1. NYTimes article on the original language being in Africa, and the correlation between number of phonemes and distance from geographical source. April 14, 2011. p. A1, Nicholas Wade. Phonetic clues hint that language is African born.

Here is a link to the original Science article.

2. Here is an open source article that talks about the work of Dedieu & Ladd 2007, which links languages with and without tone to genetics and genetic history. Here is a link to the original article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

3. This past summer, I became very interested in the human trek out of Africa and had my DNA analyzed by the Genographic Project of the National Geographic Society. The story of my ancestors is most detailed in the Y-chromosome DNA analysis of my maternal uncle, which details the history of my mother’s father’s ancestors. This line ended up in Norway and then came to the U.S. in the 19^th century. You might be interested in reading my ancient history from the Genographic Project, which is typical of Europeans, and which you can find here. I also had my own DNA tested for the maternal line mitochondrial DNA analysis, but the results were not as detailed. Here is a TED video by Spencer Wells from a few years ago, who is the scientific leader of the Genographic Project.

WEEK 3: Jan. 20: TIMBRE & RHYTHM

Required reading:

Patel, chapter 2, section 2.4. Sound Category Learning as a Key Link . Lecture notes.

Patel, chapter 3, section 3.1-3.2. Rhythm in Music. Lecture notes.

Patel, chapter 3, section 3.3. Rhythm in Speech. Lecture notes.

Additional reading and listening for sound category learning as a key link.

Zatorre, Belin & Penhune. 2002. Structure and function of auditory cortex: music and speech. Trends in Cognitive Science 6(1). 37-46.

Hickok & Poeppel blog: Talking Brains, On the Dual Stream model of speech/language processing.

Hickok & Poeppel. 2007. The cortical organization of speech processing. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 8. 393-402.

Patricia Kuhl TED talk. Good discussion of babies’ statistical learning of /r/-/l/ contrasts in English versus Japanese.

Additional reading and listening for Rhythm.

Rhythm.

A music cognition blog by Henkjan Honing:

Evidence for rhythm as a learned sound category

Here is a TedxAmsterdam talk: Nov. 26, 2011. Message: What makes us musical animals is relative pitch and beat induction.

Lerdahl, Fred and Ray Jackendoff 1983/1996. A Generative Theory of Tonal Music.

WEEK 4: Jan. 27: RHYTHM

Guest: Heather Sandison: Flamenco music and rhythms

Background video.

Dr. Juan Sosa (Linguistics Department, retired professor) is coming to answer all of our questions on phonetics and phonology. He also loves music, especially Latin music.

Required reading:

Patel, chapter 3, Rhythm. 3.4 Rhythm in Poetry and Song and 3.5 Nonperiodic Aspects of Rhythm as Key Link. Lecture notes.

Additional reading and listening:

Here is the paper by Ramus et al.1999 in Cognition on rhythmic differences between languages, with some references indicating that it is not based on isochrony.

Here is the paper by Low, Grabe and Nolan 2000 that introduces the nPVI and also gives references arguing against isochrony in speech.

Here’s a video of Patel talking in 2006. Quite a lot about musical grammar (syntax) in the first half of the talk and about rhythm in the second half of the talk. And some fantastic video of a parrot singing the Queen of the Night aria from Mozart’s Magic Flute. It’s a long (50 minute) video.

A stress-timed musical piece? Sir Edward Elgar – Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1.

A syllable-timed musical piece? Claude Debussy – Clair de Lune.

NOTE: The first critical review is coming due on Feb. 10. The requirements have changed. Now they only need to be 2-3 pages long.

They should still involve the integration of 2-3 references on a topic, one can be Patel’s book. Grading will be based on choice of topic and references (they should be appropriate to the class and to the question), thoroughness of discussion, creativity, organization of writing, and correctness of writing).

The following format should be used:

1 in. margins, 12 point font. Double-spaced. 8-1/2 x 11 in. paper.

Title

Name

Introduction: introduce the topic that you are investigating.

Body: discuss material from the two or three sources, and how they bear on the topic.

Conclusion: Tie together the paper, and state your conclusions about the topic.

References: Any format, MLA, APA, etc. Just be consistent.

Here are the precise due dates for the semester:

Participation and attendance. 10%

Critical review 1. Due Feb. 10. 2-3 pp. double spaced. 20%

Abstract for final paper/project. Due Mar. 9. 1 page double spaced. 5%

Critical review 2. Due Mar. 16. 2-3 pp. double spaced. 20%

Presentations: Mar. 23 or Mar. 30. 15%

Final paper/project: Due Apr. 13. 10-12 pp. double-spaced. 30%

WEEK 5: Feb. 3: MELODY

Required reading:

Intonation: lecture notes

Patel, chapter 4.2, Melody in music: lecture notes

Patel, chapter 4.5. Key link: lecture notes

Additional reading and listening:

The mysterious melody and other musical illusions

Melody

WEEK 6: Feb. 10: SYNTAX

Required reading:

The syntax of birdsong: lecture notes.

Patel, ch. 5.1., 5.2, 5.3: The syntax of music: lecture notes.

Berwick, Robert C., Kazuo Okanoya, Gabriel J. L. Beckers, and Johan J. Bolhuis. 2011. Songs to syntax: the linguistics of birdsong. Trends in Cognitive Science 15(3). 113-121.

Recommended reading:

Trehub, Sandra E. 2003. The developmental origins of musicality. Nature Neuroscience 6(7). 669-673.

Trehub, Sandra E. and Erin E. Hannon. 2006. Infant music perception: Domain-general or domain-specific mechanisms? Cognition 100. 73-99.

Zatorre, Robert J., Pascal Belin and Virginia B. Penhune. 2002. Structure and function of auditory cortex: music and speech. Trends in Cognitive Science 6(1). 37-46.

Rogalsky, Corianne, Feng Rong, Kourosh Saberi, and Gregory Hickock. 2011. Functional anatomy of language and music perception: Temporal and structural factors investigated using Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging. The Journal of Neuroscience 31(10). 3843-3852.

Critical review 2. Due Mar. 16. 2-3 pp. double spaced. 20%

WEEK 10: Mar. 16: EVOLUTION

Required reading:

Lecture notes: Evolution

Lecture notes: Protolanguage

Patel, ch. 7, Evolution.

Levitin, Daniel. 2006. This is Your Brain on Music. Penguin. Chapter 9. The music instinct: Evolution’s #1 hit. Pp. 247-267.

Hauser, Marc D., Noam Chomsky, and W. Tecumseh Fitch. 2002. The faculty of language: What is it, who has it, and how has it evolved?. Science 298. 1569-1579.

Fitch, W. Tecumseh, Marc D. Hauser and Noam Chomsky. 2005. The evolution of the language faculty: Clarifications and implications. Cognition 97. 179-210.

Hauser, Marc D. and Josh McDermott. 2003. The evolution of the music faculty: A comparative perspective. Nature Neuroscience 6(7). 663-668.

Fitch, W. Tecumseh. 2006. The biology and evolution of music: a comparative perspective. Cognition 100. 173-215.

Fitch, W. Tecumseh. 2010. The Evolution of Language. Cambridge University Press. Chapter 14. Musical protolanguage. Pp, 466-507.

Recommended reading:

McDermott, Josh and Marc D. Hauser. 2005. The origins of music: innateness, uniqueness and evolution. Music Perception 23(1). 29-59.

Presentations: Mar. 23 or Mar. 30. 15%

WEEK 11: Mar. 23: MUSIC, LANGUAGE AND COMPUTERS

Guest: Dr. Philippe Pasquier, School of Interactive Arts and Technology

Here are some projects from his Metacreations lab (you can see and hear some videos).

Recommended reading:

Papadopoulos, George and Geraint Wiggins. 1999. AI methods for algorithmic composition: A survey, a critical view and future prospects In Proc. AISB'99 Symp. Musical Creativity (1999), pp. 110-117.

CLASS PRESENTATIONS

WEEK 12: Mar. 30: CLASS PRESENTATIONS

WEEK 13: Apr. 6: GOOD FRIDAY: NO CLASS

Final paper/project: Due Apr. 13. 10-12 pp. double-spaced. 30%