Science and Song - The Neuroscience of Music

[Dover]

The Neuroscience Of Music

By Jonah Lehrer January 19, 2011



Why does music make us feel? On the one hand, music is a purely abstract art form, devoid of language or explicit ideas. The stories it tells are all subtlety and subtext. And yet, even though music says little, it still manages to touch us deep, to tickle some universal nerves. When listening to our favorite songs, our body betrays all the symptoms of emotional arousal. The pupils in our eyes dilate, our pulse and blood pressure rise, the electrical conductance of our skin is lowered, and the cerebellum, a brain region associated with bodily movement, becomes strangely active. Blood is even re-directed to the muscles in our legs. (Some speculate that this is why we begin tapping our feet.) In other words, sound stirs us at our biological roots. As Schopenhauer wrote, “It is we ourselves who are tortured by the strings.”

We can now begin to understand where these feelings come from, why a mass of vibrating air hurtling through space can trigger such intense states of excitement. A brand new paper in Nature Neuroscience by a team of Montreal researchers marks an important step in revealing the precise underpinnings of “the potent pleasurable stimulus” that is music. ..cont'd

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/frontal-cortex


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There's also an excellent PBS program showing now about music and the brain:

MUSIC INSTINCT: SCIENCE AND SONG

This documentary provides a groundbreaking exploration into how and why the human organism is moved by music. New work in neuroscience is giving us clues to the mysteries of how and why music penetrates the brain and the emotions. The program follows visionary researchers and accomplished musicians to the crossroads of science and culture in search of answers to music's deep mysteries. The program includes compelling performances by world-famous performers, in genres from rock to classical, such as Bobby McFerrin, Yo-Yo Ma, Jarvis Cocker and Richard Hawley and Evelyn Glennie.


Website: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/musicinstinct/

http://www.pbs.org/musicinstict

[Locrian]

1. very cool - thanks!

That PBS link you had should be: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/musicinstinct/

[Dover]

3. thanks.

I corrected the OP.

[tigereye]

2. makes a lot of sense from the biological standpoint, but no

analysis of the concept of beauty (not simply anticipation or concern for patterning) causing those wonderful chills/stimulation in the caudate. ;)

[progressoid]

4. music is a purely abstract art form, devoid of language or explicit ideas?

Huh?