Transcript PPT only
Music
Or, a lecture to soothe the savage beast
Music Basics
What is music?
Sound and silence temporally
organized
Sounds of music
Pitch, timbre, loudness
Scale
Sequential presentation of notes
Fundamental = note at scale base,
bottom note of chord
Chord
Collection of notes played
simultaneously
Timbre and Complexity
Harmonics
Notes at specific intervals that resonate above a
fundamental
Vary in loudness
Onset, offset time
Characteristic harmonics determine timbre
Demo 1 - harmonic changes sound (track 53)
Harmonics change the sound, NOT the pitch
Music Physics
Consonance
Intervals of notes that when played
simultaneously sound good
together
Synergistic overtones
Dissonance
(Track 62)
Intervals of notes that when played
together sound conflicting
Interference pattern between
overtones
Structural Music
Scale perception
Western Music uses accents to structure sound
Asynchronous western scale
Whole step, whole step, half step, Whole step, whole
step, whole step, half step
8 notes per scale, 16 notes available
Causes leading tones
Asynchronous scales
Whole tone scale
Chromatic (half-step scale)
Same notes, no structure
Music Training
Instrument specific
Present violin or trumpet to
violinist or trumpeter (Pantev et al., 2001)
Event related potential (ERP)
Pattern, timing of neural response
Unspecified region
Instrument specific N1
Attention related negativity of neural
response
Larger for own instrument
Brain Changes
Hemispheric Differences (e.g., Burton et al., 1989)
Musical categorization
Left or Right presentation; musician or nonmusician
Musician = Right ear advantage; Non=Left
ear advantage
Hemispheric specialization changes with
training
Left brain: speech specialization, dynamic
processing;Right brain: spatial processing
But see Zatorre (1979)
Bulk up the Brain
Brain topography of musicians
(Gaser & Schlaug, 2003)
Increased gray matter for
parietal areas(pianists)
Somatosensory, motor coordination
Multisensory combination (visualauditory-somatosensory)
No differences in white matter
Areas of change and magnitude
instrument specific