sandeep bhagwati bhava & rasa – creative misunderstandings & musical universals

7/27/2019 Sandeep Bhagwati Bhava & Rasa Creative Misunderstandings & Musical Universals

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TOPICALITY OF MUSICAL UNIVERSACTUALIT DES UNIVERSAUX MUSIC


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TOPICALITY OF MUSICAL UNIVER

ACTUALIT DES UNIVERSAUX MUSI

Sous la direc

Jean-Luc


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Contents / SommairePreface

Jean-Luc LEROY ..........................................................................................

Introduction1. A paradigm for musical universals

Jean-Luc LEROY ..........................................................................................

Part IWhere are musical universals?

2. Musical universals and the axiom of psychobiological equivalenceMark REYBROUCK ...................................................................................

3. Dismantling music: Reductionist models and evolutionary explanacognitionThomas M. POOLEY ...................................................................................

4. On the concept of musical grammar: Definitions and universal as

Mario BARONI ............................................................................................5. Les universaux musicaux entre histoire et neurosciences

Michel IMBERTY .........................................................................................

6. Musical universals: Perspectives from infancySandra E. TREHUB ....................................................................................

7. Innate versus universal a conceptual distinctionElisa NEGRETTO ......................................................................................

8. lments de rflexion sur les universaux en musiqueFranois-Bernard MCHE ...........................................................................

9. Les universaux : immatriels et partags


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12. Investigating the universal childrens rhythm hypothesis: Data, is

Andy ARLEO ..............................................................................................

13. Leffet de lexpertise musicale sur la syntonisation des gestes mFranois JOLIAT ...........................................................................................

14. Infants perception of timbre in musicEugenia COSTA-GIOMI .............................................................................

15. Bercer en chantant : geste universel ? Un parcours analytique du lexpression

Annie LABUSSIRE .................................................................................

16. For a Copernican revolution in the understanding of universalityanalysis of musicOlivier LARTILLOT ...................................................................................

17. Approche cologique de la perception des dimensions temporellet des arts numriques et Units Smiotiques TemporellesFrank DUFOUR ..........................................................................................

18. Adjacency and alienationJanna K. SASLAW and James P. WALSH ...............................................

19.Bhavaand rasa: Creative misunderstandings and musical universa

Sandeep BHAGWATI ..................................................................................

Conclusion20. Opening up horizons / Une ouverture sur lhorizon

Jean-Luc LEROY ..........................................................................................

AppendixUn paradigme pour les universaux musicaux

Jean-Luc LEROY ..........................................................................................


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19.Bhavaand rasamisunderstandings and musical u

Sand

1. Universals versus cultures

Mche (2001) once asked: How could I be overwhelmed by wmusical systems that I knew almost nothing about (p. 10). This is ameans trivial question. Most people will immediately recognize thscribesbecause they themselves at some point in their life have e

from a tradition or culture they did not know and have felt a profPeter Pannke has called this phenomenon the enchanted ear. But wto be thusly enchanted and how can we understand the process of e

Mches question is not trivial because it strikes at the heart of a hculture. In 1934, Benedict had written in her famous bookPatternture, like an individual, is a more or less consistent pattern of th

Within each culture there come into being characteristic purposshared by other types of society (p. 47). She goes on to state, Cultthan the sum of their traits (p. 46). Benedict, in likening cultures trise to an intellectual revulsion against universals that today has bwhite academic guilt: that the West cannot judge, evaluate, and pretand interpret any other cultureexcept on its own termsand if wmust do this via its representatives.

While very usefully establishing cultural contingency at the heart lives (each culture unto its own standards), this holistic approach culture regrettably has a strong tendency to deteriorate into culturculturalism): in this view, other cultures are not just different from eof their traits. Rather, their differences are insurmountable in som


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242Sandeep BHAGWATI

But, just as we almost never eat sugar by itself, we never hear thes

tive, neurological musical phenomena in isolation. We always heanot only in a tradition of musical training, of cultural values, of specof individual performers skills etc. but also in traditions of acqusocially mediated emotions. As learners, we slowly acquire competemusic in the same way that we learn to like coffeeand in the prothe emotions that we are supposed to feel. Sugar may taste swtongues, but for some humans this sensation triggers pleasurablothers experience anxiety about the consequences of this sweetne

weight and consequent social ostracismand thus do not enjoy would rather prefer their coffee black.

2. Cultural emotions

Most musicians in the world think of the musical experience ascreates and sustains complex emotional states and trajectories. Pldefinition does not say that the music itself needs to be composmade, nor that the emotional states resulting from it can in any wainfluenced by the music itself. It just acknowledges that music (about and regardless of the intention that made it appear) has an imand that their primary response to it is emotional.

While some composers and music producers in the West have betheir concept of creative music making to this insight (e.g. the seco

John Cages and Brian Enos careers are built on the fact that nonduced music still can give rise to pertinent musical experiences), m

worldwide actually have believed and continue to believe that thetransports, induces and triggers specific emotional states in the li

they thus have some influence on the emotional experience of ththem. As a composer and music inventor, part of my artistic challeto get the emotions rightboth those that I project and those that m

In order to achieve that goal, most musicians and artists rely oreference systems such as musical traditions or styles: in such circu


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pected, valid, insoluble, etc.can only work if they refer to con

perceived in a circle of initiates that share common values and a coreference system. These same musical phenomena could mean somdifferent to listeners outside this circleindeed, most of them willomable to them.

The artistic competencies developed in this kind of research into thone system of emotional references can be rich and intenseand

enormous personal investment. Hence the widespread disdain amcians for people who do what is often called cross-over work. Musable to provide valid musical instances in many different referemaster several styles, and who then undertake to mix their elembridssuch musicians must in todays context almost always deal aesthetic or artistic shallowness.

Logically, the same suspicion applies to listeners. No one disputeslisteners are able to physically perceive sounds from another traditioare very experienced listeners, they may even parse the sounds inthemselves can love as music. But can they actually, i.e. emotionalemotional sign-system of this alien music tradition if they lack th

And can they acquire it at all, ever? Given the personal investmenquestion is tantamount to asking if a person can love several lovers as

We now know why culturalism is such a powerful temptationanhard to resist it.

3. Bhava and rasa

Emotions provoked by sound input thus seem to fall clearly on t

contingency. No trace of universalism in emotional reactions to mtion that Mche posed still remains to be answered. He himself ansby identifying traits that in his perspective connect all music-mphenomenological level. This evokes early universalist approachesskis, who famously defined hunger, defecation and sex as universah h l f l i t f i i hild h


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244Sandeep BHAGWATI

and 2500 years ago.1 The author(s) of the Natya Shastra seem to k

contingencies of creating emotional frames of reference. They take galmost every aspect of a performance, from the size and architectmance space to individual hand movements by the actors. The emotional frames of reference can (and therefore must) be clearly performersafter all, an actor/musician must intentionally generimport of actions and situations that competent audience memberstand in the context of their tradition. The circle of initiatiperformanceindeed, only the existence of this circle makes perfFor Bharata Muni, there can be no truly moving performance beyoNatya Shastra.

Here the rasas come into play: they are described as elaborate esustain a performance. In the context of this essay, rasas function circles of initiation mentioned before: they encompass performers

in a common emotional reference frameand thus make the perfoto the audience, allowing performers to transmit their emotional staa shared framework.

According to the tradition (and here I boldly telescope millennia osion in India alone) nine such sustained rasa/emotionscapes haverotism/love (gra), wonder (adbhuta), fury (raudra), humo

(bhaynaka), disgust (bbhatsa), heroism (vra), empathy (karu) anjust as there is no such thing as love in the abstract, only many actscumulate into something called love, these rasas are no more thagrounds for the artistic work. In order to produce them, and in orstudy and learn how to produce and experience them, we must tuincarnations: the bhavas.

The most trivial definition of bhavas would see them as emotiondistinguish several types ofbhavas. The most essential of these are:ent, inner bhavas), sthayi-bhavas (stable bhavas) and sacari-bhavas (

and finallyanu-bhavas(consequent, outer bhavas) (fig. 1).2

vi-bhavas are interior, physiological states of the body. They prec


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visualize where the voice sitsand what an impact on the mood o

this vi-bhavacan have, even if nothing else in the song changes.

sthayi-bhavas (stable bhavas) and sacari-bhavas (transitory bhavas) doeach other. They constitute the essence of the rasa: a stable basis fomunication, often traversedand thereby reinforcedby short, ep

variants, and even by what one could call counter-moods. sthayi-bhfrom vi-bhava, they are the perceptible expression of the bodily stat

are the atmosphere that vi-bhavashave created.Finally, the anu-bhavas are the discernible bodily expressions of themance, anu-bhavasare the conscious or unconscious actions that theconvey a stable or fleeting emotional state to the audience, suchtremolo or a special variety ofmiind(a glissando in Indian music), a ical turn or a subtle vibrato. anu-bhavasare signs and evidence of emus about the mood of someone elseif we read them properly.

In the listener, so the theory goes, this process ideally will then tak

the listener will perceive and resonate with the anu-bhavas,3 will dethe sthayi-bhavasand finally there may be bodily reactions that resethrough this process the listener partakes in the rasaof the music.


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4. Western music compositionin the 20th and 21st centuries

But what if there is nothing to understand? That is, if we look created without any intended emotionbut that nevertheless canemotions in listeners? This kind of effect is most prominent in co

music. From its beginnings with the Illiac Suite4 to todays OMAX

computer-generated music-making has challenged tradition/cultuthinking: what is the aesthetic message contained within the mus

sender?6 In the case of OMAX, even the analysis and recombinatiomodels is done by a neural network, uninfluenced by any direct culturally biased) intervention.

Even if, as we know, such computer-generated music is not acceptwhere on the planet, it is sufficient for the purposes of our argume

accepted as such in one culturenamely, contemporary western artbe argued that the emotional quality of computer-generated music ia wider phenomenon in western art music since the invention of dsignificant portion of the most seminal works of the Western Art Min the 20th and 21st centuries is music by declaration, i.e. music thacomposition was not a valid instance of any culturally establishe

whose composers nevertheless insisted that their product was aewithin the sign-system and cultural codes pertaining to music. In work by Boulez, Cage, Xenakis, Stockhausen, etc., audiences typicalfull gamut described for culture contact: from curiosity to abhorrento thick description to frustrated and outraged condemnations thattors of a profound misunderstanding.

Any theory of universality in music must include and explain the m

produced by this century of systematic and intentional de- and musical discourse in the West. For if intentionlessor intentionallysound combinations can occasion a strong musical experience (anenced as music), the entire concept of trans-cultural musical underbecome questionable. But, on the other hand, if people do not have


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5. The Bhava-Rasamodel of aesthetic commu

Here the Bhava-Rasa model of aesthetic communication could oline of enquiry: for at the same time that it creates a framework for artistic communication it also offers a possible way to understand anstandings. For the sake of this essay, a misunderstanding is toparsing of a message that does not correspond to the messages oriexample, if the spoken French conditional phrase Sil y a quat pou

stood as an English command Celia, cut, pull! As in this case, suchcan be quite meaninglessbut if it is not perceived as such, it cameaning; and in a non-semantic art such as music, meaning-produciings obviously must be easier than in natural languages. How misunderstandings be described in terms of Bhavas and Rasas?

As we have seen above, generating a Rasa from Bhavas is a comp

modulationfrom the performers inner body image (vi-bhavas), the(sthayi/sacari-bhavas), the outer manifestation (anu-bhavas) in mumirror neuron resonance to the music (his/her anu-bhavas), and ba

According to this model, the crucial moment for misunderstandinthe moment when the action of the mirror neurons (the anu-bhavainterpreted by the listeners brain as a sequence of sthayi/sacari-bhav

ing the anu-bhavasstill is a sensory act without much framing by tra

parsing the anu-bhavas into sthayi/sacari-bhavas is only possible wframework that weighs and integrates them into a mental/inner reemotion.

In any tradition-bound musicking, this framework was always implicidentical or compatible with the framework that produced the signthis the radio antenna or modem model of aesthetics: the sende

thing that the receiver unpacks in essentially the same way. Thintentions were not properly conveyed (i.e. if the music was not baudience seemed banausic) this could only be the fault of:

the sender (the musician) who did not have anything to say to properly encode the message;


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248Sandeep BHAGWATI

music did not make senseor if they felt that the sense musician

was way beyond their ken.

The question posed by Mche uncovers the basic fallacy of this mhow he (and many others) listened to music they knew nothing abof sounds that should not have offered them anything like a full mubut that enchanted them nevertheless. What did they understand?

According to the Rasa-Bhava model, they understood two different

heard the anu-bhavasand it is these that Mche in his book goes owhich give credence to the assumption of musical universalsand preted, associated these anu-bhavaswith sthayi/sacari-bhavasthat werfrom their own cultural background (fig. 2).

Figure 2 The Bhava-Rasa model of aesthetic communicatio

This parsing of culturally neutral anu-bhavas (the mirrored neuroculturally infused emotional responses seems to me to be the cru

enable creative misunderstanding. In this step, anu-bhavas are disemotional context that held them together in a particular way anddifferent context: e.g. a teen-tal rhythm (a 16-beat cycle divided becomes a 4/4 time signature, a complicated taan (a condensed statemerelationships) becomes a virtuosic melodic ornament, just as, the othe


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It is in such moments of creative misunderstanding that new id

bornand culturally determined factors intermingle in multiple wable universals that may be present in the music. The music we hear

which we read and, in reading, create its meaning. Whatever sounduces and infuses with meaning, we can only understand him/her a

we understand what his/her musical tradition would consider whether we know this or not does not matter as far as aesthetics, oeven our experience is concerned. For we ourselves make our ras

instinctive reactions into categories that we in our cultural environto associate with certain emotions.

We cannot directly feel the sounds we hear, nor do we react to anuniversals that we may or may not perceiverather, we interpret result of another persons familiar emotional codeand we try to

we have learned it in our life, assuming that what fed the music is

extract from it. Whether we are mistaken in this, whether the musicfrom a distant tribe with an entirely different world view, or maalgorithm on the laptop in front of uswe cannot tell, and we certastand it as it is. But from the pleasure it affords us, we can infer thaand we begin to doubt that there is any as it is, as long as it affexperience. Hassan (2011) wrote: In this universe, not all the mus

making.9 While this may be true, we can be quite confident that all

riences we have are indeed made by ourselves, in a constant creativeof the sounds that enter our ears.


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sandeep bhagwati bhava & rasa – creative misunderstandings & musical universals

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