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The therapeutic power of music...
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| SuperJimbo |
Interesting interview (and perhaps book)...
WIRED MAGAZINE: ISSUE 15.10
Oliver Sacks on Earworms, Stevie Wonder and the View From Mescaline Mountain
September 24, 2007
By Steve Silberman
A surgeon is struck by lightning and becomes obsessed with Chopin. An eminent psychoanalyst is kept awake by hallucinations of a singing rabbi. An amnesiac musicologist incapable of remembering anything that happened more a few seconds ago finds refuge from his disoriented existence by performing Bach fugues.
Music, writes neurologist Oliver Sacks in his new book, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, opens a window into almost every aspect of life and brain function. For his previous case-history collections Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Sacks studied the lives of people with disorders like autism and Tourette's syndrome, turning up startling insights about the brain's capacity to heal and adapt. Sacks, 74, shared his thoughts about music in his Greenwich Village office.
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/...ff_musicophilia
Other Links:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/...?printable=true
http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2007/...e_survives.html |
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| infinity HiGH |
Sweet. Definitely reading this article.
There's a book that came out not too long ago called "This Is Your Brain On Music". I'm assuming it deals with similar issues as this article so if you want to read more check it out.
Description
| quote: | | Levitin's fascination with the mystery of music and the study of why it affects us so deeply is at the heart of this book. In a real sense, the author is a rock 'n' roll doctor, and in that guise dissects our relationship with music. He points out that bone flutes are among the oldest of human artifacts to have been found and takes readers on a tour of our bio-history. In this textbook for those who don't like textbooks, he discusses neurobiology, neuropsychology, cognitive psychology, empirical philosophy, Gestalt psychology, memory theory, categorization theory, neurochemistry, and exemplar theory in relation to music theory and history in a manner that will draw in teens. A wonderful introduction to the science of one of the arts that make us human.–Will Marston, Berkeley Public Library, CA |
| quote: | | Think of a song that resonates deep down in your being. Now imagine sitting down with someone who was there when the song was recorded and can tell you how that series of sounds was committed to tape, and who can also explain why that particular combination of rhythms, timbres and pitches has lodged in your memory, making your pulse race and your heart swell every time you hear it. Remarkably, Levitin does all this and more, interrogating the basic nature of hearing and of music making (this is likely the only book whose jacket sports blurbs from both Oliver Sacks and Stevie Wonder), without losing an affectionate appreciation for the songs he's reducing to neural impulses. Levitin is the ideal guide to this material: he enjoyed a successful career as a rock musician and studio producer before turning to cognitive neuroscience, earning a Ph.D. and becoming a top researcher into how our brains interpret music. Though the book starts off a little dryly (the first chapter is a crash course in music theory), Levitin's snappy prose and relaxed style quickly win one over and will leave readers thinking about the contents of their iPods in an entirely new way. |
Link
*reads article* |
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| infinity HiGH |
| quote: | | I think we may be exposed to too much loud and repetitive music. |
Does not compute.
| quote: | Wired: You write that there was a time in med school when you took a lot of amphetamines. What's the most vivid experience of music you ever had on drugs?
Sacks: Hume wondered whether one can imagine a color that one has never encountered. One day in 1964, I constructed a sort of pharmacological mountain, and at its peak, I said, "I want to see indigo, now!" As if thrown by a paintbrush, a huge, trembling drop of purest indigo appeared on the wall — the color of heaven. For months after that, I kept looking for that color. It was like the lost chord.
Then I went to a concert at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In the first half, they played the Monteverdi Vespers, and I was transported. I felt a river of music 400 years long running from Monteverdi's mind into mine. Wandering around during the interval, I saw some lapis lazuli snuffboxes that were that same wonderful indigo, and I thought, "Good, the color exists in the external world." But in the second half I got restless, and when I saw the snuffboxes again, they were no longer indigo — they were blue, mauve, pink. I've never seen that color since.
It took a mountain of amphetamine, mescaline, and cannabis to launch me into that space. But Monteverdi did it too. |
That's awesome.
This is a great article. A lot of the things he talks about I've long believed. Music is the language of the soul. |
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| English Rachel |
Music is my lifeblood. I could live without any other media.
Music is my sanctity, my sanity, my saviour, my solitude, my side kick, my soul mate and my transportation to seventh heaven. |
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| infinity HiGH |
| quote: | Originally posted by English Rachel
Music is my lifeblood. I could live without any other media.
Music is my sanctity, my sanity, my saviour, my solitude, my side kick, my soul mate and my transportation to seventh heaven. |
:D +1
I could days on end without watching a movie or TV show. Music needs to be playing at all times though. |
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| Irishaddict |
| I picked up This is Your Brain on Music - it's third in line on my reading pile. The Oliver Sacks book sounds really interesting though - has anyone read Awakenings? (There's a movie as well...) So fascinating, couldn't put it down. Definitely a doctor with a knack for writing. |
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| afterhrsgurl |
| quote: | Originally posted by infinity HiGH
I could days on end without watching a movie or TV show. Music needs to be playing at all times though. |
haha exactly..same here..my tv broke a little while back... i was totally fine...i still had my music...i can't even do dishes without my music in the background..it keeps me going |
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