No one knows when a good book is published anymore because only about 12 people in the entire country actually read these “bestsellers”. Consider the millions that go online to browse a story, watch a TV program, or go to the movies… If you sell a few hundred thousand books you’re a rock star. And we won’t even get into the numbers for a magazine. I didn’t know about Daniel Levitin’s This is Your Brain on Music until it was published in paperback form. Yes, just in time to purchase it at the reduced paperback price. I’ve been a songwriter and a “musician” (I’ll let the real musicians use the term without quotation marks) most of my life and it never really interested me enough to investigate how the brain processes music. Turns out to be as fascinating as sitting around in the dark trying to decipher all the sounds in some Charles Ives’ piece. I got chills reading the book, like I get chills listening to Wagner’s Liebstod in Tristan & Isolde.
Here’s an example: Levitin talks about how the brain registers frequencies. If you connect electrodes to your visual cortex and look at red tomatoes, the neurons in the brain won’t cause the electrodes to turn a corresponding red; but the electrodes connected to the auditory cortex will cause neurons to fire the frequency that you pick up with your ears! So “what goes into the ear comes out of the brain.” That there is a direct one to one correspondence like that makes me wonder just how fundamental music or sound is to humans (and to human development). Speaking of what’s fundamental, he says that studies show that sound composed of different frequencies are perceived as having the fundamental frequency. Take away the fundamental from the collection of frequencies and the brain will still perceive it.
I like to say that music is great because it’s the one thing that you don’t need to explain. People feel as though they haven’t really experienced, say, a work of literature or cinema until it’s been explained and interpreted until everything that you experience has a correlation to something else. While music isn’t free from the temptation for interpretation, I would say it’s the one form that in general people feel comfortable enjoying without knowing why they enjoy it. I enjoy Sigur Ros because I enjoy Sigur Ros — and no, I don’t care that they’re singing in Hopelandish, a made-up language. Or have you ever listened to “The Double-Dutch Bus”? I have no idea what that song is about, but it’s one of my favorite “pop” songs of all time. It may have a meaning that’s eluded me, but the point here is that I’ve found it so enjoyable and just fun that it never occurred to me to analyze it that way.
Our ability to process music may be part of human evolution, but like language, it seems to be built in. Grammar guru and philosopher Noam Chomsky claimed decades ago that the brain has an internal structure designed to learn any language and it seems the brain has a similar structure for music and sound. So maybe it is just possible that we are genetically able to distinguish good audio from bad audio. We’re born with the tools to figure out what good SQ is. Speaking of which, we checked out three high-value subwoofers in the recent Feb. issue from Alpine, Morel and Rockford, with Morel of course being the new entry in this category. Think of it as the first of an international round-up of speakers. If you’re not running these in your car, then you need to consider the cover blurb (“Subwoofer Swap” as a call to action. All three are phenomenal.
In the February issue we also have a special section for the IASCA finals including some great insight about car audio from competitors at the finals. If you weren’t there to hear their cars, then their comments will open your ears. This weekend competitors will be at SBN for the big IASCA competition. We’ll have an update on our website next week. So stay tuned. In the mean time, read This is Your Brain on Music if you want to know more about what your ears are hearing.