Talking turns into song

[faulty_damper]

I'm looking for an NPR story that was posted here quite a while ago.  It was about a woman who left her voice recorder on a playback loop and walked out of the room.  Then from the next room she heard someone singing and it turned out it was the voice recorder that was left playing.  Her talking had miraculously turned into a song!

There was a link to the podcast.  Does anyone know what I'm talking about?  It was a really interesting phenomenon.

[bustthewave]

I'm looking for an NPR story that was posted here quite a while ago.  It was about a woman who left her voice recorder on a playback loop and walked out of the room.  Then from the next room she heard someone singing and it turned out it was the voice recorder that was left playing.  Her talking had miraculously turned into a song!

There was a link to the podcast.  Does anyone know what I'm talking about?  It was a really interesting phenomenon.

Hmm... no but I'm really intrigued. I'm going to do some searching.

[faulty_damper]

The point of the story was that when we interpret speech, somehow we don't hear the inherent melodies in that speech.  Instead, we interpret the meaning behind those consonants and vowels but once we stop listening for meaning, we then hear the music.

In the story, it plays back the recording of the woman's voice and you hear what she is saying.  Then it repeats and repeats and repeats.  And then suddenly, for an unknown reason, it just switches and you suddenly hear a 7-note melody but nothing about the playback changed for you to think that.  It was pretty surprising.

As a result of that story, I applied it to everyday conversations and what was so profound was that it made me realize that we all speak in the same key!  If we didn't, conversations would sound dissonant.  There are also pitches in speech; the most common: the minor third.  The minor third is probably the most common because it's the smallest interval that isn't dissonant.  If you've seen old episodes of Lassie, when the boy calls out "Laaaa-Sieeee" it's a minor third!  Or when a man endearingly calls to his wife "ho-ney" it's also a minor third.

I was able to search for the post a while ago but the search features have changed and now I can't find any relevant results.

[faulty_damper]

Found it!  It was WNYC, not NPR.  Oops!

https://mediasearch.wnyc.org/m/11808082/musical-language-radio-lab.htm?col=en-aud-pod_wnyc-ep&match=QUERY#q=%22Musical+Language%22

[bustthewave]

The point of the story was that when we interpret speech, somehow we don't hear the inherent melodies in that speech.  Instead, we interpret the meaning behind those consonants and vowels but once we stop listening for meaning, we then hear the music.

In the story, it plays back the recording of the woman's voice and you hear what she is saying.  Then it repeats and repeats and repeats.  And then suddenly, for an unknown reason, it just switches and you suddenly hear a 7-note melody but nothing about the playback changed for you to think that.  It was pretty surprising.

As a result of that story, I applied it to everyday conversations and what was so profound was that it made me realize that we all speak in the same key!  If we didn't, conversations would sound dissonant.  There are also pitches in speech; the most common: the minor third.  The minor third is probably the most common because it's the smallest interval that isn't dissonant.  If you've seen old episodes of Lassie, when the boy calls out "Laaaa-Sieeee" it's a minor third!  Or when a man endearingly calls to his wife "ho-ney" it's also a minor third.

I was able to search for the post a while ago but the search features have changed and now I can't find any relevant results.

Woooooah, I feel like I need to smoke a doob and record myself .

But wow dude, so this reminds me of when I was around 11 or 12. I remember thinking one day, "every sound is a note right? So shouldn't I haer 'notes' when I speak?" I gave this a lot of though, and began talking normally but paying attention. Then I actually repeated something I said, and found the notes on the piano. Of course it didn't make a melody, it actually made the piano sound like it was talking, there is a way that certain phrases tie together where the pitch is non-sensical in a melodic way. But I can still bust out piano that sounds more like talking.

That's crazy about the minor third thing. I'm really wondering how this holds for other languages! We recognize speach though instantly, even if it's in another language. We also recognize their music, and our music, instantly, even if it's in another language.

So I'm thinking this is pretty uniersal. It alsos ays to me that music is strictly human, that if aliens were to exist, our music wouldn't sound like music to them in the least (though cats are really good at meowing in harmony :/)

[m1469]

Found it!  It was WNYC, not NPR.  Oops!

https://mediasearch.wnyc.org/m/11808082/musical-language-radio-lab.htm?col=en-aud-pod_wnyc-ep&match=QUERY#q=%22Musical+Language%22

Yes, actually, I posted about this quite awhile back and I may have been thinking incorrectly and said there, as well, that it was on NPR.  Sorry!  I'm glad you found it though.  I had saved a link on my computer's desktop and was actually just about to link to your thread here, but then you did before me!

I'm happy that you find it to be quite fascinating, as well!  I was most intrigued by it myself, which is why I had posted about it in the first place.  I can't seem to find that thread, though.  I only tried searching once.  

I may have mentioned it in the former thread, but it reminds me a bit of a dream I once had awhile ago now (a couple of years?) but that I still remember quite clearly to this day.  In the dream, everybody in the world was singing as though that were our very language.  It wasn't like a Musical or an Opera where things are staged and we *choose* to sing instead of speak, my dream was rather as though music were the fundamental characteristic of our vocal and personal expression, and the whole world itself was on a kind of axis of musicalness.  It's impossible to explain the landscape of that as I experienced it in my dream!  But, the point is, this topic reminds me of it .  Glad you enjoy it!

[faulty_damper]

So here's a question:

I've taken a couple of college level Japanese language courses and they were all taught by rote memorization of vocabulary and grammar.  From past research in verbal conversation, 7% of the meaning actually comes from words alone.  About 50% comes from intonation, pitch, articulation, rhythm, tempo, etc.  The remaining 40% comes from nonverbal gestures, facial expression, and body language.  So if we want to learn a language, shouldn't we focus on the 93% that isn't even related to words or grammar?

It's funny because other students will say phrases with an English accent.  If there was focus on that 50%, then they should sound like a native speaker.  This takes care of more than 50% of the meaning right there.  But unfortunately, language courses still focus on that 7%.  What do you think of this?

[pianisten1989]

Someone actually did a study on this, not long time ago.
2 people got together without knowing the other persons language, at all, and they could actually talk about quite a lot with each other (They reached the limit when they started talking about political questions), like family, weather, hobbies...

[faulty_damper]

 Do you have a link to the article or the title of the study?  It would be very interesting to read.

[pianisten1989]

No, sorry.. I only heard it on the swedish radio, and it was just asmall add, so they didn't really say where they got it from.. =/