Members blue2blue Posted October 24, 2015 Members Share Posted October 24, 2015 from NPR: How Sound Shaped The Evolution Of Your Brain I've shared my personal notions of how music seems to me to have evolved from the tension and release implicit in our response to natural environmental rhythms, but who knew there were people actually applying scientific investigative discipline to the field? I suspect this sprightly, ~7 minute long piece will be of interest to many, but I thought specifically about rasputin1963 midway through -- right up his alley, seems to me. [apologies if this has been posted before] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members nat whilk II Posted October 24, 2015 Members Share Posted October 24, 2015 Yeah, I saw that article - not overly deep, but still vital stuff. Sort of backs up the experiences I've reported before - how I hear stuff in the white noise our fans make at night (melodies, ball games being called, crowds cheering, announcers running commentary, radio chatter, all just below legibility, but very convincing.) Lately I've been waking up every now and then to a big BANG - I sit up instantly, eyes wide. I ask the wife, the kids, "y'all hear anything?? I heard a big loud bang, woke me right up" and of course, they say there was no noise like that. We have a youngish neighbor couple who used to get into huge arguments - the wife would walk outside the front door and screech and scream at hubby back in the house for, I kid you not, well over an hour sometimes, non-stop. I've never heard an un-amplified human voice reach the incredible volumes this lady can achieve when in this state. It's pretty upsetting and a little creepy, too - the husband doesn't raise his voice in the slightest - I don't know how he can tolerate it, I would at least go for a long drive to get away 'till things simmer down. Anyway, after this happened a few times, I started hearing this screeching in the white noise and I'd get up to see if she was in one of her states again. No - it was just my brain again, making patterns. Took me a while to get myself to stop doing this....sheesh, as if I didn't already have insomnia issues anyway.... nat whilk ii Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted October 24, 2015 Author Members Share Posted October 24, 2015 You're not alone -- by a stretch -- on waking to a loud bang others don't hear... Daily Mail: Have YOU woken up after hearing a bang in the night? 20% of us have 'exploding head syndrome' where we hear loud, imaginary noises Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members nat whilk II Posted October 24, 2015 Members Share Posted October 24, 2015 You're not alone -- by a stretch -- on waking to a loud bang others don't hear... Daily Mail: Have YOU woken up after hearing a bang in the night? 20% of us have 'exploding head syndrome' where we hear loud, imaginary noises That particular study says a third of the "bangers" also have experienced sleep paralysis. Now I've had that countless times - I'm awake in my head, I know I'm awake, but I can't open my eyes or move. Used to terrify me when I was a kid, now it's rather routine, unless it's accompanied by a bad dream I'm trying to wake from but can't. That's not fun. I'm also an amateur lucid dreamer if that's connected somehow. I don't do anything mystical or spectacular, I just am dreaming and I know I'm dreaming and I can make very limited decisions in the dream context sometimes. I also wake up quite often with a new melody right there in my head - usually pretty ok ones, at that. First thing in the morning I write a lot of my better material, being fresh off the boat from wonderland I guess. nat whilk ii Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted October 25, 2015 Author Members Share Posted October 25, 2015 That particular study says a third of the "bangers" also have experienced sleep paralysis. Now I've had that countless times - I'm awake in my head, I know I'm awake, but I can't open my eyes or move. Used to terrify me when I was a kid, now it's rather routine, unless it's accompanied by a bad dream I'm trying to wake from but can't. That's not fun. I'm also an amateur lucid dreamer if that's connected somehow. I don't do anything mystical or spectacular, I just am dreaming and I know I'm dreaming and I can make very limited decisions in the dream context sometimes. I also wake up quite often with a new melody right there in my head - usually pretty ok ones, at that. First thing in the morning I write a lot of my better material, being fresh off the boat from wonderland I guess. nat whilk ii Yeah, I had a number of sleep paralysis events when I was in my early 20s. It took me a while to figure out what was what. That was the early 70s and I'd never heard anyone even talk about the experience. I suspected that I was being awakened -- or partially awakened -- by cats on my roof (probably more likely rats now that I've been around). But I'd been burglarized a couple times in that place -- it was absolutely at ground level (an issue in the rain) and that contributed to a certain sense of vulnerability. Perhaps related, under the romantic sway of the Don Juan mythology, I, too, was fooling with lucid dreaming. I haven't pushed in that direction in decades but I have, on a few remembered occasions, exerted conscious will to 'adjust' untenable dream realities. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted October 26, 2015 Share Posted October 26, 2015 Best quote of the article IMHO: "The brain is really a wet, sloppy drum machine," Horowitz says. Lee Flier is not going to be amused. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members nat whilk II Posted October 26, 2015 Members Share Posted October 26, 2015 One of my techniques for starting a new composition is to go quiet and wait for my mind to present a beat that just feels right for the moment for some mysterious reason. Just a pace, a bpm can be enough - sometimes a particular swing is also part of the deal, or whether it's triple meter or not. I'll settle into that beat, letting it run in my internal metronome and start letting melodies or chord shifts or bass lines present themselves either by thinking or by noodling on the acoustic. It's strange, but just identifying the "beat of the moment" can be super relaxing, making zoning out into the flow come easily. If I can't find that special beat that I resonate to at the moment, if they all seem arbitrary, then it's no go, not a good music day or hour. It works about half the time to get me going into some new compositional idea. nat whilk ii Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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