Cognitive Anthropology and Lyrics

A few weeks ago I finished up collaborating on a lightweight research paper as a work-related extracurricular activity that we submitted to some Computer Science consortium for judging and potential publishing.  The paper was intended to use Human-Computer Interaction principles and some other tech-geeky stuff to describe the difficulties in developing video security software.  Why HCI is kinda interesting Along the way, one of the advisors for the paper, Brent Aurenheimer (a Computer Science prof at CSU Fresno) pointed me in the direction of a book called "Cognition in the Wild", by Edwin Hutchins.  Hutchins is an cognitive anthropologist that spent some time with the Navy, observing how people work together using certain protocols to ensure safety for the things they do.  For example, a protocol that pilots follow when changing altitude in an airplane would entail something like:

1. One crew member verbalizes "Altitude change to X feet"
2. The pilot verbalizes "Altitude change to X feet"
3. The pilot operates on the plane to change the altitude to X feet
4. The pilot verbalizes "Altitude set to X feet"

This protocol ensures that the crew all know what's going to happen, and minimizes the risk of the pilot setting the wrong altitude because he's forced to verbalize what he's going to do, then what he did.  These sorts of systems and protocols might be boring to think about or study for most, but are of super importance when dealing with things that risk people's lives (Xray machines, airplanes, surgeries, etc.) Language and Music I came across this passage in Hutchins' book:

As part of the cognitive revolution, cognitive anthropology made two crucial steps. First, it turned away from society by looking inward to the knowledge an individual had to have to function as a member of the culture. The questions became "What does a person have to know?" The locus of knowledge was assumed to be inside the individual. The methods of research then available encourage the analysis of language. But knowledge expressed or expressible in language tends to be declarative knowledge. It is what people can say about what they know.

Maybe I'm taking this out of context, or maybe I didn't interpret it correctly, but the whole "language tends to be declarative knowledge" thing really hits home: I think this is a huge part of why I tend towards music without "language".  Language, or lyrics when language is paired with music, is really mostly capable of expressing that which one knows; au contraire, it's not so good for expressing that which one doesn't know.  Furthermore, how can you really express something that you don't know?  You probably can't.  You can't communicate something you don't know until you find out that you don't know it.  And for me, I think that's one of the great things about music--when doing music, you can express things that can't be said with language.  The idea of "a picture is worth a thousand words" comes to mind.  Looking at this picture, for example, probably evokes more emotion than reading the text: "prisoners at the Dachau concentration camp were tortured by hanging from their hyperextended arms."  Sorry for the slight morbidity, but I think it makes a good point.  Music has wonderful potential to convey and/or stir up emotions to listeners without necessarily telling them what they should think or feel.  And I happen to think that there is a vast amount of music out there that can do this far better when it's unaccompanied by language.  In fact, language over evocative music can detract from the music--like watching a beautiful sunset next to sewage processing plant.  Or like putting a caption under that picture above--once I read the caption, I'm lead to somewhat subdue the emotions that the picture stirred up, and focus on what the caption's words are telling me; without words, the picture alone allows my thoughts and emotions to carry where they may--maybe to places that I don't have words for. Don't get me wrong--I'm not suggesting that music with lyrics is crap.  I've been reacting for some years now to what seems to be the more common notion that music without words is boring.  I stereotype and think of so many people that if forced to listen to modern instrumental bands like Mogwai or Explosions in the Sky or Godspeed You Black Emperor! for the first time, they'd just be waiting for the words to start, then when they found out that there weren't any, they'd just dismiss the music as boring. Instrumentals Are Inspiring Up until this past century, as I understand it, it seems that Western instrumental music versus music with language was maybe a 50/50 split.  Depending on the era you look at, music with language was used for telling stories or for religious purposes, while instrumental music still played a huge part of music as a whole.  Today, in my perspective, it seems that that ratio has changed quite a bit, which is quite a bummer in my opinion.  How come we don't see more instrumental groups getting popular?  How has our focus shifted as a culture?  Whatever the answers are to those questions, the lack of this type of music really gets my wheels turning.  It makes me want to contribute to this part of music in our society--to fill some wholes where we're lacking (there I go again, getting "epic" notions again). The wheels are turning... "Play Delicate, Desire Quiet", Grace Cathedral Park, In The Evenings of Regret: