... i would say that they're engaged on different levels. although it's easy to imagine an audience bored out of their minds at a classical recital vs the audience of a rock concert completely transcending into another dimension; while the opposite may also be true, the recital audience moved to tears by the performance vs a rock audience picking their noses thinking how they're gonna get hammered later that night.

So i don't think it's fair to say that one audience is more engaged than the other. In fact, some people would say that classical is good for elevators and background music.


----------



## Chrythes (Oct 13, 2011)

I agree with Poleidnice, it isn't surprising. I used to think that people appreciated better music in the past, when in fact people realised that profit can be easily made by feeding the fools, whether it's art or politics - many things come to satisfying the primitive needs of the grey mass. 
The 18th century's French elite were people of curiosity, science and passion - some in their spare time were writing Encyclopedias. It has changed - the intelligentsia are not the elite any more. 
Fools were always adored by other fools, the only difference is that they seem to have , well, I dare to say more power, but rather more publicity. This is why we might think that we are living in a degraded generation, when in fact it's the other way around. We just notice the shallowness brought to us by the media - as it's natural to supply material for the mass in every possible way.


----------



## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Philip said:


> That's true, but let me play the devil's advocate: consider an experiment where we observe the audience of a classical recital vs the crowd at a rock concert, which one of them is more "engaged"...? obviously this is difficult to quantify... i would say that they're engaged on different levels. although it's easy to imagine an audience bored out of their minds at a classical recital vs the audience of a rock concert completely transcending into another dimension; while the opposite may also be true, the recital audience moved to tears by the performance vs a rock audience picking their noses thinking how they're gonna get hammered later that night.
> 
> So i don't think it's fair to say that one audience is more engaged than the other. In fact, some people would say that classical is good for elevators and background music.


I didn't mean to suggest that one group is more engaged than the other - I don't think that's a reasonable comparison to make. What I meant to point out was that listeners of commercial music don't feel they are engaging _in art_. In other words, they don't listen to Beyonce because they think the music is aesthetically inspiring or because it is transcendent. They listen to it for the unquantifiable, basic mental pleasure, just like when you eat cake or have sex.

In those terms, you could argue that listening to classical music is a more cerebral activity, so it's a different kind of engagement, but I would say it's more quantitatively.


----------



## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Polednice said:


> I didn't mean to suggest that one group is more engaged than the other - I don't think that's a reasonable comparison to make. What I meant to point out was that listeners of commercial music don't feel they are engaging _in art_. In other words, they don't listen to Beyonce because they think the music is aesthetically inspiring or because it is transcendent. They listen to it for the unquantifiable, basic mental pleasure, just like when you eat cake or have sex.
> 
> In those terms, you could argue that listening to classical music is a more cerebral activity, so it's a different kind of engagement, but I would say it's more quantitatively.


I think if you ask Couchie, he'll say that listening to Tristan Und Isolde is better than having sex lol


----------



## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Here's an interesting statement that you can try to put to the test: works with less repetition require more repetition from the listener. 

I think its not necessarily true, but could be true if more refined.


----------



## Philip (Mar 22, 2011)

Polednice said:


> What I meant to point out was that listeners of commercial music don't feel they are engaging _in art_. In other words, they don't listen to Beyonce because they think the music is aesthetically inspiring or because it is transcendent. They listen to it for the unquantifiable, basic mental pleasure, just like when you eat cake or have sex.


I beg to differ... i'm fairly certain that Beyonce fans consider her music as art, and people in general seem to agree that music is art. but i guess it comes down to your definition of art.

I knew i would get a lot of opposition for this. because we the classical music loving folks take pride in the depth of the music we enjoy. nonetheless most people would agree, or could be persuaded to agree, that the classical tradition has produced music on an entirely different level when compared to pop.

You could conceive an analogy where the classical tradition consists in the foundation for the music of today, much like the theoretical foundations of science are used everyday in applied sciences. as banal as some products of engineering may be, that doesn't take away from the depth of the theory, whether you understand it or not. So the basic concepts of the scale, tonality, rhythm, harmony, etc. are applied in the music of today, proficiently or not. Avant-garde is currently the Research and development of music.


----------



## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Philip said:


> You could conceive an analogy where the classical tradition consists in the foundation for the music of today, much like the theoretical foundations of science are used everyday in applied sciences. as banal as some products of engineering may be, that doesn't take away from the depth of the theory, whether you understand it or not. So the basic concepts of the scale, tonality, rhythm, harmony, etc. are applied in the music of today, proficiently or not. Avant-garde is currently the Research and development of music.


The big, *BIG* difference of course is that the theoretical foundations of the sciences are unchanging natural laws that no being can defy. All of our concepts of scale, tonality, rhythm and harmony are merely manifestations of Western tradition - music doesn't have to take its current form by necessity. I can quite easily imagine a world where successful commercial music sounds significantly different because of different classical traditions. I think that undermines the supposed foundation that classical music has because the parasite of commercial music will build on anything!


----------



## Philip (Mar 22, 2011)

Polednice said:


> The big, *BIG* difference of course is that the theoretical foundations of the sciences are unchanging natural laws that no being can defy. [...] I can quite easily imagine a world where successful commercial music sounds significantly different because of different classical traditions.


Epistemologically, this is not true. nothing can be proven, only corroborated... therefore scientific "laws" are only descriptions of reality in the framework of human perception, and cannot be considered _absolute_. a indication of this is the fact that theories are consistently falsified or generalized.

Moreover, i could easily imagine a world where the scientific knowledge is significantly different, perhaps not based on the mathematical system that we know and take for granted. you can illustrate this possibility by considering a life-form that has doesn't have ten fingers, there would be no decimal system, for one; or consider another life-form which wouldn't have fingers or hands at all, their knowledge could take on a whole different structure. so as far as we know, we don't really know anything... says the philosopher.


----------



## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

You can be epistemologically pedantic with me, but you know that the common-sense point I was making is not invalidated.


----------



## Philip (Mar 22, 2011)

Polednice said:


> You can be epistemologically pedantic with me, but you know that the common-sense point I was making is not invalidated.


I'm not so sure about that... actually, i think it completely demolishes your last remark, while reinforcing the analogy! :lol:


----------



## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I suppose the issue is whether base-7 (or whatever) is so much different from base-10 that we would consider it analogous to different traditions of music.


----------



## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

science said:


> I suppose the issue is whether base-7 (or whatever) is so much different from base-10 that we would consider it analogous to different traditions of music.


I don't think that's the issue, because the endeavours are totally different. Base-7 or Base-10, they're just tools to describe the laws of nature, which are unchanging regardless of the appearance of our descriptions. Music traditions, however, may have some vague fundamentals based in neuroscience, but all the specifics of harmony and tonal systems etc. are arbitrary.


----------

