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Reiner Torheit
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« on: 21:08:39, 21-10-2007 » |
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... some fascinating insights from Oliver Sacks (whose own works on neurology have been turned into opera libretti...) on how our brains perceive music. Article in the Toronto Globe & Mail, currently free-to-view and requires no registration: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071020.wsacks1020/BNStory/Entertainment/homePS the article references Sacks's new book "Musicophilia". Although this is in theory still "not released" in UK, it is around and you can order it from "Amazon Sellers" on the amazon.co.uk site... as I just did. |
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« Last Edit: 21:13:14, 21-10-2007 by Reiner Torheit »
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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richard barrett
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« Reply #1 on: 21:14:59, 21-10-2007 » |
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Thanks Reiner. I'll be getting hold of that book when it comes out for sure. I wonder if he writes in it about Michael Nyman?
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Morticia
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« Reply #2 on: 21:25:12, 21-10-2007 » |
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Thanks Reiner. I have found the works of Oliver Sacks fascinating and helpful, within my work and beyond, I will certainly be purchasing this one. Thanks for the heads up.
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #3 on: 21:43:14, 21-10-2007 » |
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I wonder if he writes in it about Michael Nyman?
 I hear he's working on a libretto, something about The Someone-Or-Other Who Mistook Michael Nyman For A Composer, but the line was breaking up and I might have heard incorrectly  |
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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oliver sudden
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« Reply #4 on: 21:47:02, 21-10-2007 » |
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I've generally found writings on the science of music perception deeply unsatisfying because the writers can rarely put their own preconceptions aside. Given what I've already read of Sacks I have high hopes that this might be an exception.
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Morticia
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« Reply #5 on: 21:48:48, 21-10-2007 » |
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I wonder if he writes in it about Michael Nyman?
I hear he's working on a libretto, something about The Someone-Or-Other Who Mistook Michael Nyman For A Composer, but the line was breaking up and I might have heard incorrectly Tsk tsk Mr T.  |
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richard barrett
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« Reply #6 on: 22:01:46, 21-10-2007 » |
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I've generally found writings on the science of music perception deeply unsatisfying because the writers can rarely put their own preconceptions aside. Given what I've already read of Sacks I have high hopes that this might be an exception. Quite so. He isn't normally given to constructing theories, being a practising neurologist rather than primarily a researcher, and seems primarily interested in what his patients and/or subjects have to say. |
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MT Wessel
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« Reply #7 on: 00:54:19, 22-10-2007 » |
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..(whose own works on neurology have been turned into opera libretti...) and it serves him bloody well right as far as I'm concerned.  |
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lignum crucis arbour scientiae
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richard barrett
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« Reply #8 on: 16:59:32, 25-10-2007 » |
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Here is a somewhat less flattering review in the New Statesman.
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Bryn
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« Reply #9 on: 20:53:36, 05-11-2007 » |
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Thanks Reiner. I'll be getting hold of that book when it comes out for sure. I wonder if he writes in it about Michael Nyman?
As you have probably discovered by now, Richard, Michael Nyman does not even make it into the index. |
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oliver sudden
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« Reply #10 on: 00:04:43, 06-11-2007 » |
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Gerard McBurney is a composer and creative programming adviser to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Er... no, never mind. I can see I'll have to read it, anyway. |
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Bryn
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« Reply #11 on: 00:17:22, 06-11-2007 » |
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Gerard McBurney is a composer and creative programming adviser to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Er... no, never mind. I can see I'll have to read it, anyway. Well, with Fenton having his little go at Levitin, and McBurney taking on Sacks, that's two recommendations, as far as I'm concerned. Fenton and McBurney are both supremely qualified to pontificate on the subject of neuroscience, of course. |
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C Dish
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« Reply #12 on: 00:51:32, 06-11-2007 » |
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I've generally found writings on the science of music perception deeply unsatisfying because the writers can rarely put their own preconceptions aside.
The example that springs to mind is Mr Douglas Hofstadter. An engaging writer, but whenever his pen turns to music I want to turn to stone. |
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inert fig here
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increpatio
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« Reply #13 on: 10:14:39, 06-11-2007 » |
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I've generally found writings on the science of music perception deeply unsatisfying because the writers can rarely put their own preconceptions aside.
The example that springs to mind is Mr Douglas Hofstadter. An engaging writer, but whenever his pen turns to music I want to turn to stone. I think I agree with you Ollie (I don't get so annoyed by Hofstadter when he talks about music, but I think I might if I was to read his recent book on consciousness (to hear him talk on the topic of consciousness)). More decent expositors (or review papers) are needed. |
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George Garnett
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« Reply #14 on: 11:14:35, 15-11-2007 » |
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I've just been sent a flier (or is it flyer? I never know) for a book by Daniel Levitin: This is Your Brain on Music: Understanding a Human Obsession. It is an International Best Seller apparently but I hadn't heard of it before.
Dreadful title which has more or less warned me off it already. As have some of the OTT clams made for it. Does anyone here know it? [Aha, I see Bryn has mentoned the name Levitin up above.] Worth reading? Any pointers?
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« Last Edit: 11:17:21, 15-11-2007 by George Garnett »
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