Jeff over at Scintus passes along yet another fascinating link regarding the structure of music. Special software reads a MIDI file (a form of digital music transcription) and draws arcs to connect repeated sections. Most music has repetition in some form, and it’s fascinating to see how classical, pop, and modern music have strikingly different patterns.

The visualization itself is graphically quite interesting, but I find myself wishing that I could also hear the accompanying passage, or see some additional color coding. It would also be interesting to assign mood colors to particular chords or ascending / descending progressions, but the visualization would probably look pretty chaotic. Another thing that bugs me about the visualization is how the height of the arc tends to perhaps overdramatize its role in the music, but still it’s pretty cool.

The new issue of Scientific American has a neat article on The Neuroscience of Music, which summarizes some of the recent studies regarding how the brain processes music. In particular, I’m into the emotional response to music; I have a lot of analytical mental processes that run constantly in my head, which tends to de-emotionalize a lot of my responses to external stimuli. However, well-crafted and emotive music rises above the intellectual static and puts me into a profoundly different mood. So next time you’re talking to me and I’m making too much sense, stick an iPod in my ear and initiate a logic override.

Most people will find this article a bit dry (Scientific American is the kind of magazine that never seems to have enough gravy). For you hedonists out there, here’s the juiciest excerpt:

[…] Blood and Zatorre added a further clue to how music evokes pleasure. When they scanned the brains of musicians who had chills of euphoria when listening to music, they found that music activated some of the same reward systems that are stimulated by food, sex and addictive drugs.

Sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll…cognitively, it’s all the same :-)

Spied via BoingBoing