Hello forum,

I listened to a very interesting programme on R4 earlier in the week where an anthropological expert was positing the theory that humans, as a race, could survive extremely effectively nowadays if their only form of communication was subtle movements of the eyebrow.

I mused how this might affect the way we make music if we lived in such a world. One could argue for example, that 'eyebrow communication' could perhaps allow us to work to a purer, more simplistic style of music.

If one considers a collaborative process for example, the most effective way of communicating would be to play single notes. As a result, the collaborative partner could express delight, indifference or even disgust at that note with pre-agreed eyebrow movements. Chords and textures could also be possible but more complex rhythms might cause problems.

It certainly made me think of how we take our music making for granted and perhaps it is worth trying a session of eyebrow communication for those of us who collaborate, just to see if anything interesting comes out of the process. You never know.

Two types of communication depending on class. You've got your High-brow class and your Lowenbrau class. If the latter, eye'm in.

Rick

Having a rather notorious anthropologist in my extended family (aka Professor Mayhem) I have long since learned to take much of what they say with a large pinch of salt. I don't think he does Radio 4 much but Newsnight usually wheel him in if there's an 'eat the rich' riot going on. His crowd all hanker after that time when humans lived in small, isolated tribes and hunted for their food. Their idea of music is exclusively percussive and only valid if performed as a part of a fertility rite (although they listen to much v high brow music themselves but only by dead people who can no longer be commercially exploited). They loath open borders, mass communication, free markets etc. Although they have learned how to exploit television, newspapers, books, the internet and open borders in their mission to persuade the rest of us that we should regress. In short, they want the human condition to be smaller and are against the 'big tent'.

Having said that, I've also known a few musos for whom the concept of any eye contact at all would be a step in the right direction. I take your point,

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Strictly project and just for fun

Quote Frisonic:

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Their idea of music is exclusively percussive and only valid if performed as a part of a fertility rite

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"We can probably learn as much from lower primates as they can from us..."

Terence Belcher, 1979

And I'm sure its worthwhile research and good stuff to know. Especially if you make dance music. The trouble with certain anthropologists is that they seem to have adopted some aspects of their discipline as a religion. I was just wondering, how much visual communication, of the eyebrow twitching variety, was going on during those fertility dances or yore and between whom... Even how meaningful it might have been? There is plenty of good evidence to suggest that in many cases, from millennia to millennia, the protagonists were stoned out of their minds at the time.

To be more objective, for me music is very visual. I 'see' music as shapes and colours more than as a mathematical construct, because that happens to be how my mind works. Visual communication has always been very important in the performance of music. Which presumably is why high budget acts spend so much on their stage shows, because eye contact with large audiences is impossible and needs to be replicated. Sure, audiences have come to expect it but for centuries, if you were playing to anything bigger than a tavern you needed to dress up your show a bit. Thus opera. You could argue that visual communication in music has been almost getting out of hand lately (not that I've noticed audiences complaining). What you're after seems to be an experiment in using visual contact as a strict rule in an experiment in minimalism? Sure, why not? That would be cool, as an experiment for the benefit of anthropologists at least.

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Strictly project and just for fun