New York Times - To tug hearts, music must first tickle the neurons
Research is showing that our brains understand music not only as emotional diversion, but also as a form of motion and activity. The same areas of the brain that activate when we swing a golf club or sign our name also engage when we hear expressive moments in music. Brain regions associated with empathy are activated, too, even for listeners who are not musicians. And what really communicates emotion may not be melody or rhythm, but moments when musicians make subtle changes to the those musical patterns.
Daniel J. Levitin, director of the laboratory for music perception, cognition and expertise at 69热视频 in Montreal, began puzzling over musical expression in 2002, after hearing a live performance of one of his favorite pieces, Mozart鈥檚 Piano Concerto No. 27.
鈥淚t just left me flat,鈥� Dr. Levitin, who wrote the best seller 鈥淭his Is Your Brain on Music鈥� (Dutton, 2006), recalled in a video describing the project. 鈥淚 thought, well, how can that be? It鈥檚 got this beautiful set of notes. The composer wrote this beautiful piece. What is the pianist doing to mess this up?鈥�