I am reading a book. A book about music and the brain. And psychology and neuro-science stuff. It's called "This is Your Brain on Music".
So far I have read the introduction and I like these two bits:
"Whenever humans come together for any reason, music is there: weddings, funerals, graduation from college, men marching off to war, stadium sporting events, a night on the town, prayers, a romantic dinner, mothers rocking infants to sleep, and college students studying with music as a background. Even more so in nonindustrialised cultures than in modern Western societies, music is and was part of the fabric of everyday life. Only relatively recently in our own culture, five hundred years or so ago, did a distinction arise that cut society in two, forming separate classes of music performers and music listeners. Throughout most of the world and for most of human history, music making was as natural an activity as breathing and walking, and everyone participated. Concert halls, dedicated to the performance of music, arose only in the last several centuries."
"Why do people seem to get stuck in their musical tastes as they grow older and cease experimenting with new music?"
* * *
Lots of things the author is bringing up are things I've had moments of wondering about.
Just last night I was talking to Billy, and he was describing how sometimes at the Welsh Dragon bar (which has a lot of Brits and travellers) lots of people turn up and sing songs together. Songs that he has never heard before, but which most people at the bar seem to join in for, a Capella. It's something that's missing in modern kiwi culture.
And I've been noticing for years that I hardly ever 'discover' new bands that I like. I've forgotten how to do it.... or I just don't like anything new.... or my brain is full up with things I already like. Not sure.
For many a year, up until I was at university, my dad was pretty 'hip' with the music and liked new artists that were coming out, like Ben Harper and Bjork. But now he's quite content with his old stuff and makes funny faces if I play him something new. Ever since he evolved to liking jazz.
I hope somewhere in the book I can find a justification for my SingStar obsession that makes it sound cultured and evolutionarily advanced.
The examples the author uses to explain timbre or rhythm or pitch are from music that I know, like Buddy Holly and the Beatles and Paula Abdul (he raves about the musical complexity of 'Straight Up'). And I never realised that the 'ABC Song' had the same melody as 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star'. Not consciously, anyhow.
I look forward to reading more!
5 comments:
I also feel tragically un-hip and out of touch these days having not discovered any new bands lately, and becoming more and more unfamiliar with the music of the moment.
The movement from performer to audience is an interesting point, although on the face of it it sounds a little dubious to me. It could be rooted in the increasing amounts of disposable time available to a society moving from an agrarian rural base to an industrial one.
The comment about shared melodies is also interesting, and a lot more common than people realise. Also a lot of what is considered 'simple' music is actually very complicated when broken down.
I've been meaning to read that book for some time; your post makes me keener.... if you're interested, try Oliver Sacks's "Musicophilia" - and if you can put up with its academicism, Edward Said's essay "Performance as an extreme occasion", which is precisely about this division between participation and performance.
I feel like I discover stuff all the time, but usually it's old stuff. This year, I've got into a whole load of stuff released this year, on a scale I haven't done since the '90s. Though a lot of it was by artists I was already familiar with (eg Tom Bailey, ex of Thompson Twins, and his album opened with a cover of House of the Rising Sun, so double-familiarity hit there)
(check it out, it's pretty cool: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mEq0NAusvI)
I actually was looking at that book in Unity today, Andrew. Looked interesting. But figured it'd be silly to buy that as well (was thinking about getting it for my dad, but not sure if he'd wade through the technical stuff or not).
Not being particularly musical at all, I found the beginning of this book interesting. It talks about frequency and how each instrument has a different one, and how it has 'overtones' as well, and they are how we recognise different instruments... and that's how synthesisers work! Always wondered.
Which brings on a rant....
I guess the current trend of over-using the auto-tuner for voices is similar to the 80s, when people overused the synthesiser. I suspect in the grand scheme of things that this auto-tuner phase won't go down well.... I hope it won't anyhow.... I'm sick of it! You can't use what is basically a robot voice but still use a celebrity face to market the album. It seems dishonest. I know pop has always had puppet masters behind the pretty artists, but auto-tuner takes that to ridiculous levels.
I thought the autotuner was going to die and be remembered unfondly when it was being overused 8-10 years ago. Instead it comes back! And on things like Glee when people are meant to be singing live - I fear there'll be a generation growing up unable to tell what singing actually sounds like.
Oops. I'm a grumpy old man :)
I totally agree. Glee is ridiculous! I've ranted about that before.
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