International Seminar on 

Vidya Bhawan Society, Udaipur

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One of the interesting things about cognitive systems such as language, music, vision, and the like, is that we seem to form common opinion of what these things are. We do not seem to have common opinion on intestines and solar systems. The famous humorist of Bengal, Sivaram Chakravarty, once wrote that there are certain topics on which anyone can give a lecture without studying them. He mentioned: sex, education, and Marx. We can certainly add: language and music. Not surprisingly, such opinion clashes with scientific studies of these things. After fifty years of generative enterprise, Chomsky and others are repeatedly compelled to analyse (and reject) common conceptions of language. The interest of this issue for general culture and pedagogy is obvious, although it is hard to fill the gap between a scientific theory and social practices.

   Setting aside the (very) interesting issue of why people form these common conceptions (pretty uniformly in fact), it is interesting that these conceptions often contain more than a germ of truth. Tom Washow pointed out that the (highly technical) principles and parameters conception of language essentially confirmed the common view that to learn a language is to learn its words.

   We will look at certain common conceptions of what music is from this direction to see if the ‘germs of truth’ they contain can be accommodated in a cognitive theory of music. The interesting problem is that these conceptions are apparently inconsistent.

A. Music is meaningless, just a collection of sounds

B. Music expresses emotions

C. Music is a universal language

How do we retrieve some germs of truth from these and build them (consistently) into an explanatory theory of music cognition? I will basically restrict myself to informal, exploratory analysis of the topic. If time permits, I might sketch a few theoretical ideas showing ‘music syntax is language syntax’. The conception of music as an object in the mind very similar – perhaps, identical – with language helps reconcile otherwise inconsistent common views on music.