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Listen up! Polyrhythms in Brain and Music

2008; De Gruyter; Volume: 2008; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.3726/81606_134

2235-2066

Peter Vuust, Andreas Roepstorff,

Music Technology and Sound Studies

The relationship between music and language is fiercely debated in the modern literature of neuroscience and music. Here, we argue that a musicological study of online communication between jazz musicians in combination with brain imaging studies offers a unique setting for evaluating communicational aspects of music practices that rarely enter the present discourse on the subject. We employ Miles Davis' quintet of the 1960s and its use of polyrhythmic structures as a general example of a jazz group focusing on communication. First, we consider jazz in the light of Roman Jakobson's model of communication in a broad perspective. Next, we analyze polyrhythmic occurrences in Herbie Hancock's solo on the jazz standard All of You as an example of how this communication develops as a narrative structuring of tension and relief. We identify two typical types of polyrhythms, metric displacement and regrouping of subdivisions. Finally, we show how these polyrhythmic structures employ brain areas hitherto associated with linguistic semantic processing, and discuss possible implications.