“Based on the music cognition literature, we propose two hypotheses for why some musical pieces are preferred over others. The first, the Absolute-Surprise Hypothesis, states that unexpected events in music directly lead to pleasure. The second, the Contrastive-Surprise Hypothesis, proposes that the juxtaposition of unexpected events and subsequent expected events leads to an overall rewarding response.”
Tag: 05.18.17
‘Testosterone Rex’ – There’s Some Serious Hidden Sexism In The Ways We Think About Risk-Taking
“Testosterone Rex” is historian of science Cordelia Fine’s term for “the idea that women are driven by biology and evolution to be cautious, and men to be daring.” Fine argues that this idea is way too simplistic (unsurprising) but still undergirds way too much social science (surprising, but perhaps not to female social scientists).
Planners Of London’s New Concert Hall Should Learn Some Lessons From Hamburg’s New Elbphilharmonie – But Can They?
And no, it’s not just that the new hall shouldn’t run 920% over budget. Unfortunately, as Jack May writes, the lessons from Hamburg may be things that London just isn’t situated to do.
This Indie Bookstore Got A Year’s Worth Of Orders In A Single Day, Thanks To A Tweet
“[Bestselling author Shea Serrano] decided on Wednesday to direct his 135,000 Twitter followers to the Carmichael’s online store. His goal was to generate 1,000 orders in one day. It took less than five hours.”
How Pop-Up Productions Are Making A Whole New Audience For Opera
“All these venues have a huge cult following. People might want to take their partner for a beer and a bit of opera, or look for a boutique experience, or just a fun night out. It’s entertainment: we want people to have a good time. In this modern age of people crafting their own experience, it will be different for everyone who goes to it.”
If “Truth” Doesn’t Exist Anymore, Why Is Everyone Talking About What’s True?
“Post-truth” was coined in 1992 to describe the Iran-Contra scandal and the Gulf War but the popularity of the expression has rocketed more recently, leading to its being chosen by Oxford Dictionaries as the 2016 “word of the year”. The prefix “post”, Oxford explains, means “belonging to a time in which the specified concept has become unimportant or irrelevant”. And yet everywhere the intelligentsia and the tech industry are loudly worrying about truth and how to save it. It’s as if truth, far from having become irrelevant, has shot to the top of the cultural agenda.
The Beatles’ ‘A Day In The Life’ – An Exegesis
“The song has so much happening that when I casually listen I feel the accumulated effect, but attempting to really figure out what’s going on, I fear may take the fun out of it.” Nevertheless, Nicholas Dawidoff has a go at it, because it is, as he writes, “my idea of a perfect song. It is the epitome of The Beatles’ master building, of fitting stone upon stone, each section troweled together with such ingenuity and care that upon completion the whole thing feels seamless, a structure not built at all, but a whole that simply was.”
The Harpsichordist Who Survived Auschwitz, Bubonic Plague, And Communism
By the time World War II ended and Zuzana Růžičková had recovered her health, her hands were in such terrible shape that her teacher cried when she saw them. She went on to have a successful concert career, including frequent visits to the West, and became the first person ever to record Bach’s complete works for harpsichord. Now she’s 90 and no longer performing, but still active – and if you’re playing for her in a lesson and she gets bored, she’ll pick up a novel.
Diversity In Opera? Here’s Where It Is
“Most of the discussion about race in the operatic world revolves around singers, rather than composers, of color. What this conversation risks missing is that notably inventive work, particularly work foregrounding black creators, is already being done elsewhere—namely, on the institutional margins, by companies like OperaCréole, whose smaller size affords them the opportunity for innovation.”
Payoff: Why Arts Organizations Ought To Invest More In Their People
“Over the last four years, the California Symphony has gone from not even having a professional development line in the budget to investing more and more in talent and their development. And the growth in revenue we’ve seen far outpaces the expense. In other words, it’s an investment that’s paying off.”