These questions were posed to the class after Vijay Iyer’s talk and performance.

1. What was Vijay’s main criticism of academia’s perception and analysis of music?

Vijay believes academia has a narrow definition of music. Vijay has two objections to the classic academic analysis of music. His first objection is that the entrenched scientific analysis of music is misguided, because it treats music as if it were something that happens only in some abstract space. Vijay understands music not as something that exists in space, which we receive, but rather as something intricately connected to ourselves. Vijay’s second objection is the lack of ethnomusicology present in classical academic analysis of music. Vijay believes any foray into the ethos of music cannot be limited to the study of Western music. Music is present in every culture in the world and each culture conducts it differently. Therefore, an incomplete understanding of what music is arises from a Western centered analysis.

2. What is embodied cognition?

Embodied cognition is the idea that how we interact with the world around us is deeply influenced by aspects of the agent’s body beyond the brain. This interaction between the body and human cognition is known as the sensory motor loop. Our bodies experience sensation followed by cognition and finally action. Vijay believes music is a form of embodied cognition, in which the manipulation of sound allows humans to achieve better cognition.

 3. A discovery Vijay talked about was the fact that the timescales of rhythm are the same as the timescales of the human body. What are some examples of these that correspond to each other?

Timescales of the Human Body Musical Analogue
Breath Phrase
Walking, Heartbeat, Chewing Tactus
Speech, Syllables and Digital Motion Melodic & Rhythmic Detail
Phoneme Expressive timing

4. What is the importance of synchronized actions?

Vijay Iyer proposed that synchronized action might have been an important contributor to the success of the human species. Vijay explained that synchronized clapping, or synchronized acoustics in general, might have been used for warnings or messages. Vijay explained that synchronized acoustics travel much farther then independently generated acoustics. Therefore, the human capacity to perform synchronized action may have arisen for this reason. 

5. Where/what did Vijay study undergrad and his PhD work?

Vijay got an undergraduate degree in physics and mathematics at Yale University and then went on to get his PhD in music perception and cognition at UC Berkley.

6. Who is Mark Changizi and how did his work relate to Mr. Iyer’s?

Mark Changizi, director of human cognition, 2AI Labs; “The Vision Revolution”, is the author of “Harnessed”, a book that has had a large impact on Mr. Iyer’s work. In the book, Changizi refutes the claim held by many scientists that the human brain’s capacity for language is innate and that the brain is actually “hard-wired” for this higher-level functionality. Changizi argues that language and music are neither innate nor instinctual brain functions. He argues that both have emerged as a result of the brains ability to process the sounds of nature. He claims that both are learned behaviors that take advantage of the brains capacity to process sound, not behaviors, which the brain specifically evolved. This idea impacted Vijay’s view of music, directing him to pursue explore music as a means of articulating humanity’s perception of sound.

7. What part of the brain is stimulated when music is played?

When humans listen to music the portion of the brain that controls motion is stimulated.

8. Explain how we can be ‘culturally conditioned’ to understand and know music.

Culturally conditioning is the phenomena that individuals from different cultures have different emotional responses to the same tones and chords. This phenomenon proves that the response elicited by certain tones is not genetic, but rather determined by cultural emphasis. This means that studies on responses to music must take into account cultural differences to understand what response is elicited by music.   

9. How would Mr. Iyer describe Jazz?

Mr. Iyer believes that Jazz is not a style of music. He believes it is a history and community and a method of transformation. He believes it more of a mind-frame then a musical style.