Music and the Brain

In our everyday lives language and instrumental music are obviously different things. Neuroscientist and musician Ani Patel is the author of a recent, elegantly argued offering from Oxford University Press, Music, Language and the Brain. Oliver Sacks calls Patel a "pioneer in the use of new concepts and technology to investige the neural correlates of music." In this podcast he discusses some of the hidden connections between language and instrumental music that are being uncovered by empirical scientific studies.

Artistic anathemas, musical mayhem, and cultural conundrums such as "the devil's music"- Middleton and Krash explore the psychological and social issues associated with the human tendency toward censorship of musical expression, as well as what has been described as "suicide-by-music" and crimes that have been connected to musical genres.

From Mode to Emotion in Musical Communication: Steven Brown, Director of the NeuroArts Lab at McMaster University, discusses his work looking at the expression of emotion in both Western and non-Western musics. Music employs a number of mechanisms for conveying emotion. Some of them are shared with other modes of expression (speech, gesture) while others are specific to music. The most unique way that music communicates emotion is through the use of contrastive scale types. While Westerners are familiar with the major/minor distinction, the use of contrastive scale types in world musics is universal.

Helfgott and Middleton examine the use of classical music by law enforcement and other cultural institutions as social control, to quell and prevent crime. Their conversation touches on how classical music is viewed in contemporary culture, how it can be a tool for discouraging criminal activity and anti-social behavior, as well as its history as a mind-altering experience.

Michael Kubovy and Judith Shatin of the University of Virginia discuss their presentation "The Mind of an Artist." Debate has long raged about whether and how music expresses meaning beyond its sounding notes. Kubovy and Shatin discuss evidence that music does indeed have a semantic element, and offer examples of how composers embody extra-musical elements in their compositions. Kubovy is a cognitive psychologist who studies visual and auditory perception, and Shatin is a composer who explores similar issues in her music.