How our brains are tuned to music
 

Howdy friends,

It seems that more and more folks are asking these days about getting sheet music from some kind of audio source, either a file (eg. mp3, from a CD, etc.) or something they play or sing into a microphone. Perhaps it's the proliferation of music sources as well as the expanded capabilities that are available for "everyday musicians" :) Some of the technological difficulty with doing that task is addressed in this post (click here).

If you're interested in a really good read that explores how our brains process music, and how deeply embedded it is, I can highly recommend "Musicophilia" by Oliver Sacks (one of my favorite authors). In it he

"explores the place music occupies in the brain and how it affects the human condition. In Musicophilia, he shows us a variety of what he calls “musical misalignments.” Among them: a man struck by lightning who suddenly desires to become a pianist at the age of forty-two; an entire group of children with Williams syndrome, who are hypermusical from birth; people with “amusia,” to whom a symphony sounds like the clattering of pots and pans; and a man whose memory spans only seven seconds-for everything but music."

I read this some time ago, but was reminded of it today as I was talking about the technological issues with my kids, and the amazing capabilities of the human brain.

ttfn,
Sherry

p.s. I don't make any money from the link to Amazon, it was just the first location for the book that popped up.