Hi dudes,
I'm gonna reply to this in segments, in order to (attempt to)avoid long unwieldy mails.

Re: I made the assumption that you were stating there are hard coded pathways in the brain for MUSIC appreciation. Therefore I made the additional assumption that there must be a universal optimal base from which all people differentiate music from sound.

Science supports this assumption:
meaning in music is represented in a very similar fashion to language meaning:
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/articl … ne.0002226

Biological link between human music and speech:
http://phys.org/news/2009-12-music-spee … ology.html
the researchers argue the harmonic structure of vowel tones forms the basis of the musical scales we find most appealing. They show the popularity of musical scales can be predicted based on how well they match up with the series of harmonics characteristic of vowels in speech.
AND:
http://phys.org/news/2007-05-essential- … human.html

Determining whether human beings have essentially identical 'musical concepts' :
http://phys.org/news/2011-06-world.html

Music Training Linked To Enhanced Verbal Skills
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 … 123908.htm


Re: I now ask why Human culture would evolve music appreciation?
...Music is a form of communication. Any form of communication conveys survival advantages.
For a bottom-end example, if Alice came & sang 'happy birthday' to you on your birthday, this would convey at least 2 pieces of information:
1 Alice cares enough about you to remember when your birthday is and
2 Alice cares enough about you to sing happy birthday to you.

This is a lot of important emotional information which could lead to some serious evolutionary advantages, such as friendship and/or potential mating with Alice. If lots of people came and sang happy birthday to you, you'd be likely most attracted to the renditions which seemed most sincere and which were performed in time and in tune (because unconsciously you are aware that symmetry and harmony in all forms are signals of healthy genetics.)

Re: some people can remember things better when put to song.... which begs the further question, why?
...This is about rhythm and rhyme and repetition, and their effect on our memory.
Which is easier to remember?:

A Alice's program is called: “Improving Efficacy of Digital Media Search Capacity via Programming Cues for Search Engine Optimization.”

B Bob's program is called “Shine Online.”

A Rainbows indicate humid air. A morning rainbow is seen in the West – the direction from which storms generally come – and so often appears before bad weather. Evening rainbows, which appear in the East, usually indicate the passing of stormy weather.

B Rainbow in the morning: travellers take warning. Rainbow at night: travellers' delight.

Re: I think I get distracted by the words pronounced inaccurately to suit the rhythm.
...This is poor communication on the composer's (or performer's) part. Imagine trying to read a book in which the punctuation had been missed out or added randomly  :  )  Not all authors are good at their art and not all composers are either. Poetry in particular has lost a lot of its meaning because not many people truly know how to write it anymore.

Anyone heard of 'the singing doctor' (Mukherjee )?
http://ideas.time.com/2013/09/17/need-t … -it-rhyme/
http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/Singi … story.html

Best,
AR

Hi dudes,
A little more from me:

Re: As I rarely included music as part of my life, then it’s to be expected that there would be little opportunity for association.
...It's very difficult if growing up in western societies to avoid music. All the music on tv our parents are watching, cds playing in shops, disco crap emerging from people's cars, friends who are madly into particular bands, the muzak of cellphone ringtones, advertizing jingles everywhere, school 'music lessons'. Unless you grew up in isolation with no tv, there must have been some musical input. All of it will have association.

Most people are attracted by music & lyrics which echo the way they feel or the way they want to feel (mood enhancement, or inspiration).

Re: I also spent much of my formative years in depressed anxious states, so that may also have coloured my perceptions of music.
...Very much so. Our hearing/perception, association and memory are altered. From the archives:

Does Depression Change the Way People Perceive the World?
http://www.brainfacts.org/diseases-diso … the-world/

Hearing Loss Tied to Depression
http://www.webmd.com/depression/news/20 … n-in-study

Influence of anxiety, depression and looming cognitive style on auditory loomi

Hi dudes,
Lots of bits in this one!

Re: music which almost always helps you feel invigorated
...I'm aware we may not have the same definition for 'invigorated', but these would probably be the type of pieces to form a 'norepinephrine/dopamine' list. If you use the meditation collection for a 'serotonin/acetylcholine' (relaxed but alert) list, you can start a list of music to enhance moods.
Another experiment to do is search for some lyrics that you like, from a song you have not heard. If you can find such a set of lyrics that are inspiring, you can compare how they feel without the music, then with the music.
Also, try watching a movie with the sound turned off and consider which tracks you would put with what sort of action, if you had to provide music for the film.
A lot of evocative music these days is movie or game music. Everyday 'pop' stuff on radios isn't really much to do with music; it's more about marketing, sex and money.

Re: I would guess that if I liked to sing, I would have.
...Not necessarily. For example I used to firmly believe that about dancing, until I actually tried it.  Afterwards I realized I had had no idea how the experience felt. There is the possibility however that you are not moved by music as much as, say, artwork, natural landscapes, poetry or architecture. Everybody gets their pleasures in different ways, for we are all wired differently, so don't carry on experimenting if it gets boring.

Re: when I was messing around, I noticed I would try to duplicate the vocal rhythm on whatever instrument I was playing. Does this mean anything?
...Most people do this; only musicians then start listening for what chords are likely to be behind the vocal line, from sheer habit. Practicing playing along with stuff can enhance our awareness of rhythm and musical structure.

Re: it appears to be like a drug that causes people to experience emotional reactions.
...We don't have emotional reactions; we have emotional responses (or sentimental reactions); if you meant the latter, this is more likely to be true of 'pop' music, for reasons given above.

Re: track list for a party: Choosing from people's known likes is approaching the issue from the top-down. If you approach it bottom up, you'll be thinking, 'what sort of mood do I want to create?'

Hope some of these 'brain droppings' may be useful,
Best,
AR

Hi dudes,
Fascinating subject!
Whilst music being the original medium for vocal communication is undoubtedly relevant in language development, there are other considerations which I feel are equally relevant. Firstly, the range of sounds people make during emotional expression or natural function (crying sounds, pleasure sounds, laughter, whistling, moaning or yelling in pain, farting, belching, etc); all those sounds have direct association with the experiences they accompany. Secondly, the sounds of nature (wind, water, trees, animals, heartbeats, falling rocks etc), because we mimic sounds; thirdly I would look at the actual frequencies of sounds in speech and how they affect the Amygdala via auditory perception.

I suspect language and music, like all emergent phenomena, both have multiple influences in their development. What is clear from the neuro angle of study is that N4 processes the sounds of words and their metaphoric meanings, and spends a a lot of time focusing on emotional words. And the same parts of the network are also responsible for a great deal of musical perception. There is no such connection with N5; although it is employed in the consideration of song lyrics it does not do much music processing at all, focusing on the factual meanings of words and grammatical rules for interpretation of meaning.

Re: it makes me curious as to why people choose to listen to harsh angry music?
...Many reasons: We are all different, and we all create different perceptions of reality. For some, what sounds 'harsh angry' to you might sound 'raw exciting'  or 'righteously rebellious' or 'good to dance to', to others. For some, harsh angry is how they feel and its comforting to know that someone else does too, maybe anxiety pacification or maybe the first step on accepting how they feel. For some, the music doesn't matter it's part of a societal group expression or peer pressure, as in 'you're not a real biker if you don't like heavy metal'. For some, they really have had it up to here with human stupidity and they want their car stereo to make a lot of noise and annoy people because they see people as assholes.

Of course, it could be several of these reasons at once. Everything dynamic has multiple influencing factors.

Re: rhythm and rhyme and repetition:
...The meaning carried in mnemonics like 'shine online' is intended to be absorbed at the same time as the symbol, much as the meaning of 'two' is embedded in the symbol '2'. Because the meaning it carries must be kept in memory, we are meant to use the symbol as a shortcut; not as the actual memory attached to that shortcut. Damn, this is hard to explain!  :  )  The nature of the rhyme mnemonic is that it is supposed to give us a clue what sort of thing it represents. From the 'rainbow in the morning' rhyme we can logically work out WHY travellers might be alarmed at this turn of events, and thus predict the weather associations. So, even if we forget the weather rule, we can reverse-engineer the mnemonic to extract the associated information by cognitive, conscious means, thus reaching understanding.

Re: Would you provide me with some favorite examples of good lyrical composers?/ folk music

A great deal of older folk music tells a story (modern 'folk music' is of course pop music -popular music for the folk...?) The ancient Celts used music for 'spreading the news' -if a great event happened there was a general scramble to write a song about it. Other songs were about praising the person you loved, or fairy tales/ mythology set to music, possibly from earlier poetic versions; and of course comedy.

There are some modern examples of the 'storytelling song':
“The Lady Lies”
http://www.metrolyrics.com/the-lady-lie … d=noscript

“Red Barchetta”
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/rush/redbarchetta.html

“Countdown”
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/rush/countdown.html

But to suggest 'good lyrical composers', my favorite modern lyricist is neil peart
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Peart
(& scroll down to 'lyrics')
...For a more 'N3/N4' approach, my fave would be jon anderson
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/yes/itcanhappen.html

It would be good if others would share theirs! Your own are not going to be the same as mine.

...More later, I'm running out of day...
Best,
AR

having completed Tutorial 8 and part way through Tutorial 9, I believe I understand your explanations better than when I first read them.

It is clear to me based on symptoms that my network 4 is far less used than I believed it to be, based on my FA and procedural abilities to use very complex tools.  (and also that my N1,N2 may be more strongly developed than I had previously believed.  [I do feel nausea and may vomit sympathetically])

I had given up on exploring music appreciation, but I’ve now started doing some N4 exercises as I have a better understanding.  Incidentally, I have also discovered my lack of music appreciation isn’t so rare. I’ve talked to family members that also experience this, and as many as 1% the population admit to this lack.  This number may be even higher, as it is culturally a difficult thing for people to admit to.  (Probably for the same reasons they used to believe that women were several times as likely to experience synaesthesia as men, whereas it turned out men were just embarrassed to admit to it.)
Over the past year of exploring this issue, I can attest that many people are shocked at the idea and believe that this deviance from the normal makes such person a ‘deviant’ ie.  ‘a person that doesn’t like music must be a psychopath’ 

     One very interesting insight that came up when discussing this with a friend, he made the comment“ I like to think I’m invulnerable to advertising, but I’m not.......................................You, are lacking one of the key receptors for persuasion, you  aren’t connecting with the desired emotions as strongly “as you should”.  Your weakness is a strength. “
   I think this was insightful of him because while I don’t see it is a strength, I think it probably did insulate me from sources of negative input throughout my formative years. Not just from commercial advertising manipulation, but also from manipulation by "Great speakers". The use of ‘singsong’ vocal techniques sounds very strange to me. I have always felt suspicious and uncomfortable when one starts talking in that way, and the people around me become overtly attentive and enthusiastic.   (Thinking of preachers and politicians here).  I think the lack of emotional effect allows me to focus more on the content of what is being said, whereas those around me seem to get caught up and swept along in the moment.
 
you said previously about culture “the universals which benefit us all. Our ability to use tools, learn languages, compose music, write books; this is human culture”  While I still don’t quite understand why the composing of music is a benefit to human culture (as opposed to musicality of communication), the above example could demonstrate one ‘benefit’... the ability to bring together and motivate people to common cause by driving emotional responses. This smells a bit like ‘mass mind control’ to me, so maybe it’s a good thing there isn’t universally responsive music! .... or, maybe there is... War drums?


Re: it makes me curious as to why people choose to listen to harsh angry music?....... ...Many reasons:.........................Of course, it could be several of these reasons at once. Everything dynamic has multiple influencing factors.
Could all these reasons be summed up as due to incongruent associations? otherwise this still makes little sense to me.

Re: rhythm and rhyme and repetition:
...The meaning carried in mnemonics like 'shine online' is intended to be absorbed at the same time as the symbol, much as the meaning of 'two' is embedded in the symbol '2'. Because the meaning it carries must be kept in memory, we are meant to use the symbol as a shortcut; not as the actual memory attached to that shortcut. Damn, this is hard to explain!  :  )  The nature of the rhyme mnemonic is that it is supposed to give us a clue what sort of thing it represents. From the 'rainbow in the morning' rhyme we can logically work out WHY travellers might be alarmed at this turn of events, and thus predict the weather associations. So, even if we forget the weather rule, we can reverse-engineer the mnemonic to extract the associated information by cognitive, conscious means, thus reaching understanding.

I understand this better as to how this should improve memory. It could be compared with the ‘multimodal’ memory cues found in synaesthesia... hey, we are back on thread! :-))

I do make use of mnemonic techniques for memorizing lists, or number strings that I need to when they don’t correlate well with the subject I am learning. (If I ‘have’ to.  Normally though, if there is not a reason to memorize stuff  like for a test, I don’t ever bother.) 
If the information does align with what I am interested in, declarative and procedural remembering comes easily to me.  Music, rhyme methods etc. have never ‘worked’ for me in the past.  Maybe as I increase my N4 skills in this area, I will ‘get’ this and benefit from it.

RE: invigorate/ visual acuity.
While doing mindfulness meditation, I think I’ve discovered why I feel that visual acuity increases with invigoration.
When I am not feeling particularly invigorated, I tend to be internally focused on my thoughts. When this happens my eyes drift very slightly out of focus, not looking at anything in particular just staring out. This is true while engaged in external activities such as walking, biking, etc.   With mindfulness meditation there is directed attention to the physical environment around me, and my focus is bright and clear.  I believe feeling invigorated is a feeling of desire to engage with the ‘outside’ world, so my senses turn more from inward reflection to outward examination.

Sry to intrude but, this is funny:

> even 'twinkle twinkle little star' is gonna sound sinister.

True story! There was a MOOC recently (in fact I think I shared it here, coincidences :-)), music related.. the professor used it as an example but, made sure to preface it with a disclaimer of 'not being condescending' with the audience...

> lyrics such as, “I Wanna Rip Your Head Off and Shit in it” may in reality any of the following:
>
> a joke

ah yes, I 1st heard that one when I was 13, check it out: (I wish there was an automatic way to download the midia without running the plugins, as Robert's system doesn't run it? there is a site though)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKV87994GH4

Still whistling that tune to this day, lol :-)

Edit: "That IS air you're breathing now, right?"  LOL that is another joke right there : ) if less classy..

Hi dudes,

Two relevant bits:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xPvvPTQaMI
lovely clear explanation of creativity 'open mode' & 'closed mode'


This just in:
Study shows people who aren't moved by music have less functional connectivity between some brain regions
November 9, 2016 by Bob Yirka in Medicine & Health / Neuroscience
A team of researchers from Spain and Canada has found evidence that suggests people who are not emotionally moved by music have less connectivity between the regions in the brain responsible for processing sounds and those involved in managing emotions. They have published their results in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Scientists have long known that there are some people in any given culture that simply do not respond emotionally to music—any kind of music. While some in the field have theorized that it is likely due to reduced communication in the brain between the regions responsible for processing music and those responsible for generating a response, none have actually tested the idea. In this new effort, the researchers have done just that.
To get a better idea of what goes on in the brains of those who feel no response to music, the researchers enlisted the assistance of 15 such people asking them to undergo fMRI scans while they listened to music playing. To provide a basis for comparison, the researchers recruited 30 more volunteers, 15 of whom believed themselves to respond in an average way to music they liked and 15 individuals who believed they responded more strongly to music they liked than the average person. Both of these groups also underwent brain scans while listening to their favorite music.
In comparing the scans, the researchers found that those who felt no response to music had less blood flowing to a part of the brain known to be involved in processing rewards than did the other two groups. They also report that all three groups responded nearly identically when engaged in other pleasure-evoking activities. This, the researchers suggest, indicates that a lack of music appreciation does not mean there is a difference in the reward system part of the brain. The researchers noted also that there was a clear difference in communication between the auditory processing parts of the brain and the rewards system.
Still not clear, however, is if one part of the scenario causes the other—does the lack of music appreciation cause a reduction in brain connectivity, or is it perhaps the other way around? More research will have to be done before that question can be answered.
More information: Noelia Martínez-Molina et al. Neural correlates of specific musical anhedonia, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2016). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1611211113
Abstract 
Although music is ubiquitous in human societies, there are some people for whom music holds no reward value despite normal perceptual ability and preserved reward-related responses in other domains. The study of these individuals with specific musical anhedonia may be crucial to understand better the neural correlates underlying musical reward. Previous neuroimaging studies have shown that musically induced pleasure may arise from the interaction between auditory cortical networks and mesolimbic reward networks. If such interaction is critical for music-induced pleasure to emerge, then those individuals who do not experience it should show alterations in the cortical-mesolimbic response. In the current study, we addressed this question using fMRI in three groups of 15 participants, each with different sensitivity to music reward. We demonstrate that the music anhedonic participants showed selective reduction of activity for music in the nucleus accumbens (NAcc), but normal activation levels for a monetary gambling task. Furthermore, this group also exhibited decreased functional connectivity between the right auditory cortex and ventral striatum (including the NAcc). In contrast, individuals with greater than average response to music showed enhanced connectivity between these structures. Thus, our results suggest that specific musical anhedonia may be associated with a reduction in the interplay between the auditory cortex and the subcortical reward network, indicating a pivotal role of this interaction for the enjoyment of music. 
© 2016 Medical Xpress
"Study shows people who aren't moved by music have less functional connectivity between some brain regions" November 9, 2016 http://medicalxpress.com/news/2016-11-people-music-functional-brain-regions.html

Comment: This is a 'WEIRD' study (ie, not appliccable worldwide and maybe not appliccable to NHers.)It is reproduced verbatim so for 'culture' read 'society'. I haven't had time to follow up the research.

Thoughts, anyone?
Best,
AR

Hi dude,

Re:“people who are not emotionally moved by music have less connectivity between the regions in the brain responsible for processing sounds”

...they could equally claim: 'People with less connectivity between the regions in the brain responsible for processing sounds are not emotionally moved by music'.

And yes, it's a WEIRD study. Plus, one would have to test subjects with a variety of human music and also stuff like birdsong, to get clear indications of a good correlation here. I get no emotional response to Egyptian burial music, military marches, or the stuff that Westerners play in elevators; does that make me 'amusic'?
Best,
AR
Article below just in (well actually it came in on the Solstice, but I was at a party):

Music in the brain: The first imaging genetic study linking dopaminergic genes to music
December 21, 2016 in Medicine & Health / Neuroscience
Sounds, such as music and noise, are capable of reliably affecting individuals' moods and emotions, possibly by regulating brain dopamine, a neurotransmitter strongly involved in emotional behavior and mood regulation.
However, the relationship of sound environments with mood and emotions is highly variable across individuals. A putative source of variability is genetic background.
In this regard, a new imaging genetics study directed by Professor Elvira Brattico from Aarhus University and conducted in two Italian hospitals in collaboration with the University of Helsinki (Finland) has provided the first evidence that the effects of music and noise on affective behavior and brain physiology are associated with genetically determined dopamine functionality.
In particular, this study, published in the journal Neuroscience, revealed that a functional variation in dopamine D2 receptor gene (DRD2 rs1076560) modulates the impact of music as opposed to noise on mood states and emotion-related prefrontal and striatal brain activity, evidencing a differential susceptibility for the affect-modulatory effects of music and noise on the GG and GT genotypes.
In more details, results showed mood improvement after music exposure in GG subjects and mood deterioration after noise exposure in GT subjects. Moreover, the music as opposed to noise environment decreased the striatal activity of GT subjects as well as the prefrontal activity of GG subjects while processing emotional faces.
These results are novel in identifying a biological source of variability in the impact of sound environments on emotional responses. The first author of the study, Tiziana Quarto, Ph.D. student at University of Helsinki under supervision of Prof. Brattico, further comments:
"Our approach allowed the observation of the link between genes and phenotypes via a true biological path that goes from functional genetic variations (for which the effects on molecular function is known) to brain physiology subtending behavior. The use of this approach is especially important when the investigated behavior is complex and very variable across subjects, because this means that many biological factors are involved".
"This study represents the first use of the imaging genetics approach in the field of music and sounds in general. We are really excited about our results because they suggest that even a non-pharmacological intervention such as music, might regulate mood and emotional responses at both the behavioral and neuronal level," says Professor Elvira Brattico.
"More importantly, these findings encourage the search for personalized music-based interventions for the treatment of brain disorders associated with aberrant dopaminergic neurotransmission as well as abnormal mood and emotion-related brain activity".
More information: T. Quarto et al, Interaction between DRD2 variation and sound environment on mood and emotion-related brain activity, Neuroscience (2017). DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2016.11.010 
Provided by Aarhus University
"Music in the brain: The first imaging genetic study linking dopaminergic genes to music" December 21, 2016 http://medicalxpress.com/news/2016-12-music-brain-imaging-genetic-linking.html