Article: "How Your Brain Tells Speech and Music Apart"
  • Aristotle EsguerraAristotle Esguerra
    Posts: 1,202
    This short article from 2024 describes one attribute that the human brain detects to distinguish speech from music.

    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-your-brain-tells-speech-and-music-apart/

    For some time I've perceived a need for the sacred music discussion to move away from stylistic preference -- expressed in repertoire choices for the Ordinary of the Mass and the Proper of the Mass and Liturgy of the Hours -- and toward emphasizing the essential small-s sacramentality that singing/chanting gives to the liturgical texts (outlined in the ritual melodies for the Order of Mass and Liturgy of the Hours as found in these books).

    It's less about music genres and more about delivering words set apart for worship in a way set apart for worship. Sharing research like this might help move the discussion along.
    Thanked by 6hilluminar novusgordo Andrew_Malton CHGiffen Charles Elmar
  • Elmar
    Posts: 527
    Very interesting! Another aspect apart from amplitude modulation, also mentioned (but not further addressed) in the article is of course pitch. Just speaking for myself: I am quite unable to quatify pitch changes in speach, while I have no difficulty identifying intervals in music. Although it is obvious from the physics of sound, I had a hard time (and still have to some extent) to perceive spoken language as having a pitch at all.
    Also I remember an interesting observation as a kid, having had a tone-deaf father: Although the intervals he was singing were rather random, his singing was clearly distinct from speaking (this may be explained by the cited article) and I did hear pitch+intervals in his voice when he was singing! I even learned childrens' songs from him in a 95% correct way, which strikes me in hindsight.
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