Sunday, April 25, 2010
Baby Come Back
Wow. Baby come back to The Songs in My Head! I've been on somewhat of a hiatus of late, but I hope to get back on track in the next few days. Life has intervened in a major way in April, but I'm ready to explore my neural firings again, especially when they deliver such epic '70s cheese.
Nope, this is not Hall & Oates, even though the structure and timbre of this song is remarkably similar to the music of those contemporary hit makers. And the singer's voice is reminding me of an inferior version of one of the Brothers Gibb, which must have worked in the song's favor, since Bee Gees songs preceded and followed this song at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in 1978.
Artist: Player
Year: 1977
Rating: Warm
Note: You might hear a lot more about neural process and fancy musical terms like "timbre" in the coming months. I'm reading a fascinating book about the neurophysiology of our experience of music - how the brain is evolutionarily wired to perceive, process, interpret, and remember music. It's called This Is Your Brain On Music by Daniel Levitin, a musician, former music producer and engineer, and professor of cognitive psychology at McGill University in Montreal.
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That book sounds interesting. When my son was two I taught him how to spell his name, his address and such things by turning them into songs. After my seizure, I've been dealing with short term memory loss and applying the same technique. I will say that I do know my name and where I live.
ReplyDeleteHow did I miss that you had a seizure, Cat?? But yes, it seems that the structure imposed by music (notes, melody, rhythm, etc) allows us to remember better, in part 'cause it utilizes many more regions of the brain than spoken language. And, yes, the book is pretty awesome. I'll have more to say about it in coming entries!
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