The Neuroscience Of Musical Perception, Bass Guitars And Drake

(An explanation for why the musicians here on IORR sometimes hear things that I don't.)

....assessed how brain wave patterns responded to music in musicians compared with nonmusicians, defined as, for the purposes of the study, those with at least six years of musical training who actively play music and those who don't currently play and who have less than three years of training, respectively.

They found that the brain wave rhythms of nonmusicians didn't entrain to music with a tempo less than one note per second, or what would be considered slow music. However the musicians' brain waves buzzed in synchrony to music as slow as 0.7 notes per second. "It looks like musicians can take longer, more drawn out musical phrases and group them into a pattern of some kind," says Poeppel, "the response to what some people perceive as just a series of beeps and blips turns on much more sharply in musicians."

(Then there's this....)

"These are exciting findings that fit into a broader body of work. It's been previously shown that musicians tend to be able to produce slower rhythms compared with nonmusicians. It's also been shown that children with musical training have a slower preferred tempo than kids who haven't had training."

The findings might help explain why....musicians tend to be more tolerant of slow, ambient, droning music. They might also explain why musicians appear to be more attuned to environmental sounds, like picking out a single voice in the din of a crowded room. Research shows that this may be because of musicians' heightened ability to discriminate between different frequencies.

(and this....)

....psychologist Laurel Trainor and her colleagues from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, found that the human brain is far more sensitive to low notes being off tempo than higher notes. Or, put another way, our brains entrain more to low frequencies.

The authors speculate that this could be why the rhythm sections of so many music styles around the world rely on bass, drums and lower tones, and why discordant guitar solos and blaring saxophone leads can sound just fine when off-beat bass guitar doesn't.

...the work of Poeppel and others suggests that a tonal time perception hinted at in apes and more fully formed in man could be a prerequisite for discerning a song. Musical appreciation might begin with our brains simply staying on beat.


[www.npr.org]




Kinda fascinating to me, thought some of you would enjoy it too.

That totally nails it!

Musicians don't let their body stand in the way of what their brain...and everbody elses..wants!

A steady beat...or better put, a soothing beat. be it fast, slow or whatever. It's gotta be "in the pocket" for it to really hit home..or strike a nerve with people.

This is a skill! Not some godgiven innate talent

Some get it right away, some have to work very hard at it, some never get it..but we all have music inside us and don't have to make an effort to enjoy listening to it. I'd say it's what connects us the most as human beings..

I believe Einstein when he said: "the secret of the universe lies in music"