Re: virus: Nursery Rhyme Memes

sodom (Sodom@ma.ultranet.com)
Wed, 05 Aug 1998 17:30:29 -0400


This seems like possible a biological question. Does your brain interpret
music as noise or communication? Im not sure. I would guess that there are
not many "musical memes" that have lasted more than a few hundred years, and
probably none that have outlived more than a thousand without transcription.
(Although, even any religion would be hard pressed to last that long).

Perhaps the meme is not so much individaul notes, but scale concepts. The
scale the west uses (do-ra-me-fa-so-la-ti-do) or (1-1-.5-1-1-1.5) has been
the main mode of music writing for hundreds of years. It is very - very
difficult for westerners to think or reproduce notes from other scales - for
most people it is downright impossible. In the lydian scale, all notes are
whole steps away from each other - In arabic scales, there are quarter steps
that most western instruments arent even capable of differentiating.

Sodom

Bill Roh

Joe E. Dees wrote:

> From: "B. Lane Robertson" <metaphy@hotmail.com>
> To: virus@lucifer.com
> Subject: virus: Nursery Rhyme Memes
> Date sent: Tue, 04 Aug 1998 23:34:37 PDT
> Send reply to: virus@lucifer.com
>
> > I assume that nursery rhymes are one of the best
> > examples of a particular type of meme (memes that
> > relate to oral tradition). Still, upon writing
> > this I find myself wondering how to describe the
> > nursery rhyme as an *example* of a meme rather
> > than saying that they *are* the meme. Though my
> > point is that the organization of ideas according
> > to patterns which evolve and are replicated might
> > be expressed in a very succinct fashion in such a
> > form-- which stresses organization, patterns,
> > evolution, and being passed on.
> >
> > Does someone want to do a study of the basic ideas
> > transmitted by nursery rhymes and the patterns
> > these ideas are organized into, noting the
> > evolution of such patterns and their propensity to
> > being passed on (in specific situations)? I think
> > such a study would give a good indication of what,
> > exactly, the basic ideas and patterns might be.
> >
> > To give Wade the benefit of a doubt, I am not
> > opposed to saying that these "patterns" would ALSO
> > be in evidence in the organization of neural
> > networks, brainwave patterns, and even physical
> > structures. (Yes, I am saying that brains would
> > be organized into "nursery rhyme" patterns. If
> > this were shown to be possible, what else could we
> > attribute this to EXCEPT memes?).
> >
> >
> > B. Lane Robertson
> > Indiana, USA
> > http://www.window.to/mindrec
> > Bio: http://members.theglobe.com/bretthay
> > See who's chatting about this topic:
> > http://www.talkcity.com/chat.cgi?room=MindRec
> >
>
> What about the musical "hook" or melody (minus words) that plays
> itself incessantly in your head like a broken record (even when you
> may find it annoying)? It is bereft of any overt linguistic or abstract
> ideational significance; but is it not also a meme? I say it has
> identifiable structure and has been transmitted (replicated),
> therefore it qualifies, whether or not it carries meaning.
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