TELEVISION

Music and the Brain

Series: Great Courses
4.4
(50)
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Episodes
18
Rating
TVPG
Year
2015
Language
English
Publisher
The Great Courses

About

Music is an integral part of humanity. Every culture has music, from the largest society to the smallest tribe. It's marvelous range of melodies, themes, and rhythms taps into something universal. In Music and the Brain, neuroscientist Ani Patel probes one of the mind's most profound mysteries. Covering the latest research and findings, these 18 enthralling half-hour lectures will make you think about music and your brain in a new way.

Related Subjects

Episodes

1 to 3 of 18

1. Music: Culture, Biology, or Both?

30m

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Explore the distinction between music and musicality. While musical styles change, musicality is the stable array of mental processes that underlie our ability to appreciate and produce music. Begin by looking at our capacity for relative pitch perception, asking why we excel over all other animals at this skill.

2. Seeking an Evolutionary Theory of Music

30m

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Darwin believed that musical behavior arose because it gave our early ancestors a biological advantage. But what advantage? Investigate Darwin's theory and other adaptationist explanations for the evolution of music. Then look at two alternatives: invention theories and gene-culture co-evolution theories.

3. Testing Theories of Music's Origins

30m

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Follow two lines of research that have put ideas about music's origins to the test. Start with studies of music perception in monkeys. Then turn to an ingenious experiment with young children, designed to evaluate the theory that musical behavior enhances social bonds between group members.

4. Music, Language, and Emotional Expression

30m

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What makes a piece of music sound sad? Or joyful? Or angry? Why does music have expressive power beyond words? Explore the different ways that music conveys emotion. Test your own responses to musical passages composed especially for the course.

5. Brain Sources of Music's Emotional Power

30m

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Delve deeper into the emotional reactions that people have to music. Feel the chills induced by certain musical passages and study the theories about where these powerful feelings come from. Then look at eight distinct psychological mechanisms by which music arouses emotions in listeners.

6. Musical Building Blocks: Pitch and Timbre

30m

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Focus on two processes that are fundamental to musicality: the perception of pitch and timbre. Pitch allows us to order sounds from low to high. Timbre lets us distinguish two sounds with the same pitch, loudness, and duration. Both pitch and timbre are constructed by the brain and have deep evolutionary roots.

Extended Details

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