The riff, motherese and ancient stone engravings 

Reflections by Viggo Krüger 

Background 

The 6th of December 2022 I was invited to participate at a seminar hosted by Geir Harald Samuelsen. The venue for the seminar was Knut Knaus, Faculty for Fine Arts, Music and Design. A group of invited scholars shared reflections based on photos of engraved and painted lines carved into stone by our stone age ancestors in France and South Africa (see example image above). The quest for us was to approach rhythm through contemporary artistic and archaeological imagination. For my own case, as a music therapy researcher with a research interest in music therapy for children and adolescents’ health and well-being, the invitation was tempting. In short, my interpretations of the images, as I presented them at the seminar, was a notion building upon an assumption that the early engravings can be understood as a form of “motherese”, a language form occurring between the child and the one rearing the child (Saint-Georges, Chetouani, Cassel, Apicella & Mahdhaoui, 2013). When communicating with their children, parents use what use motherese, often referred to as “infant-directed speech”. In short, motherese is the spontaneous way in which primary caregivers speak with young children. Motherese is a concept that is relevant not just for small children. A pop son may function as a form of motherese (Murphey & Alber, 1985). Everyone who had a song stuck in their head, like a riff, knowns that this can be quit annoying, or shooting, depends on the listener. Some popsongs involves motherese-like voicings - imitating the voice of a baby or a calming mother.  

The riff and motherese

started my speech by playing guitar. I started the speech with playing an old Blind Willy McTell inspired blues riff. I tuned my Gibson Hummingbird acoustic guitar to a drop D open chord, making it sound dark groovy. Once I started playing, the audience did not listen, but I kept riffing till it was quite difficult for them not to listen. After a couple of bars, I stopped, and their attention was grabbed.   

In music, the concept of the riff derives from the Italian word ostinaro (which means to be obstinate or persistent). The riff is a repeated musical phrase or rhythm that is used as a foundation for a piece of music or a section of music. The riff is often used as a compositional technique, where a simple melodic or rhythmic pattern is repeated throughout a piece or a section of a piece, creating a sense of continuity and coherence. Famous writer Umberto Eco pay attention to the riff when he describes musical tools used by the jazz musician. 

In the case of jazz, for instance, the antecedents of a jam session are a certain familiarity with the other players and their work, and the frequent recourse to traditional tricks, such as the riff or other melodic-harmonic formulas borrowed from a common repertoire (Eco, 1989, p. 109).

The riff can be used to create catchy and memorable hooks, as in the melodic structures of songs such as Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction," Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean," or Edvard Grieg’s The Hall of the Mountains King. Why did I choose to start with the demonstrating the riff’s genuine effect on grabbing the attention to my audience? The stone carvings, as I interpret them is simple stubborn structures, just like a hook line in a pop song or a refrain in a ABBA song. The structures found in the caves immediately catches your eye, they drag you in, just like a caramel for the eye to see - instant communication. When looking at the pictures you are invited to imagine, to jam and to think. 

During my talk I went on to present my own professional academic filed, music therapy. Looking at historical sources, there is evidence of music therapy in many ancient civilizations (Meymandi, 2009; Thaut, 2015). For example, in ancient Egypt, what is known as “The Ebers Papyrus”, a medical text from ancient Egypt, describes the use of music to treat a variety of physical and mental illnesses. In ancient Greece, music was considered to have a powerful effect on the emotions and was used in medical treatments as well as in religious and cultural rituals (Tsiris, and Kalliodi, 2020). Also in ancient China, music was also used as a healing art. In modern times, music therapy as an academic discipline is about studying how music is used with the aim of promoting health, quality of life and support community participation. During the Second World War, Music therapy played an important role both for the physical and mental well-being of soldiers and civilians. For soldiers, music was often used as a form of rehabilitation for those who were injured or suffering from trauma. Music therapy was used in military hospitals to help soldiers recover from physical injuries, such as amputations, and to alleviate symptoms of psychological trauma, such as anxiety and depression. The use of music therapy helped soldiers to manage their pain and promote relaxation, which in turn helped to improve their overall physical and emotional well-being. Today, modern music therapy is an academic field that has grown significantly in recent decades. It is a field of study that focuses on the use of music as a therapeutic tool to address physical, emotional, cognitive, and social needs of individuals. The academic study of music therapy involves a multidisciplinary approach, drawing on knowledge from fields such as psychology, neuroscience. 

Communicative musicality 

In music therapy literature the term “communicative musicality” (CM) is used widely. CM is understood as a form of communication, expression, and social interaction (Stern, 1985). The concept CM was originally developed by musicologist and psychologist, Stephen Malloch, and the anthropologist, Colwyn Trevarthen (Trevarthen, 2004). 

”….infants have an ”innate intersubjectivity”. By this we mean they are born with coherent and balanced mental system that is ready to respond actively and emotionally to the presence and communicative advances of another person who express a similar system of feeling” (Trevarthen, 1904, p. 13)

CM implies that, without intending to do so, the exchanges between a mother (or father) and her (or his) infant follow typical rules of musical performance, with distinct timing and melodic narratives. Speaking and moving in musical dance-like way is the essential foundation for all. At its core, communicative musicality recognizes that music is not just an art form, but a fundamental aspect of human social interaction (Trehub, 2003). 

We know that children are born as altricial beings, meaning that they are born in an immature state and unable to care for themselves (Cross, 2010). This contrasts with precociality, in which offspring are born or hatched in a more developed state and can move around and feed themselves to some extent. While we may never know for certain how stone age children engaged with music and rhythm, we can take for granted that those who reared them needed artifacts and tools to facilitate growth and support. My very subjective interpretation of the gravings is hence that they represent a form of communication that may have had something to do with child rearing, and possible early infant motherese. Could the cave graving s have the same function, to help in the development of communication skills, social skills? As I see them, the patterns in the gravings create a sense of calm - the structures are man-made to conform and suite the beholder. Was the intention to reduce anxiety and create sense of safety and belonging?   

Referanser

Cross, I. (1999) Is music the most important thing we ever did? Music, development and  evolution, in Suk Won Yi (ed.) Music, Mind and Science. Seoul National University

Press, Seoul, p. 10-39.

Eco, U. (1989), The open work, Harvard University Press, Cambridge

Meymandi A. Music, medicine, healing, and the genome project. Psychiatry (Edgmont). 2009 Sep;6(9):43-5. PMID: 19855860; PMCID: PMC2766288.

Murphey, T., & Alber, J. L. (1985). A pop song register: The motherese of adolescents as affective foreigner talk. TESOL Quarterly, 19(4), 793–795.

Saint-Georges C, Chetouani M, Cassel R, Apicella F, Mahdhaoui A, et al. (2013). Motherese in Interaction: At the Cross-Road of Emotion and Cognition? (A Systematic Review). PLoS ONE 8(10): e78103. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0078103

Stern, D. N. (1985). The interpersonal world of the infant: A view from psychoanalysis and developmental psychology. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Thaut, M. H. (2015). Chapter 8- Music as therapy in early history. Progress in Brain         Research, 217, 143–158. http://marefateadyan.nashriyat.ir/node/150

Trehub, S. (2003). The developmental origins of musicality. Nature neuroscience, 6(7), 669–673. 

Trevarthen, C. (2004). How infants learn how to mean. In M. Tokoro & L. Steels (Eds.), A learning zone of one’s own(pp. 37–69). Amsterdam, Netherlands: IOS Press. 

Tsiris, G. and Kalliodi, C. (2020). Music therapy in Greece and its applications in dementia          and end-of-life care. Approaches: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Music Therapy,  12(2), 233-249.