Dear Reader,
It is no coincidence that when I perform one of my songs, I first play the melody and only then do I sing the song. The melody is an existing piece of music. I chose it because it sounds good, I resonate with it, and, it is easy enough for me to play on my recorder. When I hear some nice tune, I immediately know if I can play it or not. If I can play it, I like it so much that I am feeling inspired to write my own text to it.
In almost all my songs I sing about Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). Occasionally, I also write something funny or obnoxious, but, even then, the melody was always selected first. Those are songs which illustrate the workings of Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB).
I perform my songs mostly alone and there is a reason. Only just today I am able to understand how my songs come about. I have my own way of working and I think it is because of that that people seldom invite me to play with them. Sometimes someone asks me, but not very often. I will try to play more often with others in the next year. The fact is, however, only a few people can play with me. Most people are too much into themselves. The music which I play is not about me, but about everyone.
Although I am not a great musician, I know when I get it right and when it sounds good. Often there is too much noise for me to perform well. I do better when people are quiet and attentive. At the Open Mike in Paradise, yesterday evening, there was no sound system as John Michael was out sick. Due to this a different situation had been created. The atmosphere was more intimate and more natural.
The text of my songs are only understood if people take time to experience my sound. Most people can’t play with me because they can’t have Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB); I can’t play with people with whom I can’t have SVB. If people were more attuned to me, I think we could play my songs together very well.
In the same way my performance works, so too works SVB; it is the melody which always comes first, the text comes later. To me, it seems as if the music creates the text. Those people who appreciate my music, they learn about SVB from the text, but those who don’t like the music, they find my songs pretty boring, as they are always about the same thing.
Each song is unique; it supports SVB in a way which no other song could. My melodies came from many different composers, who lived in different cultures. Their sound struck a chord in me and inspired me to write a text. Sometimes, when we are dealing with and ancient traditional melody, the composer of the song is unknown, but usually it is someone we have all heard of, like Mozart, Vivaldi or Bach. Each time I have sung my song, like I did yesterday night, I go and search again for a new melody. I spend hours listening to new tunes. It is amazing how much music there is, how many different audiences at different locations have appreciated these great works of art.
The melody tells us more about the function of our verbal behavior than the words we use. It is not the words which are some kind of vehicle that convey a message, but it is the sound which informs us about the emotional experiences which could only occur in certain circumstances. When people talk about the passion, they speak about someone’s ability to create a situation in which what he or she says makes sense due to how he or she says it. Few people know that our belief that our words can be filled with meaning or that our words express our thoughts, is based on the ignorance about the science of human behavior.
Usually, we don’t distinguish between spoken and written words as we consider our words as things, but behaviorism distinguishes between our spoken and our written words precisely because spoken and written words are a function different environments. Moreover, words which are sung, they are, of course, also a function of yet another environment than the words which are spoken or written. Also, it makes a big difference whether you listen to a song which is performed life or on your I-pod at the gym.
When I sing my song after I have played the melody, I have introduced my audience to the environment in which I would like them to hear what I want to say. I sing about what I want to say, so actually, there are three environments: 1) the environment in which I play the music without words, 2) the environment in which that same melody expresses words, and 3) the environment in which we talk and listen to the sound of the words we express, in which we engage in SVB.
All of this is needed to experience that in talking we are not, as speakers, using our words. Words are not, as is so often erroneously believed, tools or things we use. Words are verbal behavior, which is stimulated and reinforced under certain circumstances. Only if we pay attention to the sound of what we say do we experience that speaking and listening are behaviors, which in NVB occur at incongruent rates. Only in SVB, in which we listen to ourselves while we speak, can speaking and listening occur at the same rate.
Another important aspect of bringing attention to the sound of what we say is that usually we think we talk about the physical world (our car, our children, our house, our guns, etc.) or we think that we talk about something that has happened to us (some experience, some event or some development). When we do this, our words presumably represent our ideas, feelings, thoughts and experiences. By talking, we are trying to deal with whatever we think we are going through or whatever has happened to us. What nobody seems to notice is that in NVB, we behave verbally in such a way as if our words go from us to our environment.
We presumably describe things, we name things, we express what has happened or what is happening. We are so convinced that we speak about the reality and we think that we refer to our past experiences and we emphasize the importance of certain aspects of life, which supposedly are more important than others.
Our words seldom if ever express the way in which our environment actually causes them. Due to how we were conditioned, we don’t realize that our verbal behavior doesn’t and can’t cause our reality and that only natural events, environmental stimuli, can cause our verbal behavior. The direction of our verbal behavior, therefore, is not from us (as speakers), to our environment (to the listeners), but from the environment (from the listener) to us (to the speaker)!!! Skinner defines Verbal Behavior (1957) as an indirect action; the listener is needed to mediate the consequences; that is to say, the listener is needed to reinforce the speaker. The reason that we appreciate songs which elicit emotional experiences is that music allows us to trace the environments from which our verbal behavior has emerged. By listening to beautiful music, it is as if we, as speakers, feel that we are finally being listened to….
It is no coincidence that when I perform one of my songs, I first play the melody and only then do I sing the song. The melody is an existing piece of music. I chose it because it sounds good, I resonate with it, and, it is easy enough for me to play on my recorder. When I hear some nice tune, I immediately know if I can play it or not. If I can play it, I like it so much that I am feeling inspired to write my own text to it.
In almost all my songs I sing about Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). Occasionally, I also write something funny or obnoxious, but, even then, the melody was always selected first. Those are songs which illustrate the workings of Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB).
I perform my songs mostly alone and there is a reason. Only just today I am able to understand how my songs come about. I have my own way of working and I think it is because of that that people seldom invite me to play with them. Sometimes someone asks me, but not very often. I will try to play more often with others in the next year. The fact is, however, only a few people can play with me. Most people are too much into themselves. The music which I play is not about me, but about everyone.
Although I am not a great musician, I know when I get it right and when it sounds good. Often there is too much noise for me to perform well. I do better when people are quiet and attentive. At the Open Mike in Paradise, yesterday evening, there was no sound system as John Michael was out sick. Due to this a different situation had been created. The atmosphere was more intimate and more natural.
The text of my songs are only understood if people take time to experience my sound. Most people can’t play with me because they can’t have Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB); I can’t play with people with whom I can’t have SVB. If people were more attuned to me, I think we could play my songs together very well.
In the same way my performance works, so too works SVB; it is the melody which always comes first, the text comes later. To me, it seems as if the music creates the text. Those people who appreciate my music, they learn about SVB from the text, but those who don’t like the music, they find my songs pretty boring, as they are always about the same thing.
Each song is unique; it supports SVB in a way which no other song could. My melodies came from many different composers, who lived in different cultures. Their sound struck a chord in me and inspired me to write a text. Sometimes, when we are dealing with and ancient traditional melody, the composer of the song is unknown, but usually it is someone we have all heard of, like Mozart, Vivaldi or Bach. Each time I have sung my song, like I did yesterday night, I go and search again for a new melody. I spend hours listening to new tunes. It is amazing how much music there is, how many different audiences at different locations have appreciated these great works of art.
The melody tells us more about the function of our verbal behavior than the words we use. It is not the words which are some kind of vehicle that convey a message, but it is the sound which informs us about the emotional experiences which could only occur in certain circumstances. When people talk about the passion, they speak about someone’s ability to create a situation in which what he or she says makes sense due to how he or she says it. Few people know that our belief that our words can be filled with meaning or that our words express our thoughts, is based on the ignorance about the science of human behavior.
Usually, we don’t distinguish between spoken and written words as we consider our words as things, but behaviorism distinguishes between our spoken and our written words precisely because spoken and written words are a function different environments. Moreover, words which are sung, they are, of course, also a function of yet another environment than the words which are spoken or written. Also, it makes a big difference whether you listen to a song which is performed life or on your I-pod at the gym.
When I sing my song after I have played the melody, I have introduced my audience to the environment in which I would like them to hear what I want to say. I sing about what I want to say, so actually, there are three environments: 1) the environment in which I play the music without words, 2) the environment in which that same melody expresses words, and 3) the environment in which we talk and listen to the sound of the words we express, in which we engage in SVB.
All of this is needed to experience that in talking we are not, as speakers, using our words. Words are not, as is so often erroneously believed, tools or things we use. Words are verbal behavior, which is stimulated and reinforced under certain circumstances. Only if we pay attention to the sound of what we say do we experience that speaking and listening are behaviors, which in NVB occur at incongruent rates. Only in SVB, in which we listen to ourselves while we speak, can speaking and listening occur at the same rate.
Another important aspect of bringing attention to the sound of what we say is that usually we think we talk about the physical world (our car, our children, our house, our guns, etc.) or we think that we talk about something that has happened to us (some experience, some event or some development). When we do this, our words presumably represent our ideas, feelings, thoughts and experiences. By talking, we are trying to deal with whatever we think we are going through or whatever has happened to us. What nobody seems to notice is that in NVB, we behave verbally in such a way as if our words go from us to our environment.
We presumably describe things, we name things, we express what has happened or what is happening. We are so convinced that we speak about the reality and we think that we refer to our past experiences and we emphasize the importance of certain aspects of life, which supposedly are more important than others.
Our words seldom if ever express the way in which our environment actually causes them. Due to how we were conditioned, we don’t realize that our verbal behavior doesn’t and can’t cause our reality and that only natural events, environmental stimuli, can cause our verbal behavior. The direction of our verbal behavior, therefore, is not from us (as speakers), to our environment (to the listeners), but from the environment (from the listener) to us (to the speaker)!!! Skinner defines Verbal Behavior (1957) as an indirect action; the listener is needed to mediate the consequences; that is to say, the listener is needed to reinforce the speaker. The reason that we appreciate songs which elicit emotional experiences is that music allows us to trace the environments from which our verbal behavior has emerged. By listening to beautiful music, it is as if we, as speakers, feel that we are finally being listened to….
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