Blog post 5

I really enjoyed reading Levitin’s text! Usually required texts are very dry and hard to read, but I found this one surprisingly enjoyable to read. There were many parts of the text that I found both surprising and interesting so it was hard to pick only a few for this blog post. When I first got into reading the book, I was really surprised at how much analyzing and interpreting our brain does with music, even though we don’t really realize it! For example, how our brains both recognize and memorize aspects of songs that are the same. This allows music to seem familiar to us when we listen to it at a later time. I think it is pretty amazing that so many other aspects of the song can be changed (instrumentation, tempo, pitch), but we still recognize a song because our brains have the ability to recall tune recognition for hundreds of different songs! While on this subject; before reading this chapter, I actually was only familiar with the terms “instrumentation”, “tempo”, and “pitch”. I wasn’t exactly sure what terms like “tune recognition” or “melodic intervals” referred to. I think Levitin does a great job of describing the terms he uses, so you aren’t left in the dark for very long! I really appreciate that about this text; no need for too much outside research! I would say I am more comfortable using these terms now in casual conversation. One part of the text that I actually have found myself talking a lot about it is the music recognition among infants. I find it so cool that such tiny and undeveloped brains have so much ability to take in musical information. I specifically remember Levitin saying that our musical preferences are influenced from the music that we heard while in the womb. How amazing is that!? Not to mention the fact that infants are able to absorb music of our culture. Pretty dang cool if you ask me!!