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The neurophilosophy of raga recognition

Sindhuja Bhakthavatsalam
can be fairly well defined by means of the scale alone. In cases of such raga-s with moorchana counterparts, there exists a higher probability of subjectivity in the raga identified.

usic has been a subject of much interest to cognitive scientists for a long time. The perception, cognition and comprehension of music, and the development of other musical abilities are often complex and intriguing cognitive processes. Indian classical music in particular, with its theoretically rich framework, brings forth many interesting issues to be addressed by music cognition. With the raga central to Indian classical music, the process of raga recognition by the human mind poses crucial problems in music cognition. One fascinating aspect of raga recognition is the subjectivity in the absence of a reference sruti. I have in mind here, griha bheda raga-s or raga-s with moorchana counterparts. (Tamil film music is replete with such interesting cases: Anthi mazhai pozhugiradhu (film Rajaparvai, music Ilayaraja) sounds like Vasanta to some listeners and Ramani to others. Nee paadi naan paadi kanne (Keladi Kanmani, Ilayaraja) could be claimed equally legitimately, by some to be Sarasangi and by others to be Chakravakam. Margazhi poove (May Maadham, A.R. Rehman) could count as Hindolam as well as Suddha Dhanyasi; Konja neram konja neram (Chandramukhi, Vidyasagar) can be considered to be based on Valaji as well as Abhogi. This ambiguity arises because the two raga-s in each of the above pairs are griha bheda-s of each other. Which of the two raga-s a person identifies depends on where she places the shadja while listening to the particular piece. (For instance, if the very first note in Konja neram is taken as sa, the resulting raga would be Abhogi, but if it is taken as pa, it would be Valaji).

The situation almost never arises during the performance of Carnatic music proper for the sruti (and therefore the placement of the shadja) is always specified by the use of a drone. Even in situations where it is not specified, it is very unlikely that raga recognition is subjective for two reasons: In most cases, we know for a fact that a particular song is in a particular raga; and griha bhedam (and consequently, ambiguity in raga identification) usually results from transitions done solely on the notes of the scale. But more often than not, Carnatic raga-s are characterised by not just their scales but characteristic prayoga-s, gamaka-s and so on; and it is not necessary that by merely shifting the shadja (in the mind of the listener), the prayoga-s of the original raga (in addition to its notes/ swara-s) are also transformed, to characterise the resultant raga. For instance, although Kharaharapriya and Sankarabharanam are strictly speaking griha bhedam-s of each other (going by their scales), if either raga is performed without a sruti in the background and without any clue as to where the sa is (by means of sustenance, etc.), it is still quite improbable that a listener would identify it to be the other unless of course, the performer intentionally does a griha bhedam transition by explicitly introducing the prayogas of the new raga. For the prayoga-s of the two raga-s are very different: a listener is conditioned to associate specific raga-s with their specific prayoga-s/ gamaka-s/ pidi-s (and the point here is that in conditioned listeners, these can be discerned independent of the sa placement). Of course there are some raga-s which are not too gamaka-intensive, do not have very specific prayoga-s and

Consider for instance, GNBs kriti Santatamu ninne in Valaji. The starting swara-s are as follows: Sa, ni dha, pa, pa ga dha pa ga, sa. In a highly hypothetical situation, if a person (without knowing a priori that the song was composed in Valaji) claims in the absence of a reference sa that she perceives the swara-s as Ma, Ga Ri, Sa, Sa dha ri sa dha ma, and therefore that the raga is Abhogi, she would not be technically wrong per se. (GNB of course provides ample clues for concluding that the raga is Valaji for instance, starting with, and landing on, sa in the very first line and frequently coming back to it thereafter. However, this conclusion need not be unambiguously objective in the above hypothetical situation). The point of this section was to show how crucial the placement of the shadja is to the identification of raga-s. My attempt here is to analyse this sa placement in listeners first from a psychological, and then from a neurophilosophical, point of view. In the latter, I try to explain the dynamic process of our brain landing on the sa as a musical piece unfolds in time. This explanation is based on Paul Churchlands neurophilosophy.

Shadja (tonic) inference

(Shadja and tonic are interchangeably from now on)

used

Musical compositions provide different cues for us to pick up the sa, and the mind actively (and mostly subconsciously) looks for these cues. Inferring the tonic is something that the mind is naturally inclined to do and
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this propensity is present in listeners of almost all musical cultures and has been famously discussed and analysed by Carol Krumhansl in her book Cognitive Foundations of Musical Pitch. She discusses a general psychological principle that she thinks is in play, with respect to this particular musical case. The principle is that certain perceptual and conceptual objects have a special psychological status. She describes these prototypes as normative, unique, self-consistent, simple, typical. For example, focal colours such as red, green, blue, yellow; in numbers, multiples of 10 or round figures are taken as reference points in a lot of situations, for instance, an ellipse is conceived as a deviation from the more natural circle; and so on. (Of course, the claim is not that these objects have a purely mental basis: they could very well be socially or culturally constructed. The point is only that they have come to have a special psychological status). She goes on to explain that these objects serve to minimise the complexity of other cognitive objects (for the latter are comprehended in relation to the former): in Rosens terms, the principle of cognitive economy. In music then, the tonic (shadja) is that reference that listeners look for and use as a basis relative to which they comprehend the other notes the perceptual and conceptual object that has a special psychological status. A musical phrase ending with the shadja sounds more complete, more regular, more stable. A musical piece may have different cues that help the listener figure out the shadja and feel that sense of stability: the tonic may be held for longer durations than the other notes, or may appear more frequently than the others. It is also most usually the case that a musical sentence ends with the tonic. Or even before the
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tonic is sounded in a piece, the other notes together may produce a sense of anticipation of the tonic. These are the usual cues. So listeners have a way of determining the raga even when the sa is not given, by themselves finding it out with the help of a variety of cues from the piece. However, these cues do not have to work in the same way, in fact do not even have to be the same, for all listeners. Each listener can zero in on a shadja (tonic) depending on her own musical experiences, training, familiarity, musical conditioning and so on. This is why we have the subjectivities in raga identification discussed in the previous section. However, as a result of our collective or cultural conditioning, we are all usually on the same page. The cues discussed above are usually those picked up by most of us, thanks to our common musical backgrounds, experiences and/or training. Irrespective of whether we agree on a raga, how does each brain process the cues to finally arrive at the sa and consequently figure out the raga? We explore this in the following section by means of a simplified neural network, drawing upon the ideas of Paul Churchland.

different regions, each corresponding to a raga. For instance, Kaatril varum geetame (Oru Naal Kanavu, Ilayaraja) is put into the Kalyani bin. Next, when a fairly experienced listener with the bins sculpted is presented with a new piece, the brains dynamical activity comes into play when it has to instantaneously process the incoming information with the aid of the background information (set in place by slow learning) to finally settle in on a raga. Finally, although cultural learning may not directly influence the cognition of raga-s, it certainly affects overall music cognition in a person: music cognition is much more than a purely individual/ personal experience. Indian classical music is itself situated in a cultural context and keeps evolving, like any other art form, as the culture evolves. Also, it is often taught to groups of students, and groups of people attend concerts and exchange ideas. All of this contributes to the cultural sculpting of the mind: musical tastes, perceptions (Varali is not to be taught!) and raga appreciation are culturally influenced. As a result of slow, individual learning, the brain creates categories for raga-s based on the input information of prototypical pieces in each raga. As Churchland does, it is helpful to imagine a neural network as a ladder with each rung representing each level of information-processing neurons and projecting the axonal fibres (the axon is the long stem of a neuron that conducts electrical impulses to the next neuron) to the next rung of neurons via synapses (a synapse is the point where two neurons meet and exchange information by means of electrical impulses). In the present situation, we can imagine a simplified network consisting of two rungs. The first rung of sensory neurons takes as input auditory frequencies (from the musical piece) which are then

Lessons from Hebb

Churchland discusses three kinds of cognitive learning: slow, individual learning; dynamic learning; and cultural/ collective learning. Raga recognition involves all three of them. When a novice first learns raga-s, it is slow, individual learning. The listener learns over time to abstract a raga from several particular instances of it. It takes a few years before the student has an adequate grasp of at least 50-100 raga-s to be able to recognise raga-s of unfamiliar songs. According to Churchlands theory, this knowledge of raga-s presumably permanently sculpts the brain into

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passed on to the next level. The brain is trained to then categorise based on various patterns of incoming frequencies by making appropriate adjustments to the synapses at the second level (teaching the system) at each trial.

As a result, the information processed at this level gets neatly categorised into raga-s. The system is improved by providing a large number of sample input pieces. Since the incoming musical input is unfolding in time, the synapses in the second level would have to wait long enough to receive enough information (in the form of swara patterns) before they can begin to categorise. These categories are then firmly etched, contributing to the overall permanent background and conceptual framework of the brain. When the person has fairly advanced skills in raga recognition, and has the categories (the abstracted ragas) well laid out, the brains dynamical activity comes into play when she has to identify the raga of a new piece presented to her. Since the raga categories have already been formed in the slow learning process, the main task here is to fix the shadja when it is not given, and then to assign the raga by putting the piece into the right category. Here is a simplified network to represent this process, modelled on Churchlands own recurrent network to grasp temporal structures based on Hebbian learning (the theory of Hebbian learning, proposed by Donald Hebb says that when a neuron at a synapse repeatedly stimulates the other neuron, it is connected to via the synapse, the synaptic efficiency, or learning in turn, is enhanced). The first level consists of four sensory neurons the ones receiving the auditory sensations (S1-S4 in the figure) each connected to a unique neuron in the next level the processing/

categorising level (R1-R4 in the figure), where the shadja is identified. When the subject is presented with a musical piece that is unfolding in time, each of the neurons in the second level, on receiving an auditory frequency input from a neuron in the first level at each instant of time, guesses the shadja based on say, length of sustenance, and frequency of occurrence. The second level neurons make a decision based on whether the note is sustained for a minimum of five seconds (say within the first half a minute of the song) or occurs a minimum of five times per minute (which means it has to wait until one of these conditions is satisfied before it can take a call). Once they guess the shadja the first time, they send the signal corresponding to that shadja back to all of the neurons in the first level. Now the next instant these sensory neurons (first level) receive the same frequency from the input (the guessed shadja), the weights of the synapses increase, reinforcing the shadja-ness or tonicity of that note as dictated by Hebbian learning. Instants when there is no match, when some other frequency is being input at the sensory level, there is no enhancement. Also, if based on further data, the neurons at the second level change their judgement on the shadja, they will just stop sending signals corresponding to the earlier guessed shadja and start sending signals for the new shadja. And the Hebbian process repeats itself. After a point, the second level neurons will stop sending new signals,

as they would have confidently zeroed in on a particular swara as the shadja. Once the shadja is identified with confidence, the patterns pass from the second level into the appropriate raga category already sculpted by the slow learning process and ready to be occupied. What this network shows is a neuronal basis for Krumhansls psychological findings the brains predisposition to land on a tonic. The passing of sa-signals from the second level to the first explains our anticipation and prediction of the shadja when we hear a piece. There must be many more cues that the second level neurons take into account, not just duration of sustenance and frequency of occurrence. While the overall process of Hebbian learning is the same for everyone, these cues could vary from person to person, resulting in the occasional subjectivity of the placement of shadja and consequently, the identification of a raga. Following Churchland, only four neurons are considered in each level (as opposed to the millions in the actual biological system). Despite the simplification, this is a fair representation of the types of processes going on in the brain. It accommodates the various empirical features of raga recognition. (Churchlands views discussed in the article appear in his unpublished manuscript, Platos Camera).
(Sindhuja Bhakthavathsalam, a music student and vocalist is pursuing graduate study in Philosophy of Science at the University of California, San Diego. She blogs at http://octaves.blogspot.com) 35 l SRUTI September 2011