Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Music and an article worth reading.

I am a creature of habit. Every morning at precisely 6:02, I get up, put on my fuzzy slippers and plaid bathrobe and I sit down to a cup of coffee with 3.7 teaspoons of sugar, one egg done over-hard, and the Wall Street Journal. Rain or Shine.

Okay, so maybe not. I am not a creature of habit, nor would I willingly get up at 6:02. I don't measure my sugar and I don't drink coffee every morning.

But, every couple days or so, I do read the paper. And a couple days ago, they published an interesting article on the power of music. You should read it! The article is worth the time it takes to peruse it. Not necessarily because I agree with everything the author says, but because it is inductive to thought. And thinking is always a good thing.

To quote Beauty and the Beast:

Gaston: "I'm afraid I've been thinking,"
Lefoo: "A dangerous pastime!"
Gaston: "I know."

It intrigued me, and I especially liked this quote that the author, um, quoted.

"Only a world without love strikes me as instantly and decisively more terrible than one without music." ~Sir Kingsley Amis

In the article, they presented two different opinions in a paragraph that starts with the words, "Enter the men in white coats" The first opinion hypothesizes that the human brain is wired to find meaning in music, whereas the second maintains that music is merely "auditory cheesecake."

I noticed that the first opinion was from a neuroscientist, while the second was just from a psycologist. Thoughts on that anyone?

Anyway, I absolutely loved this quote(it made me laugh):

Donald Francis Tovey "I have (this sounds like fantastic nonsense, but it isn't) frequently caught myself positively solving some problem (of a more or less philosophical nature) in, say, the key of A minor, where I had utterly failed to reason it out in words." Who cannot empathesize with that?

1 COMMENTS:

Lady June Whimsy said...

Wow. That ties in with a post I wrote a few months back... 'La la la la la " I believe. That's so cool! I hope you don't mind if I relink to the article from my blog. ;)
B