StarTalk Podcast: The Hidden Science of Music with Eric Whitacre
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- Опубликовано: 25 авг 2024
- There’s science in everything, even when you don’t realize it. On this episode of StarTalk Radio, Neil deGrasse Tyson sits down with Grammy-award winning composer Eric Whitacre to explore the hidden science of music. Joined by comic co-host Chuck Nice and neuroscientist Heather Berlin, PhD, we’re investigating how science and mathematics can influence and shape music.
To start, we discuss something a lot of people have dealt with: forced music lessons. Heather explains why learning music is like learning a language and how reading music can impact growth in other areas of the brain.
You’ll find out how Eric became a musician even though he was on a path to be a scientist. Eric also tells us why he thinks NASA is a “crazy collection of artists.”
Then, we welcome mathematician and concert pianist Eugenia Cheng to help us demystify math and music, and show us how they interact. And Neil poses the question: would all musicians be better if they had more knowledge in math?
Lastly, we explore the patterns of music, how important novelty is to the brain, and why rebelling against patterns lead to the development of classical music.
Thanks to our Patrons Julia Zeikowitz, Cory Ricci, Sridev Pawar, Mark Hachem, Michael Gessner, Roderic E Hairston, Chuck Betlach, and Riyam Al-Sammarraie for supporting us this week.
About the prints that flank Neil in this video:
"Black Swan” & "White Swan" limited edition serigraph prints by Coast Salish artist Jane Kwatleematt Marston. For more information about this artist and her work, visit Inuit Gallery of Vancouver inuit.com/.
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About StarTalk:
Science meets pop culture on StarTalk! Astrophysicist & Hayden Planetarium director Neil deGrasse Tyson, his comic co-hosts, guest celebrities & scientists discuss astronomy, physics, and everything else about life in the universe. Keep Looking Up!
#StarTalk #NeildeGrasseTyson
Being a huge fan of astrophysics/physics AND a music major, I can verify that this video IS AWESOME
If you absolutely had to pick, gun to youre head important, what genre is your favorite, or like what instrument if thats easier
D I T T O :-)
@@apeiceofgarbage9848 I’ll answer, cello lol.
Interview Brian May, Queen's guitarist and has a PhD in astrophysics!
seconded. this must happen.
Nah, he just wants to ride his bicycle.
Hasn't he already done that?
It'd be epic!
look he's paid his dues...time after time...
"Forgive the audio quality"
*Quality is actually much better*
Was thinking the same thing.
I think this refers to the quality on the “live stream”, for Patreons/etc and not the RUclips video that combines locally captured audio? Had a giggle at the comment though!
My Father was born legally blind but could play any instrument he laid his hands on. I remember when I was 16 we were at someone's house and they had a piano. He sat down and picked out a few keys....then began playing like he had been playing a piano all of his life. He had never seen a piano before that. It's amazing what the human brain is capable of.
we need you in these trying times Neil. thank you
I'm here for chuck
@Jason Quinones definitely
Really?
@Deal Negrasse Bison the 6k5th 877
Each of the different notes and semi-tones are more than just frequencies. Given the context of how they are used, any two pitches can have the same or entirely different emotional effects on the listener. I think that is so awesome that it's practically real-life Magic!
What matters most is the relation between pitches used in a song, not the specific frequencies themselves.
Always love Dr. Cheng ever since her TED talk on the geometries of hierarchy named "How abstract mathematics can help us understand the world".
@Андрей Бахарковскй ?
I wasn't forced into music lessons, I was offered them when I was like 6 and I liked it. I picked the trumpet to learn at 8 and I've been playing for decades now. I love it and it's one of the reasons I'm alive.
We need The Hidden Science of Art/Painting.
Neil would fan girl out on this and im here for it
oh yesss
Both my children had lessons from age 3 . They played in musical ensembles the entire time they were growing up. BTW they are both of mensa IQ levels. They also did art and sports and religious activities. My son is working on his PHD in music theory and my daughter is a biologist/zoologist. No regrets.
I love how he keeps apologizing for the quality of the pre-recorded interview even though it sounds better than the video calls
I came to comment the same thing lol "just a microphone off the shelf" is probably better than most recording studios' lol
Exactly 😆
Chuck is WAY over-modulating, though :(
When Eugenia Cheng started playing
Rachmaninoff's "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini," it took me back Somewhere in Time, although I typically listen to John Barry's version. Love it!
As a freshman in music school, I was in a test group as to how fast we could recognize music notes in a measured flash. We actually could identify and recognize from 1/40 to 1/60 of a second! Trained musicians can read multiple notes on a page. Conductors read a page of notes when conducting instrumental groups. As a conductor of a big band, all of the musicians could “read” a page of notes at a speed up to 220 beats a minute. I don’t know how that shakes out as to portions of a second, but part of the skill is enhanced by practice and experience, but it is an amazing skill level. Also, in California, we studied the success of music students further careers and found that many were highly capable professionals and attributed much of that to their music experiences. And many also attributed some of that to a mother that wouldn’t let them stop their piano lessons! My last 10 yrs spent as instrumental music teacher at a performing arts school and retired to direct a “kicks” big band for 20 yrs!...AND you just scratched the surface.
Your piano person was very skilled, obviously! I also experienced a fellow who could sing one line vocally and whistle the harmony simultaneously. 20th century music needs lots and lots of listening to appreciate it. Like anything exposure helps. A great book, Physics and Art which attributes some of Einstein’s influences were music.
10/10 crossover!
As a tool fan, I’m obligated to make a fib sequence lol
Hah nice to see you here
Quarantine is the best thing that happened in my life so far. I've learned so so soooooooo so much
one of the best episodes so far, love it!
oh, and Eugenia Cheng, that woman is an inspiration. watch her on youtube!
"Music without science is just noise & science without music is just fact"
Well, music is music and fact is fact...
Music has imagination and creativity, facts are truths and don't depend on imagination 😉.
Science without music is like Math without symbols.
what about noise musics though?
I tend to relate music to physics. Physics is visual while music is auditory. Both rely on math.
I was literally going to comment about the left brain/right brain thing and I'm so glad that Heather said it before me because now I know I'm not an idiot.
i was kicked out of my band and chorus class when i was young but they called me in privately to teach me how to play instruments i think i now realize why they did that.(it wasn't bc i was bad, if anyhting it was bc i couldnt learn in a classroom environment) and it made me better understand music bc i had to learn it on my own. i remember surprising my music teacher when i learned how to play 2 songs within the hour i was given to learn it. then he movedme to drums, then a trumpet then he stopped calling me in for no reason.
I've had the privilege to perform some of Eric Whitacre's music. In fact, his song "October" is a classical piece that we play at a Halloween event where most of the audience is children. The other songs are things they know, mostly Disney villain songs, Addams Family theme, or other "creepy" music, but that one is a classical song that the children all listen to in awe. There's something innate about it that draws them in.
There's so much they could have covered. I'd love to see him revisit this topic with a more varied group of experts.
I definitely remembering discussing the Fibonacci sequence, the golden ratio, and musical climaxes in my AP music theory class last year.😂
I think Fibonacci and music and I immediately think of Lateralus by Tool.
We were even tought to use it as a general guide for intermission. Put @ 60% of the concert before intermission and the audience tends to be less restless toward the end of the concert.
@@mgailp Ooo I’ll keep that in mind for when I’m a band director planning concerts!
Eugenia Cheng was absolutely fascinating to listen to! Would love to listen to more interviews featuring her!
She seems wicked sharp and smart ! Fascinating!
When two best things in the world cross - science and music. Lovely.
Dr Neil you should invite Dr Manjul Bhargava for your show. He is a field medalist. He has great explanation of how music is associated with mathematics. I hope you remember him from the premier of the movie "A man who knew infinity".
I love it when you have Heather on as a guest. As I find her to be is an extremely beautiful and intelligent woman.
Oh yeah, You and Chuck are fun to watch too. Love Star Talk! 🔭👍🏾
she just... wow
Jup.. she is quite beautiful. And then you add her smarts.. man oh man. She was a lovely addition to the cast. Enjoyed listening to her.
While never raised in a musical family, I was raised on music. It still amazes me how songs I haven't heard since I was probably 5 or 6 could play right now and I would be able to remember them word for word without any trouble. I used to hate most of it, since it was music my mom played as the un-elected DJ and Single Parent in Chief, but looking back now I actually have a great deal of appreciation for it. There's very little music post-1975 that didn't find its way into our home, making the inner recesses of my brain essentially some weird biological archive for about four decades-worth of music.
While I can't exactly qualify the impact it had on my brain, I'm certain that it must've led to increased brain activity on some level, if for no other reason than the fact that I'm able to remember numbers better simply by converting them into some basic melody first. If that isn't proof that the brain and music are a natural pairing, I don't know what is. It's been a huge learning device for me personally!
I sing in the sanctuary choir of our church and one of our members was a teacher at the local college. He overheard a colleague ask a question of the physics class. There was only silence, to which the instructor posed the same problem. Again, silence. Finally the instructor said to the class, "C'mon, guys, this isn't music theory!"
Can we all agree that we need more of Dr. H.Berlin on Star talk...👀 🔥😍
I loved the interaction of all the guests on this one, it was so enjoyable, my brain wants more!
Eugenia Cheng was a fantastic guest, just picked up a couple of her books on the back of this interview. Love from the U.K. 🇬🇧
Wow what a show! Great topic, guests and discussion as usual. My favourite podcast on RUclips.
Please do an entire episode with Eugenia! She was fantastic!
Yes, bring Eugenia back! I sing in my church choir (or I did until this COVID thing hit, forcing us to stay away from each other). I was a science major in college and still tend to analyze everything. I find that it feels very freeing to stop fretting over technicalities such as correct notes, harmonies, chord progressions, and so forth, and just let some primal part of my brain enjoy the singing.
Thank You Guys , I now understand why the middle eight is so important. It is to break the repetitive pattern and introduce a new variation or pattern to wake up the listener. Thank u again .
what a great episode. MUSIC AND MATH what else is there to Love more in this Universe.
This is very interesting. Overtime I started becoming aware of different ways to learn something (reading, audio, visual for examples). But for a big chunk of my life, it never occured to me that there may be different ways to tell a story. The most common to me in conveying/receiving is thru books by reading or by listening to someone reading out loud.
I used to think I was bad at math because I had a bad 3rd grade teacher, but once I adopted the attitude that it was just another skill that I could master through practice it came to me much easier and getting As was nowhere near as difficult as it used to be.
Music activates the language centers of the brain, music literally speaks to us, in fact transcending spoken word.
Drum language in west Africa google that you will be amazed even somewhere in the mountains in Turkey
It’s mind blowing I tell you
When talking about symmetry, it would have been cool if Eugenia had brought up the Crab Canon (Bach wrote at least one) which can be played simultaneously by two people, one of whom starts at the end and plays it backwards.
Also, it sounded like Eric said John "Corleone", but he was talking about John Corigliano who happens to have won an Oscar for his soundtrack to "The Red Violin."
About the languages and music connection....
I started playing guitar around age 11.
My first language isn't English but for some reason I can speak it quite well now 30 years later without studying it more than what was taught in school.
Neil makes me feel kind of safe in these times.. It is a weird thing to say but does anyone feel the same about him? He is just so wise and smart it really makes me very comfortable to hear him speak on different themes.
yes, its like listening to grandpas stories
I’m so glad I came across this video.
Learned music in high school and always loved music. Played a few instruments.
I love science but was very distraught by some teachers as I grew up and never looked to it.
But anyway it’s great that science is everywhere.
Great talk, Star Talk! As an artist/designer, this was very fascinating to me. We humans like to compartmentalize math separate from art, but I think what Eugenia Cheng said further solidifies what i have observed myself, which is that everything is connected. Math/science, art/design are all just different means of achieving the same ends. I would Luv to listen to a longer video with Eugenia Cheng as a guest speaking on the topic of math and music. Maybe even have a guest that can broaden the conversation into how math/science translate into visual art/design.
I've only discovered Cosmic Queries a few weeks ago and I've been binging them. I love the dynamic that Neil and Chuck have, and especially the recall and enthusiasm Chuck has. But man, it's hard to concentrate with how beautiful Heather is
32:00 did studies in Math and Sciences, and am a musician and artist . i always felt that music/art/science compliment each other .
Music is a huge part of what separates humanity from animals. No wild animal on the planet can compose sound like the human can. We gather round and listen to music, dancing and singing together like a wave of life fluctuating in time. Manipulating sounds to get an outcome but on a level of harmony within vibrations. A musician can use their instrument to play certain notes in a certain time to get certain reaction, this is known as music.
The frequency and tone of the note has a real and lasting effect on humans.
I was thinking this the other day, math is the life blood of music, as well as other art forms, but with music the two are so conjoined that even those who may not know how to so much as read a piece of sheet music, can certainly write a song and it's a mathematical process through and through.
Math being so fundamental to music is why it was so easy to digitize. You can "record" a performance through MIDI, which keeps track of note on and off times, as well as pitch. You can program music generators with code, and make algorithms which use random numbers or AI to generate those pitches and note lengths, and use sine waves or other functions to oscillate the values for volume or filters or other effects. Since even raw audio files are recorded as a bunch of sine waves, those too are now being generated by neural nets, both for instruments and vocal sounds. We're really around the point of machines passing a kind of musical Turing test, where it's increasingly difficult to tell for sure if a piece of music was made by a human or some kind of AI. I'm sure that for music, like the game of chess, as soon as machines can do it better than us we'll pretend we never thought it was a skill that demonstrated superior intelligence.
The greatest music is an onion! Music with layers upon layers of interest:
On the outside layer, we enjoy it because it has intriguing, pleasant, and/or memorable melodies, and compelling harmonic movements.
But the more layers you peel off the musical onion, you look at it in greater detail, and you start seeing melodic development based upon clever patterns and symmetries.
My Music Theory instructor kept bringing up Chopin as examples of this: At the top level, most of Chopin’s is just beautifully melodious and moving, but the more you peel off the layers, the more and more you realize that it also *just plain makes sense* too! “Everything in it has a reason,” he would point out. Bach is also often cited as examples of that, not surprisingly.
I totally get how that passion gets snuffed out. as a child it came time to pick instruments for school i wanted drums the music teacher agreed I had an aptitude. My dad said he didn't want to hear the noise. My mom had read that they studied instruments and found people who played violin did better in math and science bc of the different hand movements and left brain/right brain coordination. I felt pressured so I picked the violin hated it, never tried. Today I'm a massage therapist not really using calculus and still find the beats coming to me and i catch myself slapping out rhythms. Or using a drum for meditation.
I played trumpet from 3rd-8th grade. It was fantastic. I stopped because photography took over. Now Music is back, I started a company to help schools keep their music programs for all the reasons they talk about 😁
One of the best episodes so far. Excellent.
I love music. There is always music in my mind. i can see music in my brain, in waves. I can play by ear too. I loved taking the piano when I was young and I wanted to continue, but i couldnt. And I have taught myself without notes how to play certain songs.
And I love math and numbers.
Many studies have found that musical lessons alongside of academic studies tends to improve SAT scores to around 30 pt.s higher on the math and up to 60 pts. in the verbal scores; NEA and Fender musical Instrument Co. to name just a few.
Absolutely!! The hidden success story of MUSIC STUDY!
I like that stuff about training the left hand
7:03 Neil just throws out every perspective Chuck was making, and said, "okay.. let's move on.
Yea I'm glad the guest took a moment to reflect on what Chuck mentioned.
Something interesting happens about two thirds of the way through any pop song because the songwriter wants to keep the listener interested. They're heard the verse and chorus twice; take it to the bridge. I sincerely doubt the songwriters who came up with this formula were thinking about Fibonacci or the Golden Ratio; they just wanted to sell more records. This kind of pattern is also common in baroque music, where the minstrels' motivation may have been to not be a target for spoiled food.
I know nothing of music notes, but I can create or modify melodies in my head, without the need to learn instruments. I can think in music similar to the way I can think in words.
I could listen to these guys for hours
Ya know what would be awesome is having these episodes on a streaming device such as Netflix and instead of just watching people chat on a screen the whole time, they could add some graphics and visuals as they’re explaining everything.
As a synthesizer fanatic, I must say, get your kids (or yourself) a synthesizer (or a few) if you want to experiment with music to the fullest.
If you learn by ear, and you play long enough, learning music theory is much easier, because your hands will already understand the theory.
I loved it when Chuck said "I don't wanna hear any more Eric Whitacre!"
This was probably my favorite startalk episode
"Little Lamb who Made Thee" uses the lyrics from the William Blakr poem "Little Lamb". That poem is the counterpart to the Blake poem "The Tyger". That's the one with the line "Tyger, tyger burning bright in the forest of the night."
That inverted melody is a lot like the darkness of the tyger poem reflecting the lightness in the lamb poem. Both poems paired together to reflect the duality of God. They ask how the same being could have created the tiger (a creature that is terrible, frightening, and dangerous) and the lamb (a creature that is soft, harmless, and vunerable).
It's interesting that the patterns (math) created in the music reflect the symmetry and asymmetry found in the two poems.
Frank Zappa recorded a song,he wrote every musician’s part. 4 minutes of 100% atonal,arhythmic music. BRILLIANT. I hope I never have to hear it again, but brilliant!
It is always the ideal weather to enjoy a glimpse of Heather...
Nice to see dr Heather Berlin back in star talk
I love that NDT has addressed maths in music
That was a great discussion, inspiring and funny. Thanks.
I played Lux arumque in band a couple years ago, and I gotta say, Eric Whitaker is a genius
My Dad, born in 1962, is the youngest of 20 siblings who grew up (in nowhere wisconsin) in a little cabin with wood heat and outdoor "plumbing".. Music was their life! In the 70's, 80's and 90's my Uncles, Dad, and cousins always had a family band and played everywhere for everyone... Benefits, fundraisers, weddings, taverns, parades. To this day I have a handful of cousins in a handful of popular local bands. Our population is under 10,000 but anyone here knows that's Arnolds and music are one! NOT ONE OF THEM CAN READ MUSIC!! THEY HEAR IT, THEY KNOW WHAT KEY IT IS IN AND WHAT CHORDS! must be because our bloodline is from Whales!
Chuck is really smart
You ALL are obviously confident, creative and happy. Maybe, be grateful for parents who tried (and succeeded) to expand their child"s horizone
Hans Zimmer is like Albert Einstein in the world of music.
I love Hans Zimmer. He’s up there with Phillip Glass and Howard Shore.
You never heard of Beethoven?
In architecture and furniture design the golden ratio is an excellent starting place for proportioning your design. From there you can subdivide the elements of said piece by Fibonaccian ratios. For example a 3x5 index card is a golden ratio and Fibonacci ratio and it just looks right...
33:30 great correlations of music and math. great guest . invite back. like her examples. more examples please.
awesome video! greetings from brazil
Being a human with brains i can verify that this video IS AWESOME
Would love to hear about the differences and science behind Neurotypical & Neurodivergent. You could maybe have Heather & also a neurodivergent guest. (Assuming Heather is neurotypical)
22:34 I've been listening to Dr. Tyson since at least 2010 when I heard him on the radio. I would love it if someone could put on a graph how many times Dr. Tyson said 'aliens' and in what context.
Very nice episode, loved it! I wondered if they could figure it out the math equations behind the music of MESHUGGAH! Maybe they could find hidden the answers to the dark matter/energy problems...MESHUGGAH IS dark and heavy stuff indeed..😎🤘
This is perfect timing
I am taking star trail pohots right now
You know what is funny? Growing up I asked my dad why he likes classical music, he said because they play it in cartoons. I grew up when Tom and Jerry didn't talk. So I actually got into classical music. Now that I'm older I realized my dad didn't like it because of the cartoons. He was born in 1936. Classical music made me love hard rock. I love both
Edit; I also love music in-between these groups. Tayler swift got as many grammys or nominations as Micheal Jackson. Weather you love her or hate her, that is impressive.
Anna Kendrick is a neuroscientist?
Basically our brain is a DOPE fiend constantly searching for the next bigger and better high. Which would explain why we like patterns because our brains like to predict what happens next and it gets a HIT when the pattern lands. It gets an even better HIT of DOPE when the pattern happens again but with a small change.
I self-taught for a few years, then was formally taught. I think if I'd been rote-taught music i would have tuned out a lot sooner, I enjoyed my personal explorations. i vividly remember de-coding the major scale for the first time and realizing what it actually meant. I don't make money at music but I do at programming computers.
I paused this to add the great Charlie Parker would often use the same math so to speak when he wrote his songs. His improves and runs FIT exactly into the patterns your guest is speaking about..
Music is another thing that bond people with emotional and spiritual way that cannot be understood by present science
Oxytocin and Memory
Part of what they said about recognizing patterns and that the brain secrets endorphins when we do is also how people become hooked on conspiracies and religion. The see this patterns that they think means something and they get a high from it even though there is not truth to what they are seeing. Social media feeds into this pattern recognition thus adding to the high they get or in the case of religion going to church, and religious social gatherings.
I was worried for a second that Chuck wasn't in this episode, because usually he is introduced in the first few seconds but this time it took more that usual.
PS: I would still watch the full episode if even no one was on.
Kids these days are so lucky to have Dr. Tyson and startalk. The rest still benefits though.
Apply both! The sacred geometrical patterns are the same as music! Rapid Comprehension is the gift of a Polymath!
Shine Bright!
Surfing the Golden Thread of Creativity!
MWM
Rhythm generally means a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions"
Music and melody is always is in our minds , even before we borne , and sometimes we remember a melody’s which we never hears in our present times of our life , and that’s gives
Is an ideal to creating perfect music and songs
The music is the language of universes
And each of the planet has they on music and sound
Neil we need a book list
This is such an unexpected mashup, and I love it!
Those black & white paintings (?) seem like they could be futuristic wind and/or possibly keyboard instruments...interesting with this subject.
Yay for Thursday
As a professional musician, ( yes I’ve held full time jobs performing that actually pay well) please ASK your kids what would you LIKE to play. That is sooo important get them a private good teacher so they have a chance at sounding GOOD. If you don’t like your sound , you won’t enjoy it. Even for fun..lessons can actually be free as well if you do research