brains, brains, brains
Mar. 23rd, 2007 12:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alonewiththemoonBetween a general lack of sleep and a very relaxing walk in the sunshine to the T this morning, it is safe to say that my brain has checked out for the day. Come on, caffeine, keep me going just a few more hours...
This is Your Brain on Music: Overall, I learned many interesting things about how the brain processes music--it's really quite fascinating how many different areas of the brain are involved. I think the most interesting thing that I took away from the book is that a significant part of musical processing goes on in the cerebellum, which is responsible for the automatic motor stuff and deep emotional response. That makes a lot of sense in its own way, and explains why some songs can just feel so damn good and fundamentally perfect. Parts of the book were not entirely convincing; notably, the bit about why songs get stuck in your head applied to songs you like, but I couldn't see how the idea of a self-reinforcing loop of pleasure making a song fragment run through your head would apply to getting songs you hate stuck in your head, unless we are all secret masochists. And I had a BIG problem with the chapter on the evolutionary origins of musical behavior and that chapter's subsequent influence on the conclusion of the book. Although Levitin discusses several advantages to musical behavior that might have reinforced its development in human society, he seems to settle on the sexual display theory, the idea that a male who has the leisure time to become a skilled musician is obviously a talented survivalist and therefore an excellent choice of mate for a female. He compares this to the male peacock and his tail, which ought to be an encumbrance that makes him easier for predators to catch, so a male with a big fine tail is clearly good at escaping predators and thus females will choose him to sire their offspring, even though on the surface of it his best trait is something useless or even a disadvantage. In the conclusion, Levitin paints a very romantic picture of music influencing the course of love throughout the ages, with men singing to their chosen ones who thrill to the music and fall in love. The huge enormous problem here for me is this kind of theory does not explain why women are also music makers. After all, the peahen is drab with a sensible tail, because there's no need for her to put on a display. If one buys this sexual selection/female choice kind of argument, how does one explain female musicians?
It's clear throughout the book that Levitin has just as much respect for female musicians as male--he spends several pages on the tuning innovations of Joni Mitchell, for example. So it really rather baffled me that the conclusion would go off in such a simple-minded social evolutionist direction, treating social/behavioral traits as the equivalent of genetic, physiological traits. I suspect perhaps this topic is just outside his area of expertise, despite being a relevant area.
Still, I recommend the book to anyone interested in these things. It is aimed at an educated lay audience, not assuming that you know much about the brain or about music but that you have the educational background to be able to follow along in a scientific text. I would have liked more on movement and music, and I positively yearned for some discussion of non-Western musical forms, but that's my particular bias, not necessarily flaws in the book. Well, maybe the lack of attention to non-Western music is a flaw, but probably those experiments haven't been run or published yet.
Worked on double veil at the Dance Complex last night. Need more practice--I haven't done it since last summer--but I was pretty satisfied with what I saw. Those Akai veils are just so darn beautiful they do most of the work for one, all I really have to do is manage not to drop them. My upper torso muscles are feeling all the work today for sure. It's a different group of muscles than the ones you use with wings of Isis, kind of interesting. edited to add: it's my latissimus dorsi that ache today, with wings it would be more the deltoids and trapezius.
I haven't danced in front of a mirror in a long time--I've done classes with mirrors, of course, but not expressive original dancing. I should remember to do that once in a while. My posture is better than I think it is.
A couple of people on the Arlington birdwatching list reported seeing a pair of redtailed hawks mating while balanced on the trumpet of the Angel Moroni on top of the Mormon temple on Route 2. Heh, bet the Mormons had no idea they were providing a sexy penthouse when they put that thing up there...
This is Your Brain on Music: Overall, I learned many interesting things about how the brain processes music--it's really quite fascinating how many different areas of the brain are involved. I think the most interesting thing that I took away from the book is that a significant part of musical processing goes on in the cerebellum, which is responsible for the automatic motor stuff and deep emotional response. That makes a lot of sense in its own way, and explains why some songs can just feel so damn good and fundamentally perfect. Parts of the book were not entirely convincing; notably, the bit about why songs get stuck in your head applied to songs you like, but I couldn't see how the idea of a self-reinforcing loop of pleasure making a song fragment run through your head would apply to getting songs you hate stuck in your head, unless we are all secret masochists. And I had a BIG problem with the chapter on the evolutionary origins of musical behavior and that chapter's subsequent influence on the conclusion of the book. Although Levitin discusses several advantages to musical behavior that might have reinforced its development in human society, he seems to settle on the sexual display theory, the idea that a male who has the leisure time to become a skilled musician is obviously a talented survivalist and therefore an excellent choice of mate for a female. He compares this to the male peacock and his tail, which ought to be an encumbrance that makes him easier for predators to catch, so a male with a big fine tail is clearly good at escaping predators and thus females will choose him to sire their offspring, even though on the surface of it his best trait is something useless or even a disadvantage. In the conclusion, Levitin paints a very romantic picture of music influencing the course of love throughout the ages, with men singing to their chosen ones who thrill to the music and fall in love. The huge enormous problem here for me is this kind of theory does not explain why women are also music makers. After all, the peahen is drab with a sensible tail, because there's no need for her to put on a display. If one buys this sexual selection/female choice kind of argument, how does one explain female musicians?
It's clear throughout the book that Levitin has just as much respect for female musicians as male--he spends several pages on the tuning innovations of Joni Mitchell, for example. So it really rather baffled me that the conclusion would go off in such a simple-minded social evolutionist direction, treating social/behavioral traits as the equivalent of genetic, physiological traits. I suspect perhaps this topic is just outside his area of expertise, despite being a relevant area.
Still, I recommend the book to anyone interested in these things. It is aimed at an educated lay audience, not assuming that you know much about the brain or about music but that you have the educational background to be able to follow along in a scientific text. I would have liked more on movement and music, and I positively yearned for some discussion of non-Western musical forms, but that's my particular bias, not necessarily flaws in the book. Well, maybe the lack of attention to non-Western music is a flaw, but probably those experiments haven't been run or published yet.
Worked on double veil at the Dance Complex last night. Need more practice--I haven't done it since last summer--but I was pretty satisfied with what I saw. Those Akai veils are just so darn beautiful they do most of the work for one, all I really have to do is manage not to drop them. My upper torso muscles are feeling all the work today for sure. It's a different group of muscles than the ones you use with wings of Isis, kind of interesting. edited to add: it's my latissimus dorsi that ache today, with wings it would be more the deltoids and trapezius.
I haven't danced in front of a mirror in a long time--I've done classes with mirrors, of course, but not expressive original dancing. I should remember to do that once in a while. My posture is better than I think it is.
A couple of people on the Arlington birdwatching list reported seeing a pair of redtailed hawks mating while balanced on the trumpet of the Angel Moroni on top of the Mormon temple on Route 2. Heh, bet the Mormons had no idea they were providing a sexy penthouse when they put that thing up there...
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Date: 2007-03-23 04:12 pm (UTC)