Musicophilia

lindsmuse · 2011-04-22T06:44:41+00:00

I'm reading this book 'Musicophilia' by Oliver Sacks, (physician, prof of neurology and psychiatry - Columbia Uni.), who wrote 'Awakenings' - ( the movie wit...

Musicophilia

Isis

The brain is a finely tuned and delicately balanced system. People often take for granted how complex the brain really is. I remember in one of my neuropsychology classes I did an assignment on a teacher from the US whose behavior changed quite dramatically due to a tumor hindering the functioning of his prefrontal cortex, which is involved in regulating our social behaviours. He started visiting prostitutes, watched child porn obsessively and even made inappropriate sexual comments to the female judge during his trial.

Music has the ability to influence the way the brain functions by altering the rate of neuronal activity. That is why music has such a powerful effect on our emotions.

Another aspect I find quite interesting about the brain is its ability to create music. Music or harmony is not something that occurs naturally. Technically music can be described as a distinct set of tones of varying pitch separated by intervals of time. It's only in the brain that these get mixed together to create a beautiful melody. If I don't stop now I'm going to become all philosophical ?

Bob-Dubery

Isis wrote: Another aspect I find quite interesting about the brain is its ability to create music. Music or harmony is not something that occurs naturally. Technically music can be described as a distinct set of tones of varying pitch separated by intervals of time. It's only in the brain that these get mixed together to create a beautiful melody. If I don't stop now I'm going to become all philosophical ?

Read "This Is Your Brain On Music" by Daniel J. Levitin for more on how the brain stitches together these various elements to "create" music.

It's quite interesting - though also disillusioning in a way. For me music was one of the few mysterious things left in life, here's some charlie with an education telling us how it all works.

6x9base13

Fascinating ! Thanks for the two pointers, will try get my hand on those ASAP.

I've had a mini social experiment going for years with my circle of friends and acquaintances - In our circle of acquaintances I can with fair accuracy predict a personality type and likes based on their music preferences ! My missus has stop taking those bets with me ?

I've always wanted to research the phenomenon in more detail, but never had the time. I'll try those books as a starting point!

Thanks !

PS. Edit - will start another thread.

Lethe

X-rated Bob wrote:
Isis wrote: Another aspect I find quite interesting about the brain is its ability to create music. Music or harmony is not something that occurs naturally. Technically music can be described as a distinct set of tones of varying pitch separated by intervals of time. It's only in the brain that these get mixed together to create a beautiful melody. If I don't stop now I'm going to become all philosophical ?
Read "This Is Your Brain On Music" by Daniel J. Levitin for more on how the brain stitches together these various elements to "create" music.

It's quite interesting - though also disillusioning in a way. For me music was one of the few mysterious things left in life, here's some charlie with an education telling us how it all works.

Aye, busy with it now. Great book.

[deleted]

X-rated Bob wrote: Read "This Is Your Brain On Music" by Daniel J. Levitin for more on how the brain stitches together these various elements to "create" music.

I've been meaning to read that for ages. Musicophilia too. Heard good things about them both, I must say. Levitin's written a 2nd book called "The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature". Sounds like it should be interesting too!

Bob-Dubery

6x9base13 wrote: Fascinating ! Thanks for the two pointers, will try get my hand on those ASAP.

I've had a mini social experiment going for years with my circle of friends and acquaintances - In our circle of acquaintances I can with fair accuracy predict a personality type and likes based on their music preferences ! My missus has stop taking those bets with me ?

But within that circle you have extra information because you know all those people. How about a blind test? Then we'd know if you're onto something or not.

I won't volunteer because there's comments about my Briggs-Meyer (or was it Briggs and Stratton?) typing somewhere on GFSA - so again the experiment is contaminated.

Bob-Dubery

X-rated Bob wrote:
6x9base13 wrote: Fascinating ! Thanks for the two pointers, will try get my hand on those ASAP.

I've had a mini social experiment going for years with my circle of friends and acquaintances - In our circle of acquaintances I can with fair accuracy predict a personality type and likes based on their music preferences ! My missus has stop taking those bets with me ?
But within that circle you have extra information because you know all those people. How about a blind test? Then we'd know if you're onto something or not.

Also what happens if they list some preferences that you have no familiarity with? They list honestly and you think "I don't know who half these guys are". Then what?

This would certainly happen outside of a circle of acquaintances and it's not impossible within such a circle. I keep on stumbling across names on GFSA and thinking "who dat?" Most of my friends have little idea about most of what's on my CD shelf (they'll know a couple of the names now, but not much more) and I get surprises from them too.

Also people's tastes can change and/or expand.

It's an interesting idea, but there are some potential spanners in the spokes.

lindsmuse

6x9base13 wrote: I've had a mini social experiment going for years with my circle of friends and acquaintances - In our circle of acquaintances I can with fair accuracy predict a personality type and likes based on their music preferences ! My missus has stop taking those bets with me ?

Perhaps we all do this subconsciously all the time. For instance I can quickly work out whether we're on the same wavelength by the fiction you read. And I can't help doing it - it just happens!

With music and movies I can't group people so easily because I think that this depends on their frame of mind at the time - and it's usually a short span of time. They could feel completely differently the next day even and enjoy something they hated previously and vice versa (altho one day may be exaggerating a little).

There was such an interesting guy on 702 one evening - and I think it was a Friday night, say about 2000, and it was a quick slot, half hour. He was from some Institute for reading people - just by their voice. They had a couple of callers call in and he could identify where they were from, income bracket and a host of other facts ... and in most cases he was spot on. This may be a hidden ability we all possess - I think that this was his point actually - like those memory guys, who train you to use your memory ...

Bob-Dubery

lindsmuse wrote: There was such an interesting guy on 702 one evening - and I think it was a Friday night, say about 2000, and it was a quick slot, half hour. He was from some Institute for reading people - just by their voice. They had a couple of callers call in and he could identify where they were from, income bracket and a host of other facts ... and in most cases he was spot on. This may be a hidden ability we all possess - I think that this was his point actually - like those memory guys, who train you to use your memory ...

Read Derren Brown's "Tricks Of The Mind" for the disillusioning truth. Indeed most of us can, with some development and practice, perform these kinds of tricks, but they're nothing to do with untapped powers. It's all to do with the knowledge you already have and the way you will get the subject to reveal things about themselves in conversation.

Brown is an interesting case because he had a TV show where he appeared to read minds, know which card people had looked at in a deck, predict what number you were thinking of etc etc yet all along he emphasised that it was all stunts, that he doesn't have any special powers.

lindsmuse

Yeah well 'hidden' being bad choice of words. I hate that type of stuff and people coming on board decade after decade claiming all sorts of nonsense as fact when in truth there is such a long way to go in understanding the workings of the mind...

pbrizzolari

Isis wrote: I've always wondered whether people who could look at musical notation an "see" the music didn't suffer from synesthesia.

Synesthesia requires you to hear the music. In technical terms it is basically a crossed line on the neural pathways which lets the aural stimulus appear as visual hallucinations. It is fun though, I used to get it a lot when I took acid.

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Isis

What I meant by "see", is that the people can see the aural properties of music notation and experience this visual stimulus as an aural sensation. This is actually somewhat of a philosophical issue; how do you classify a sensation? Do you classify it according to the origin of the stimulus or the qualitative "feel" aspect thereof? You'll obviously have to be fairly familiar with music to experience this with notation though.

Isis

I once read about German study on the effects of LSD on the brain. Apparently your sense gets cross-wired in a way that is similar to synesthesia. LSD allows for various different neural pathways to be activated than what usually correspond to a specific stimulus. I quite fondly remember one of my friends commenting that Katatonia sounds like hotdog to him when he's on LSD. I have no idea what that means but I'm sure he does.

lindsmuse

What the hell does hotdog sound like? And is that with or without mustard? You must pin him down on this! I'm sure you'll enjoy 'Musicophilia' Isis. Just reading about how the writer's dad used to choose a musical theme's notation before hopping into bed so that he'd have something to listen to - he'd have a nice little internal concert going ... Actually that would keep me awake, not put me to sleep. what if there's a mistake somewhere...worry worry ...