Archive for April, 2013
The Evolution of Music From the 11th Century to Today
Posted: 16th April 2013 by vocalman2004 in Music PostsHave you ever wondered how music has evolved over the years? One YouTube video tries to answer that question by distilling 10 centuries of song into four-and-a-half minutes. A quintet of singers, collectively called Pentatonix, start off with a haunting chant from the 11th century. They then move on to Pachelbel’s Canon from the 1600s, […]
New music is good for the brain, research claims
Posted: 16th April 2013 by vocalman2004 in Music PostsListening to new music can be good for the brain a new study has claimed. A group of Canadian scientists found via MRI scans that parts of the reward centre of the brain become more active when exposed to new sounds. The findings, which were reported in the Science journal, showed that activity in the […]
How listening to music boosts brainpower
Posted: 13th April 2013 by vocalman2004 in Music PostsTags: music
Playing sounds synchronised to the rhythm of the slow brain oscillations of people who are asleep boosts their memory and improves sleep quality. Sound stimulation which is out of sync does not improve memory. The sound strengthens the brain’s slow oscillations by increasing amplitude and by making slow-wave sleep last longer. Listening to music […]
The researchers monitored brain activity while playing volunteers new music Listening to new music is rewarding for the brain, a study suggests. Using MRI scans, a Canadian team of scientists found that areas in the reward centre of the brain became active when people heard a song for the first time. The more the listener […]
Margaret Thatcher: the villain of political pop
Posted: 9th April 2013 by vocalman2004 in Music PostsTags: IFTTT, music, Pocket
Punk had sharpened its claws, and by the time Margaret Thatcher took power a generation of musicians was ready to pounce. Protest songs thrive on combat. Complicated policy details may cause the songwriter’s pen to freeze but larger-than-life politicians who polarise opinion enable the ink to flow. It is striking that, despite all the frustration […]
How composers from Mozart to Bach made their music add up
Posted: 5th April 2013 by vocalman2004 in Music PostsTags: IFTTT, music, Pocket
Works from The Marriage of Figaro and The Magic Flute to Schumann’s Lyric Suite betray their creators’ fascination with numbers. What’s the next number in this sequence? 5, 10, 20, 30, 36 … ? And the next in this? 640, 231, 100, 91 … ? If you know your Mozart then you’ll identify 43 as […]