Your brain on music

When I was 17, I was desperately in love with a guy. He always wore the same cologne, smelled so lovely. One day I asked him what it was. It turned out he used Hugo Boss everything: shower gel, aftershave, cologne, and whatever else men use. No wonder the scent was so strong! In any case, I think I can say that he was my first "love", more Platonic though than anything else. To this day - almost 10 years later - whenever I smell that Hugo Boss scent, I get this funny feeling in my stomach. The guy who's wearing it becomes a little more attractive and I am drawn to him. Every time.

Same sort of thing happens with music. When I first moved away from home, I often got really homesick. There were a few CDs I always listened to that year, one from Matchbox 20 and one from Goo Goo Dolls. Still to this day, when I hear those songs, I think of home and get really homesick.

I think it's so fascinating how all these senses are so closely connected to memories and emotions. And these are the sorts of things that the World Science Festival was using to try to popularize science. And it works! A lot of the shows/lectures were sold out. As was the one I got to see about the connection between music and emotions. I really like the idea of bringing together different disciplines, like science with the arts. I think that what I don't like about science as it is done in the lab, is how narrow it is. I know that it has to be done that way in order for anything to be discovered, but I like the idea of connecting things and bringing different disciplines together.

For "Notes and Neurons", there were 3 neuroscientists, all studying the effects of music on the brain - I saw a book by one of them in Barnes & Noble the other day, titled "Your Brain on Music" - and a few musicians, including Bobby McFerrin - Don't Worry, Be Happy - who is a genius with his voice! You have to watch this video!!



He did something a little similar with the audience on Friday: he basically wanted to demonstrate how the brain adjusts to different tones and what it expects and how sounds and movements are connected. He jumped up once and hummed a note. Then jumped to the right and it was a higher note, then to the left, singing a lower note. Then he would jump in different rhythms and the audience had to hum the tones according to where he was on the stage and how fast he was jumping. At the end, we sort of hummed a whole song. It was pretty amazing, the way he connected with the audience and how everyone participated (or it seemed that way). He said that no matter where in the world he is, every audience manages to do this, regardless of cultural or racial background. Music is universal!

After the performance, we had to escort Bobby (we're on first name bases now:) to his car. He was chatting with people, and when we asked him to take a picture with him, he was super nice, and two of us volunteers stood by him, he put his arms around us while we took a picture. Ahh, I almost melted. The other girl is supposed to email the picture to me. Hope it turned out well!