The tonic as home Music theory , social psychology , ecology , culture

1. The tonic as homeMusic theory, socialpsychology, ecology, culture Richard Parncutt European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music 12-16 August 2009, Jyväskylä, Finland SysMus Graz

2. Is music psychology progressing or stagnating?A personal impression 2000- 1980-2000 until 1938 Possible solutions: Risk taking New ideas and methods Multi- and interdisciplinarity New approaches to evaluation (peer review)

3. Some hard old questionsAre we a bit scared of them? • Why do people like music so much? • What is the ultimate origin/function of music? • Why do people like tonal music so much? • Cognitive efficiency? • Reference points in other domains • Optimal complexity (Berlyne) • Symbolism? • Individual orderliness? • Social power structures?

4. Why do people like major-minor tonality? A century after Schönberg?! • Naturalness/familiarity of harmonic series? • Appeal of consonance? Beauty of triads? • fusion, smoothness • Cognitive efficiency of tonal hierarchy? • tonic – triad – scale? • Diverse possibilities within a single system? • Once learned, never unlearned? • Global politics?

5. Why do people like tonality?Aristotle’s Poetics Structure of drama: • audience involvement  emotions e.g. fear • resolution  catharsis Analogy between drama and sonata form? Is resolution of dramatic conflict like return home?

6. Why do people like tonality?Lotman’sdeviation aesthetics • Art/music/literature focuses either on • identity: folk, medieval... • or deviation: romantic, modern... • Tonality does both: first deviate then return • deviation attention, interest • repetition  fulfilment, affirmation  satisfying artistic experience

7. Why do people like tonality?Music as a virtual person • Music: relationships and dramas? • philosophical literature on persona in music • Consonance (harmonic and melodic) • nice people, harmonious relationships? • Tonic triad/pitch • self, parent, friend, family?

8. Positivism and relativism Interesting questions have unclear answers! • sciences: observation, evidence • humanities: intuition, discourse • optimal: synergetic mixture?

9. Rest of talk • “home” and music • psychology of “home” • “home” and the tonic

10. Music about “home” • National anthems • Popular expression of national pride • songs about countries, I still call Australia home • songs about cities, New York New York • School songs

11. “Home” in music • Identity and ritual • modern teenage subcultures • religion, spirituality; gods, spirits • adapting to local social changes • Own versus Other music • national/cultural identity and xenophobia • feeling at home (migration) • Social relationships in song lyrics • love vs loneliness, children • home as safe ground, security

12. Typically musical emotionsZentner, M., Grandjean, D. & Scherer, K. R. (2008). Emotions evoked by the sound of music. Emotion. Tender longing: Affectionate, melancholic, nostalgic, dreamy, sentimental Amazement: Amazed, admiring, fascinated, impressed, goose bumps, thrills Tranquility: Soothed, calm, in peace, meditative, serene Joy: Joyful, happy, radiant, elated, content Activation: Disinhibited, excited, active, agitated, energetic, fiery Power: Heroic, triumphant, proud, strong Sensuality: Sensual, desirous, languorous, aroused (sexually) Transcendence: Ecstatic, spiritual feeling, mystical feeling, illuminated Dysphoria: Anxious, anguished, frightened, angry, irritated, nervous, tense Sadness: Sorrowful, depressed, sad Confirmatory factor analysis: Wonder, transcendence, tenderness, nostalgia, peacefulness, power, joyful activation, tension, sadness

13. “Home” and “love” in pop songs • Predictions: 1. music is often about “tender longing” • highest Cronbach alpha in Zentner et al.  associated words occur in pop song lyrics 2. nostalgia is about being away from home • “home” (like love) is an important theme in pop • Method: • file of 600 songs that I know • search for “home” (cf. Kreutz 2000)

14. “Home” in Beatles lyricsnot all songs searched, not all mentions of “home”, so far only A-I • All my loving: And then while I'm awayI'll write home every dayAnd I'll send all my loving to you • Back in the USSR: Been away so long I hardly knew the place, Gee, it's good to be back home • Get back: Jojo left his home in Tucson, Arizona For some California grass • Golden slumbers: Once there was a way To get back homeward • Hard day’s night: But when I get home to youI find the things that you doWill make me feel all right... When I'm homeeverything seems to be all right... feeling you holding me tight • Honey pie: I'm in love, but I'm lazy, So won't you please home • It won’t be long: Since you left me, I'm so alone, Now you're coming, you're coming on home

15. “Home” in Simon & Garfunkel The Boxer: And I’m laying out my winter clothes, wishing I was gone, goin’ home Cecilia: You’re breaking my heart,You’re shaking my confidence daily.Oh Cecilia, I’m down on my knees,I’m begging you please to come home Keep the customers satisfied: Gee but it’s great to be back home, Home is where I want to be Homeward bound: Home where my thought's escaping,Home where my music's playing,Home where my love lies waitingSilently for me A song about home without the word “home”: My little town (Many others like that?)

16. “Home” in other oldies Bread Just to have you back again: I would give anything I own, Give up me life, my heart, my home If: There’s no one home but you, You’re all that’s left me to Creedence Clearwater Revival Long as I see the light: Put a candle in the window, ’cause I feel I’ve got to move. Though I’m going, going, I’ll be coming home soon Lookin’ out my back door: Just got home from Illinois, lock the front door, oh boy

17. “Home” in yet more oldies Bob Dylan It’s all over now, Baby Blue: All your seasick sailors, they are rowing home. All your reindeer armies are all going home Cat Stevens Cat’s in the cradle: When you comin' home son? I don't know when, but we'll get together then son. You know we'll have a good time then Otis Redding Dock of the Bay: left my homein Georgia, Headed for the 'Frisco bay Barry ManilowI write the songs: My home lies deep within you And I've got my own place in your soul Albert Hammond It never rains in California: I'm underloved, I'm underfed, I wanna go home ... Will you tell the folks back home I nearly made it? MonkeesTake the last train to Clarksville: And I don’t know if I’m ever coming home Janis Joplin Me and Bobby McGee: He's looking for that homeAnd I hope he finds it John Denver Country roads,Take me home,To the place I belong; Eagles Desperado: Your pain and your hungerAre driving you home (Many artists) Green green grass of home: The old home town looks the same as I step down from the train

18. “Home” in even older oldies Chattanooga choochoo:Won't you choo-choo me home? Old cotton fields back home: When I was a little bitty baby My mama would rock me in the cradle, In them old cotton fields back home Keep the homefires burning while my heart is yearning... Give my regards to Broadway: Remember old palWhen you get back home For me and my gal: And sometime I'm going to buildA little home for two,For three or four or more,In loveland The man I love: We'll build a little home, Just meant for two Can't help lovin' that man of mine: And, maybe I can stay out as late as can be,Home without him ain'tnothin' to me

19. Home: Evolution  Culture • Animal territory • investment of time and effort • Own versus Other; social behavior; breeding • reference for spatial perception • biological and behavioral evolution • Human hunter-gatherers after the “cultural explosion” (Mithen) • homelands, sacred sites; ownership, responsibility, identity • Early agricultural societies from ca. 10,000 BC • ownership of land and buildings • artistic decoration of home  construction of identity

20. Evolutionary psychology of “home”Does “home” promote survival and reproduction?

21. (Good) Behavior at “home”Behaviors that promote survival and reproduction

22. The inner and outer homeHow art and music create social identity

23. The home and interculturality Identification with culture, language, nation • customs and traditions • national identity and personal identity • xenophobia and the politics of fear Plug: Please tell your friends about Conference on Applied Interculturality Research Graz, Austria 7-10 April 2010 Deadline: 31 August 2009

24. Prediction: If home is of central importance to humans, it should be a constant theme in all art incl. music

25. The tonic as home • Emotional character of tonic arrival • causally related to coming home? • Narrative character of tonal progression • like a journey in a pitch space? (e.g. Lerdahl, Larson, Kurth?)

26. Tonic as home in Western classical music (theory) • Beethoven piano sonata Op. 81a • 3 movements “farewell, absence, return” • Schubert Die schöneMüllerin • Distance from tonic (Bb) on cycle of fifths symbolizes estrangement and death

27. “Home key” metaphor only in the English language? e.g. Bill Caplin: Structural functions Start – middle – end Tonic return signals closing function

28. Leonard B. MeyerEmotion and meaning in music Is authentic cadence like coming home? • fulfilment of expectation? • implication – realisation? • positive emotion, satisfaction? • analogy: basic needs fulfilled?

29. MimesisPotolsky 2006: art, literature, theatre, psychology, sociology, anthropology • Plato and Aristotle • Imitation, description, representation • nature, truth, beauty, mannerisms, actions, situations, ideas... • Speaks to something deep in human nature • effective if resonates with basic cognitive functions • Simulates (but does not reproduce) a familiar world • dependence on social and historical context • Appeals to conventional beliefs about reality, not nature • E.g. not “home” as patchwork family

30. Mimesis in music • imitation of natural sounds • sonification of physical gesture • tonic as home?

31. Are concepts “tonic” and “music”both related to “home”? e.g. Other music: • Other cultures • Other tonalities

32. The tonic as home • Convergent evidence from different disciplines in humanities and sciences • Tentative answers to a difficult question • Anti-positivist approach