Vibrato, Intimacy, Experience, and Space—Key Words Explaining the Appeal of the Wah-Wah Pedal

Seventh in a series

By Yas Mamemachi
Kyoto, Japan

Professor Iwamiya (left) and Dr Satoh at the Japanese Society for Music Perception and Cognition (Photos by Yas Mamemachi)

n order to meet the two scientists recommended by Professor Yamada (see the wah-wah pedal story No. 6), one of whom is a professor in audio engineering and the other a medical doctor in neuropsychology, I went to the Japanese Society for Music Perception and Cognition, which was holding a conference at the Kyoto City University of Arts in Katsura, a town for the Katsura Imperial Villa, built in the 17th Century and located in the western suburbs of Kyoto.

Unlike many other important Japanese large-scale cultural treasures, the villa is placed within associated gardens (within tea houses) and the outbuildings have never burned down in arson attack or civil conflicts or the Pacific War so that the palace fully retains its original form.

I went to the city university by bus from Katsura station on a local railway. For some reason the neighborhood the bus went through looked familiar. Then, I figured out the reason.

Unlike many other typical Japanese towns, there were no high-rise buildings and a river still ran through the town. Small houses stood side by side along the narrow road, which was the bus route.

The view reminded me of old days, when my parents were young and active and my grandparents were still alive. There were a number of “young” baby boomers studying in the limited capacity of public schools. When they were on the way to and from school, they dominated the landscape, including the bus route, which was far dustier back then. These are the stories of a Japan before it turned gray.

An old model of an express train passed by on the elevated railways tracks, which the bus went under. I didn’t known that the express, which was a star before the super express or so-called “bullet trains” were introduced, was spending the rest of its life working some local lines. That’s what Katsura meant to a day visitor like me.

Guitarists get vibrato

After the academic society meeting was over, I had an appointment with Shin-ichiro Iwamiya, a professor of Department of Acoustic Design at Kyushu University. The professor has recently done research into the iPod’s impact on our life based on social surveys which targeted college students.

The research covers how loud students listen to their iPods and under what circumstances; the impact the sound has on their bodies’ from a health standpoint; and how much they missed the sounds of nature, of birds and wind, while walking and listening to their iPods.

The professor says that his work is a first step toward collecting evidence to explain how the iPod culture has changed traditional culture, where the sound of nature plays a crucial part, or whether or not the iPod generation may lose their concern about noise and social disturbance, since they are virtually immune from reality once they plug into their iPods and close their eyes.

Once his talk turned to the wah-wah pedal, he slowly said that the introduction of the device was revolutionary.

According to Professor Iwamiya, picked-string instruments such as the guitar are limited in their style of expressing music when compared to those where the strings are bowed, even though the guitar is called ‘a small orchestra.’

Unlike the violinist and the cellist, the guitarist cannot get much vibrato on either an acoustic or an electric instrument. However, “the wah-wah pedal allows the guitarist some vibrato, faster some times and slower other times, depending on the players’ pedal work as he plays the melody line,” says the professor. “That makes it possible to highlight higher and lower harmonics dramatically and instantly. There was no such thing before the wah-wah pedal.”

He says he cannot explain why vibrato is considered exciting to both players and listeners. However, “we are attracted to periodic changes in tone such as vibrato and tremolo. They are folk song techniques used in many countries, including Japan, so periodic changes in tone might be the key to understanding such excitement.”

Moreover, he wondered if the function of the wah-wah pedal is similar to that of vocalizing or speaking vowels in some sense. Speaking vowels means changing vocal tract resonance frequencies, while the wah-wah pedal is designed to change electrical resonance frequencies.

“I wonder if the wah-wah pedal creates a sense of intimacy, since such a sense of intimacy is likely to contribute to a positive mood elevation, making us feel good,” the professor says.

Our brain knows

Another appointment was made with a medical doctor, Masayuki Satoh. Dr Satoh is a neuropsychologist who is learning about brain function based on brain-caused symptoms. He says that we know a lot about what kind of symptoms occur when a particular part of the brain is damaged, but we still don’t know how.

Dr Satoh is particularly focused on how music is recognized by the brain through studying aphasic and amusic patients. Also, he is interested in upgrading current music therapy for aphasic and demented patients. There is a lack of scientific evidence to prove how it really works in an effective manner.

Dr Satoh has a music degree, not to mention a medical degree so he is in a unique position to understand music and medicine, making it possible to study this particular field.

“As far as I know, there are no published research papers on changes of emotion caused by the wah-wah pedal from a neurological viewpoint,” says the doctor. “As a scientist, I can give you my hypotheses, but all my comments are based on an accumulation of assumptions, not clear evidence.”

He is absolutely right. Nothing can be scientifically certain without reiteration of hypothesis and testing. I agreed with the doctor’s assessment and the interview went on.

It started with the first and foremost question: Why musicians and listeners are still attracted to this tiny and low-tech sound device, which was originally created in the 1960s.

“My first comment, which is from a conservative viewpoint, is that it’s due to personal experience,” says Dr Satoh. “A person has had an experience that excited that person emotionally when he or she heard the sound of the wah-wah pedal. Since then, the person has established a neurological circuit in his or her brain, and the brain gives an instruction to make him or her feel high, unconsciously, when hearing the sound. It is just like Pavlov’s dogs.”

Asked if it would be the same as my recollecting some scenes from movies or documentary films about the Vietnam War whenever I hear the wah-wah sound in some of Jimi Hendrix’s songs, Dr Satoh replied, “Yes, it is the same reason. The memories are often connected to audio-visual images. It is well-known that Hitler used the great music of Wagner to keep the image of his ‘greatness’ in public.”

Haiku is another example, the doctor continues. Haiku, a 17-syllable form, based on a 5-7-5 meter, still holds an attraction to many Japanese, but “not for some people who have not known or been interested in this Japanese poem,” says the doctor. “Because, in this case, the rhythm and/or tone of the words of haiku have not been neurologically connected to, I could say, ‘a sense of Japanese beauty’ in their brains.”

“The second comment is rather bold,” the doctor continues. “In the process of our evolution the wah-wah or some similar sound may have become a sound that gains great attention from human beings.”

“My guess is the sound would have an important meaning in the group of anthropoid apes initially, and then, it might have been genetically programmed during the process of our evolution.”

Dr Satoh made an example of the sound of a fingernail scraping on a blackboard. “It’s been known that ‘that sound’ makes us feel uncomfortable, regardless of age, sex, nationality, race, cultural background, or era, as well as whether or not there are or were blackboards when you are or were in school.”

“It’s understood that that sound might be very close to a cry for help when anthropoid apes were being preyed upon,” the doctor continues. “So, again, that sound might have been genetically programmed as a warning sound during the process of evolution. That means we have some neural circuit responding to that sound in our brain.”

After a reverberant sound of surprise escaped my lips, the interview went to the next question of why the low-tech pedal, not the synthesizer or the highly programmed set of music equipment, is the most popular for creating the wah-wah sound.

“I think it’s because of the fluctuation effect,” says Dr Satoh. “In the natural world we are not perfect. Our heartbeat has some fluctuations, and the wind and the sea waves also have some fluctuations.”

“So it could be explained that we, the human beings who live in the world with various fluctuations, may feel comfortable with or love being out of alignment, which is always created by such fluctuations. The wah-wah pedal, which changes the tone of the sound through the agency of the musicians themselves is likely to have some fluctuations. I think that’s why we love that pedal.”

How about sustaining tones? The electric cellist in the fifth article says, “When you use the wah-wah pedal, though you get a vibrato on the cello, the single tone can be sustained longer; that’s the most exciting moment.”

To sustain the single tone might be another key to figuring out the wah-wah pedal’s appeal.

“The ultimate goal of my research is to understand how music turns out to be ‘beautiful’ in our perception, which is controlled by brain. It is already called neuroaesthetics by a Turkish scientist, Zeki of University of London,” he says.

According to the doctor, it has been understood that we recognize the beauty of music through our perception of space. People use the right side of the brain for recognizing space. Many amusic patients have some problems on the right sides of their brains, so the theory has been proved by these case studies.

We usually call music a plastic art or an artistic means of expression using space, which rings with music. As for the wah-wah pedal, “Sustaining the single tone might be expanding space even further so that we may feel excited to hear that wah-wah sound,” he adds. “Again, this is a super hypothetical comment based on many assumptions, but no definitive evidence.”

The wah-wah pedal is really an amazing piece of equipment. It is easy for anybody to handle, but the creative sound varies based on the players’ sense of music or you might say their spirit of rock and blues--maybe jazz as well (Anybody know any jazz guitarists who use the wah-wah pedal?).

The story of the wah-wah pedal is not over yet.