A Right Ear Full!!

June Challenge: Music: How you listen.

How you hear, and how you listen are two completely different processes.

From the moment sound waves hit the pinna (outer ear) their progress can be tracked down the canal to the ear drum, causing the tiny bones of the middle ear to oscillate and amplify the vibrations. From here the sound waves progress into the spiral shaped, double skinned, fluid filled cochlea, causing microscopic hair cells to move. This stimulates nerve endings which in turn stimulate different pathways within the brain and we then perceive the waves as sound.

The listening, interpretation and understanding is what happens next, and this is the bit, that, the more you think about, the more incredible it all seems.

The human brain, has an innate ability to receive and understand sound patterns, which make up language, but there is a significant element of learning that only occurs when there is face to face interaction with other individuals. There also appears to be a period of time when speech and language develops rapidly, which subsides as the brain matures, hence the increased difficulty in learning foreign languages as we mature.

The appreciation of music, however, is far more complex and is far from fully understood. Additional areas of the brain are stimulated when we listen to music, to those during speech alone. The limbic system, which releases endorphins, is also activated, causing emotions and arousal to come into play.

Music written in a minor key evokes a very different automatic response from that in a major key.

We may have a learned emotional response to a piece of music due to the association of a specific event, for example:
" This is the record we first danced to. It makes me feel so happy"

Yet, a piece of music, never heard before, can evoke an equally strong response. So it was for me, with Bruch's Violin concerto in G minor.

I recall the first time I heard it so vividly. I cannot listen to the Adagio without shedding a tear, yet the 3rd movement is extraordinarily uplifting.



If you want to read a clear resume on the brain and sound this is pretty good.

End of the Right Ear Full.

On a lighter note, I'm rather phobic about my ears, so this is a brave blip for me!!!

I blame my mother, who whenever a camera appeared shouted at me:
"For goodness sake put your hair over your ears."
She was for ever telling me how much they stuck out.

In reality I don't actually think they do, but I have never had a hairstyle that reveals them, and they remain un-pierced for the same reason!!

Mums, who'd have them!



June Challenge:

1. Inspired by...
2. A toy
3. Green and yellow
4. Drink
5. Sky
6. Descend
7. Passages, Real & In Time
8. Dusk
9. 4 of a kind
10. A snack
11. A friend
12.Take 12
13. On a bench
14. A flag
15.Shadows
16. A phobia
17. A love for...
18. Flame
19. Colorful
20. Fast
21.Welcome summer
22.With wings
23. Pink
24.Make believe
25.Through a window
26. A passion
27. A tomato
28. Music. How you listen
29.Through a lens
30. Playful

I thought I'd give it a go!