Talk:Musical syntax

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Not good enough[edit]

From the section on linguistic syntax:

The fact that a change in the order of subunits especially in the order of phrases in a sentence can add to a change of meaning, appears to set human language apart from nonhuman animal communication systems. The sentence “The child with the red shirt hit the man.” has a completely different meaning from the sentence “The man with the red shirt hit the child.

This is not convincing because it only correct for languages where order of the phrase is significant. The exchange of "child" and "man" would not change the meaning of the phrase in a slavic language like Czech where what is object and subject is determined by casus - rather than order of the phrase. Of course, there is just written: "can add to a change of meaning". But, it presupposes that this is an important trait of all languages, which is not the case. Actually, order is more important in music than in language: In language, you may often change the order without changing the meaning (The sun shines, because there are no clouds. Or: Because there are no clouds, the sun shines.) In music, a C followed by a D is not the same as a D followed by a C. The reason for this is probably that music does not have meaning in the same sense as language.

I have deleted the quotation from the article. (Bjerke (talk) 06:19, 20 August 2011 (UTC))[reply]

Need for more sources[edit]

This seems to be a legitimate subject for a Wikipedia article, but it looks to me like the existing article consists largely or original thinking. If not, it badly needs more info on the sources for the statements. Looie496 (talk) 01:02, 12 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Here's another source with an overview of the differences of syntax and musical harmony: https://www.academia.edu/9957835/Music_is_not_a_Language_Re-interpreting_empirical_evidence_of_musical_syntax_ 87.77.152.243 (talk) 21:13, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Relation to Musical Grammar[edit]

Prior to finding this article, I was reading the article Manodharma (concept in Carnatic music) which speaks of "musical grammar, as codified in the raga and/or the tala"; linking to the article on linguistic grammar. I'm not sure if this should be corrected by linking to Musical syntax, which seems to be a different animal. The present article does not mention The Foundations of Musical Grammar by Lawrence Zbikowski (book) or The Concept of Musical Grammar by Baroni (article). The Oxford Handbook of Critical Concepts in Music Theory has an article on "Musical Grammar" ("including the psychological abilities and constraints that determine what humans can learn, remember, and reproduce") with a subsection "The Operations of Syntax", but not an article of Musical Syntax itself. As presently written, Musical syntax seems to be an abstract, Artificial Intelligence-informed Platonic idea, whereas Musical grammar tries to define how humans of all cultures approach the language of music in practice and pedagogy. Vagabond nanoda (talk) 22:53, 9 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]