The Music Instinct

[Harpo]

I just watched a PBS program (originally aired on 6/27) called "The Music Instinct:Science and Song," which deals with neurology and physiology of music, among many things. The hosts are Bobby McFerrin and Daniel Levitin. McFerrin looks sort of gray, but he's already 59, so he's earned it. Levitin went to school at both MIT and Berklee, became a rock musician and producer, and later went on to a Ph.D. in neuroscience. He kind of looks like Albert Brooks. Levitin's book, This is Your Brain on Music, was a NY Times bestseller. Did anyone else see this show? http://www.pbs.org/wnet/musicinstinct/

Some of the questions posed: Where is music and can you see it on brain scans? Do birds really sing? How far back in time does music go? How is music connected to emotion? What distinguishes music from other sounds?

Levitin wants to know the "why" of music. I can imagine that some GMG-ers might say that music doesn't need to be analyzed, that it just "is."

[karlhenning]

I have no problem with scientific exploration of it all.  I am doubtful, in many cases, that the 'scientific showings' mean what some take them to mean, however.

The science of scientific exploration of music is still in utero.

[DavidW]

I don't know what to say about Karl's cryptic reply, but I will say that it's an interesting subject and I recently checked out of the library Oliver Sacks Musicophilia and it should make for an interesting read.

[karlhenning]

I don't know what to say about Karl's cryptic reply

Very good 

[some guy]

Only cryptic if you've not seen Karl's responses on other threads where this subject has come up. (I usually respond to these studies with "that's not how I feel; that's not how I listen to music; that's only true for certain kinds of music"--stuff like that.)

One thing I find really hampers "scientific" studies of music is that the word "music" is never explicitly defined. It is, however, implicitly defined, and that hidden definition will change depending on whatever conclusion the researcher wants to make at any given time. (So I guess I'd say that these studies do not so much illustrate infancy as they do preconception!)

[jochanaan]

I have no problem with scientific exploration of it all.  I am doubtful, in many cases, that the 'scientific showings' mean what some take them to mean, however.

The science of scientific exploration of music is still in utero.

If more scientists were also musicians (although a surprising number of them are), or at least talked to a musician before doing their studies, there might be a lot less "scientific" nonsense coming out of laboratories.

Seems to me that a really detailed study about music would have to have musicians, music fans, and "other" people among its subjects...

[DavidW]

Well what scientific research are we talking about?  Could you guys be a little less vague?

[Dana]

Maybe...

[some guy]

Well what scientific research are we talking about?  Could you guys be a little less vague?

I don't think any of us wants particularly to go over any of this again. I know for sure that I don't, anyway. But things like the Mozart effect, or studies that show that people react negatively to dissonance. Consonances are found in nature. You know, like what crows and peacocks do! Stuff like that.

[karlhenning]

Our parakeets really groove to Eric Dolphy and Elliott Carter.

[DavidW]

I don't think any of us wants particularly to go over any of this again. I know for sure that I don't, anyway. But things like the Mozart effect, or studies that show that people react negatively to dissonance. Consonances are found in nature. You know, like what crows and peacocks do! Stuff like that.

Well if you post in the thread you're engaged to the discussion.  Anyone that didn't want to discuss could have simply stayed out instead of doing a drive by post.  It's pig headed to jump in just to post that you feel a general feeling of disdain and then leave.  But you are not one of the pig headed since you have tried to answer my question.

Anyway the things you did mention are not new, and have nothing to do with the program that Harpo mentioned.  None of the things you mentioned have anything to do actually seeing the patterns of neurons firing when someone listens to music.  It's really cool.

[DavidW]

If more scientists were also musicians (although a surprising number of them are), or at least talked to a musician before doing their studies, there might be a lot less "scientific" nonsense coming out of laboratories.

Seems to me that a really detailed study about music would have to have musicians, music fans, and "other" people among its subjects...

*cough*

Levitin went to school at both MIT and Berklee, became a rock musician and producer, and later went on to a Ph.D. in neuroscience.

And the program I watched dealt exclusively with Sacks' research, and Oliver Sacks plays the piano.

But that's not even an issue!  Musicians no nearly nothing about how science is done.  They are more likely to screw up research than improve upon it.  The problem with some of the dubious claims (that "some guy" mentioned) made decades ago is lack of repeatability, robust statistics and lack of clear, concise objective definitions.  Can musicians do better?  Absolutely not!  Those outside of science and math have very poor logical reasoning skills in general.  What is needed, and what has been provided are a better caliber of scientist.  To think that you would even desire a highly biased, subjective opinion of a musician to execute scientific research simply proves my point.

[Taxes-]

Unfortunately, I missed PBS' Musical Minds when it first aired. Americans used to be able watch it directly from NOVA's website but it doesn't seem to be there anymore (not that it'd matter to me if it were there, silly copyright laws =/).

There has also been (at least) two interesting scientific articles about music lately. The first, from Scientific American, is aptly named Why Music Moves Us. The second, The birth of the blues: how physics underlies music, is a paper on some of the links between music and physics/mathematics.

[karlhenning]

*cough*
And the program I watched dealt exclusively with Sacks' research, and Oliver Sacks plays the piano.

But that's not even an issue!  Musicians no nearly nothing about how science is done.  They are more likely to screw up research than improve upon it.  The problem with some of the dubious claims (that "some guy" mentioned) made decades ago is lack of repeatability, robust statistics and lack of clear, concise objective definitions.  Can musicians do better?  Absolutely not!  Those outside of science and math have very poor logical reasoning skills in general.  What is needed, and what has been provided are a better caliber of scientist.  To think that you would even desire a highly biased, subjective opinion of a musician to execute scientific research simply proves my point.

David, I think jo will agree with us that (most) musicians know nearly nothing about how science is done (and BTW I realize that both Sacks and Levitin have reasonable science credentials).  Nor do I think that jo or Michael dismiss out of hand responsible scientific inquiry into the neurology of music.

Nor will I say aught else until I watch the show on PBS, to which I look forward 

[jochanaan]

David, I think jo will agree with us that (most) musicians know nearly nothing about how science is done...

I will acknowledge that.  But quite a few of us know at least something about the scientific method, if only from those basic science courses we were forced to take for our diplomas.

[DavidW]

I will acknowledge that.  But quite a few of us know at least something about the scientific method, if only from those basic science courses we were forced to take for our diplomas.

  S'all right my music classes consist of an appreciation course and Beethoven.  Funny to think of it before I took that Beethoven course, I thought that he couldn't hold a candle to Mozart.  Guess a little bit of knowledge goes along ways.

[karlhenning]

I will acknowledge that.  But quite a few of us know at least something about the scientific method, if only from those basic science courses we were forced to take for our diplomas.

Dude, I haven't thought about Geology 101 since th' prior millennium 

[DavidRoss]

Unfortunately, I missed PBS' Musical Minds when it first aired. Americans used to be able watch it directly from NOVA's website but it doesn't seem to be there anymore (not that it'd matter to me if it were there, silly copyright laws =/).

There has also been (at least) two interesting scientific articles about music lately. The first, from Scientific American, is aptly named Why Music Moves Us. The second, The birth of the blues: how physics underlies music, is a paper on some of the links between music and physics/mathematics.

Thank you so much for posting these links, Taxes (peculiar user name--you are new to me on this site so please accept my belated welcome!  ).  This area of inquiry is very interesting and I look forward to reading the articles soon.  I also look forward to reading Levitin's book, This Is Your Brain on Music, which I just received via Amazon. 

Harpo-- Thank you so much for starting this thread.  I caught the second half of that PBS program quite by accident and was rather intrigued, especially since in the few days preceding it I had had two separate discussions about such research with a musician and with a high school physics teacher--both of whom were intrigued from completely different points of view for reasons that should be bloody obvious to anyone whose head isn't so far up his lower intestine that he'll never again see the light of day.  The show reminded me of an article by Levitin that we discussed briefly over on CMG, and which I had meant to look into further, and it spurred me to order his book.

[Taxes-]

Thank you so much for posting these links, Taxes (peculiar user name--you are new to me on this site so please accept my belated welcome!  ).  This area of inquiry is very interesting and I look forward to reading the articles soon.  I also look forward to reading Levitin's book, This Is Your Brain on Music, which I just received via Amazon. 

You're welcome, I find articles of this kind deeply fascinating myself. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be all that many of them out there, I only have three other somewhat similar pages bookmarked:

Visualizations of Tonality

An Eroica Project

22 Etudes, Op. 8: An Algorithmic Model of György Ligeti's Désordre

(by similar I mean that they use techniques from other disciplines than music itself to analyse it)