Musicophilia - music & relationship to the brain

Emailists,
Your observations are exactly why I posted this here. I do believe that "audiophiles" have trained their brains to use even more areas to derive pleasure from music than the average person.

This study talks about how many different areas of the brain are engaged in listening and enjoying music, not just a certain part.

We often talk of joy experienced when listening. The changes we make to ours systems where music sounds differently must have a different affect on certain parts of our brains. It's got to stimulate them.

We hear that we should keep our brains stimulated to stave off Alzheimer's and other later life dementia. So the question is: Do you think that simply listening to music is considered that type of stimulation?

If you answer is yes, could be, then we all have yet ANOTHER GOOD REASON to keep doing what we're doing :-)

Angela

FWIW, I suspect that audiophile activities are in inverse porportion to the ability of the listener to appreaciate (understand) musical content. When the musical content is complex and requires concentration who has time to think about audiophile concerns such as detail, imaging, etc. When the music is very simple/direct for many bordom sets in early. Then the focus of the listener becomes the quality of the audio.

For example, with a pop song, after you've heard it a few times, what is left but to think about things like the quality of the recording or audio system. Doesn't take long, and darned little mental exercise. Now juxtaposed to a complex classical piece, you could listen to it for years before you even were able to distinguish the difference between varius performances let alone understand how the composer put the notes all together. Interestingly, in this case I think a lot of 'audiophiles' opt out on understanding (in pieces they do like) what different musicians bring to the different performances and simply look for the best 'sounding' version.

I noticed the other day someone in the AA Hig Res forum lamenting that a young violinist who has a lot of talent and promise would no longer be recording for Pentatone (SACD recordings or Hybred's only) so that in all likelyhood he would not hear her perform again. Somehow I suspect he will also, if asked, proclaim that he just loves music and the quality of the audio only inhances his love of the music.

As I said, FWIW. Oh, re Alzheimers, I think as much (or more) would be gained by playing bridge, chess, or just reading some good old fashion classical literature.

the complexity of a composition is irrelevant as far as minimizing timbral errors. if i am listening to a symphony orchestra or a solo harpsichord i am aware of how erroneous a stereo system reproduces the sound of an instrument.

if i am in an anlytic mode, i aam mentallly assessing how natural an instrument sounds in relation to the real thing.

i had an interesting experience when i recorded a cymbal and compared the playback to the sound of the cymbal.

our stereo systems are inaccurate compared to the real thing.

I agree with Newbee, and hope Mrtennis is exaggerating his listening experiences. From the posts on Audiogon, I might conclude that most audiophiles don't listen to music, rather they listen to systems. They talk about reproducing audio as a hobby, not a means to an end.

I confess to enjoying well reproduced music, but not to the extent that I listen to music I don't care about just because it's well reproduced. I find classical, baroque, and jazz music the perfect background for reading and internet surfing, but I'm pretty sure that's not what this "hobby" is about. Listen to any good power cords lately?

db

"Listen to any good power cords lately?"

now THAT was funny!

ang