Abstrakt
Musicality is central to musical processes and music research. Yet, there is no consensus of what is understood by the term. It can be assumed that in large populations musicality is distributed according to a bell curve — just as any trait of personality. It is also clear that musical skills can be improved, regardless of a possible stigma of unmusicality. Depending on the conception of musicality, musicality research confronts issues and trade-offs relating to ecological validity of the concept (how musicality connects to actual music), methodology (which methods of study yield valid and reliable results), epistemology (how the gain knowledge of musicality), and ontology of music (what processes pertain to music, what not, and what is possible shared). These issues are reflected in the primarily psychological theories and tests of musicality. This article makes an attempt at a Peircean analysis of musicality. It has been suggested that the traditional psychometric approach to musicality is followed by a semiotic approach, and assuming musicality has to do with how subjects make sense in musical processes, the semiotic analysis of musicality is critical. This analysis applies Peirce’s notion of thought-sign and his tenfold classification of the sign (suggesting a three-dimensional exemplification of Peirce’s trichotomous, three dimensional model). The ten classes are differentiated by six transitions, that seem to have their correlates in the psychological understanding of cognition: manifestation, definition, filtering, binding, associating and understanding of the sign. The six transitions appear useful in analyzing the concept of musicality. Correspondingly, the conditions for musical signification extend from ability of auditory sensation to those of dynamical memory, auditory filtering, auditory structuring, association sound objects and ability to understand and manage communicational situations in music. In order to understand musicality, all these aspects should be studied with good ecological and methodological validity in mind.
Bibliografia
Chopin, Frédéric. Chopin’s letters. With the assistance of Henryk Opienski and E. L. Voynich. 1931. New York: Dover, 1988.
Demorest, Steven M. “Issues of ecological validity for perceptual research in music.” Psychomusicology: A Journal of Research in Music Cognition, no. 14 (1995): 173-181.
Gembris, Heiner. “Historical phases in the definition of musicality.” Psychomusicology: A Journal of Research in Music Cognition, no. 16 (1997): 17-25.
Humphreys, Jere T. “Precursors of Musical Aptitude Testing: From the Greeks through the Work of Francis Galton.” Journal of Research in Music Education 41, no. 4 (1993): 315-327. doi:10.2307/3345507.
Humphreys, Jere T. “Musical Aptitude Testing: From James McKeen Cattell to Carl Emil Seashore.” Research Studies in Music Education 10, no. 1 (1998): 42-53. doi:10.1177/1321103X9801000104.
Ittzes, Mihâly. “Zoltán Kodaly 1882-1967: Honorary President of ISME1964-1967.” International Journal of Music Education 22, no. 2 (2004): 131-147. doi:10.1177/0255761404044015.
Karma, Kai. “Musical Aptitude as the Ability to Structure Acoustic Material.” International Journal of Music Education 3, no. 1 (1984): 27-30. doi:10.1177/025576148400300104.
Karma, Kai. “Components of Auditive Structuring — Towards a Theory of Musical Aptitude.” Bulletin of the Council fo r Research in Music Education, no. 82 (1985): 1-13.
Karma, Kai. “Auditory and Visual Temporal Structuring: How Important is Sound to Musical Thinking?” Psychology o f Music 22, no. 1 (1994): 20-30. doi:10.1177/0305735694221002.
Karma, Kai. “Musical aptitude definition and measure validation: Ecological validity can endanger the construct validity of musical aptitude tests.” Psychomusicology: A Journal of Research in Music Cognition 19, no. 2 (2007): 79-90. doi:10.1037/h0094033.
Karma, Kai. “Musikaalisuus.” In Musiikkipsykologia. Edited by Jukka Louhivuori and Suvi Saarikallio, 355-68. Jyvàskylâ: Atena Kustannus Oy, 2010; Musicality.
Koelsch, Stefan, Erich Schroger, and Mari Tervaniemi. “Superior pre-attentive auditory processing in musicians.”Neuroreport 10, no. 6 (1999): 1309-1313.
Louhivuori, Jukka and Suvi Saarikallio, eds. Musiikkipsykologia. Jyvàskylâ: Atena Kustannus Oy, 2010; Music psychology.
Navickaite-Martinelli, Lina, ed. Proceedings of the 10th International Congress on Musical Signification. Vilnius: Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, 2010.
North, Adrian C., and David J. Hargreaves. The Social and Applied Psychology o f Music. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Numminen, Ava. Laulutaidottomasta kehittyvaksi laulajaksi: Tutkimus aikuisen laulutaidon lukoistaja niiden avaamisesta. Studia musica 25. Helsinki: Sibelius Academy, 2005. Helping adult poor pitch singers learn to sing in tune: A study of stumbling blocks confronting developing singers and means of surmounting them.
Ojala, Juha. Space in Musical Semiosis: An Abductive Theory o f the Musical Composition Process. Acta semiotica fennica 33. Imatra: International Semiotics Institute at Imatra; Semiotic Society of Finland; Dept, of Musicology, University of Helsinki, 2009.
Ojala, Juha. “Before and after the emergence of musical thought-signs.” In Proceedings o f the 10th International Congress on Musical Signification. Edited by Lina Navickaite-Martinelli. Vilnius: Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, 2010.
Pallesen, Karen J., Elvira Brattico, Christopher J. Bailey, Antti Korvenoja, Juha Koivisto, Albert Gjedde, Synnôve Carlson, and Eric Warrant. “Cognitive Control in Auditory Working Memory Is Enhanced in Musicians.” PLoS ONE 5, no. 6 (2010): elll20. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0011120.
Patel, Aniruddh D. “Why would Musical Training Benefit the Neural Encoding of Speech? The OPERA Hypothesis.” Frontiers in Psychology 2 (2011). doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00142.
Peirce, Charles S. Collected papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. With the assistance of Arthur W. editor Burks. Collected papers of Charles Sanders Peirce VII VIII. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1931-1958.
Peirce, Charles S. Collected papers o f Charles Sanders Peirce. With the assistance of Charles editors Hartshorne and Paul Weiss I-VI. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1931-1958.
Peretz, Isabelle. “Brain specialization for music: New evidence from congenital amusia.” In The Cognitive Neuroscience o f Music. Edited by Isabelle Peretz and Robert J. Zatorre, 192-203. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Peretz, Isabelle and Robert J. Zatorre, eds. The Cognitive Neuroscience of Music. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Rauschecker, Josef. “Functional organization and plasticity of auditory cortex.” In The Cognitive Neuroscience o f Music. Edited by Isabelle Peretz and Robert J. Zatorre, 357-65. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Stefani, Gino, Eero Tarasti, and Luca Marconi, eds. Musical Signification, Between Rhetoric and Pragmatics: Proceedings of the 5th International Congress on Musical Signification. Bologna: International Semiotics Institute & CLUEB, 1998.
Tarasti, Eero. “Signs as acts and events: An essay on musical situations.” In Musical Signification, Between Rhetoric and Pragmatics: Proceedings o f the 5th International Congress on Musical Signification. Edited by Gino Stefani, Eero Tarasti and Luca Marconi, 39-62. Bologna: International Semiotics Institute & CLUEB, 1998.
Tervaniemi, Mari, Viola Just, Stefan Koelsch, Andreas Widmann, and Erich Schroger. “Pitch discrimination accuracy in musicians vs nonmusicians: an event-related potential and behavioral study.” Experimental Brain Research 161, no. 1 (2005): 1-10. doi:10.1007/S00221-004-2044-5.
Ukkola, Liisa T., Paivi Onkamo, Pirre Raijas, Kai Karma, Irma Jarvela, and Andreas Reif. “Musical Aptitude Is Associated with AVPRIA-Haplotypes.” PLoS ONE 4, no. 5 (2009): e5534. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0005534.