Music, today, is generally perceived as entertainment.
We are entertained by music. And we use it often to change our mood. Or to enhance our environment – whether that be at work or at home.
Neuroscientist, Daniel Levitin, is one of the world’s authorities on music and the brain. He states in his book, The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature, “Americans spend more money on music than they do on prescription drugs or sex, and the average American hears more than five hours of music per day.”
He also states in the same book, “Music, I argue, is not simply a distraction or a pastime, but a core element of our identity as a species, an activity that paved the way for more complex behaviors such a language, large-scale cooperative undertakings, and the passing down of important information from one generation to the next.”
The more I read about how deeply and extensively wired the human being is for music and sound, the more blown away I am by how deeply it connects us all.
The musical pentatonic scale evolved in diverse cultures all over the planet. Its universality and deep wiring within us is demonstrated so viscerally by Bobby McFerrin at the World Science Festival in 2009.
See for yourself – watch the video below! Try NOT to sing along!
This particular session was called “Notes and Neurons: In Search of the Common Chorus.”
The demonstration in the video was conducted by Bobby McFerrin, one of the most talented singers of our time. On stage with him are panelists “Jamshed Bharucha, Provost and Senior Vice President of Tufts University; the James McGill Professor of Psychology and Neurosciences at McGill University, Daniel Levitin; Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Sheffield, Lawrence Parsons; and host of WNYC’s music/talk show Soundcheck, John Schaefer.”
The video is called “The Power of the Pentatonic Scale” and was filmed on June 12, 2009 at the World Science Festival.