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The music of silence
When thinking about and studying the effect of music on the mind and body, my focus is usually on the music…as you might expect! In reality I have given little if any thought to the impact of the silences in music. This week I was introduced to the power of silences and learned a little about the way they can be used very effectively to maximise musical engagement. It all started when I got an email from a 6 Music executive producer Mark Savage. Mark was putting together a short feature, all about pauses in music and how they affect the listener. It was all based on a novel by…
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Rapid musical memory
When you are in a bar or restaurant or gym and you hear a familiar musical sound, how long is it before you can ‘name to the tune’? A new study suggests that we are remarkably quick at identifying at least the genre of the music we hear. Apparently it might take as little 125 milliseconds! The speed and accuracy with which we can recognise music speaks to the depth and rapid processing capabilities of musical memory. The authors of the new paper make a very good point to illustrate the speed at which we use our musical memory in everyday life. Imagine you are flicking through radio stations trying…
