【2020-12-27】
基于过去几年对邻居们所办 parties 的观察,似乎存在一个规律,party 规模越大,播放的音乐品位越高,
这或许是因为,那些音乐经验更丰富,对音乐更挑剔的人,倾向于抢占对 party 音乐的控制权,以免忍受那些特别烂俗的东西,而那些音乐经验较少,也不太挑剔的人,不会跟他们抢这控制权,反正放什么他们都无所谓,
一个小观察,不一定有普遍性,而且可能只在某个区间内成立,就是说,这(more...)
【2020-12-27】
基于过去几年对邻居们所办 parties 的观察,似乎存在一个规律,party 规模越大,播放的音乐品位越高,
这或许是因为,那些音乐经验更丰富,对音乐更挑剔的人,倾向于抢占对 party 音乐的控制权,以免忍受那些特别烂俗的东西,而那些音乐经验较少,也不太挑剔的人,不会跟他们抢这控制权,反正放什么他们都无所谓,
一个小观察,不一定有普遍性,而且可能只在某个区间内成立,就是说,这(more...)
人类进化历程中的音乐
Music in Human Evolution
作者:Kevin Simler @ 2015-10-16
译者:Veidt(@Veidt)
校对:混乱阈值(@混乱阈值)
来源:Melting Asphalt,http://www.meltingasphalt.com/music-in-human-evolution/
I just finished the strangest, most disconcerting little book. It’s called Why Do People Sing?: Music in Human Evolution by Joseph Jordania.
我刚刚读完了一本让人称奇,又极为令人不安的小书——Joseph Jordania的《为什么人们会唱歌?——人类进化历程中的音乐》。
If the title hasn’t already piqued your interest, its thesis surely will. The thesis is wild, bold, and original, but makes an eerie amount of sense. If true, it would be a revolution — and I don’t use the term lightly — in how we understand the evolution of music, cooperation, warfare, and even religion.
如果这个标题还不足以激起你的兴趣,那么书中的理论一定会让你兴味盎然。该书论点狂野大胆又富于原创,但却合乎情理到可怕的程度。如果成立,它将成为我们理解音乐,人类合作,战争甚至宗教之演化过程的一项革命性理论——我一般不轻易使用“革命性”这个词。
I have my reservations about Jordania’s theory (and his book), but I’ll save them for a later time. As Daniel Dennett once wrote about another remarkable theory:
对于Jordania的理论(以及这本书)我仍有一些保留意见,但我打算把它们留到以后再讨论。正如Daniel Dennett曾就另一项卓越理论所写道的:
I think first it is very important to understand [the] project, to see a little bit more about what the whole shape of it is, and delay the barrage of nitpicking objections and criticisms until we have seen what the edifice as a whole is. After all, on the face of it, [the project] is preposterous… [but] I take it very seriously.
我认为首要的任务是理解这项理论,多看看它的整体是什么样的,在我们完全看清整个理论大厦前,不要急着接二连三地提出那些挑剔的反对和批评。尽管该理论表面看来荒诞不经……但我会很认真地对待它。
These are exactly my feelings about Jordania’s project. Seemingly preposterous, but worth taking very seriously.
对于Jordania的工作,我的感觉也正是如此。它看似荒谬,却值得我们非常认真地对待。
0.STYLIZED FACTS
0.典型事实
I’m going to share Jordania’s theory with you, but first I want to present a set of “stylized facts” — curious, disparate, and nearly inexplicable phenomena that would seem to have little relation to each other. Then I’ll present the theory that (uncannily) links them all together and explains everything.
下面我将与你分享Jordania的理论,但首先,我想向你呈现一组“典型事实”——这是一组奇怪的,完全不同的,而且几乎无法解释的现象,互相之间看起来也没什么联系。之后,我会展示这项能够(以一种不可思议的方式)将它们联系在一起并且解释这一切现象的理论。
OK, brace yourself. Here come the facts:
打起精神,做好准备。让我们来看看这些“典型事实”:
I hope you are intrigued. Each of these facts is hard to explain even in isolation. So a theory that can unify and account for all of them will have to be either profound or crazy — or both.
我希望上述事实激发了你的好奇心。这些事实中的每一条即使是孤立地来看也很难解释。一个能对这些事实做出统一解释的理论要么很深刻,要么很疯狂——也许二者兼有。
At this point I’m going to present Jordania’s theory as clearly and comprehensively as I can. I’ll interpolate a bit and add my own explanatory flare, but the ideas come straight out of his book.
接下来我将尽可能清晰而全面地展示Jordania的理论。我会不时插入一些自己的解释性看法,但其中的观点则直接来自于他的著作。
(more...)
I think first it is very important to understand [the] project, to see a little bit more about what the whole shape of it is, and delay the barrage of nitpicking objections and criticisms until we have seen what the edifice as a whole is. After all, on the face of it, [the project] is preposterous... [but] I take it very seriously. 我认为首要的任务是理解这项理论,多看看它的整体是什么样的,在我们完全看清整个理论大厦前,不要急着接二连三地提出那些挑剔的反对和批评。尽管该理论表面看来荒诞不经……但我会很认真地对待它。These are exactly my feelings about Jordania's project. Seemingly preposterous, but worth taking very seriously. 对于Jordania的工作,我的感觉也正是如此。它看似荒谬,却值得我们非常认真地对待。 0.STYLIZED FACTS 0.典型事实 I'm going to share Jordania's theory with you, but first I want to present a set of "stylized facts" — curious, disparate, and nearly inexplicable phenomena that would seem to have little relation to each other. Then I'll present the theory that (uncannily) links them all together and explains everything. 下面我将与你分享Jordania的理论,但首先,我想向你呈现一组“典型事实”——这是一组奇怪的,完全不同的,而且几乎无法解释的现象,互相之间看起来也没什么联系。之后,我会展示这项能够(以一种不可思议的方式)将它们联系在一起并且解释这一切现象的理论。 OK, brace yourself. Here come the facts: 打起精神,做好准备。让我们来看看这些“典型事实”:
My suggestion is that our ancestors turned loud singing into a central element of their defence system against predators. They started using loud, rhythmic singing and shouting accompanied by vigorous, threatening body movements and object throwing to defend themselves from predators. [4] 我对此的看法是,人类祖先将大声歌唱的行为转化为了对抗捕食者的防御机制中的一个核心要素。他们使用大声而富有节律的歌唱和叫喊,伴以有力而富有威胁性的身体动作以及向对方投掷各种物品来防御捕食者的进攻。Before we go any further, I'd like you to see the AVID in action. Amazingly, some 'primitive' ethnic groups have maintained an AVID-like tradition into modern times. The kailao war dance of the Wallisian people and the Samoan cibi are two examples, but the best-documented tradition is the haka of the New Zealand Māori. 在我们更进一步之前,我希望你能够看看“恐吓性视听展示”(AVID)这种行为是什么样子的。令人惊讶的是,一些“原始的”人类族群将此类传统保留到了现代。瓦利斯群岛原住民的kailao战舞和萨摩亚人的cibi战舞是其中的两个例子,而被记载得最全面的此类传统则是新西兰毛利人的haka战舞。 Wikipedia describes the haka as 维基百科对haka战舞的描述如下:
a traditional ancestral war cry, dance or challenge from the Māori people of New Zealand. It is a posture dance performed by a group, with vigorous movements and stamping of the feet with rhythmically shouted accompaniment.... 新西兰毛利人的一种继承自祖先的传统战争呼喊、舞蹈或挑战形式。这是一种由群体表演的姿势性舞蹈,伴之以有力的动作和脚步的冲踏以及有节奏的大声喊叫... Various actions are employed in the course of a performance, including facial contortions such as showing the whites of the eyes and the poking out of the tongue, and a wide variety of vigorous body actions such as slapping the hands against the body and stamping of the feet. As well as chanted words, a variety of cries and grunts are used. 整个表演过程中包含了多种行为,包括面部表情的扭曲——例如翻出眼白和伸出舌头,以及一系列有力的身体动作——例如用手掌拍击身体和脚步的冲踏。还有高声喊出的话语,一系列的呼喊和低沉的咕哝声都被用于其中。For a demonstration we now turn to YouTube. Here's a video of a haka by the New Zealand army, showing just how visually and auditorily intimidating it could be: 现在让我们上YouTube来看看haka战舞的演示。下面是一段新西兰军队表演的haka战舞,这段视频充分显示了这种战舞在视觉和听觉上具有多么强的恐吓力量: https://youtu.be/-rDoV0EBu44 And here's a more traditional version: 下面这段视频则记录了一段更传统的haka战舞: https://youtu.be/BI851yJUQQw The point of the AVID (of which the haka is the best-known example) is: “恐吓性视听展示”(haka战舞是其中最富盛名的例子)的意义在于:
Like in a well-established combat unit, where in the heat of the battle one can sacrifice his own life to save a friend's life, human ancestors developed the feel of group identity. The feel of group identity is based on the total trust and dedication of each member of the group to the common interest. 在一个稳固的作战单位中,当战斗进行得如火如荼时,一个战士可以为了拯救伙伴的生命牺牲自己。同样的,人类祖先也进化出了一种类似的集体认同感。集体认同感建立在对集体中所有成员的完全信任和对于集体共同利益的奉献精神之上。 Group identity kicks in when there is a critical situation, a mortal danger for survival of the group or any of its members. In such moments, the noble principle of 'One for all, all for one' rules any individual self-preserving instinct, fear and pain. 在某个生死攸关的时刻,当整个集体或其中某个成员的生存处于危险之中,集体身份意识就会发挥作用。在这样的时刻,“我为人人,人人为我”这种高尚的原则会超越任何个体的自我保护本能、恐惧和疼痛,主导集体成员的行为。This state of consciousness may have originally evolved for parents (especially mothers) to defend their children when threatened, but it was repurposed for group defense and confrontational scavenging. And in the process, we developed a new trigger for it: rhythmic chanting and synchronized body movements. 这种意识状态可能最初是从父母(尤其是母亲)在受到威胁时保护孩子的本能中进化出来的,但之后被用于集体防御和对抗性食腐行为中。而在这个过程中,人类发展出了一种新的触发这种状态的机制:有节奏的吟唱和同步化的肢体动作。
Evolution supplied powerful neurological mechanisms to make this feeling a positive experience. Going into group identity brings the most exhilarating feelings to every member of the group. Every member of the group feels bigger, feel stronger, and virtually feels immortal.... Group members in such an altered state of mind, when they share total trust with each other, emotionally believe that the group cannot be defeated. 进化为将这种感觉变成一种积极的体验提供了强大的神经机制。进入集体身份意识状态为集体中的所有成员带来了一种最为振奋的感觉。集体中的所有人都感觉到自己变得更大,更强,并且几乎感觉到自己是不朽的……在这意识状态中,集体成员分享着对彼此的完全信任,他们会在感情上相信这个集体是不可战胜的。 This unique altered state of mind is supported (and most likely caused) by the powerful neurological substances such as endorphins and oxytocin, which are momentarily released in the brain when a critical survival situations arises. As the neurological substances are released into the brain, feelings of pain and fear are blocked, and total trust and exhilaration of being part of a supernaturally strong unit becomes overwhelming. 这种特别的意识状态是由诸如脑内啡(endorphin)和催产素(oxytocin)这类强大的神经物质所支持的(而且非常可能是由它们引发的),当某种生死攸关的状况出现时,大脑中会暂时释放出这些物质。一旦它们被释放到大脑中,疼痛和恐惧的感觉就被阻断了,而成为某个超自然的强大整体的一部分所带来的完全信任和振奋感则变得不可阻挡。Actual combat isn't as central to our lives in the 21st century, but the battle trance and feelings of collective identity still echo in many of our modern rituals of solidarity, which I wrote about last year, and they're particularly pronounced in religion/politics and team/spectator sports. 真实的战斗在我们21世纪的生活中已经变得不那么重要了,但正如我在去年曾写道过的,在许多现代的团体性仪式中,我们仍然可以找到“战斗恍惚”和集体身份意识状态的影子。在宗教性/政治性活动以及集体性/观赏性体育项目中,它们表现得尤其明显。 6.CANNIBALISM (AND BURIAL) OF THE DEAD 6.吃掉(并埋葬)同类的尸体 As if Jordania's theory didn't cover enough ground already, he has one last surprise in store for us. He claims that early humans practiced cannibalism of their dead as a key part of their comprehensive antipredator strategy. 即使到了这里,Jordania的理论似乎仍然意犹未尽,他还为我们准备了最后一个惊喜。他声称,早期人类吃掉自己同类尸体这种行为实际上是他们整体的防御捕食者捕杀策略中非常重要的一环。 If you recall from section 2, the goal of aposematism is to advertise that, as a piece of prey, you are decidedly unprofitable for the predator. If a predator can easily recognize you (and other members of your species), and remembers getting burned during past encounters, it will quickly learn to stop attacking you in the first place. 回想一下我们在第2节里所提到的,“警示信号”这种策略的目的是让捕食者确认将你作为食物是一件无利可图的事情。如果捕食者能够轻易地认出你(以及你同类的其它成员),并且记起在之前的教训,它就会迅速意识到从一开始就不应该向你发起攻击。 Given this strategy, it's very important not to let the lions (or any other predator) get away with killing and eating a human. The more our ancestors were able to reinforce the message that humans are not a (good) meal, the safer they would be across repeated encounters. This was especially important for early humans because, unlike an actually poisonous species, human meat is worth eating, if a predator can get away with it. 在这种策略之下,不要让狮子(或者其它的任何捕食者)成功地杀死并吃掉人类就变得非常重要。人类祖先们越是能够强化“人类不是好食物”这条信息,在与捕食者们不断的重复相遇中他们就会越安全。对于早期人类来说这一点尤其重要,因为人并不是一种有毒性的物种,如果捕食者能够成功地捕杀人类,人肉其实是很有食用价值的。 This implies a heavy selection pressure for the following behaviors among our ancestors: 这就意味着,自然选择在引导人类祖先做出如下一些行为方面施加了很重的压力:
——海德沙龙·翻译组,致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——
Stairway to hell: life and death in the pop music industry
通向地狱的阶梯:流行音乐界的生与死
作者:Dianna Theadora Kenny @2014-10-27
译者:Horace Rae(@sheldon_rae) 校对:沈沉(@你在何地-sxy)
来源:The Conversation, https://theconversation.com/stairway-to-hell-life-and-death-in-the-pop-music-industry-32735

Musicians such as Amy Winehouse die young at much higher rates than the rest of the population. EPA/Andy Rain
像Amy Winehouse这样的音乐家英年早逝的几率比其他人大。EPA/Andy Rain
Art is a cry of distress from those who live out within themselves the destiny of humanity … Inside them turns the movement of the world; only an echo of it leaks out – the work of art Arnold Schoenberg, 1910.
“艺术是毕生实践人类命运者的痛苦呐喊……世界在他们的身体里流变;只有一丝回声流露出来——那就是艺术品。”——阿诺德·勋伯格,1910年。
Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg, like many gifted artists throughout history, suffered for his art. Popular artists of the modern era have kept this tradition alive. For all the superficial glamour of the pop music world, let us not delude ourselves – today’s popular music scene is brutal.
就像历史上许多天赋异禀的艺术家一样,奥地利作曲家阿诺德·勋伯格因其艺术而遭受痛苦。现代流行艺术家仍保持着这个传统。不要因为流行音乐界的表面浮华而自欺欺人——当今的流行音乐圈万分残酷。
The “pop-cultural scrap heap”, to borrow journalist Drew Magary’s term, is piled high with the dead or broken bodies of young musicians whose personal and musical aspirations collided with the aspirations of those occupying the commercial edifices erected around them, which turn them into income-generating commodities whose role is to satisfy capricious and ever-changing consumer demands.
借用记者Drew Magary的词汇,“流行文化废料堆”已被或死或伤的年轻音乐家堆得高耸入云。这些艺术家的个人愿景和艺术抱负与占据他们周边商业帝国的人的愿望相冲突,后者将他们变成了创收的商品,唯一目的是满足反复无常、任性多变的市场需求。
Many of those musicians end up feeling suffocated, caged and possessed by their minders, exploiters and fans. And many end up dead.
许多音乐家最终发觉他们被自己的保镖、榨利者和粉丝所扼制、禁锢和控制。许多最终一死了之。
How big a problem is the pop music industry, really?
说实在的,流行音乐界的问题究竟有多大?
The rock scene is a volatile mix of glamour, instant wealth, risk-taking, rebellion and psychological distress accompanied by taken-for-granted assumptions that pop musicians will live dangerously, abuse substances and die early. Journalist Amanda Hooten, writing about RobbieWilliams,identifies the components of the “classic rock’n’roll script” as “sex, drugs, rehab and bitterness”.
摇滚圈子是一个不稳定的混合体,融合了魅力、一夜暴富、冒险、反叛和心理焦虑,以及公众对流行音乐家生活方式理所应当的猜测:生活危险、滥用毒品、英年早逝。在记述Robbie Williams时,记者Amanda Hooten把“传统摇滚剧本”的构成要素界定为“性、毒品、戒毒所、无尽痛苦”。
Blogger Jacob Katel expresses the same sentiments in a more forthright manner:
博主Jacob Katel表达了同样的感想,用词更加犀利:
[d]ead rock stars are a dime a dozen. They usually drink themselves to death, overdose on narcotics, crash cars, or get on faulty aircraft with (more...)
Musicians such as Amy Winehouse die young at much higher rates than the rest of the population. EPA/Andy Rain
Gwar frontman Oderus Ungerus died earlier this year. crazybobbles/Flickr
Jimi Hendrix, who died in 1970. AAP Photo
Figure 2 (below) provides a graphical summary of percentages of musicians who died by decade from each of the three causes of death studied; these are juxtaposed with deaths in the US population from the same causes by decade. All comparisons shown in these figures were highly statistically significantly different from the US population.
表2(下表)按年代图示总结了音乐家们死于上述三种原因的频率。这些频率与美国人口因相同原因死亡的频率并列比较。所有对比都显示,流行音乐家的数值与美国人口数值之间存在统计上非常显著的差异。
The pop music scene is toxic and needs rehabilitation
流行音乐圈深受毒害,需要修复
The results of this study are disturbing. Across the seven decades studied, popular musicians’ lifespans were up to 25 years shorter than the comparable US population. Accidental death rates were between five and 10 times greater. Suicide rates were between two and seven times greater; and homicide rates were up to eight times greater than the US population.
这一研究的结果令人忧虑。在7个被研究的年代中,流行音乐家的平均寿命与同时代美国人口相比最多短了25年。流行音乐家的意外死亡率是同时代美国人口的5-10倍;自杀率达2-7倍;他杀率最多达8倍。
This is clear evidence that all is not well in pop music land.
很明显,流行音乐圈情况不妙。
Why is this so? The pop music “scene” fails to provide boundaries and to model and expect acceptable behaviour. It actually does the reverse – it valorises outrageous behaviour and the acting out of aggressive, sexual and destructive impulses that most of us dare only live out in fantasy.
这是为什么呢?流行音乐“圈”没有底线,没有树立典范,也没有要求适度的行为。事实上,它做的事情完全相反:它为粗暴、斗殴、性欲和暴怒抬高价码——我们只敢在幻想中过这种生活。
The music industry needs to consider these findings to discover ways of recognising and assisting young musicians in distress. At the very least, those who make their livings from these young people need to learn to recognise early signs of emotional distress, crisis, depression and suicidality and to put some support systems in place to provide the necessary assistance and care.
音乐界需要思考这些发现,以找到办法来辨识和帮助陷入困境的年轻音乐家。至少,那些依靠这些年轻人为生的人需要学会辨识精神痛苦的早期征兆、恶化期、抑郁和自杀倾向,然后建立支持体系以提供必要的帮助和关爱。
(编辑:@whigzhou)
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——海德沙龙·翻译组,致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——
Music to die for: how genre affects popular musicians’ life expectancy
向乐而死:流派如何影响流行音乐家的预期寿命
作者:Dianna Theadora Kenny @ 2015-03-23
译者:混乱阈值(@混乱阈值) 校对:沈沉(@你在何地-sxy)
来源:The Conversation, https://theconversation.com/music-to-die-for-how-genre-affects-popular-musicians-life-expectancy-36660
Do all popular musicians live hard and fast, take risks and die young?
是否所有的流行音乐家都发奋求存,飞逝人生,率性冒险,英年早逝?
This article is the third in a series examining mortality in popular musicians.
此文为流行音乐家死亡调查系列之三。
To recap, the first article examined longevity, suicide, murder and accidental death rates in pop musicians compared with population data from the US. As expected, longevity was significantly reduced in pop musicians, who also had higher rates of suicide, homicide and accidental death.
概述前作,系列中的第一篇调查了流行音乐家的寿命、自杀率、他杀率和意外死亡率并与美国人口的平均数据相比较。不出所料,流行音乐家的寿命大大低于全美人均寿命,并有着更高的自杀率、他杀率和意外死亡率。
The second article explored the “myth” of the so-called 27 club, explaining how this idea emerged and why it has taken root in the public imagination.
系列之二则探究了所谓的27岁俱乐部的传说,解释了这个概念是如何形成的,以及为何它得以扎根于公众的想象中。
In this article, I’d like to look at whether membership of different music genres is associated with different risks of early death and different causes of death.
在此文中,我会看看,音乐家所属流派的不同,是否与不同的早逝风险以及不同的死因相关联。
The chart below plots genres over time (oldest to youngest genres), showing the average age of death of popular musicians by genre and gender against life expectancy (LE) for US males and females born in the same year.
下图将音乐流派依时序排列(从最早的类型到最新的),显示了不同流派不同性别的流行音乐家的平均死亡年龄,以及同年出生的美国男性和女性的寿命预期。
相较于性别或年龄,音乐流派与不同类别的致死原因联系更为紧密。供图:Surian Soosay, CC BY-SA[/caption]
Do all popular musicians live hard and fast, take risks and die young?
是否所有的流行音乐家都发奋求存,飞逝人生,率性冒险,英年早逝?
This article is the third in a series examining mortality in popular musicians.
此文为流行音乐家死亡调查系列之三。
To recap, the first article examined longevity, suicide, murder and accidental death rates in pop musicians compared with population data from the US. As expected, longevity was significantly reduced in pop musicians, who also had higher rates of suicide, homicide and accidental death.
概述前作,系列中的第一篇调查了流行音乐家的寿命、自杀率、他杀率和意外死亡率并与美国人口的平均数据相比较。不出所料,流行音乐家的寿命大大低于全美人均寿命,并有着更高的自杀率、他杀率和意外死亡率。
The second article explored the “myth” of the so-called 27 club, explaining how this idea emerged and why it has taken root in the public imagination.
系列之二则探究了所谓的27岁俱乐部的传说,解释了这个概念是如何形成的,以及为何它得以扎根于公众的想象中。
In this article, I’d like to look at whether membership of different music genres is associated with different risks of early death and different causes of death.
在此文中,我会看看,音乐家所属流派的不同,是否与不同的早逝风险以及不同的死因相关联。
The chart below plots genres over time (oldest to youngest genres), showing the average age of death of popular musicians by genre and gender against life expectancy (LE) for US males and females born in the same year.
下图将音乐流派依时序排列(从最早的类型到最新的),显示了不同流派不同性别的流行音乐家的平均死亡年龄,以及同年出生的美国男性和女性的寿命预期。
Musicians from the older genres – blues, jazz (including bebop and dixieland), country (including country and western, boogie woogie, honky tonk and bluegrass), and gospel (including spiritual and Christian rock) – enjoyed, on average, similar lifespans as those from the US population with the same year of birth and gender.
那些属于较早期的音乐流派——蓝调、爵士(包括比波普和迪克西兰)、乡村乐(包括西部乡村、布吉乌吉、酒吧音乐和蓝草)以及福音音乐(包括圣歌和基督教摇滚)——的乐手平均拥有和同年出生、同样性别的美国大众相似的寿命。
The next group – R&B (including doo wop and soul), pop, folk (including ballad and polka) and world music – had lower life expectancies compared with the US population.
下一个群体——属于R&B(包括杜沃普和灵魂)、流行乐、民乐(包括民谣和波尔卡)和世界音乐的音乐家——与美国民众相比则寿命预期较低。
Thereafter, the gap between population lifespans and average age of death for the more recent genres – rock (including rockabilly), electronic (including experimental, techno, disco, and funk), punk, metal, rap and hip hop – widens.
此后,那些属于更新近的音乐流派——摇滚(包括山区乡村摇滚)、电子乐(包括实验乐、高科技舞曲、迪斯科和疯克)、朋克、金属、说唱和嘻哈——的音乐家们,与美国民众相比,在寿命和平均死亡年龄上的差距进一步加大。
This pattern reflects, to some extent, a confound in the data: musicians who are dying youngest belong to newer genres (electronic, punk, metal,rap,hip-hop) that have not existed as long as genres such as jazz, country, gospel and blues. Consequently, they have not had the same opportunity to live a full lifespan.
这种规律在一定程度上反映了一个数据上的偏差:那些死亡年龄最小的音乐家属于较新的音乐流派(电子、朋克、金属、说唱、喜欢)。这些流派与诸如爵士、乡村、福音音乐和蓝调等相比,存在时间较短。结果是,这些死去的音乐家们尚还没有获得同样的机会活到人均寿命。
However, this is not the whole answer.
然而,这不是全部的答案。
The main causes of death for musicians from different genres
不同流派音乐家的主要死因
The table below shows that musicians from different genres have different rates of death from different causes of death.
下表显示,不同流派音乐家死于不同死因的比例并不相同。
For male musicians across all genres, accidental death (including all vehicular incidents and accidental overdose) accounted for almost 20% of all deaths. But accidental death for rock musicians was higher than this (24.4%) and for metal musicians higher still (36.2%).
对各种音乐流派的男性音乐家整体来说,意外死亡(包括所有的交通意外和意外吸毒过量)占全部死亡的大约20%。但摇滚乐手的意外死亡率则高于此数字(为24.4%),而金属乐手则更高(为36.2%)。
Suicide accounted for almost 7% of all deaths in the total sample. However, for punk musicians, suicide accounted for 11% of deaths; for metal musicians, a staggering 19.3%. At just 0.9%, gospel musicians had the lowest suicide rate of all the genres studied.
自杀占了样本中全部死因的7%。但是,对于朋克乐手,自杀占死因的11%;对于金属乐手,比率达到令人震惊的19.3%。而福音音乐家则是调查的各种流派中自杀率最低的,仅仅为0.9%。
Murder accounted for 6.0% of deaths across the sample, but was the cause of 51% of deaths in rap musicians and 51.5% of deaths for hip hop musicians, to date. This could be due to these genres’ strong associations with drug-related crime and gang culture.
谋杀占了所有样本中死因的6.0%,但到目前为止却占了说唱音乐家死因的51%,占嘻哈音乐家死因的51.5%。这可能是因为这些音乐流派与毒品相关犯罪和帮派文化有着强烈联系。
Heart–related fatalities accounted for 17.4% of all deaths across all genres, while 28% of blues musicians died of heart-related causes. Similarly, the average percentage of deaths accounted for by cancer was 23.4%. Older genres such as folk (32.3%) and jazz (30.6%) had higher rates of fatal cancers than other genres.
与心脏相关的死因占所有音乐家死因的17.4%,而28%的蓝调音乐家死于心脏病相关的原因。相似的,癌症占各类死因的23.4%。与其它类型相比,早一些的音乐流派如民谣和爵士音乐家们死于癌症的比率更高,分别为32.3%与30.6%。
In the case of the newer genres, it’s worth pointing out that members of these genres have not yet lived long enough to fall into the highest-risk ages for heart- and liver-related illnesses. Consequently, they had the lowest rates of death in these categories.
值得一提的是,属于较新流派的音乐家们还未能活到心脏病和肝脏相关疾病风险最高的年纪。相应的,他们死于这类死因的比率也最低。
So, what can we conclude about musicians and music genre membership?
那么,对音乐家和所属音乐流派我们能得出什么结论呢?
This study highlights the different mortality profiles of musicians belonging to different genres of popular music, and cautions against treating the population of popular musicians as homogeneous.
这项研究突出了属于不同流行乐流派的音乐家们的死亡率分布的不同,并对统一对待各种流行音乐家的做法提出警告。
Music genre was associated with distinct causes of mortality, more so than gender or age (not presented here). This suggests that once someone is inducted into the popular music industry, effects of sex and age on mortality may be masked by genre “membership” and its accompanying lifestyle.
音乐流派与不同死因的相关性要超过性别或年龄与不同死因(未在此文中显示)的相关性。这说明某人一旦进入流行乐行业,性别与年龄对死亡率所起的作用可能被所属流派以及相应的生活方式所掩盖。
Importantly, because this was a quantitative study of dead musicians and our aim was to gather population data to identify occupational hazards in the pop music world, I can only speculate here about the underlying causes of these patterns in mortality.
重要的是,因为这是一项对已经死去的音乐家们的量化研究,且我们的目标是通过搜集人口数据来对流行乐界中的职业危害进行识别,我只能在这里对造成死亡率分布规律的潜在原因进行猜测。
[caption id="attachment_6057" align="alignnone" width="300"]
“性手枪”乐队的Sid Vicious,摄于1978年。次年,Vicious因服食过量海洛因死亡,年仅21岁。海洛因是他母亲弄到手的。Chicago Art Department/ Wikimedia Commons[/caption]
These figures likely represent a combination of factors inherent in the popular music industry (such as the ubiquitous presence of alcohol and other substances of addiction, irregular hours, touring, high levels of stress, performance anxiety) and the vulnerability that many young musicians bring with them into their profession from adverse childhood experiences. Add to this the subcultural values and philosophies in distinct music genres with which young musicians become imbued, and you have a complex, multi-faceted picture of musician mortality.
这些数字有可能代表了流行乐产业中的固有因素(比如酒精和其它致瘾物质的普遍使用、不规律的作息时间、巡回演出、高度压力、演出焦虑)与很多年轻音乐家从不幸的童年经历带入职业的脆弱性的结合。雪上加霜的还有年轻乐手们被灌输的亚文化价值观和特定音乐流派中的不同哲学。于是,你就有了一个关于音乐家之死的复杂而多面的画面。
Other studies have reported similar significantly-reduced life expectancy in popular musicians from the newer genres compared with matched general populations. Mortality rates were between two and three times higher for popular musicians than matched population data. The median ages of popular musician death in the two Bellis studies (links above) were 41.78 and 45.2 years respectively, which closely aligned with my findings.
其它研究也已提到与此文相似的现象,较新流派的流行音乐家与相应大众相比,预期寿命显著减短。与相应大众的数据相比,流行音乐家们的死亡率要高出2至3倍。在Bellis的两项研究(见上面的链接)中,流行乐手的死亡年龄中位数分别为41.78岁和45.2岁,这与我的调查结果相吻合。
Many musicians from younger genres – rock, electronic, punk, metal, rap, and hip hop – appear unlikely to live long enough to acquire the illnesses of middle and old age.
许多属于较新音乐流派——摇滚、电子乐、朋克、金属、说唱、嘻哈——的音乐家似乎不太可能活到可以得中年病和老年病的年纪。
Subsequent research decades hence, when the newer genres have matured sufficiently to potentially contain members with ages spanning population life expectancies, may confirm the findings and tentative conclusions drawn from this series of studies.
在未来的数个十年研究期里,当较新音乐流派足够成熟,已潜在地包含有年龄达到人均预期寿命的乐手时,也许此系列研究的各种发现和初步结论能得到确认。
(编辑:@whigzhou)
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——海德沙龙·翻译组,致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——
(按:之前的饭文都是时评,本月开始,我将在《长江日报·读周刊》开设一个专栏,打算从技术、物质和制度层面写一些历史点滴,我把它叫做“辉格读史笔记”,频率大概是每月2到4篇,这里是第0篇,算是试笔,不过写这篇时还没调整好思路和状态——其实现在也还没有——所以我想多听听各位的观感和意见。)
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