Oliver Sacks - Musicophilia - Amusia

Oliver Sacks, author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and An Anthropologist on Mars, discusses amusia, the inability or inhibited ability of the brain to process music. 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/di...

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[burf69]

Most major record label executives suffer from this condition.

[PauleQueenie]

I am very amused

[mcodnry]

I've met a girl who's suffering from amusia in my music class. Everybody was able to tell the difference between major and minor except for her. And the professor then said she's an amusia.

[bluegrassbaby86]

This would be a horrible condition to have, and I don't say this because I am a musician and hard core music lover, because if you've been that way all your life then it would just be normal for you, but especially today where music is so pervasive in our culture. You can't go anywhere without hearing it. I guess you'd have to have a pretty strong ability to tune stuff out.

[JediNiyte]

Is it just me, or is Oliver Sacks beyond sexy?

[ji1rexk]

I would say that it may be possible to have a similar experience by listening to music that doesn't follow our scale system. I could also see some people getting this impression from certain genres that are undesirable for them to listen to and/or not understandable, though rythm and order will still be recognizable.

[mphello]

Not to rub the point in, but I am THAT curious a person that I would REALLY be curious to undergo a surgery to create amusia in me to see what it would be like. I've been addicted to classical music (and all sorts of other music) my entire life. It wouldn't hurt me to get off the addiction.

[mphello]

Really stupid question, but I would LOVE to see this experiment done: has any "normal" music-loving ever volunteered to have the neuronal connections severed between the auditory part of the brain and the emotional part to see how they would then process music which they would know, but before the operation, loved? How would they process a familiar tune after the operation?

[mphello]

It thought that amusia was a necessary condition for most of today's pop stars to BECOME famous!

[PauleQueenie]

5/4/2012 - Seriously, pityful be the greek language from which the term "amusia" derived. There is a lack of "order" in the disorder "amusia".

[PauleQueenie]

5/4/2012 - You can't be writing your comment seriously?

[shelbielynnVEVO]

The odds of a person being born with absolute pitch? 1 in 25,000.