Oliver Sacks explains how your brain does music
Oliver Sacks has an interview in the latest Wired, talking about his new book Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain with Steve Silberman. This sounds like a fantastic book -- a real Sacks-ian exploration of all the wild and illuminating ways the brain has of dealing with music.
LinkHume wondered whether one can imagine a color that one has never encountered. One day in 1964, I constructed a sort of pharmacological mountain, and at its peak, I said, "I want to see indigo, now!" As if thrown by a paintbrush, a huge, trembling drop of purest indigo appeared on the wall -- the color of heaven. For months after that, I kept looking for that color. It was like the lost chord.
Then I went to a concert at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In the first half, they played the Monteverdi Vespers, and I was transported. I felt a river of music 400 years long running from Monteverdi's mind into mine. Wandering around during the interval, I saw some lapis lazuli snuffboxes that were that same wonderful indigo, and I thought, "Good, the color exists in the external world." But in the second half I got restless, and when I saw the snuffboxes again, they were no longer indigo -- they were blue, mauve, pink. I've never seen that color since.
It took a mountain of amphetamine, mescaline, and cannabis to launch me into that space. But Monteverdi did it too.
See also: Oliver Sacks on music and amnesia
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His contribution to the Radiolab on same topic is also quite masterful.
Damn, that sounds like a fun mountain. I wonder if I'm too old for that any more? ;-)
Also, the latest issue of Seed magazine has a nice story on the events leading up to his writing this book.
That Seed piece, by the brilliant Jonah Lehrer, is excellent.
Thanks for the link to my interview, Cory! I also want to call attention to a sidebar that ran with the piece, written at my request by Sacks himself -- his annotated list of favorite classical music:
Sacks' IPod Playlist
Whoa! Literal flashback...
Once I was on a very similar mescaline mountain (many years ago - ahh... college). I was listening to Coltrane's version of Mood Indigo, and with every phrase he played, a swirl of amazing color was splashed across the wall. One of the greatest experiences of my life.
Crazy. So many odd parallels. Great article. I feel as though I am REQUIRED to read this book now - especially being a musician.
"Absolute pitch ... In professional musicians it's 1 in 10."
I think most of us would disagree with this. Out of the thousands of musicians I've known only two or three had perfect pitch.
Iain, I wouldn't be surprised if he meant symphonic musicians. But I'm not sure.
> Coltrane's version of Mood Indigo
I didn't understand Coltrane at all until I heard a version of "India" with Eric Dolphy when I was tripping on acid in college. Then all became clear, and has remained clear since, at least Coltrane-wise.