Brains and Music
David J. Levitin, head of the Laboratory for Musical Perception, has written a book called "This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession" (article here), about the cognitive perception of what we call music. An interesting book on music - although he gives atonal music a hard time - and you can listen to him discussing the book here.
posted by Tim Risher at 9:44 AM
1 Comments:
Hi, thanks for responding! I really enjoyed your discussion. I wasn't sure if you were really giving atonal music a hard time, but within the space of the Diane Rehm show I'm sure you didn't have the time to explain everything that was on your mind! I give atonal music enough of a hard time myself, although I certainly can appreciate it and even enjoy some of it. And I think a lot of the listening of music depends on familiarity as well. Kyle Gann, in his book "Music Downtown", relates an interesting story where people in the audience left during a performance of "Harmonielehre"; hardly an atonal work. It is because many listeners have an expectation of what they want to hear, and are shocked when they don't get those buttons pushed.
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