by friendlyskies » Sun Aug 07, 2011 4:20 pm
Um, the book doesn't really talk about illegal drugs, just pharmaceuticals. For instance, a professional musician getting massive doses of phenobarbitol starts hearing flattened notes in higher ranges.... or just loses the "emotional" content of the music, the reaction to a piece that had always affected them. But I'm sure, absolutely 100% sure, that psychoactive drugs affect the perception of music.
But as far as great musicians, it's clear that you need both components, nature and nurture. For instance, he studies several "musical families," where the gift has been passed down for generations. In one family, they all make fun of the middle daughter, who has been classically trained but still lacks an ear for the *feeling* in the music.... she can play a piece technically well, but can't intuit the emotional content. They joke that she can't tell "good" music from "bad" music.
But no matter how naturally talented you are, the key is exposure to music as early as possible. For instance, it's hypothesized that most babies are born with perfect pitch, but only a handful make it past puberty with the gift - in nontonal language environments. People raised with tonal languages, like Vietnamese and Mandarin, are much more likely to keep perfect pitch throughout their lives. And in a more general sense, people exposed to certain types of music early on will be geared to appreciate that type of music, and simpler arrangements, throughout their lives. But they might not be able to process more complex, varied structures. So someone raised with relatively simple Western symphonies won't be able to hear, much less process, more complex music, such as Latin dance. It becomes difficult to even distinguish between increasingly complex pieces, because your brain can't arrange all the different parts very efficiently. And some people can't recognize even the simplest songs, like Pop Goes the Weasel, because they lack any ability to put a tune together as a recognizable entity in their brain.
Learning instruments young is also required, because your brain delegates cells to the parts of the body you use most. So a virtuoso guitarist will have a much larger portion of his brain dedicated to his hands than, say, a trumpet player, or a nerd who just plays World of Warcraft. You can alter your brain in later life, for sure, but it's just not as easy. It's a cool book!
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