Conference presentation at Worlding the Brain 2017

Conference presentation at Worlding the Brain 2017 2B. Performing Brains: – Wentz, Jed. “Embodied Affect in Aaron Hill’s The Art of Acting (1753)” – Weij, van der, Bastiaan. “Same Drummer, Different Beats: Predicting Differences in Rhythm Perception with Probabilistic Modeling” – McGowan, Ned. “Speed in Music, Brain and Body” Thursday November 2, 2017 11:30 am CREA, Room 2.02 Nieuwe Achtergracht 170 Amsterdam, the Netherlands Abstract: Speed in Music, Brain and Body Ned McGowan Leiden University In this presentation, the physical and cognitive experience of speed in music is explored. Organic to all cultures, music is not only an emergent property of the timing mechanisms of the brain (Craig, 2009) but also a manifestation of who we are, how we think and how we feel. The engagement of brain and body with sound reflects the temporal functions of physical, cultural and personal identities. Thus, much can be learned about another by simply listening to their music. Organic to music is time; without time, there is no music. Nonetheless, the phenomenon of time with its broad implications in the sciences tells little about our experiences. The concept of speed, though, is full of enlightening character. Take some common terms to describe tempo in music: largo (broadly), adagio (slow and stately), allegro (fast, quickly and bright), vivacissimo (very fast and lively). Speed is relational and reveals aspects of how we think and feel. It is innately human. Short musical recordings explore the full range of musical speed, from sounds placed into stasis to entire symphonies repeated at a frequency beyond the range of human detection, demonstrating how the identity of music undergoes various metamorphoses as the temporal scale is altered. Additional examples demonstrate the direct expressivity of speed in relation to temporal resolution, reflecting one of Olivier Messiaen’s three laws of experienced duration: ” the more events in the present, the shorter our experience of duration for that moment in the present; the fewer events, the longer our experience of duration.” (Delaere, 2009) Based on artistic and pedagogic experience, the arguments consider the embodiment of rhythm and duration as experienced by practicing musicians. Questions such as how cognition and kinesthesia cooperate to measure time, and the relationship between emotions and speed are discussed from the musical perspective. Keywords: speed, music, resolution, neuropsychology, embodiment References: Craig, A. (2009). Emotional moments across time: a possible neural basis for time perception in the anterior insula. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences,364(1525), 1933-1942. doi:10.1098/rstb.2009.0008 Delaere, M. (2009). Tempo, Metre, Rhythm. Time in Twentieth-Century Music. Unfolding time: studies in temporality in twentieth-century music, 31 (D. Crispin, Ed.). Leuven: Leuven Univ. Press. Roads, C. (2004). Microsound. MIT Press.