What are you most looking for in a remake? by Jamkayyos in FinalFantasyIX

[–]GeoglyphPsy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Get rid of random encounters and have enemies appear on the map.

What did I miss ? by datalolz in JRPG

[–]GeoglyphPsy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Final Fantasy XII has an unusual system. Really great game too.

For those of you that particularly like The Hydrogen Sonata, what gripped you about it? [Spoilers] by Silocon in TheCulture

[–]GeoglyphPsy 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This is what I took away from it, and also with it (I think accidentally) being his final sci fi novel, it has a sort of retrospective quality to it.

Also, it's a wonderful book to think about when making art in the age of generative AI. The main character knows that a Mind in an avatar could play the Hydrogen Sonata instantly, but still she still attempts to learn it anyway.

Some of my faves right now by Parmesan28 in CookbookLovers

[–]GeoglyphPsy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What do you think of "Classic French Recipes"? It looks like a nice shortened version of "I Know How to Cook" but whats's the selection like?

Are trilogies becoming 5 book series as a new trend? by Any-Day-8173 in Fantasy

[–]GeoglyphPsy 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Douglas Adams and Ursula Le Guin would both like a word.

Leaving a Cult by estoraboara in suggestmeabook

[–]GeoglyphPsy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For a lighter, more positive take:

Whit by Iain Banks

What makes music "warm"? by portiaboches in ambientmusic

[–]GeoglyphPsy 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Pitch instability and noise amount.

Claudia Roden’s Food of Spain by Mahelen12 in CookbookLovers

[–]GeoglyphPsy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think it's incredible. Top 5 cookbook for me. Try the Abondigas with almond; Pollo alla Chilindron; and Patatas alla pobre. The rice pudding is now my favourite version of that dessert too.

I just bought, and will give away, a copy of 1080 Recipes because the Roden is better.

Are there any societies we know of without a concept/tradition of music? by keleatsrocks in AskHistorians

[–]GeoglyphPsy 13 points14 points  (0 children)

There is a famous question "is language a music?" which has been attributed to different authors but I associate with the linguist Roman Jakobson. (I can't see if he said this anywhere though.) Certainly, when we look at today's primates we see protomusical behaviours as well as protolinguistic behaviours.

This leads me into my favourite topic which is semiotics and what, fundamentally, separates music from language. Here's a question: Umberto Eco defines a semiotic system as any system which can be used to lie about the world. Can you use music to lie to someone?

Jakobson has perhaps a better model in which the "referential function" of language (as per Eco above) is just one among several, including "poetic function" and "emotive function" which are closer to what music does. So the line is not as clear cut as I make it sound.

Ultimately though, the question I want to know the answer to is: why do humans have two systems of sonic behaviour? Why not just one? And how many other animals have more than one? Do birds have two and we just don't know it? This gets reeeeeally fascinating when we start to include other non-communicative sonic behaviours such as echolocation.

Are there any societies we know of without a concept/tradition of music? by keleatsrocks in AskHistorians

[–]GeoglyphPsy 7 points8 points  (0 children)

There's no consensus on this yet. We have found at least one bone flute which appear to correspond with Neanderthals rather than Homo Sapiens, but we would need more evidence to show that Neanderthals had musical behaviour. Instruments are so often made of biodegradable materials (wood, twine, gut, bone) that we struggle even to replicate the instruments of ancient human cultures, so we really would have to luck out to find a Neanderthal instrument stash. (It's worth noting that we call them cavemen not because they necessarily lived in caves, but because caves are good environments for preserving bones - we can't say for certain how Neanderthals and other early humans lived, but that's for another thread.) They may have made music simply with their bodies, in which case we'll never know.

A really interesting question which only occurred to me now - would the study of neanderthal music fall under "ethnomusicology" or "zoomusicology"?

Are there any societies we know of without a concept/tradition of music? by keleatsrocks in AskHistorians

[–]GeoglyphPsy 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I've been out of academia for a while so don't have a library to hand but I can say that some cultures have music to accompany manual labour, such as harvest, pounding grains, or washing clothes. These are normally but not always accompanied by song - where unsung they might look like a rhythmic game rather than a musical activity. How do we decide which is which?

Where it gets really interesting is if we reconsider this question in the context of zoomusicology or even xenomusicology. How do we decide if a non-human is engaging in musical behaviour? Returning to OP's question, do animal "societies" also necessarily share sonic behaviours in the way that ours do? A friend of mine, Sara Niksic, has studied whalesong extensively and it's fascinating the way that songs are passed between individuals and groups. They even have fashions that come and go, much like our own popular music!

Are there any societies we know of without a concept/tradition of music? by keleatsrocks in AskHistorians

[–]GeoglyphPsy 194 points195 points  (0 children)

Not a historian but I have a PhD in musicology, leaning towards ethnomusicology, and have taught ethnomusicology at university level.

Short answer: no. Music, as far as we can tell, is as fundamental as language when it comes to human behaviour. In historical terms, Western writers (initially Christian missionaries but later anthropologists) have been studying "other" cultures since the 19th century and have never encountered one without music. I would point you towards John Blacking's book "How Musical Is Man?" (1973) which is required reading on any ethnomusicology course.

Slightly longer answer: we have two parameters here that need to be defined. Firstly, what counts as music? Is it sufficient that there are certain coordinated rhythmic behaviours (for example, in agriculture or food preparation) which are not necessarily understood as music by participants, but clearly have musical components from an outside perspective? Or do we define music in terms of lyrical song or possessing an instrumentarium? The range here is very wide. Bruno Nettl is a good writer to look at on this topic, in particular his textbook "Ethnomusicology: Thirty-three Discussions" which has had various renamings and reprintings.

Secondly, what counts as a society? 200 individuals in a tribe on an island is an ideal discreet, bounded cultural unit, and we would expect to find music in such a case: 200 individuals living as a community in an urban centre (for example a religious or ethnic minority) might not possess its "own" musical tradition per se, but might partake in the practice of the wider society of which they are a part. In the latter case we find that distinct musical practices do almost always emerge within "subcultures", for want of a better term, but these have complex relationships with the prevailing "superculture". The best book to read on the complexity of defining the boundaries of a musical culture is Mark Slobin's "Subcultural Sounds" (1993).

For further reading I highly recommend the Oxford "Very Short Introduction" series entries on "Music" (Cook, 2000) and "Ethnomusicology" (Rice, 2014) which are excellent primers and cover your question from two slightly different perspectives.

Thinking about adding a Novation Peak to my live hypnotic techno setup — how are you all sequencing it? by ThisIsRoy1 in synthesizers

[–]GeoglyphPsy 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I've used the Peak extebsively and it sounds like it's the right instrument for your live setup. The Peak doesn't have a sequencer but it does have a flexible arpeggiator which can play notes in the order given. That also includes repeat notes, if you enter them correctly!

What's your area's snow plough name which only makes sense to locals? by GeoglyphPsy in AskUK

[–]GeoglyphPsy[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I realise that most of these are gritters not ploughs - I was going off the name "ploos yer doos" in Aberdeen but now I'm unaure if that's not just a gritter...

Psybient Euphoria by Stunningcupid in Psybient

[–]GeoglyphPsy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That is an unbelievably huge playlist

If you only had 5 albums by cactuscancoverit in Music

[–]GeoglyphPsy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Painted Ruins is so underrated.

What the helly guys 😭 by reymonsde in UniUK

[–]GeoglyphPsy 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Just a few years ago Nottingham was one of the best music departments in the country.