Your Brain on Music.

I subscribe to a blogging community that discusses classical music. The web site is a kind of electronic board on which people can post their questions or raise topics for discussion, talk about particular artists or some concert they just attended, that sort of thing. This week someone raised the question "If you listen to classical music does that make you superior to someone who listens to Wu-Tang Clan?" - pretty sophomoric stuff but as I later stood in the shower humming Wu-Tang's seminal hit Da Mystery of Chessboxin this thought crossed my mind: Are there people who don't like any music at all. Now, I don't mean those who are musically uneducated ("I love opera. I've seen Phantom five times and it's wonderful!") nor those who are merely apologetic about music ("I like music well enough but I can't carry a tune in a bucket") or who have a complete failure of taste when it comes to music ( "Wouldn't you just die to see Celine Dion live?"). No. I mean is there an unhappy few who actively dislike music of whatever stripe? The answer 'no' would be just as interesting as the answer 'yes', wouldn't it? It turns out that there are such folk. There is a relatively rare, and possibly inherited neurological condition which scientists have,without a touch of irony I suspect, termed amusia - a complete inability to comprehend or take pleasure from music. In England Professor Tim Griffiths has been doing research on amusics and found that "Some are just indifferent to music, but for others it really sounds quite unpleasant and abrasive,"For instance, Anne Vere, an amusic from Newcastle describes music as an "irritant". When she heard the theme tune to Brief Encounter, voted the United Kingdom's favourite piece of classic music for the past five years, she described it as "banging that would be best avoided" a term I had hitherto heard only in connection with the musical oevre of Karlheinz Stockhausen. In the course of his prodding around the murkier recesses of the human brain Professor Griffiths found that the centre that produces the "shiver" also mediates our responses to cocaine and orgasms. "The headiest combination is literally sex, drugs and rock'n'roll". Ya don't say, prof...ya don't say.

So. What are the indications you may be amusic and how can you find out? There's an online test. Of course! Wanna take it, go here.

An even weirder neurological phenomenom is the condition known as synesthaesia. For reasons as yet unfathomed people who have this condition seem to have their aesthetic wires crossed. One manifestation is that sounds may elicit the reaction of the listener seeing colours. A Newsweek article on the topic mentioned one such person: "As a child, Julian Asher had a theory about the symphony concerts he attended with his parents. “I thought they turned down the lights so you could see the colors better,” he says, describing the “Fantasia”-like scenes that danced before his eyes. Asher wasn’t hallucinating. He’s a synesthete—a rare person for whom one type of sensory input (such as hearing music) evokes an additional one (such as seeing colors). In Asher’s ever-shifting vision, violins appear as a rich burgundy, pianos a deep royal purple and cellos “the mellow gold of liquid honey.”

And then there's The Mozart Effect. Remember that? Play Mozart to your tiny offspring and raise your progeny's IQ was the proud boast. Rather than me going on about that particular piece of nonsense let me urge you to read this recent article.

Needless to say, there are many other 'Effects':

LISZT EFFECT: Child speaks rapidly and extravagantly, but never really says anything important.

BRUCKNER EFFECT: Child speaks very slowly and repeats himself frequently. Gains reputation for profundity.

WAGNER EFFECT: Child becomes a megalomaniac. May eventually marry his sister.

MAHLER EFFECT: Child continually screams - at great length and volume -that he's dying.

SCHOENBERG EFFECT: Child never repeats a word until he's used all the other words in his vocabulary. Sometimes talks backwards. Eventually, people stop listening to him. Child blames them for their inability to understand him.

IVES EFFECT: The child develops a remarkable ability to carry on several separate conversations at once.

GLASS EFFECT: The child tends to repeat himself over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

STRAVINSKY EFFECT: The child is prone to savage, guttural and profane outbursts that often lead to fighting and pandemonium in the preschool.

BRAHMS EFFECT: The child is able to speak beautifully as long as his sentences contain a multiple of three words (3, 6, 9, 12, etc). However, his sentences containing 4 or 8 words are strangely uninspired.

CAGE EFFECT: Child says nothing for 4 minutes, 33 seconds. (Preferred by 9 out of 10 classroom teachers.)

Your submissions by way of comment of other such 'Effects' are encouraged. C'mon people!