To start: this is one of my favourite posts of yours. It's seriously beautiful, Stephanie. Vignette-in-a-collection, I-would-read-your-work-even-though-you're-a-female-author (hahaha) beautiful. One day I want to ask you more about your dad!! & like I am pretty excited to meet him (next week!) :D
I finished Proust Was a Neuroscientist this morning, and one of the chapters is about Stravinsky (timely, huh? I can't wait to discuss the ballet!!) and his riot-incurring Rite of Spring. The essential thrust of the chapter (quite personally-affirmingly, actually, hah), is that we respond to music because it fucks us up. Okay, so not said in so many words, but: "Music works by confronting us with our prediction errors. In fact, the brainstem contains a network of neurons that responds only to surprising sounds. When the musical pattern we know is violated, these cells begin the neural process that ends with the release of dopamine...[which is] also the chemical source of our most intense emotions, which helps to explain the strange emotional power of music, especially when it confronts us with newness and dissonance." This chapter is written for you and I, basically; you'll have to read it and I don't want to spoil everything, BUT: I saw what song you'd posted [THIS ALL HAS A POINT, I SWEAR], and this next passage immediately came to mind ---
"Although [the corticofugal system] evolved to expand our minds -- letting us learn an infinitude of new patterns -- it can also limit our experiences. This is because the corticofugal system is a positive-feedback loop...[which becomes] a meaningless screech of white noise, the sound of uninterrupted positive feedback. Over time, the auditory cortex works the same way; we become better able to hear those sounds that we have heard before. This only encourages us to listen to the golden oldies we already know (since they sound better), and to ignore the difficult songs that we don't know (since they sound harsh and noisy, and release unpleasant amounts of dopamine." When I read that, I felt jolted out of reality -- kind of horrified. I frantically scanned my catalogue of music listened to in the past while: am I getting there? am I getting to the point where I can't listen to 'difficult' music, where I'm content to listen to ole faves? 'I don't think so,' I thought to myself, 'I think I'm okay.'
Then: home, around midnight, and I put this song on, and I will be completely honest with you: it's not the kind of song I'd usually like. I love your description of how instant this was for you, how you immediately knew this was beautiful (because it is!) -- but I had my head tilted, wondering if I was missing something, and then I realized I was: a positive feedback loop. This was new. And it's not as if I've never heard anything like it before --- but my positive feedback loop of 70s rock is psychedelic and glam. Bowie, Pink Floyd, Siouxsie -- that's where I feel comfortable. As old as this song is, for me, it's new territory.
And with the passage I'd just read and that revelation in mind, I listened to it again...and I got it. Just fucking got it. "oh THIS is what she was talking about!" I realized, "oKAY!" I'm listening to it now and can't really sit still, haha.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2012-03-29 04:12 pm (UTC)I finished Proust Was a Neuroscientist this morning, and one of the chapters is about Stravinsky (timely, huh? I can't wait to discuss the ballet!!) and his riot-incurring Rite of Spring. The essential thrust of the chapter (quite personally-affirmingly, actually, hah), is that we respond to music because it fucks us up. Okay, so not said in so many words, but: "Music works by confronting us with our prediction errors. In fact, the brainstem contains a network of neurons that responds only to surprising sounds. When the musical pattern we know is violated, these cells begin the neural process that ends with the release of dopamine...[which is] also the chemical source of our most intense emotions, which helps to explain the strange emotional power of music, especially when it confronts us with newness and dissonance."
This chapter is written for you and I, basically; you'll have to read it and I don't want to spoil everything, BUT: I saw what song you'd posted [THIS ALL HAS A POINT, I SWEAR], and this next passage immediately came to mind ---
"Although [the corticofugal system] evolved to expand our minds -- letting us learn an infinitude of new patterns -- it can also limit our experiences. This is because the corticofugal system is a positive-feedback loop...[which becomes] a meaningless screech of white noise, the sound of uninterrupted positive feedback. Over time, the auditory cortex works the same way; we become better able to hear those sounds that we have heard before. This only encourages us to listen to the golden oldies we already know (since they sound better), and to ignore the difficult songs that we don't know (since they sound harsh and noisy, and release unpleasant amounts of dopamine."
When I read that, I felt jolted out of reality -- kind of horrified. I frantically scanned my catalogue of music listened to in the past while: am I getting there? am I getting to the point where I can't listen to 'difficult' music, where I'm content to listen to ole faves? 'I don't think so,' I thought to myself, 'I think I'm okay.'
Then: home, around midnight, and I put this song on, and I will be completely honest with you: it's not the kind of song I'd usually like. I love your description of how instant this was for you, how you immediately knew this was beautiful (because it is!) -- but I had my head tilted, wondering if I was missing something, and then I realized I was: a positive feedback loop. This was new. And it's not as if I've never heard anything like it before --- but my positive feedback loop of 70s rock is psychedelic and glam. Bowie, Pink Floyd, Siouxsie -- that's where I feel comfortable. As old as this song is, for me, it's new territory.
And with the passage I'd just read and that revelation in mind, I listened to it again...and I got it. Just fucking got it. "oh THIS is what she was talking about!" I realized, "oKAY!" I'm listening to it now and can't really sit still, haha.