Reddit reviews Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain

As a biologist and a musician, I can tell you with certainty that it's fucking magic

Music causes strange things to happen in the brain, there's a number of popular science books on the subject (e.g, Musicophilia). Neurologists don't understand it fully. Playing music is one of the most complicated cooperative behaviors we perform as a single group. We can play a fast piece with a 9/8 time signature in an large ensemble comprised of various instruments with ease (think Celtic or Indian music as well as Western Orchestral). Why music makes sense to us is an even greater mystery.
If you ask me, I think we could sing before we could speak. :-)

You should pick up Oliver Sacks' Musicophilia. He describes earworms and similar stories there.

Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks is another great read on this subject

Read this and this

Edit: Additionally, everyone has a natural frequency they resonate at. When you wake up in the morning, hum a note. What comes naturally is usually your natural resonance. Due to sympathetic vibrations in the harmonic series, certain harmonies and sympathetic tones can physically interact with your "personal frequency"

In other words, music fucking rules

I hear Oliver Sacks writes about such things.

Sounds interesting -- haven't read it myself though.

> Hey now, you might hurt my feelings.

hehehe don't worry. I love physics, and I am jealous that you are still involved with it ;)

Music is very weird. Even newborns can sense "off" notes (they will grimace). Music is one of those things that I partly ascribe to "the consciousness mystery". For example, in my music paper, I could easily talk about the parts of the brain that recognize individual notes, or how music triggered memories, etc... but that still went nowhere towards how it feels to listen to your favorite tune, as it were.

There are a couple of books I have on this idea that I still need to read. One is Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks.

Note that the use of the word "feel" in this subreddit leads to immediate downvotes. ;) Qualitative descriptions are not useful for proving anything, of course! :)

> if dogs could comprehend what we wanted them to do, they might be able to put smells on a scale

We could also just cut to the chase and attach a highly sophisticated brain sensor to their skulls that would communicate what they're smelling based on what parts of the brain light up. Essentially using them as part of the instrument. It still wouldn't tell us what it's like to be able to smell that well, though.

Curious to hear your opinion on the qualia/zombie links.