World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale
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33. World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demons…
2 years ago
Bobby McFerrin demonstrates the power of the pentatonic scale, using audience participation, at the event "Notes & Neurons: In Search of the Common Chorus", from the 2009 World Science Festival, June 12, 2009.
For more of Bobby McFerrin and the science behind this program, please view the full "Notes & Neurons: In Search of the Common Chorus" event video at our website:
worldsciencefestival.com/video/notes-neurons-full
For more of Bobby McFerrin and the science behind this program, please view the full "Notes & Neurons: In Search of the Common Chorus" event video at our website:
worldsciencefestival.com/video/notes-neurons-full
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| Totals | 1.5M | 2,806 | 98 |
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Great idea
No doubt music is a powerful communication tool.
It's not magic or some sort of genetic memory that's needed to explain this. We're all immersed in music and melody throughout our lives and our love of listening to it stems from our appreciation of things that please our ears; like the pentatonic scale. What pleases us becomes part of our musical vocabulary. The phrase 'music is a universal language' is very close to the truth, I'd say.
This is a absolutely brilliant demonstration of that.
This concept comes from Japanese minds, not Bobby McFerrins.
Really, give yourself an uppercut (and no, boxing didn't copy the uppercut from Wii sports).
This concept did not come from "Japanese minds" any more than it came from Bobby McFerrin's. He was just sharing it.
The obvious fact is this: nearly 90k people have viewed this video (so far) and most probably have no idea what Raymond's Revenge is. Bobby McFerrin shared this in an appropriate time and place: let everyone enjoy it—no need to argue.
creating their own music it is almost always pentatonic based. Bobby does a wonderful job demonstrating the scales innate presence in our psyche.
P.S.: The initial jingle (at the beginning of the video) is too loud and makes you turn the volume down.
Go to a tabletop infront of someone and using your index fingers firmly drum a common beat about 4/4 time alternating about an inch apart and right infront of them.
After six beats take your right hand and drum your finger about a foot to the right of where you were drumming and strike it in time but harder and faster. This will give it a higher pitch.
You then drum a little in the center and then take your left hand and drum it in time but you hit softer and slower to give it a lower pitch.
you do this a couple of times then start drumming the same way as in the center but going up and down between the two extreemes and both you and your listener will swear that you are drumming the scales.
Almost did it for a Science Fair Project, but they canceled it because of lack of interest from other schools... shame really.
The major third prediction is brought about all the more strongly by having heard the tonic and supertonic from the western equal-tempered system already, i.e. why would the audience sing any other third tuned differently when they have already been placed within the western tuning system from the initial equal tempered notes? This would be similar to playing the first two notes of a Javanese Gamelan scale to a Gamelan player, and then being surprised when they sing the next note up in that particular scale, as opposed to an equal tempered note; it's all about contextualisation.
HOWEVER, I do think it's a fascinating video, and the predicted major third over a minor third is clearly evident - it's just that the video does nothing to promote the universality of the pentatonic scale.
But just a sidenote, one should point out that the third that appears in the harmonic series is actually a little flatter than the major third in the scale, which they sing - they are not singing the notes as in the harmonic series, but as in the Western convention, which is as artificial and culture-dependent as it gets.
Also: the audience is probably musically-inclined, so most know where they are going. The others, as in these situations, just tune in to the rest of the choir.
And yes, you're quite right about the flat major third. Only the octave interval is the same across both 12-tet and just intonation – but it is from the harmonic series that western tuning derives its intervals, and the major third is more easily arrived at than the minor third, so our auditory systems have evolved a closer affection with the major rather than the minor third (James Tenney's 'Consonance and Dissonance discusses this in depth).
I'm still not sure about the audience 'intuitively' following the pentatonic scale in this video, as Bobby gives them all but one of the pitches (the third) before singing it to them, so the audience are merely repeating what they've already heard in different octaves - unless I've misunderstood your meaning?
The way the audience response is also very interesting.
no matter what kind of science it involves -
i just enjoy his performance)))
We're all built with natural musical abilities.
Also, this video is quite awesome.
Gave me a big big smile
But I think that they sing in pentatonic scale because in 1:04-1:05 minut, he sing the note precise (near the first note (let say I grade), he didn't sing the sensible (VII grade) but the VI grade in a tonal scale). What's if he make they sing the note near the III (that one that they sing intuitively in 0:42)?
Anyway, the purpose of McFerrin was clear: just to strongly share a 'live' (induced) pentatonic experience that everybody can imitate even if its not his own dialect... One may see here only the (neuro) principles of this 'audiencephone' (see david pardo above), not a (showy) demonstration of the 'universality' of pentatonic scales... such a universalism is a very (old) simplification of musical scales and is mostly based on a suspicious theory of evolution in music - I'm afraid reality of culture is a little bit more complex: if you listen to sung music in traditional music from deep forests to the poles, it's not so easy to find pentatonic scales, perfect fifths, fourth, thirds and major seconds, as said Levitin with the cello in video 2 on the website, which is the common pythagorician and Helmholtz - old - 'theory' - and same with Barucha in same video on spoken pitch intervals in english langage which is not - yet - the universal langage...)... at the contrary, one may hear semi-tones, augmented fourth, neutral thirds, etc. (to begin, see John Ellis in 1885 in his translation of Helmholtz's book "Sensation of Tone", the last being clearly an evolutionist perspective based on biology and western 'science', not on culture).
For sure, universalism in music may exist as soon as man is man which is a very poor concept (a tautology): a more interesting question to me is that music is as universal as misunderstanding is (see Barucha speeking on same video - just before McFerrin show - about intervals and emotion in relation to culture). Finally, at the end of video 4, everybody seems to agree that there is no special (universal ?) criteria for consonance... but the discussion is very short and not complete in the videos, I just wish neuroscience won't forget last studies in ethnomusicology !
And then school/society force us to forget about it, you have to fit in the mold
awesome..
tamdosya.com
La música siempre hace trampas. Dónde se ponen las trampas son decisiones culturales, y por tanto, no es un lenguaje universal.