Week 5 – on Russ Girsberger’s A Manual for the Performance Library, chapters 2 and 3 – 2/07/2011

Girsberger’s intention across the second and third chapters of his book seems to be to support his assertion from the first chapter, that traditional training and even experience as a librarian is not necessary to work as a performance librarian. These two chapters in particular, while touching upon some of the basic concepts for acquisitions and cataloging, (using specialized vendors, use of AACR2R and MARC records), act as a crib sheet for those unfamiliar with the functions. One particularly striking difference presented by Girsberger was the use of rental as a method to acquire material rather than purchase, due to a number of possible circumstances. While this is a model that exists within certain libraries—for instance, a friend of mine who works at a Department of Defense library in Germany had mentioned this as how some of the material comes into his library—this is by no means the most popular approach to collection development for most libraries. Still, given the limited budget and specialized material being handled by a performance library, I suppose I can see the legitimacy of such a strategy. Following along that same path, it was interesting to note that while Girsberger did reference traditional methods of cataloging, including metadata standards and encoding standards, this chapter (as well as the chapter on acquisitions) really seemed to be a means to present the shorthand version of technical services.

Week 5 – on Oliver Sacks’ Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, part 1

Musical hallucination is an entirely new phenomenon to me. Since I have never (yet) experienced this, I found the litany of case studies fascinating, and was absorbed by Sacks’ common-language approach. While I feel certain that many will read part one of Musicophilia as a testament to the ability of humans to change and grow at any point in their lives—focusing especially on those, such as Dr. Cicoria, who were seemingly musically inspired, or the stories of the many patients who adapted and absorbed their ‘inner iPods’ into their lives—I found the variety of causes of musical hallucination (and their apparent relative untreatability) much more fascinating. That such a variety of problems can result in the same symptom (or effect), musical hallucinations, is surprising enough, (Sacks, 2008, p. 78); that this particular effect of some strokes, aneurysms, seizures, tumors, and more cannot be mitigated even with the more experimental side of modern medicine, though, leads me back to an assumption that even expert understanding of the brain’s functioning is severely limited. In Sacks’ (2008) defense, he does propose possible reasons, and seems especially supportive of Konorski’s hypothesis that “sensory input … normally inhibits any backflow of activity from the highest parts of the cortex to the periphery. But if there is a critical deficiency of input from the sense organs, this will facilitate a backflow,” (p. 83). Even if this generalized cause is correct, though, it begs the question of why the next step (of correcting this problem) hasn’t been successful. I appreciate Sacks’ mostly even-handed approach to musical hallucination, as it seems clear from the cases he cites that it can be considered a gift or a curse (and anywhere along the spectrum between those two poles).  Before even picking up this book, I admit to skepticism based on my having read the work of R.D. Laing and his interpretation of schizophrenia and the place (or not) of antipsychotics as treatment. I am relieved, though, that Sacks takes no such extreme approach, but rather seems to focus on the best outcomes for those experiencing the hallucinations. I look forward to continuing through the book, especially as it focuses more on the correlation between music and emotion, and music and memory, (which I admit will have more personal resonance than explorations of musical hallucination, however fascinating that topic may be).

References

Sacks, O. (2008). Musicophilia: Tales of music and the brain (Rev. ed.). New York, NY: Vintage.

Week 5 – On music cognition at OSU, and the origins of music website

Without the links to the Ohio State Music Cognition Center, I wouldn’t have understood that music cognition could be considered a recognizable field of study, or perhaps more importantly, how multidisciplinary it is. While some of the questions that inform ‘music cognition’ (found on the OSU site, http://www.music-cog.ohio-state.edu/what_is_music_cognition.html) fit well within the boundaries of understanding music as a form of cultural production—which led me to consider much of music cognition within the realm of anthropology—the obvious significance of measurable scientific approaches, (including some of those outlined by Sacks in his book), gesture toward a much more wide-ranging field. I would be curious to know if those who pursue different specializations within the larger discipline of ‘music cognition’ wind up considering themselves experts in varying fields – for instance, I can easily imagine a neurologist, a moral philosopher, and a music educator all finding their focus within the field of music cognition despite their substantially different training and professional paths. I expect I will return more than once to the list of questions, at least, as a guide to more comprehensively consider music cognition.  While I found the ‘origins of music’ website interesting, some of the logic expressed within the linked essays (such as in http://www.greenwych.ca/natbasis.htm) seemed questionable—for instance (at the danger of moving into the space of a subjective collapse), I would contend that the human structure for measurement is constructed rather than natural. The second, in other words, is not an objectively occurring and understood unit, but rather an arbitrary division of another arbitrary division (the minute) of another arbitrary division (the hour); as such, I am suspicious of essentializing arguments about the structure of music when they are premised on what I see as human constructed rather than naturally occurring measurements. That said, patterns within nature are well known, and, in a general way, I could see that patterns of musical composition (thinking here of non-human composition, like the vocalizing of songbirds or whales) might be discernible and even noticeable within human musical production.