7 Essential Books on Music, Emotion, and the Brain by Maria Popova What Freud has to do with auditory cheesecake, European opera and world peace. Last year, Horizon’s fascinating documentary on how music works was one of our most-liked pickings of 2010. But perhaps even more fascinating than the subject of how music works is the question of why it makes us feel the way it does. We love the work of neuroscientist and prolific author Oliver Sacks, whose latest book, The Mind’s Eye, was one of our favorite brain books last year. Why music makes us feel the way it does is on par with questions about the nature of divinity or the origin of love. As if to drive a stake through the heart of Levitin and Pinker’s debate, Music, Language, and the Brain by Aniruddh Patel — both a musician himself and one of the greatest living neuroscientists — dissects the unique neuropsychological relationship between two of the most unique hallmarks of our species. Patel also offers this beautiful definition of what music is: Donating = Loving Share on Tumblr
mental_floss Blog & 8 Odd and Awesome Musical Instruments We've shown you many strange and different musical instruments, but there are always more to be discovered. Here are some that you won't find in your average high school orchestra, unless you want to introduce them to the class yourself! 1. Hydraulophone A hydraulophone is an organ powered by water. 2. Originally developed by African slaves in Peru, the cajón is a wooden box used as a percussion instrument. 3. The wooden lur is a Viking wind instrument from the Middle Ages that was used like a trumpet to sound war calls. 4. A friction harp is a harp played not by plucking, but by rubbing (with rosined gloves). Tom Kaufman built his own friction harp of solid aluminum rods. 5. The branching corrugahorn is an experimental instrument made from flexible corrugated pipe, the kind you might find in the pulmonary care ward of a hospital or in a mechanic's shop. 6. The nyckelharpa is a Swedish instrument with 16 strings and 37 keys. 7. 8. The word pyrophone literally means "fire sound."
Outline of basic music theory - www.oscarvandillen.com Professional music theory: an outline of basic music theory. Preface and Chapter 1 of the Outline of basic music theory – by Oscar van Dillen ©2011-2014 The beginner’s learning book can be found at Basic elements of music theory. Overview of chapters: Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Sound and hearing Chapter 3: Musical notation Chapter 4: Basic building blocks of melody and harmony Chapter 5: Consonance and dissonance Chapter 6: Circle of fifths and transposition Chapter 7: Concerning rhythm, melody, harmony and form Chapter 8: Further study Preface This outline offers a concise and complete overview of basic music theory. In order to speed up consulting this online book, its chapters can as of now be found on separate pages; unfortunately the original one-page version exceeded acceptable download times, because of the length of the total materials presented. © Oscar van Dillen 2011-2014 Chapter 1: Introduction integrating hearing-reading-singing-writing