WEBVTT - A Musical Time Machine for the Brain 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:05.960 Welcome to stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:13.680 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:16.720 My name is Robert Lamb. One moment, please, your call 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:21.480 is important to us. A representative will be with you shortly. Again, 0:00:22.400 --> 0:00:25.000 one moment, please, your call is important to us. A 0:00:25.160 --> 0:00:32.200 representative will be with you shortly. Oh hey, oh thank god, 0:00:32.400 --> 0:00:35.960 it's me Julie, Julie Tuglas. Sorry, I was stuck in 0:00:36.000 --> 0:00:39.760 the call void the Yeah, I thought we had we 0:00:39.880 --> 0:00:42.800 taken care of that ages ago. But I mean, there's 0:00:42.840 --> 0:00:45.159 nothing more frustrating, really when you're trying to do a 0:00:45.200 --> 0:00:49.040 podcast and your your podcast partner is just it's just 0:00:49.080 --> 0:00:52.479 stuck in that call waiting limbo. Well, if how Stuff 0:00:52.479 --> 0:00:56.480 Works would just shut off that portal into the call 0:00:56.560 --> 0:01:01.160 waiting void, that wouldn't happen, right. I didn't saying we 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:03.040 need to break that thing up for for years, but 0:01:03.240 --> 0:01:05.200 no one ever does it, so I know, and you 0:01:05.200 --> 0:01:07.160 would think that when we moved into a new space 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:10.160 they would do that, but apparently not so important. And 0:01:10.200 --> 0:01:13.200 apparently they don't realize that the average Americans spend about 0:01:13.240 --> 0:01:18.440 forty three days of their lives on hold. That's over 0:01:18.480 --> 0:01:21.039 the course of a lifetime, Right, Yeah, it's still depressing. 0:01:21.080 --> 0:01:23.920 It's just very depressing to think of that, because because 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:26.679 when you're when you're stuck waiting on a call, I mean, 0:01:26.720 --> 0:01:31.080 even if you can sort of um do something semi 0:01:31.160 --> 0:01:34.280 interesting or productive while you're waiting, it's still such a 0:01:34.319 --> 0:01:36.400 wasted time because you're it's not like you're gonna be 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:39.400 able to do anything well outside of waiting on that call. Right, 0:01:39.440 --> 0:01:43.760 You're still mentally tethered to that call. And I don't know, 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:46.319 do you think it makes it worse or better when 0:01:46.600 --> 0:01:51.600 call hold music is played? Well, you know, I guess 0:01:52.960 --> 0:01:55.800 prior to this research, I would say that I tended 0:01:55.840 --> 0:01:59.120 to prefer it. You have, only because it allows me 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:02.400 to They put the phone on speaker phone, set it down, 0:02:02.760 --> 0:02:06.680 and there's that like constant tinkling of of boring waiting 0:02:06.760 --> 0:02:08.919 music in the background, and I know that as long 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:11.880 as I'm registering that music, I can sort of drift 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:13.920 away from the phone. I'm not gonna I don't have 0:02:13.960 --> 0:02:15.880 to worry about there's suddenly being a person, because if 0:02:15.880 --> 0:02:17.640 there's suddenly a person on the other line, there's gonna 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:20.320 be a stark fall off in that music, and then 0:02:20.360 --> 0:02:24.240 there'll be some somebody from some of the country saying hello, Hello, 0:02:24.720 --> 0:02:26.320 I'm here to talk to you. Yeah. And it's true 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:27.480 because you do kind of feel like you're in the 0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:29.680 void in the first place on the call. So if 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:32.440 you have some sort of auditory queue that you're still 0:02:32.480 --> 0:02:35.600 there that I haven't to them, yeah, then it makes 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:38.519 you feel a little bit better. But as we will 0:02:38.520 --> 0:02:42.640 discuss in this episode, the quality of the music, the 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:46.000 pacing of that could affect how you're actually perceiving the 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:49.760 passing of time. Yeah. And this is uh, this, this 0:02:49.800 --> 0:02:52.200 is a fascinating topic because at first it may might 0:02:52.240 --> 0:02:54.640 seem just normal on every day, I mean, call music. 0:02:54.800 --> 0:02:57.000 What could be more boring? What could be I mean 0:02:57.240 --> 0:02:59.360 a few things are more boring than call music. But 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:01.920 when you start looking at you you get into the 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:06.959 perception of time, altered perceptions. It's it's really a deep 0:03:07.000 --> 0:03:10.359 and fascinating topic. Yeah. And at the bottom of all 0:03:10.400 --> 0:03:12.960 of this, the sort of base stock of this soup 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:15.480 is memory, and we'll talk more about that. But before 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:19.000 we go into music and memory, let's just briefly talk 0:03:19.040 --> 0:03:21.120 about the types of time. There are the ways in 0:03:21.120 --> 0:03:23.760 which we try to parse it and deliver it to 0:03:23.919 --> 0:03:26.440 one another. Yeah, we've talked about this in the past. 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:29.519 We did a whole episode or more on the nature 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:31.320 of time and the way we perceived time. Believe that 0:03:31.320 --> 0:03:35.560 episode was called Clocking clocking in, uh, and then colon 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:38.440 in some of it a little bit on there, but 0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:41.920 but yeah, time is is very tricky to nail down, 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:43.600 and it you kind of have to look at it 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:47.040 from different to perspectives, sort of like the blind men 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:49.800 pawing at the elephant to try and figure out exactly 0:03:50.040 --> 0:03:53.640 what this thing is. Because certainly we've talked about cyclical 0:03:53.680 --> 0:03:57.720 time before, the idea that everything is a circle in 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:01.080 the same way that that the season their cyclical, the 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:04.440 day and night is cyclical. Uh, that our life is 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:07.480 rather cyclical. Every morning we get up, we do things, 0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:10.840 we eat, we defecate, we grow older, and then we 0:04:10.880 --> 0:04:14.000 go to sleep. Everything is in a is in a cycle. 0:04:14.080 --> 0:04:17.680 And if you look back at older civilizations, older cultures, 0:04:17.720 --> 0:04:20.640 like that was the way you viewed the universe. Everything 0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:22.520 was in a cycle, our lives were in a cycle, 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:25.080 and any individual point in our life was only important 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:31.560 insofar as it carried out a role in that existing circle. Yeah, 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:34.520 I mean, in that sense, there really is no beginning 0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:37.520 or end to time, right, everything is just sort of 0:04:38.160 --> 0:04:41.840 melding into one another. Now. Linear time, on the other hand, 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:46.760 is predicated on organized cultural systems like Christian doctrine. For instance. 0:04:46.880 --> 0:04:49.640 In the beginning, right, there's the beginning, there's there's a 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:52.760 time in which the universe was born. Um, and then 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:54.800 you know that the end of the world is near 0:04:55.160 --> 0:04:57.800 exactly depending on I guess which version you have, I 0:04:57.800 --> 0:05:01.760 don't know, um. But that is this attempt to try to, 0:05:02.680 --> 0:05:06.520 you know, take these cultural systems and make sense of time. 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:09.440 And then you have clock time, which pretty much all 0:05:09.480 --> 0:05:12.680 of us are on now. Yeah, And we talked about 0:05:12.720 --> 0:05:14.520 that at length in the episode because clock time is 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:17.640 weird too, because there was a time when when clock 0:05:17.680 --> 0:05:20.320 time was not in any way universal. And as you try, 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:22.600 the more we try and make clock time universals, just 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:24.400 the more complicated it gets, because of course we have 0:05:24.440 --> 0:05:27.640 to have different time zones. Sometimes there are an hour off, sometimes, 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:31.479 like in Newfoundland, Canada, they're a half hour off, and uh, 0:05:31.520 --> 0:05:34.240 and and how do you attempt to get everything coordinated 0:05:34.240 --> 0:05:36.640 and that when it's a different day on one part 0:05:36.680 --> 0:05:38.479 of the earth in a different day on the other, 0:05:38.480 --> 0:05:41.120 when really everything is existing at the same time. And 0:05:41.120 --> 0:05:43.279 and then if you start looking out that other planets 0:05:43.320 --> 0:05:45.120 and the you know, the idea that will eventually be 0:05:45.200 --> 0:05:47.760 on two planets at once, then how do you start, 0:05:48.320 --> 0:05:50.919 uh keeping time in a way that makes sense for 0:05:51.000 --> 0:05:53.800 that scenario. Oh, yeah, because there's time dilation, which we'll 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:55.760 get into at a moment that space time. But yeah, 0:05:55.839 --> 0:05:59.400 doesn't matter that there are eighties six thousand, four hundred 0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:02.120 seconds and a day. You know, does that knowledge change 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:04.880 the way that time passes? Yeah, it kind of just 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:09.119 creates this weird ruler outside of our experience of time. 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:12.840 So we we all every day have those have those moments, 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:15.640 or more than moments, we have great stretches at times 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:18.960 where our experience of time does not match up at 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:22.440 all with with with the passage of it, like like 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:25.400 go with uh being a new father, with with my 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:27.840 with my son. I've gotten where I can sort of 0:06:27.880 --> 0:06:32.160 gauge how much time has passed by by'll see. It's 0:06:32.160 --> 0:06:33.960 it's a little different now. But for while I was thinking, 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:36.479 if I if I think fifteen minutes has passed, I 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:38.840 need to subtract like half of that, or if I 0:06:38.839 --> 0:06:41.120 think it's a half hour's pass they need subtract half 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:44.400 of that. Um. It's it's a little different now, but 0:06:44.400 --> 0:06:47.440 but yeah, you get into these weird situations where where 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:51.600 your experience of time and clock time are are are 0:06:51.640 --> 0:06:55.000 often way off. Yeah, your experience and your documented um 0:06:55.160 --> 0:06:57.880 columns really and then but we can't help but to 0:06:57.960 --> 0:07:02.120 put these tents around time and try to describe some 0:07:02.200 --> 0:07:05.359 sort of meaning or system to it. And then just 0:07:05.480 --> 0:07:08.159 to confuse things a little bit more a little bit, 0:07:09.360 --> 0:07:12.000 you have space time, which we've the notion that space 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:14.840 and time are not separate. This is Einstein. Of course 0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:17.200 they act on each other. You have to consider both 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:19.320 time and space because your time and my time are 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:22.760 different depending on how we're moving through it. So just 0:07:22.840 --> 0:07:25.640 like matter can be changed and manipulated, so can space 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:29.200 and time. And that's where you have time dilation and 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:32.400 the warping of time because the closer you can travel 0:07:32.440 --> 0:07:35.280 at the speed of light, the more time slows down. Yeah, 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:37.200 and then you get into this crazy idea that is 0:07:37.440 --> 0:07:39.840 that as in time and space are one, and then 0:07:39.880 --> 0:07:42.200 it's like time and space is one big lump of 0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:46.440 Plato where everything that has occurred and will occur it 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:49.600 is all existing at once in this big solid, just 0:07:50.240 --> 0:07:54.000 unimaginable mass. It's true. So you get this idea that 0:07:54.040 --> 0:07:57.000 this passage of time, it's just not a concrete aspect 0:07:57.080 --> 0:08:00.560 of our existence at all. It is largely received by 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:05.360 environmental cues, uh not to mention psychological states as dictated 0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:10.240 sometimes by their larger systems in our culture. So then 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:13.679 you have something like music which brings up this idea. 0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:17.120 Could you have music time m hmm, Well, of course 0:08:17.160 --> 0:08:19.320 time is a is a huge part of music, keeping 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:22.320 the like we need into tempo and the structure of 0:08:22.360 --> 0:08:26.400 any kind of musical piece. Obviously, it's so mathematical. Music 0:08:26.440 --> 0:08:29.280 has a beginning in an end. And though I would 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:31.600 do wonder someone out there can tell me this. Has 0:08:31.600 --> 0:08:34.760 there ever been a piece of music specifically composed to 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:38.319 loop on itself forever? Yeah? Actually, there's something called the 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:42.200 Buddha Machine, Yeah, and that that uses a set of 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:46.120 algorithms to create a loop of music over and over again, 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:48.920 although it's in a different arrangement, so every single time 0:08:48.920 --> 0:08:51.960 that it's played. I used to have one um it 0:08:52.080 --> 0:08:55.760 creates a new arrangement and it creates as it's based 0:08:55.800 --> 0:09:01.280 actually on meditative music that monks play in China. I believe. 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:04.760 I hope I have all this right, and um, it's 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:07.200 supposed to be soothing, but I think it's super creepy. 0:09:07.200 --> 0:09:09.760 In fact, I used to play it. I put it 0:09:09.760 --> 0:09:12.240 in someone's office here at house stuff works and just 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:13.720 keep it on so that when they came in they 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:17.840 would hear this eerie music. But I'm surprised nobody, especially 0:09:17.880 --> 0:09:19.720 back in like the nineties, when everybody was sort of 0:09:19.800 --> 0:09:22.160 exploring different tricks you could do with the CD format, 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:26.080 you know, hidden tracks and and you know, having tracks 0:09:26.080 --> 0:09:28.240 on an album and that kind of thing. No one 0:09:28.320 --> 0:09:30.760 to my knowledge ever had an album where at the 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:32.800 at the very end it kind of reached the same 0:09:32.840 --> 0:09:35.079 point at the beginning. Wherever you have the album on loop, 0:09:35.760 --> 0:09:37.920 uh and on repeat, we just sort of come back 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:41.520 around at the same place forever. I think that's your thing. 0:09:41.800 --> 0:09:43.880 I think that we are about to get the Robert 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:46.959 Lamb experience. That's gonna be the name of your first album. Well, 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:48.800 some people might say that I do just loop back 0:09:48.840 --> 0:09:53.200 on myself, you know, continually, and always come back around 0:09:53.200 --> 0:09:55.839 to the same anecdotes and the same you know. We 0:09:55.920 --> 0:09:58.200 all yeah, I mean time is a circle, right, but 0:09:58.280 --> 0:10:02.000 we're all in our little portable cages of circular time here. 0:10:02.440 --> 0:10:05.960 All right, So let's talk about this idea of music 0:10:06.040 --> 0:10:10.880 and time dilation, or even music and time shrinkage, because 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:14.720 when you think about it, time is essentially a substrate 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:18.200 of memory. So we estimate how much time is passing 0:10:18.200 --> 0:10:22.760 based on past experience as well as environmental cues. And 0:10:23.040 --> 0:10:27.720 underlying all of this are neural connections that will react accordingly. 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:32.000 And these neural connections can be hacked by music. Now, yeah, 0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:34.200 this makes perfect sense because there's so many things that 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:38.320 affect our perception of time, so many experiences, so many situations. 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:40.920 I always think of going to a yoga class where 0:10:40.920 --> 0:10:43.440 the first five minutes seemed to take forever because I'm 0:10:43.480 --> 0:10:45.440 anty for it to get started and I'm kind of 0:10:45.480 --> 0:10:48.800 having second thoughts about being there, and then the last portion, 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:52.080 the last you know, fifteen minutes of yoga, uh, seemed 0:10:52.120 --> 0:10:55.560 to seem to just be a different type of time entirely. 0:10:55.920 --> 0:10:59.319 And music is an experience. It's a sonic experience, it's 0:10:59.320 --> 0:11:02.280 a sonic journe me and UH, and that journey varies 0:11:02.440 --> 0:11:04.800 greatly depending on the on the music, and so our 0:11:04.840 --> 0:11:08.559 mind is engaging in that experience. So for a variety 0:11:08.559 --> 0:11:10.840 of reasons we're going to discuss here. It's going to 0:11:10.880 --> 0:11:14.959 affect the way you perceive time. Yeah, especially when you 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:20.040 think about your brain being this pattern seeking machine and 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:25.160 music essentially messing with anticipation what your brain is thinking 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:27.080 is going to come next, Especially when you think about 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:31.400 mathematics and music and UM you look at these songs. 0:11:31.400 --> 0:11:34.280 It's just having you know certain arrangements that your brain 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:36.840 is going, Oh yes, I know. Even if you're not musical, 0:11:36.880 --> 0:11:39.960 you don't know the notes. You are gonna anticipate what 0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:42.640 that next note is going to be because there's only 0:11:42.679 --> 0:11:46.959 so many UM chord progressions that exist out there, so 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:49.400 we probably have heard all of them by now, and 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:52.559 you have some sort of memory of what that potential 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:55.600 chord could be. Yeah. I often think about this when 0:11:55.640 --> 0:11:57.960 I'm listening to music, because you wonder at what point 0:11:57.960 --> 0:12:01.120 do we run out of songs? You know, mathematics UM 0:12:01.240 --> 0:12:03.240 has the pristance. I haven't been listening to the new 0:12:03.280 --> 0:12:07.080 Tycho album. I love Tycho, wonderful musician. Some of the 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:09.280 new songs on the new album are wonderful, but I 0:12:09.320 --> 0:12:11.240 was kind of like thinking, it kind of sounds like 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:14.400 he's playing all the notes between the notes on a 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:17.040 previous song. You know, like we're just sort of gradually 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:21.839 filling in um like a rectangle of space, until we 0:12:22.000 --> 0:12:26.000 we have we have creatively filled every possibility. But but 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:27.439 but in a way that ends up playing on your 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:31.760 experience of the music because you are you're anticipating the differences. 0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:34.240 You know, well, you know what's interesting about that is 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:37.760 you talk about the space between the notes, that's the time, right, 0:12:37.760 --> 0:12:42.000 that's that time dilation. And if you look at classic beatles, 0:12:42.160 --> 0:12:45.080 if you look at Miles Davis, who created modal jazz, 0:12:45.200 --> 0:12:49.959 created an entirely different way to experience the jazz notes, 0:12:50.000 --> 0:12:54.000 blues chords, UM, you will see that those artists are 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:59.400 messing with time constructs and music and that maybe why 0:12:59.120 --> 0:13:04.760 they they um continue to to really intrigue us and 0:13:04.920 --> 0:13:08.679 persist in music history. Now, I think everyone has had 0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:12.880 this experience. You you hear a new song and it's fantastic. 0:13:13.080 --> 0:13:15.280 You you just love it, so you just start listening 0:13:15.280 --> 0:13:17.640 to it over and over again, even though there's a 0:13:17.760 --> 0:13:20.000 there's there's this voice in the back of your head 0:13:20.040 --> 0:13:22.640 telling you don't do it, don't keep If you keep 0:13:22.679 --> 0:13:25.280 listening to this song, you're gonna if you're not gonna 0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:27.080 get it's not you might get sick of it, but 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:30.720 you also just might completely dull your appreciation of it. 0:13:30.720 --> 0:13:34.120 It will become so familiar that will have no power 0:13:34.160 --> 0:13:37.360 on you whatsoever. You could even become dull um. There's 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:39.960 a possibility of that. But if you really like that 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:43.720 piece of music, if it really has created this neural pathway, 0:13:43.880 --> 0:13:47.079 you might come back to it. But for music, maybe 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:49.960 that doesn't grab your attention that much and you hear 0:13:50.080 --> 0:13:52.280 over and over again. Or if there's just sort of 0:13:52.360 --> 0:13:57.200 like these trite um constructions of music that you don't appreciate, 0:13:57.240 --> 0:13:59.520 and again, all this is so subject. Try to get 0:13:59.559 --> 0:14:02.080 an exam for you, though, of something that's sort of trite, 0:14:02.240 --> 0:14:04.280 like dull music from the beginning, not something you lost 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:06.480 interest in, but just something the first time you heard 0:14:06.480 --> 0:14:09.199 it you bored you to tears. I guess in a way, 0:14:09.240 --> 0:14:11.640 it's it's almost hard to note these songs because they're 0:14:12.200 --> 0:14:16.400 they're so outside of our our appreciation that they they're 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:21.000 almost invisible. That's hard to say, because um uh, by 0:14:21.000 --> 0:14:23.280 and large, I choose songs that I listened to that 0:14:23.360 --> 0:14:25.720 I really like. So everything that I listened to every 0:14:25.800 --> 0:14:28.320 day is usually pretty much hand picked because I put 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:31.600 together all these playlists based on moods and days and 0:14:31.640 --> 0:14:33.760 all that kind of stuff. Okay, how about something that's 0:14:33.800 --> 0:14:36.360 thrust upon us, like say Silent Night. It's silent night 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:38.960 of boring song. I would tend to argue, it's kind 0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:42.440 of boring beautiful. See, that's where I get subjective and 0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:44.760 well and now, and this is where memory comes into play, 0:14:44.840 --> 0:14:47.320 because that's a song that I used to sing in 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:50.280 Spanish in school and it was like this great moment 0:14:50.320 --> 0:14:52.000 that I used to get up with my class and 0:14:52.080 --> 0:14:54.040 sing it and it felt really beautiful, and maybe just 0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:57.600 singing in Spanish it's more beautiful than in English. What 0:14:57.680 --> 0:15:00.960 about you lay it on adults song? Well, I think 0:15:01.080 --> 0:15:04.320 definitely Silent Night comes to mind. And there are various 0:15:04.800 --> 0:15:07.480 hymns that I remember growing up with. I feel like, Okay. 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:09.960 John Wesley is the founder of Methodism, and he had 0:15:09.960 --> 0:15:13.280 a brother who wrote a whole bunch of church hymns, 0:15:13.600 --> 0:15:16.800 and I swear my memory is that he wrote some 0:15:16.840 --> 0:15:21.480 of the dravest, dullest hymns ever composed. Like stuff is 0:15:21.560 --> 0:15:25.440 just just just complete, uh, Like it's it's the the 0:15:25.560 --> 0:15:29.320 musical equivalent of like raw tofu, you know, and you 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:31.480 just you just said there singing and you're like, why 0:15:31.480 --> 0:15:33.920 did you why was this written? What? Why? Why would 0:15:33.920 --> 0:15:37.360 you worship a god that this music is about? You know, 0:15:37.600 --> 0:15:40.520 you felt like it didn't actually even reflect the beauty 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:42.640 of the human experience because I mean, I I grew 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:44.720 up with church hym so some church hymns, I mean 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:46.680 I think, are you know, have a have something really 0:15:46.680 --> 0:15:48.320 going for him? You know, they really jibe with you, 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:50.880 and they have spirit and energy to them, and when 0:15:50.880 --> 0:15:53.560 everyone sings them together, you have this communal experience with 0:15:53.600 --> 0:15:56.440 the music. But some of that Wesley stuff just really 0:15:56.760 --> 0:15:59.720 was draft. So your neurons weren't firing, you weren't sinking 0:15:59.800 --> 0:16:01.800 up there with the rest of your community and getting 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:05.720 really into exactly yeah. Um. So one of the things 0:16:05.800 --> 0:16:08.160 that stands out to me in terms of that is 0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:11.760 something that could be a repetitive piece of music. And 0:16:11.800 --> 0:16:15.280 I think about Paul McCartney simply having a wonderful Christmas time, 0:16:16.320 --> 0:16:19.200 which I hate, sorry to say, and I think because 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:22.800 it's so repetitive, and cognitive scientists Daniel Levitton points out 0:16:22.840 --> 0:16:26.240 that too much confirmation when something happens exactly as it 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:29.600 did before, causes us to get bored and tune out. 0:16:29.920 --> 0:16:32.640 And he says little variations keep us alert as well 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:34.920 as serving to draw attention to musical moments that are 0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:38.560 critical to the narrative. And remember we talked about storytelling 0:16:38.600 --> 0:16:42.400 beings such a huge part of the human experience and 0:16:42.560 --> 0:16:46.840 narrative and song being just an extension of that. Okay, 0:16:47.160 --> 0:16:50.040 So it's like American Pie for instance. They're like a 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:52.840 million verses to American Pie. And if you were to 0:16:53.120 --> 0:16:55.520 if Don mc lean were to sing each verse the 0:16:55.600 --> 0:17:00.360 same same speed, with no no, no, no modulation, no changes, Yeah, 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:03.400 it would get really boring really quickly. But and then 0:17:03.480 --> 0:17:06.480 you could argue again subjectively, that American Pie does get 0:17:06.480 --> 0:17:10.560 really boring real quickly, but Don McClane does sing each 0:17:11.000 --> 0:17:13.359 each verse kind of has a different energy to it 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:17.640 and and and stresses different parts of the of the lyrics. Yeah, 0:17:17.640 --> 0:17:19.520 I mean, in a way your brain has to be 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:23.280 violated in order to be interested. Yeah, at least the 0:17:23.320 --> 0:17:25.600 first time, the first time you kind of get hooked 0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:29.960 into a song. And Leviton says that that this is 0:17:30.640 --> 0:17:33.600 seen in a song like the Beatles I Want You 0:17:33.640 --> 0:17:35.840 and She's So Heavy, He says that that's sort of 0:17:35.840 --> 0:17:38.600 a typical rock song at some point where you sort 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:41.520 of think, okay, it's repetitive, it slows down, and then 0:17:41.560 --> 0:17:43.960 it gets fast again, and you think it's going to 0:17:44.200 --> 0:17:46.560 end by fading out in a classical way, but no 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:49.480 gradual fade, right. Yeah, they think your brain is thinking that, 0:17:49.520 --> 0:17:51.440 but no, it just stops in the middle of a 0:17:51.560 --> 0:17:54.879 chord and your brain kind of goes, WHOA. I like that. 0:17:54.920 --> 0:17:59.200 I wasn't anticipating that, and I had been up Yeah 0:17:59.240 --> 0:18:01.320 it does if and actually listened to it again this 0:18:01.359 --> 0:18:04.200 morning just to make sure that that was my memory 0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:06.480 of it as well, and it does have a very 0:18:06.520 --> 0:18:11.520 sort of lulling, repetitive motion to it. But but then 0:18:11.560 --> 0:18:14.000 it just sort of jammed you at the end. It 0:18:14.000 --> 0:18:16.960 makes you sit up and take notice. Huh. Now is 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:19.160 it the type of stop? I think I mentioned this before. 0:18:19.320 --> 0:18:23.560 If I'm listening to music on my iPhone and and 0:18:23.800 --> 0:18:27.639 there's that distinctive abrupt kind of almost not it's not 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:30.640 an abrupt stop, but kind of a quick dive when 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:32.720 a call comes in and you're trying and you're listening 0:18:32.720 --> 0:18:35.719 to a song, and that always like gives me this 0:18:36.160 --> 0:18:38.240 lump of anxiety because I'm like, who's calling me? What 0:18:38.320 --> 0:18:39.800 kind of what am I being called about? Is it's 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:42.440 something bad? We'll talk about this more later, But that's 0:18:42.480 --> 0:18:45.240 because probably because you're your prefrontal cortex and all this, 0:18:45.840 --> 0:18:47.479 there are eleven different parts of your brain that are 0:18:47.800 --> 0:18:51.240 they're absorbing and responding to music, by the way, but 0:18:51.320 --> 0:18:54.160 that's just one of them that is probably jarred out 0:18:54.200 --> 0:18:57.399 of this sort of again being lulled into this certain state. 0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:01.000 And by the way, when you listen to a song 0:19:01.200 --> 0:19:05.199 that you find particularly pleasurable or it's is a novel 0:19:05.280 --> 0:19:07.919 song and intrigues you in a different way, you're going 0:19:08.000 --> 0:19:11.160 to get a release of dopamine. And here's the crazy thing. 0:19:12.000 --> 0:19:14.840 If you like that song and the next time you're 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:16.919 just thinking about that song or just a couple of 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:20.040 the notes begin to play, your memory is going to 0:19:20.160 --> 0:19:22.680 resurrect that feeling of pleasure and dopamine is going to 0:19:22.720 --> 0:19:26.200 start flowing again. So again you can start to see 0:19:26.240 --> 0:19:29.280 where these neural pathways are starting to make u their 0:19:29.320 --> 0:19:33.439 self known to your brain and memory is kind of 0:19:33.480 --> 0:19:36.159 hooking up with it. And to just retouch on the 0:19:36.160 --> 0:19:38.359 whole mind body connection thing, you kind of have to 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:40.760 think about this. When you're talking about dopamine being released 0:19:40.760 --> 0:19:43.359 and all this again, it's not you're not even just 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:45.080 listening to music with your ears. You're not even just 0:19:45.119 --> 0:19:48.200 listening to music with your brain. Your body listens to music. 0:19:48.520 --> 0:19:50.600 Oh yeah, yeah, and we know that your heart rate 0:19:50.640 --> 0:19:53.480 will sync up to the music, um that you'll begin 0:19:53.520 --> 0:19:56.560 to respond to a full body experience. All right, let's 0:19:56.560 --> 0:19:58.200 take a quick break, and when we get back, we're 0:19:58.200 --> 0:20:03.040 gonna talk about how music can actually be gamed for 0:20:03.160 --> 0:20:06.200 the retail experience. And we all have heard music over 0:20:06.200 --> 0:20:08.600 the loudspeaker and when you're at grocery store elsewhere, So 0:20:08.680 --> 0:20:10.360 let's find out what's going on when we get back. 0:20:19.880 --> 0:20:23.600 All right, we're back, we're grocery shopping. We're thinking about 0:20:23.680 --> 0:20:26.119 the study called the effects of music and in a 0:20:26.280 --> 0:20:29.760 retail setting on real and perceived shopping times. And we 0:20:29.840 --> 0:20:35.400 find out that subjects report that when they are shopping 0:20:36.080 --> 0:20:39.520 and they're listening to music that seems familiar to them, 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:44.160 that they think that they have been lingering longer then 0:20:44.200 --> 0:20:47.359 they actually have been. In fact, it's the music that's 0:20:47.480 --> 0:20:52.080 unfamiliar to them that causes them to linger longer. That 0:20:52.240 --> 0:20:57.200 is seems kind of complicated. Well it seems you know, counterintuitive, right. Yeah, 0:20:57.320 --> 0:20:59.000 So like if I go into a store and they're 0:20:59.000 --> 0:21:02.760 playing my favorite song, how does that affect my perception 0:21:02.800 --> 0:21:06.240 of my time in that store? Okay, so you could 0:21:06.240 --> 0:21:09.440 say that your prefrontal cortex again, that's trying to anticipate things. 0:21:10.040 --> 0:21:14.600 It's encountering something familiar and it knows what's going on next. 0:21:14.640 --> 0:21:18.639