The Neuron Suite, James Burke and The Brain, 2 of 6

[mrpossibilities]

Jesus.... on top of being a History expert and a Science expert, he also plays the guitar?? This man must have been quite a Casanova.

I only found it odd that on the guitar bit, while he was making the point that he can talk while playing, he didn't address the detail about how we still accommodate the rhythm of our speech to the rhythm of the music we're playing.

[PhilJonesIII]

Bizarre thing about playing a piece of music well is that you have to habituate the piece before you can take a higher level of control over it. That's when you can impose your own style over it.

[buteforce]

The Guitar music is commonly called Romance or Romanza. It is not certain of its composer but it has been attributed to Narcisso Ypes who played guitar on the soundtrack of a French film called Forbidden Games (translated). This is the first known recording of the piece and Ypes may have composed it at that time.

[JamesBurkeWeb]

"Narciso Yepes". I used to play a few of his compositions long ago.

I'm not sure if this is one of his. It might be. He was a fabulous (and well-known) performer / composer. I probably still have some of his stuff lying around...

Sheet music that is. No recordings! I've never heard a recording of him actually playing his own music.

- JBW

[robertwc82]

omg, what an awsome guitarist.

[JamesBurkeWeb]

He's not bad ;) I must say. I used to play classical guitar myself. So I know how hard it is!

- JBW

[robertwc82]

i play electric, so my finger picking technique is crap

[rampantandroid]

I recognize the piece he plays - sounds like something from Isaac Albinez...but I can't place it. Any idea what he plays?

[JamesBurkeWeb]

No idea. I've made suggestions to YouTube that they put their content ID feature to *positive use* for just this kind of thing. I wish they would.

- JBW

[rampantandroid]

Well, once I figure it out - and I will :-D, I'll let you know so you can tag it at least...

Thanks for posting this show!

[JamesBurkeWeb]

You're very welcome. Glad you enjoyed it. I find it quite amazing how far things have come since the show was produced (in some areas), and yet how accurate known information and also the "guesswork" was at that time.

It's funny to hear them say (forget the exact wording) "a new experimental class of drugs called benzodiazepines being developed in Europe" looks promising...

Promising? Valium is now one of the prerequisites for a country to be considered (medically) minimally supplied.

- JBW

[FunnyHedger]

James is awesome. He plays beautifully. And didn't he speak fluent Italian in an episode of Connections?

[JamesBurkeWeb]

Hmm, not that I recall... though I wouldn't be surprised! He seems a pretty multi-talented individual... although language acquisition is often inversely correlated with analytic ability.

Why? because in attempting to learn a new language the very worst method is studying it as a kind of rational system you can analyze. You can easily verify this yourself by asking:

A. Which languages am I most fluent in?

B. Which languages have I studied most?

Usually the two sets will be disjoint.

[ELuhn]

It's also an inefficient way of processing language. You very rarely think about the grammar & structure of your native language; you simply "think" in that language. Hence the popularity of the "immersion" method of learning foreign languages.  You do have to spend some time in analysis, but the idea is for it to become ingrained (habituated) so, like the guitar playing, you don't have to actively think about it. Burke can probably think in Italian. He's also a bit of a show-off.

[JamesBurkeWeb]

True! On both counts ;)

- JBW