Transcript Tambourines Phonemes & Dopamine

Tambourines
Phonemes & Dopamine
Music, Language, and the
Brain
Presented by Shirl Terrell
Produced by Francis Choy
Our Roles
Tappers
Snappers
Clappers
THEORY
FUN
I come home in the morning light
My mother says when you gonna live your
live right
Oh mother dear we’re not the fortunate ones
And DE, they want to have fun
Oh DE, just want to have fun
The phone rings in the middle of the night
My father yells what you gonna do with your
life
Oh daddy dear you know you’re still number
one
But DE they want to have fun
Oh DE they want to have
That’s all they really want
Some fun
When the working day is done
Oh DE they want to have fun
Oh DE they want to have fun
Some boys take a beautiful girl
And hide her away from the rest of the world
I want to be the one to walk in the sun
Oh DE they want to have fun
Oh DE they want to have
That’s all they really want
Some fun
When the working day is done
DE girls – they want to have fun
Oh DE Boys just want to have fun
They want to have fun
They want to have fun...
Lyrics: Robert Hazard
Sung by Cyndi Lauper
KOUYOU AFRICAN MEDICINE DANCE
Horns, drums, sticks, handclapping,
tambourines
Tribal Dance
Tactus
Level of temporal organization – regular
and periodic
Range coincides with moderate walking
pace, human heartbeat, rate of jaw
movement in chewing, infant sucking
reflex
Ravi Shankar
Raga Jogeshwari
for sitar and tabla
Steven Pinker
Evolutionary psychologist, Harvard professor,
student of world-renowned linguist Noam
Chomsky
The Language Instinct:
How the Mind Creates Language
How the Mind Works
The Blank Slate
“Music is auditory cheesecake.”
Music is biologically useless.
Compared with language, vision, social
reasoning and physical know-how, music
could vanish from our species and the rest
of our lifestyle would be virtually
unchanged.
Steven Mithen
Reading University archaeologist
The Singing Neanderthals: the origin of music,
language, mind, and body
Music’s evolution holds the key to
language
Music making is a universal human feature
Brain
100 Billion Nerve Cells
10-100 Trillion neural networks
No single language or music center
Bilateralization – processing in both
hemispheres of brain
All babies are born “citizens of the world” –
can learn any language perfectly and have
an innate capacity to learn any of world’s
musics
Dopamine – neurotransmitter linked to
pleasure, emotions, movement, and
addictions
Emotions
Emotion: A mental state
that arises
spontaneously rather
than through
conscious effort; often
accompanied by
physiological changes
Basic Emotions
Happiness
Surprise
Sadness
Anger
Fear
Disgust
Your Music
What is one of your favorite pieces of
music?
What about that music appeals to you?
What emotions does it invoke, if any?
Music Clips
Imagine ~ John Lennon
Music Clips
My War ~ Black Flag
Brainstorming
Emotions this music evokes
Subjects you could teach using this clip
Ways to get your students involved
Music Clips
~ Elvis
Music Clips
~ Bauhaus
Music Clips
~ Schumann
Music Clips
~ Copland
Music Clips
How Can I Keep from Singing
~ Enya
Habituation
Brain is interested only in change
Longer neurons stimulated, less they
respond
Without constant renewal of sound or
attention to sound, we deafen to it
Earworm - Ohrwurm
Song stuck in the head syndrome
Neural circuits representing the song get
stuck in playback mode
The important thing is not, “is it good
music, but what is the music good for?”
- Folksinger Pete Seeger
“Richard Wagner’s music is better than it
sounds.”
– Mark Twain
Group Music Making
Molds minds and bodies in shared
emotional state
Increases ability to cooperate with others
Releases hormone “oxytocin”, loosens
synaptic connections where prior
knowledge held, clears path for acquisition
of new understanding through behavioral
actions shared by others
Circle
Music as cultural
expression
Brain as it processes
music and language
Music as means of
expressing emotions
Music making in a
group setting
Music making
In groups
Cultural expression
Bonding
Music to express
emotions
Music and Language
In Brain
CELEBRATE
Kool and the Gang
accompanied by
The DE Gang