Oliver Sacks - Musicophilia - The Power of Rhythm

Oliver Sacks, author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and An Anthropologist on Mars, discusses music, the brain, and the power of rhythm to move us, literally and figuratively. The story related in the video comes from Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, Dr. Sacks's latest book. For more information, visit http://www.oliversacks.com or http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9781400033539

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• oliver
• sacks
• rhythm
• dance
• dancing
• musicophilia
• music
• neurology
• neurologist
• brain
• amnesia
• science

[Solaris125]

Well that's a very western view.

Traditional Indian music, for example, is arranged in 5s, 7s, 11s and other meters considered "odd time" by us.

Brazilian and other Latin grooves are often based in 6.

To say there is a "natural" time siganture is really quite absurd, seeing as music in the first place is an entirely cultural experience.

[leakeg]

But our heart beats in 2/4 time - why then is 4/4 time the "natural" option?

[mrjollypantsjolly]

@leakeg No, our heart beats in whatever time signature we so dedicate. I suggest 1/1. ie, 1 e an a :

The beats would in my example be on the 1 and the "a".

[mrjollypantsjolly]

The time signature matters not. All timings can be divided by one. Hence a seven is simply 1 to seven and repeated, or 11/4 is one to eleven repeated. We may cut out the middle man and just count one one one one one etc if we so desire. The signature may be felt Rhythm is at its bottom line a simple pulse. We can complecate it if we so desire , but in essense its just a "bang, bang ...................etc". I am a drummer , and so I know about these matters, he he.

[RonBurgundy609]

@Solaris125 at no point did he say anything even remotely related to time signatures in this video

[Seahorse171]

Perhaps you have not done studies on animals , or you would notice that a number of of other social animals besides humans respond to music and rhythm as well.

[PIERRECLARY]

my mum said to me that the only proof of the possible existence of god was MUSIC. I was 6 or 7 then...and asking about god's existence in a catholic non praticant scientific orientated family...

[anhaba1]

@leakeg The fact that most music is based in two probably doesn't have to do with the heartbeat but rather because two is the smallest grouping that you can feel. If you just played groupings of 1 over and over you would just have a steady tempo, the simplest way to vary this is to play two beats in the space of one. I don't think that it is a "natural" option to have 4/4 it makes more sense that groupings of two are conventional because two beats is the simplest way to divide one beat.

[anhaba1]

@Solaris125

Subdivisions of rhythm in latin, brazilian and indian music ARE duple though. Even though the beats are divided into 5, 6, 11 etc. they are subdivided into 2 for embellishment. In indian music the matra may be divided into 14 but conventional embellishment is still usually in groupings of two. instead of 5 or 7 or 11 you could think of it as 5 groups of two or 7 groups of two. Feeling music in smaller groupings of 5,7 etc. is actually a fairly recent western concept.

[leakeg]

@paniq303 so is everyone.