Mood & Music
Musical preference is unique to the listener. There are so many different cultures and personalities–which makes it quite difficult to decide what to listen to. In addition to different tastes in music, there are times and places where it may not be appropriate to play something. A scene at the airport would be hard to imagine if one was able to hear hit rap songs over the PA system. According to the infographic, more people listen to rock music when they are upset. Letting people be themselves is one of the most important things you can do for them. Share This Infographic Get Free Infographics Delivered to your Inbox
Training the Musical Brain
Tonight is opening night. I can already imagine it: the theatre is full. From the wings I can hear muted pre-show conversations, the rustle of programs, laughter. The house lights go down, and the tension in my stomach tightens; my intestines feel like knots. I start to sweat, and hope my shaking is not visible. The Cast of Another Elfing Musical. I’m appearing this week in an amateur musical theatre production. Performance Anxiety Stagefright, known to scientists and doctors as “performance anxiety” results from an overactivation of a part of the brain called the amygdala. Role of the Amygdala The amygdala is closely connected to the hypothalamus, the part of the brain that controls the autonomic nervous system, itself responsible for keeping our bodily systems on an even keel. The fight or flight response may be useful if our fear is the result of an encounter with a grizzly bear, but in the case of stagefright, it’s hard to see how it can help us. Fear alters your brain chemistry
SMPC Resources
Resources Music Cognition and Music Psychology Labs: Visit our map of Music Cognition and Music Psychology Labs: Sites included on this map belong to SMPC members who have provided location information on their labs. > Green markers indicate labs with associated graduate programs in music Music Cognition Syllabi: View our list of music cognition syllabi, provided by SMPC members and nonmembers who teach courses on music cognition and who responded to our request for course syllabi in early 2011. The syllabi are based on recently-offered courses. Related Websites, Blogs and Multimedia: A collection of BBC programs about music and the mind: auditory.org - an online resource and email list for the discussion of organizational aspects of auditory perception. Music Cognition U - a resource center for music cognition news and information Music Matters: A Blog on Music Cognition - Henkjan Honing Music Psychology Blog: Victoria Williamson Musicae Scientiae To come
Why Your Brain Craves Music
If making music isn’t the most ancient of human activities, it’s got to be pretty close. Melody and rhythm can trigger feelings from sadness to serenity to joy to awe; they can bring memories from childhood vividly back to life. The taste of a tiny cake may have inspired Marcel Proust to pen the seven-volume novel Remembrance of Things Past, but fire up the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction” and you’ll throw the entire baby-boom generation into a Woodstock-era reverie. From an evolutionary point of view, however, music doesn’t seem to make sense. Unlike sex, say, or food, it did nothing to help our distant ancestors survive and reproduce. (MORE: Your Brain on Sesame Street: Big Bird Helps Researchers See How the Brain Learns) But the nucleus accumbens is just part of the neural symphony. That, it turns out, may be the key to music’s power. The subjects listened to the first 30 seconds of each tune while lying in an fMRI imager as the scientists monitored their brains.
Training the Musical Brain
Hierarchical Structures in Music
Hierarchical Structures in Music The hierarchical structure within music, especially within rhythmic passages and melodic contours, is a well-known phenomenon. For example, in his entertaining and thought-provoking book (with an excellent bibliography), This Is Your Brain On Music , Daniel Levitin says (p. 154) in regards to musical production: Our memory for music involves hierarchical encoding - not all words are equally salient, and not all parts of a musical piece hold equal status. In a similar vein, related to musical theory, Steven Pinker summarizes the famous hierarchical theory of Jackendoff and Lerdahl in his fascinating book, How The Mind Works (pp. 532 - 533): Jackendoff and Lerdahl show how melodies are formed by sequences of pitches that are organized in three different ways, all at the same time...The firstrepresentation is a grouping structure. 1. 2. 3. 4. Relation to Language The governor of California from Illinois was then clearly named Reagan.
Managing your talents?
On August 29 and 30, 2013 the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, the University of Amsterdam, and VU University will organize the Managing Your Talents conference. This conference makes for a unique gathering of people whose expertise will be called upon to achieve a new standard of educational excellence in the performing arts. It is a must-go for those who are involved with music, dance or theatre, and who seek to share their interest with researchers from a broad range of disciplines, such as performing arts pedagogy, medicine, neuropsychology, brain and cognition sciences, and human motion sciences. The keynote lecture will be given by Daniel Levitin (professor of psychology and behavioural neuroscience, McGill University, Montréal), Other speakers at this conference include Eckart Altenmüller (music and medicine), Roger Kneebone (surgical education), Erik Scherder (neuropsychology), Susan Hallam (music psychology and education), and Jacques van Rossum (human motion sciences).
Nine Components of Sound
Loudness The loudness of a sound depends on the intensity of the sound stimulus. A dynamite explosion is loader than that of a cap pistol because of the greater amount of air molecules the dynamite is capable of displacing. Loudness becomes meaningful only if we are able to compare it with something. (A film that use this in the narrative is Sleepers - when a man is shot at the same time as an aircraft is landing) "Equal loudness" Humans are most sensitive to frequencies in the midrange (250 Hz - 5000 Hz) When two sounds, a bass sound and a middle range sound are played at the same decibel, the listener perceive the middle range sound to be louder. This is why a clap of thunder in a horror movie may contain something so unweatherlike as a woman's scream. Rhythm Rhythm is a recurring sound that alternates between strong and weak elements. Envelope of Sound An envelope of sound is composed of a sound's attack, sustain, and decay. Attack The way a sound is initiated is called attack. Sustain Decay
Why Music Makes Our Brain Sing
Photo MUSIC is not tangible. You can’t eat it, drink it or mate with it. It doesn’t protect against the rain, wind or cold. It doesn’t vanquish predators or mend broken bones. In the modern age we spend great sums of money to attend concerts, download music files, play instruments and listen to our favorite artists whether we’re in a subway or salon. So why does this thingless “thing” — at its core, a mere sequence of sounds — hold such potentially enormous intrinsic value? The quick and easy explanation is that music brings a unique pleasure to humans. More than a decade ago, our research team used brain imaging to show that music that people described as highly emotional engaged the reward system deep in their brains — activating subcortical nuclei known to be important in reward, motivation and emotion. The idea that reward is partly related to anticipation (or the prediction of a desired outcome) has a long history in neuroscience. Why the auditory cortex?
Psychoacoustics
