Members in the Media
From: U.S. News & World Report

What Your Relationship With Music Says About You

U.S. News & World Report:

Ode to Joy” is a universally recognizable – and beloved – piece of symphonic music. But you might be surprised to learn it’s based on the same simple scale you may have practiced as a child.

What differentiates Beethoven’s masterpiece from your practice drill is, of course, the artistic genius of its maker – who knew the secret sauce of real music as having a combination of familiarity and repetition (as in basing a piece on the scale), along with unpredictability. The element of surprise in music, as in most arts, appeals to us because it mimics real-life emotional situations, says Daniel Levitin, a cognitive psychologist and neuroscientist at McGill University in Canada and author of “This is Your Brain on Music.”

Read the whole story: U.S. News & World Report

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