Quote:
Originally Posted by troutman
You might be interested in this book:
This Is Your Brain On Music (Paperback)
by Daniel Levitin (Author)
http://www.amazon.ca/This-Brain-Musi...4511520&sr=8-1
You are an expert in music, whether you know it or not. You can identify hundreds, possibly thousands of songs from just fractions of a second of audio; you can anticipate and identify minute changes tempo and rhythm; you have a built-in framework for identifying standard popular music chord structures, and you know when a song returns to the root (which you find pleasing, even if you don’t know what “root” means); you can recognise a familiar tune-even, say, a Led Zeppelin classic sung as opera, or as an Australian outback ditty. You are attuned to slight changes in pitch, timbre, volume, and location. In fact, when it comes to many of the finer details of music, your mind is far more powerful than any existing computer. It’s all because you have honed your skills with thousands and thousands of hours of training-by listening to music.
Unless you’ve studied music theory, or possibly cognitive neuroscience, you probably had no idea just what an expert you are. This Is Your Brain on Music explains exactly why you are such an expert, appealing to the latest brain imaging research, evolutionary biology, behavioural psychology, and cognitive neuroscience. It’s a primer on music theory, and a fascinating study in the evolving field of brain science. |
I'm going to have to read that book...
But as for the bolded part, my dog can identify a certain song that way.
A few years ago, I had the music on, and one of the songs in the playlist was 'Been Caught Stealing' by Janes Addiction. The song opens with two notes, then some dogs barking.
I had the music just cranked that day, and when she heard those dogs, she started barking like crazy and running back and forth from the front window to the back door, just going nuts.
It was so funny, that I started showing it to my friends and family, whoever was over.
After doing it a few times, the very first note would set her off. Didn't even need to hear the dogs. I could just play the first note and pause it, and she'd still go nuts.
God I love that dog.