Your Brain on Music

I just finished "reading" This Is Your Brain on Music by Daniel Levitin. I use the word reading loosely because it is a very scientific book with lots of big words and not very many illustrative stories. My attention span couldn't take it - oh, look! A chicken!

There were TWO good quotable spots in the book, however.

1. on page 132, he discusses memory retrieval and perceptual completion, or how we often "fill in the blanks" of memories with gaps. He uses the retelling of a dream and how the transitions between parts of the dream are not always clear and that we can't help but fill them in. That isn't the cool part; the example of the dream he gives is: "I was standing on the top of of a ladder outside listening to a Sibelius concert, and the sky was raining Pez candy..."

(Do I need to go on?)

2. on page 230, he discusses Raffi, Barney, and tic-tac-toe. "When music is too predictable, the outcome too certain...we find the music unchallenging and simplistic."

To illustrate: "Suppose you're hitchhiking....you may be willing to tolerate a few shortcuts, especially if the driver is friendly, believable and up-front about what he's doing. (If not), your sense of safety is sure to be violated. Some react with sheer panic ("That Stravinsky is going to kill me!") and some react with a sense of adventure...("Coltrane is doing something weird here, but what the hell, it won't hurt me to stick around awhile longer, I can take care of my harmonic self and find my way back to musical reality if I have to.")

Now THAT'S funny!