EVERYONE IN THE WORLD LOVES A CERTAIN MUSIC

EVERYONE IN THE WORLD LOVES A CERTAIN MUSIC

It may take some time to prove this because sometime people's taste of music changes as mine did. In the 70's I love 50 and 60's, in the 80's I loved big band and then in the 90's I love and have a passion for opera and classical, and yes I do still listen to the others big band, and (50's and 60's) but as you've read in the past pages Dr. Jane Sentell instilled in me the gift of passion for classical and opera. Here posted for your pleasure is a piece that my son (David) of all people just when he was 2 (on Christmas of 1990) (I'm sure his Mom had something to do with the gift. Gave me one of the most passionate pieces of music I will ever receive to date. I get emotional and cry EVERYTIME I hear it. It might not affect you like it did me but "Leise rieselt der Schnee" by Eduard Ebel (1839-1905) still proves to be one of my very favorite of all time Christmas pieces and pieces I hear year round. PLEASE ENJOY.

As Gamble Music Production and Archive continues to add favorite video, please suggest videos of your own and post in the comment line below, we'd be honored to post your comments or videos that relate to our site. We are a music appreciation advocate and all types of music, except ones with profane words, are welcome.  As far back as I can remember, I believe it was when I was 5 or 6 years old (It would have been when my Dad, Mom, sister  and myself were living in Argentina, South American (in 1965 and 1966)) that I remember my first piece of music that I actually loved. My Dad  was stationed in the US Navy in Argentina and it would have been in and around the Christmas season of 1965 or 66, when I remember the piece I am about to share. I had asked my mother, as it was bothering me so bad, as to what Christmas party would have been at the Naval base in Argentina in 1965 ? My sister and I went to a Christmas party, I don't remember a lot about the party but like all musicologists we TRY very hard to remember and recall the very first music that we liked or had any bond with, so that we can narrow down why we like a certain music genre.  I didn't think my mother would remember but she gave me clues to what it might have been that I heard that particular day and why to this date I am still so attracted to it.  First of all she said that the party would have been at the base or at our house and we still had all the albums pretty much with us now.  Then she said something that floored me and clued me to believing that THIS was what I was going after. The Argentine people were being our friends (to the United States) and threw parties for the US military children to "show off" to the new military friends.  They had great food, presents for the kids and probably had music of South America. Which when I researched Christmas music used in 1965, 1966 US Naval Bases in Argentina, the number of hits were massive, especially but not limited to "several vocal choirs" not as much singing traditional Christmas novelty songs, like Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, or Santa Claus is Coming to Town but rather The Holly and the Ivy,  Lo, How a Rose e'er Blooming, Good Christian Men, Rejoice,  Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence and so on. My research lead me on another endeavour some 45 years after I left Argentina, South America back to Argentina and I found that most of the religion of Argentina South America is Roman Catholic and the songs that I heard that day were most likely a traditional Roman Catholic Christmas songs like listed in the past sentence.  I would bet that a choir like the Cambridge Choir was what I was so attracted to that Christmas of 1965 and I'd never be the same.  

I will bet you when you hear this selection that you will agree that at 6 years old that something this heavenly would capture the heart of a young boy.   Enjoy...

Pressing onward to what other people like or love in music. We've already proven that EVERYONE in the world loves a certain piece of music. This next piece by a new friend of mine George Skaroulis proves to be one of my favorite pieces by a new composer/artist.

George Skaroulis (born August 15, 1963)  is a Greek American pianist with 16 CDs to his credit and performances throughout the U.S. and internationally.  see his website at http://www.evzonemusic.com/

I triple dog dare you not to love this piece I've posted. I don't think it's his favorite but certainly one of mine.  (the piece is Se Ymnumen), remember I sent you to him ! he is awesome !!!  George's bio reads: George began his love for the piano at the early age of five. His mother was a classically trained pianist and George would sit on the bench next to her to watch and listen. One day, he started playing along. It wasn’t too long before George was figuring out the melodies of songs he heard on the radio. On weekends, accompanied by his father, George often played in piano stores at the local mall, and crowds would gather to watch. Despite his shyness and stage fright, George would also enter annual talent shows at school, perhaps an early indication he was destined to perform.

At the age of ten, his parents encouraged piano lessons, but in five weeks George quit the lessons after his teacher discovered he was playing by ear. Uninterested with structure & theory, George wanted to play the piano his way, and never returned to formal training, or piano lessons ever again.

As a teenager, George followed the footsteps of his Grandfather and began a career in the restaurant industry where he spent over 20 years in the business. Time at the piano was often his private escape. George never dreamed of pursuing his love of music as a career, but over the years, the piano kept calling him back. After moving to Atlanta in 1992, George continued his restaurant career, but also had an opportunity to record his debut album Homeland in 1996, and eventually stepped away from the restaurant scene to pursue his passion for music.  Since that time, George recorded several albums including, Numinous, Season Traditions, Athena, Generations, Second Nature, Return to Homeland, Snow, Forever Young, Adagio-the music of Chris Spheeris, Reunion, and Imagine. It is no surprise the relaxing quality of his music has attracted use by spas and by massage therapists worldwide. This year, George celebrates the 15th year of his independent record label, Evzone Music.

George’s music has also managed to find it’s way into several public television documentaries and programs. PBS selected George’s music for three nationally televised documentaries “Visions of Greece,” “Visions of Italy", and most recently “Brava Italia.” You may have also heard George’s music on XM-SIRIUS Satellite Radio, Music Choice, iTunes and Martha Stewart Living Radio.

Most recently even animals have been listening to his soothing sounds and George's music has been chosen as the official music of the Atlanta Humane Society- his latest release “Songs for Sophie” benefits animal rescue projects nationally. George has  also performed in concert various fundraisers, benefitting various charities including; The Breast Cancer Foundation, AHEPA (American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association), Jane Fonda’s G-CAPP (The Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention), The Atlanta Humane Society, DIFFA- (Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS,) & Art for Good- Benefitting the Children of Haiti, and the Multiple Sclerosis Foundation.

George is also an avid photographer, and currently is planning to combine his talents for music, food and photography, in his upcoming cookbook to be released in 2012.  All of George’s music can be found on on iTunes, Amazon.com and various other online sources, including his official website, GeorgeSkaroulis.com.  Three years ago I met George by phone told him of my interest in his music and we became friends. He sent me an autographed 8X10 studio picture (in which he hangs on my wall of fame), and with that he is always going to be a featured composer and artist of this website. George has many Alabama fans as well as the rest of the QUAD states (Georgia, Alabama, Florida and Mississippi), so visit his website please.


STEVE HAUN - Colorado Springs, Co. A prolific composer and artist, I fell in love with his music one summer when I was visiting my son. His Impressions is awesome but this piece I love the most...

He is awesome and can be found by contacting us here at Gamble Music.

AHREUM HAN - Organ Recital / Jan. 19th, 2013 Spivey Hall / Clayton State University:
visit her sight at http://www.ahreumhan.com/  (the full review is at ORGAN and MUSIC RECITALS )
you might check out the entire review there.
Ok, I got up this morning checked the arts section of the Atlanta Constitution and yep,  just as I guessed there was not a review of Ahreum Han's organ recital. OR did I miss it ?  Uh I'd say that it's a case of folks not being told of another great event in music. Allow me some of your time and I will try to explain the FLAWLESS and absolutely BRILLIANT performance of Ahreum.  Ok, I asked my friend Jim yesterday at lunch how to pronounce her name because like all musicologist "WE" want to be the first to know how to preach the "truth" in music. A' room (like I need a room), he said it's easy. So now you know.

Organist Ahreum Han’s imaginative, powerful, and extraordinary performances have thrilled audiences throughout the United States, Asia, and Europe. A rising star of the classical organ world, Ms. Han was a featured soloist at the National Convention of the American Guild of Organists to be held in Nashville, Tennessee in 2012. She was a featured artist at the Regional Convention of the AGO held in Atlanta, Georgia (2007), the Winter Conclave of the AGO held in Sarasota, Florida, (2010), the Young Virtuosi Festival held at Wesleyan University, Connecticut, Colorado State University, Colorado, and the White Mountain Musical Arts Bach Festival in New Hampshire.

Ahreum has appeared as a solo recitalist at the Kimmel Center’s Verizon Hall (Philadelphia); St. Bartholomew’s Church and Trinity Church, Wall Street (NYC); Princeton University Chapel; Memorial Chapel at Harvard University (Boston); Ocean Grove Auditorium (Ocean Grove, New Jersey), St. Philip’s Cathedral (Atlanta), Broadway Baptist Church (Fort Worth), Merrill Auditorium (Portland, Maine), Jack Singer Hall (Calgary, Canada), Michealskirche (Leipzig, Germany), Oxford Town Hall (Oxford, United Kingdom), Nottingham Albert Concert Hall (Nottingham, UK), and Esplanade Hall in Singapore. She has appeared as organ soloist with the Curtis Symphony Orchestra at Kimmel Center and the University of Pennsylvania Orchestra at Irvine Auditorium.

Ms. Han has received top prizes from numerous competitions including the Oundle Award, undergraduate division of Westminster Choir College Scholarship Competition, the Charlotte Hoyt Bagnall Scholarship Competition, the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) National Young Artist Performance Competition, the John Rodland Memorial Church Music Scholarship Competition, the Albert Schweitzer organ competition, the Carlean Neihart Organ Competition, the Edwin Seder prize at Yale Institute of Sacred Music, and the West Chester University Organ Competition. Her live performances have been featured on the radio show PIPEDREAMS from American Public Media.

She was born in Seoul, Korea. Her family immigrated to Atlanta, Georgia when she was sixteen. Ahreum graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in organ performance from Westminster Choir College where she studied with Ken Cowan. She obtained a Diploma from the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music having studied with Alan Morrison. Ms. Han received her Master’s degree from Yale School of Music and Yale Institute of Sacred Music studied with Thomas Murray.

Ahreum is presently the Principal Organist, Assistant Director of Music, and Artist-in-Residence at First Presbyterian Church in Davenport, Iowa. She also is on organ faculty as Lecturer at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. She has served as the Principal Organist at First Presbyterian Church in West Chester, Pennsylvania, an organist at Marquand Chapel of Yale Divinity School, an organist the Berkeley Divinity School of Yale University, and Organist at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Stamford, Connecticut.

Moving right along with wonderful music that everyone in the world seems to love one type of genre or the other. Enjoy this piece.... We'll be posting our own rendition soon. Thanks and enjoy.

There is yet another piece of music it's the Westminster Chorus: "Lux Aurumque", (composed by

Eric Whitacre). Performed in the "Petrikirche", a Protestant church (start of construction 1322) in Dortmund, Germany. The church is famous for the huge carved altar (known as "Golden Miracle of Dortmund"), from 1521. It consists of 633 gilt carved oak figures depicting 30 scenes about Easter.



It is proven that minor key songs are basically sad songs and major key songs are happy.  Karl Haas "Adventures in Good Music" featured such a show Major Up and Minor Downs and I've contacted WFMT in Boston to offer a playlist coming very shortly.  We have established that one way or the other that one likes a certain music, lets' continue to prove points of attraction between people and music. The above examples are just simple extractions that have proven themselves to be MAJOR MASTERPIECES already in peoples lives because one way or the other they are designed to be MAGNUM OPUS, "Major Works".  We will prove later the serotonin and dopamine transporters on the plasma membrane, distributes the feelings that we have for certain music.

MUSIC: GENTLE WAYS TO CHANGE BRAIN CHEMISTRY & MOOD
By Dr. Joel C. Robertson, from his best selling book, Natural Prozac
Music is one of the most powerful tools for changing brain chemistry. It alters our chemistry instantly, with no known negative side effects. If chosen well, music can be medicine for the mind and soul.
Virtually all the great composers have created music that alternately boosted serotonin and increased norepinephrine and dopamine. Compare the slow movement of a Beethoven symphony to a fast movement, for example. But almost every composer also created certain pieces that maintain a particular spirit and mood. This means that we can use individual pieces of great music to change our brain chemistries in a matter of minutes, if not seconds.
In order to help you explore the effects of music on brain chemistry, I offer a short list of composers and artists, along with examples of their music that boost either serotonin or norepinephrine. Remember that this is just a sampling; it would be impossible within the scope of this article to provide a comprehensive list of pieces or composers. I encourage you to explore the realm of music and its effects on brain chemistry. It's a great way to maintain a certain atmosphere in your life – either calming soothing, and serotonin boosting or exciting, inspiring and norepinephrine boosting.
Please remember that this list is rather subjective. This is a general list that may not fit you; you will need to tailor it for your own use.

Serotonin Boosters

Classical Composers

• Bach: especially the Brandenberg Concertos and “Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring”
• Beethoven: “Ode to Joy” (the choral movement from his Ninth Symphony)
• Chopin: especially his Preludes. Roy Eaton's “The Meditative Chopin” combines a variety of serotonin-boosting pieces from Chopin for piano
• Handel: especially “Water Music”
• Mozart: Allegro from Sonata Facile no. 16; Adagio from Clarinet Concerto; Andante from Piano Concerto no. 21; Overture from “The Magic Flute”; many others
• Pachelbel: Canon. The Canon is not being produced with ocean sounds in the background – very calming, soothing and serotonin boosting.
• Vivaldi: especially “The Four Seasons”, a major serotonin booster

Folk Music

Virtually all folk music is serotonin boosting. Choose any of the old favorites that most appeal to you.

Jazz and Rhythm and Blues

Rhythm and blues can be pretty depressing, especially if you're already depressed. Don't get me wrong – this genre offers a lot of great music, but most of the lyrics focus on life's travails. Many people find such music highly cathartic, emotional and healing, but others can be brought even lower by the deep suffering that the music often expresses. Therefore, I recommend exercising some caution in this category, at least until you feel ready to deal with your own deep emotional pain.
Jazz, on the other hand, can be incredibly uplifting and joyful. It can be melodic and soothing (thus a serotonin booster) or exciting and arousing (a norepinephrine booster). Choose the pieces you especially enjoy for their desired effects.

Rock and Roll

Most rock and roll is norepinephrine and dopamine boosting. However, rock is often hard to classify. Even hard rock bands produce serotonin-boosting songs from time to time, such as Guns and Roses' “November Rain.” Also, some people think of the Beatles and Simon and Garfunkle, for example as rock artists, though a great many of the Beatles' songs are serotonin boosters. (“I Will”; “Here, There and Everywhere”; “Something”; “Michele”; and many others), just as are most of Simon and Garfunkle's music (“Bridge over Troubled Water” is the classic examples). There are many rock artists who produce softer serotonin-boosting music. Once you get the hang of classifying music according to its effects on brain chemistry, you'll be able to go through your musical library and choose accordingly.

Musical Theatre

The music of musical theatre is generally upbeat and inspiring. Many of the stories have a happy ending and this boosts serotonin, too. Of course, there are exceptions, such as Leonard Bernstein's “West Side Story” and Andrew Lloyd Webber's “Miss Saigon” – musicals that offer perhaps more catharsis than uplift. The following list includes the names of some classic serotonin-boosting musicals.

• Cole Porter: “Anything Goes” and others
• Oscar Hammerstein and Richard Rogers: “ Oklahoma ”, “The Sound of Music”, “Carousel”, “South Pacific”, and many others
• Frank Loesser: “Guys and Dolls” and others
• Andrew Lloyd Webber: “Cats”, “Phantom of the Opera”, and others
• Stephen Sondheim: “A Little Night Music” and many other
• Marvin Hamlish: “A chorus Line”
• Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe: “My Fair Lady”

Neopinephrine and Dopamine Boosters

Classical Composers

• Beethoven: most of the music from the Fifth and Ninth Symphonies is arousing and will boost dopamine and norepinephrine
• Kabalevsky: “Gallop” from Opus 39, no. 18
• Mozart: Overture from “The Marriage of Figaro”; Menuetto from “A Little Night Music”; Serenade no. 13
• Tchaikovsky: most of “The Nutcracker” is arousing, as is much of Tchaikovsky's music

Rock and Roll

Most of modern rock and roll is arousing and consequently will boost norepinephrine and dopamine. There are endless choices to suit your tastes. Bruce Springstein's album “Born to Run” is a classic norepinephrine and dopamine booster.

Seratonin and dopamine are both endorphins. Endorphins are psychoactive chemicals released by the brain in response to certain stimuli. All drugs considered to be psychoactive drugs; illegal as well as prescribed cause the release of endorphins that effect brain chemistry. Seratonin is utilized as an endorphin in the brain but what most people are unaware of is that Seratonin as well as other endorphins are present in other areas of the body carrying out completely sepperate functions, for instance the majority of seratonin in the human body approximately 80% is located in the gastro-intestinal tract where its function is the regulation of intestinal movement.

With the music examples that I have posted you are seeing a tapestry starting to weave together of pieces that I have selected that I love but other people over the years have told me that they like. I have posted them here for two reasons, to further prove my point that (it's like a yawn, when one does it the whole room eventually will follow suit and do the same). Also and most importantly that serotonin and dopamine neurologically affect the way we perceive a certain music and it really depends what mood your in as to what you want to hear AND if you are in a certain mood just because a certain piece comes on (radio, cd or whatever the media) to change that original mood, it doesn't seem to aggravate the brain and feelings, make you say to jump up and turn it off.  I watched young and old over the years and (I AM NO DOCTOR) but I do watch people and young and old alike, they seem to like music based on "where and what" they are about.  Here is something that I ran into a while back I'd like  to share, they are NOT my words but I have said a few of them before trying to explain this point.

Posted on June 18, 2012 by kimmymc80
Music has got to be one of the greatest tings on the planet. I have found that by listening to various kinds of music, it can alter your mood greatly. There are so many different types of music out there, so which type does what? In a moment I will tackle this question.
After doing a bit of research I have found that music, if chosen correctly, can dramatically increase your pleasure states in your brain. Meaning, music can raise your serotonin, boost your norepinephrine, and dopamine. Also, studies have proven that music can dynamically show physiological indicators of emotional arousal. These physiological indicators include: changes in heart rate, respiration, electrodermal activity, body temperature, and blood volume pulse. This means that we can use individual pieces of great music to change our brain chemistries and physiological states in a matter of minutes, if not seconds. So, basically, music is a great medicine for both the mind and the soul.
Music can be used for numerous reasons. In it’s most simple form music is used to entertain. It is played at parties, weddings, sporting events, at home, or while driving. My favorite thing to do is to make a playlist on my IPod and hit shuffle, it can sure make a boring drive go by a lot quicker. I am that person you see singing at the top of her lungs while driving from here to there. I tend to get many a “double take” from complete strangers while sitting in traffic.
So many of us use music to help pass the time or make a monotonous task fly by. I know that I use music to help make cleaning the house a lot less tedious and exhausting. It would be quite boring without music to help entertain and allow the time to at least appear to pass quickly.
The second reason why people use music is for revival. Music can set the tone for your day or night. In order to get your day going, listen to something upbeat when you first wake up. It can put you in a better mood by listening to fun, happy music. Because music affects your mood, if you were to listen to slow songs in the mornings you might find it harder to wake up and get motivated to start the day. At night, when you are winding down or have had a stressful day at work or school, listen to music that will calm you. Slower beats, acoustic, or classical music can have a calming effect on the mind.
Another way people use music to their advantage is to receive a strong sensation. It can produce deep, thrilling experiences, particularly while performing or exercising.  Researchers found a positive correlation between faced paced music and exercise. It’s not too surprising that music works to increase exercising strength by distracting attention and pushing the heart and muscles to work at a faster pace. Not much is known about how or why it works, but it is thought to ease exercise. The best music to listen to is between 120-140 beats per minute, which also happens to be the standard tempo for upbeat dance music.
The next way music can be used to our advantage is by creating a diversion. Music distracts the mind from unpleasant thoughts which can easily fill the silence and decrease our anxiety.  This can help us from choking under pressure. In a study of basketball player’s who were prone to failing at the free throw line, research found they could improve the player’s percentage if they were to first listen to a catchy tune and hum it in their heads.  Listening to the Monty Python song, “Always look on the bright side of life,” caused the players to lose focus and execute their free throws with minimal involvement form the prefrontal cortex. If you are prone to getting anxious, worried, or choking under pressure, throwing on a humorous, light-hearted song before you perform might help distract your brain enough to keep you from failing. Distraction is considered one of the most effective strategies for regulating mood.
Using music to allow your body to discharge is another way to utilize it to your advantage. Music matching deep moods can release emotions having a purging and cleansing effect therefore boosting your immune system. Soothing music is known to decrease stress, and when it does that, it decreases the level of the stress hormone cortisol. It’s not just soothing music though, even upbeat dance music is known to increase the level of antibodies in your system.
The sixth reason why people listen to music is to help them with mental work. Music encourages daydreaming, sliding into old memories, and exploring the past.  You may remember some reports back in the 1990′s that said studying while listening to Mozart increases the likelihood of performing well on a test, but that has been disproven in some studies, and in turn studies have shown some music has a negative affect on fact retention if you’re studying numbers or lists. Still, performing music has been proven to increase memory and language skills, but for listeners, it’s better used as a means to recall memories. It has been shown in Alzheimer’s patients to help with memory recall, and even helps restore cognitive function. When you listen to music you know, it stimulates the hippocampus, which handles long-term storage in the brain. Doing this can help bring out relevant memories you made while listening to a particular song. If you’re having trouble remembering something, you may have better luck if you play the same music you were listening to when you first made the thought.
Lastly, music has been shown to help fight fatigue, especially if you change up the music often. Studies have shown that almost all music increases your mood, because it causes a release of dopamine. So if you are feeling tired, bored, or depressed, a good pop song might just be the cure you need.
The following are various types of music and the effect they may have on your emotional state:
Folk music- virtually all folk music is serotonin boosting.
Jazz and Rhythm and Blues- Rhythm and blues can be pretty depressing, especially if you are already depressed. Don’t get me wrong- this genre offers a lot of great music, but most of the lyrics focus on life’s travails. Many people find this music highly cathartic and emotionally healing, but others can be brought even lower by the deep suffering that the music often expresses. Therefore, I recommend exercising caution in this category, at least until you feel ready to deal with your own deep emotional pain. Jazz on the other hand, can be incredibly uplifting and joyful. It can be melodic and soothing (thus a serotonin booster) or exciting and arousing (a norepinephrine booster). Choose the pieces you especially enjoy for their desired effects.
Rock and Roll: Most rock and roll is norepinephrine and dopamine boosting. However, rock is often hard to classify. Even hard rock bands produce serotonin-boosting songs from time to time, such as Guns and Roses’ “November Rain.” Also, many of the Beatles songs are serotonin boosters. Most modern rock and roll is arousing and consequently will boost norepinephrine and dopamine. There are endless choices to suit your tastes. Bruce Springstein’s album “Born to Run” is a classic norepinephrine and dopamine booster
Musical Theatre: The music of musical theatre is generally upbeat and inspiring. Many of the stories have a happy ending and this boosts serotonin, too. Of course, there are exceptions, such as Leonard Bernstein’s “West Side Story” and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Miss Saigon” – musicals that offer perhaps more catharsis than uplift. The following list includes the names of some classic serotonin-boosting musicals.

• Cole Porter: “Anything Goes” and others
• Oscar Hammerstein and Richard Rogers: “ Oklahoma ”, “The Sound of Music”, “Carousel”, “South Pacific”, and many others
• Frank Loesser: “Guys and Dolls” and others
• Andrew Lloyd Webber: “Cats”, “Phantom of the Opera”, and others
• Stephen Sondheim: “A Little Night Music” and many other
• Marvin Hamlish: “A chorus Line”
• Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe: “My Fair Lady”

Classical Composers: Most classical music will boost norepinephrine and dopamine, the following are examples of these.

• Beethoven: most of the music from the Fifth and Ninth Symphonies is arousing and will boost dopamine and norepinephrine
• Kabalevsky: “Gallop” from Opus 39, no. 18
• Mozart: Overture from “The Marriage of Figaro”; Menuetto from “A Little Night Music”; Serenade no. 13
• Tchaikovsky: most of “The Nutcracker” is arousing, as is much of Tchaikovsky’s music

I composed a music playlist of various serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine boosting songs on YouTube so you can just press play and you will have hours of great mood elevating music.
I have also done a post on my site about if music can get you high. Feel free to check it out.
If you have some favorite music that puts you in a great mood please comment below and let us know what songs you find especially uplifting.

This is your brain on music by Daniel J. Levintin is a great book that I am still continuing to read and it's all about what happens to your brain while you listen to music.  Here are my findings:










The music of the Mountains.  Earle Hagen wrote most of the music for the Andy Griffith shows. I stop in wonder sometimes at his brilliance as to offering a clean music for t.v. One in which no profanity, no explicit sex suggestions, no drugs, only talk of a clean "laid back life of living" much like that in the town of Mayberry RFD. Earle Hagen obit said this:

 LOS ANGELES — Earle H. Hagen, who co-wrote the jazz classic Harlem Nocturne and composed memorable themes for The Andy Griffith Show,I Spy,The Mod Squad and other TV shows, has died. He was 88.

Hagen, who is heard whistling the folksy tune for The Andy Griffith Show, died Monday night at his home in Rancho Mirage, his wife, Laura, said Tuesday. He had been in ill health for several months.

During his long musical career, Hagen performed with the top bands of the swing era, composed for movies and television and wrote one of the first textbooks on movie composing.

He and Lionel Newman were nominated for an Academy Award for best music scoring for the 1960 Marilyn Monroe movie Let's Make Love.

For television, he composed original music for more than 3,000 episodes, pilots and TV movies, including theme songs for That Girl,The Dick Van Dyke Show and Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.

He loved it, his wife said. "The music just flowed from him, and he would take off one hat and put on another and go on to the next show."

Hagen enjoyed the immediacy of the small screen, he told the American Society of Musicians Arrangers & Composers in 2000.

"It was hard work, with long hours and endless deadlines, but being able to write something one day and hear it a few days later appealed to me," he said. "Besides, I was addicted to the ultimate narcosis in music, which is the rush you get when you give a downbeat and wonderful players breathe life into the notes you have put on paper."

Born July 9, 1919, in Chicago, Hagen moved to Los Angeles as a youngster. He began playing the trombone while in junior high school.

"The school actually furnished him with a tuba and his mother made him take it back," his wife said.

He became so proficient that he graduated early from Hollywood High School and at 16 was touring with big bands. He played trombone with Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey and arranged for and played with Ray Noble's orchestra.

He and Newman wrote Harlem Nocturne for Noble in 1939. It has been covered many times since and served as the theme music for Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer television series in 1984.

In 1941, Hagen became a staff musician for CBS but the next year he enlisted in the military.

After the war, he worked as a composer and orchestrator for 20th Century-Fox studios on dozens of movies, including another Monroe classic, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

In the 1950s, he and Herbert Spencer formed an orchestra partnership that also wrote music for television, including scoring the Danny Thomas hit Make Room for Daddy.

Later, he worked as musical director for producer Sheldon Leonard, sometimes working on as many of five shows a week.

One of his more notable TV scoring efforts was for the 1960s adventure series I Spy, starring Bill Cosby and Robert Culp.

Because the show used exotic locations worldwide, Hagen often included ethnic touches in the incidental music, among them hiring Greek musicians to play for some episodes that took place in Greece. On other locations, he collected ethnic music to mix with Western music back in Hollywood.

After retiring from TV work in 1986, Hagen taught a workshop in film and television scoring.

He also wrote three books on scoring, including 1971's Scoring for Films, one of the earliest textbooks on the subject. His 2002 autobiography was titled "Memoirs of a Famous Composer — Nobody Ever Heard Of."

Besides his wife, Hagen is survived by his sons, Deane and James, both of Palm Desert; stepchildren Rebecca Roberts, of Irvine, Richard Roberts of Los Angeles and Rachael Roberts of Irvine; and four grandchildren. His first wife, Elouise Hagen, died in 2002 following 59 years of marriage.

"The Lonesome Road" is a 1927 song with music by Nathaniel Shilkret and lyrics by Gene Austin, alternately titled "Lonesome Road", "Look Down that Lonesome Road" and "Lonesome Road Blues." It was written in the style of an African-American folk song.

The lyricist and composer were both extremely popular recording artists. Gene Austin estimated he sold 80 million records, and Nathaniel Shilkret's son estimated his father sold 50 million records. Joel Whitburn lists recordings by Austin, Bing Crosby, Ted Lewis, and Shilkret (see list of recordings below) as being "charted" at Numbers 10, 12, 3 and 10, respectively. There are no reliable sales figures that can be used to verify or dispute any of the estimates above. 

Welcome Sweet Springtime

Rearranged by Earle Hagen this Rubinstein song was very popular in the AG shows. 

Anton Grigorevich Rubinstein (Russian: Анто́н Григо́рьевич Рубинште́йн, tr. Anton Grigor'evič Rubinštejn) (November 28 [O.S. November 16] 1829 – November 20 [O.S. November 8] 1894) was a Russian pianist, composer and conductor who became a pivotal figure in Russian culture when he founded the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. He was the elder brother ofNikolai Rubinstein who founded the Moscow Conservatory (but was not related to the later Polish pianist Arthur Rubinstein(1887–1982)).

As a pianist, Rubinstein ranks amongst the great 19th-century keyboard virtuosos. He became most famous for his series of historical recitals—seven enormous, consecutive concerts covering the history of piano music. Rubinstein played this series throughout Russia and Eastern Europe and in the United States when he toured there.

Although best remembered as a pianist and educator (most notably in the latter as the composition teacher of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky), Rubinstein was also a prolific composer throughout much of his life. He wrote 20 operas, the best known of which is The Demon. He also composed a large number of other works, including five piano concertos, six symphonies and a large number of solo piano works along with a substantial output of works for chamber ensemble.

Here were a few examples of the music from the mountains. On my first trip with my son to the mountains of Tenn, I would be forever changed in my mind set of the music of the mountains as several wonderful and unusual things happened that week. First in Chattanooga visiting the town and Lookout Mountain, Ruby Falls, Chickamauga Battlefield, and Point Park. Then on to Pigeon Forge, (Dollywood), Gatlinburg, over the mountain range of North Carolina and on into Cherokee. Finally back to Alabama. On this trek my eyes and ears were opened to a whole new sound of music. In Chattanooga at Chickamauga and the battlefields I had researched the civil war music of both the North and the South. As bad as the confrontation was the music on both sides were true, beautiful and meaningful in the hearts of men and women. The MUSIC it seems was the only thing that both sides had that they could hold on to. Music was taken for granted as the war effort seemed so very important to both sides to "win" and loss of life superseded the beauty of music. Music though was the only thing that was the beauty of the war that lasted and will last for ages. 


NPR interview I could not refuse to post:

Author Daniel Levitin wrote about how the brain responds to sound in This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession. He spoke with Farai Chideya about his fascination with the effect music has on the mind.

(Soundbite of song "All My Ex's Live in Texas")

Mr. GEORGE STRAIT: (Singing) All my ex's live in Texas.

FARAI CHIDEYA, host:

Hey, maybe you don't like this song, but Daniel Levitin thinks even if you're hating it, what's going on in your brain right now is fascinating. It's the subject of his book, "Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession." And Levitin says like it or not, the difference between soulful music and awful noise is a matter of taste.

Mr. DANIEL LEVITIN (Author, "Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession."): I like to define music as organized sound because that's an inclusive definition. It leaves open the possibility that some musical style that we may not like can still be considered music by someone else - the idea that a composer puts together sounds in a particular order and has some intentionality to it, has some purpose. And it also includes some of the avant-garde classical music by Robert Normandeau, a French Canadian composer who I like very much who doesn't record with musical instruments. He goes out in the world and records sounds like trains going down the tracks and jackhammers, and he pitch-shifts them and shifts them in time and rhythm and makes little symphonies out of them.

CHIDEYA: Well, let's take a listen.

(Soundbite of music)

CHIDEYA: Why is that music and not noise?

Mr. LEVITIN: Well, I think, you know, of course music's in the ear of the beholder, right? I think it's music because this person who composed it intended it to be. And I don't want to be ethnocentric and say it's only music if I like it. That's the kind of thinking that had my parents hating Hendrix and The Beatles. You know, a lot of people say that hip-hop isn't music, and I think that part of the trick there is to learn how to listen to it. Ludacris is one of my favorite rappers because vocally he does things that are as complex as what Frank Sinatra's doing. I defy almost anybody to sing along with a Frank Sinatra record. No matter how well you know and sing perfectly in time with him, the reason you can't is because he's so artful with the way he manipulates time. He sings a little early, he sings a little late. He stretches words out. And Ludacris does the same thing.

(Soundbite of music)

(Soundbite of song "Blueberry Yum Yum")

LUDACRIS: (Singing) You're playing, don't know what you got but my bag will put you stuff to shame.

Unidentified Group: (Singing) (unintelligible) To shame.

LUDACRIS: (Singing) All the different kinds and other flavors. They don't mean a thing. You can't compare it, don't stare 'cause I got the ultimate Mary Jane.

Unidentified Group: Get you with me baby.

CHIDEYA: So Ludacris is someone who you see as manipulating time. What do you mean by him playing with time?

Mr. LEVITIN: Well, he is doing what musicians call syncopation. He's not just hitting his vocal notes where the drums are getting. He's putting it in between, in the cracks between drumbeats. And sometimes it's not exactly at dead center in between. So he's confounding your expectations of exactly where they're going to be.

And that's interesting. It's interesting to the brain because the brain is a giant prediction device. It tries to figure out what's going to happen next. And in general, the reason we like music, whether it's country or bluegrass or classic or jazz or hip-hop, it's because there is this unfolding over time.

There is a sequence of events, and almost always in music there is an aspect of certainty about when something's going to happen. That's what we call the beat or groove. We don't know always what is going to happen but to a large degree we know when. And a skillful composer and musician play around with this when sense a little bit, rewarding us sometimes, surprising as other times.

CHIDEYA: Personal question. I love, for lack of a better word, drum and bass music.

Mr. LEVITIN: Yeah.

CHIDEYA: And one reason I love it is because of the tambour, because it is like this sonic force and there are…

Mr. LEVITIN: It's textural music.

CHIDEYA: Very textural, and there is a lot of African influence in it as well. I mean, I think, if you look at people like LTJ Bukem…

Mr. LEVITIN: Yeah.

CHIDEYA: …who are blending African poly-rhythms with this completely high-tech electronic music.

(Soundbite of music)

CHIDEYA: What distinguishes that kind of music that is electronic but also organic?

Mr. LEVITIN: Well, one of the things is that their beats tend to be a lot more regular. They're typically made by a machine so there - normally, I would say that music that grooves the best is played by live musicians, normally.

You get Stevie Wonder drumming and - or you listen to George Clinton, it's infectious. Part of the reason it's infectious is because it's imperfect.

(Soundbite of song)

Mr. GEORGE CLINTON (Singer): (Singing) Hey, party.

Mr. LEVITIN: The brain is trying to predict when the beats will come, and it's being - the beats are being manipulated by human because humans are imperfect. They're not always coming exactly right. The brain likes this. The brain's a novelty detector. It becomes bored when things get too predictable, and we call that habituation.

In the case of drum and bass, the beats are perfectly predictable but what is unpredictable are the textures. There are all these higher order textures moving in and out of the music with a kind of a long cycle where synthesizers will come in and out, right? Different instruments you can't even name because they are like…

CHIDEYA: And samples sometimes.

Mr. LEVITIN: Yeah. Exactly. Right.

CHIDEYA: Local samples or a spoken word will come floating in and out. I heard Maya Angelou in an LTJ Bukem track, so.

Mr. LEVITIN: Yeah.

(Soundbite of song "Horizons")

Ms. MAYA ANGELOU (Poet): (Singing) A new hour, hold new chances, a new beginning. The horizon leans forward, offering you space to place new steps of change.

CHIDEYA: I'm not sure if she's ever heard it, but…

Mr. LEVITIN: You should get her on the show.

CHIDEYA: Exactly. And she's like, what is this?

(Soundbite of song, "Horizons")

CHIDEYA: Well, when you think of the book that you've written, "This is Your Brain on Music," it by its very title implies that music is psychoactive. What is the psychological effect of music both as we're listening to it and then as we consider its place in our lives?

Mr. LEVITIN: Well, listening to music has been shown now - we did some experiments in my laboratory that show that listening to music changes your brain chemistry. And we know that people use music the way they use drugs. They - a lot of people have a certain kind of music they use to get out of bed in the morning to help get them going, to get them started, to help them finish an exercise workout.

You come home at the end of the day, you reach for some music that will relax you, puts you in a good mood. And there are neurochemical changes that are associated with different kinds of music. Now it's not that one kind of music changes everybody's brain chemistry the same way. Everybody has their own taste and their own preferences.

What one person calls heavy metal another person might call soothing classic rock. But when you've got the music dialed in that you like, it will put you in a good mood, put you in a bad mood, propel you.

CHIDEYA: Daniel Levitin, thank you so much.

Mr. LEVITIN: Thanks for having me on the show, Farai.

CHIDEYA: Daniel Levitin is the author of "This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession."

Copyright © 2007 NPR. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to NPR. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.  NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.  
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A cellist at the Conservatory Lab Charter School in Boston plays during a recital rehearsal. Research has found music instruction has beneficial effects on young brains. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)

Remember “Mozart Makes You Smarter”?

A 1993 study of college students showed them performing better on spatial reasoning tests after listening to a Mozart sonata. That led to claims that listening to Mozart temporarily increases IQs — and to a raft of products purporting to provide all sorts of benefits to the brain.

In 1998, Zell Miller, then the governor of Georgia, even proposed providing every newborn in his state with a CD of classical music.

But subsequent research has cast doubt on the claims.

• Part 1: Unlocking The Brain: Are We Entering A Golden Age Of Neuroscience?
• Part 2: ‘I’m Not Stupid, Just Dyslexic’ — And How Brain Science Can Help
• Part 3: How Childhood Neglect Harms The Brain
• Part 4: How Addiction Can Affect Brain Connections
• Part 5: How Playing Music Affects The Developing Brain
• Videos: 11 Young Neuroscientists Share Their Cutting-Edge Research
• Q&A: 5 Ways The Brain Stymies Scientists And 5 New Tools To Crack It
• Brain Images: New Techniques, Bright Colors
• WBUR Series: Brain Matters

Ani Patel, an associate professor of psychology at Tufts University and the author of “Music, Language, and the Brain,” says that while listening to music can be relaxing and contemplative, the idea that simply plugging in your iPod is going to make you more intelligent doesn’t quite hold up to scientific scrutiny.

“On the other hand,” Patel says, “there’s now a growing body of work that suggests that actually learning to play a musical instrument does have impacts on other abilities.” These include speech perception, the ability to understand emotions in the voice and the ability to handle multiple tasks simultaneously.

Patel says this is a relatively new field of scientific study.

“The whole field of music neuroscience really began to take off around 2000,” he says. “These studies where we take people, often children, and give them training in music and then measure how their cognition changes and how their brain changes both in terms of its processing [and] its structure, are very few and still just emerging.”

Patel says that music neuroscience, which draws on cognitive science, music education and neuroscience, can help answer basic questions about the workings of the human brain.

“How do we process sequences with complex hierarchical structure and make sense of them?” he asks. “How do we integrate sensation and action? How do we remember long and difficult sequences of information? These are fundamental neuroscience questions, and music can help us answer some of these questions, because it’s in some ways simpler than language, but it’s still of sufficient complexity that it can address these very deep and important aspects of human brain function.”

In addition, Patel says music neuroscience research has important implications about the role of music in the lives of young children.

“If we know how and why music changes the brain in ways that affect other cognitive abilities,” he says, “this could have a real impact on the value we put on it as an activity in the schools, not to mention all the impact it has on emotional development, emotional maturity, social skills, stick-to-itiveness, things we typically don’t measure in school but which are hugely important in a child’s ultimate success.”

El Sistema At One Boston School

Kathleen Jara, co-director of the El Sistema program at the Conservatory Lab Charter School in Boston, directs orchestra students during a rehearsal for their year-end recital. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)

At the Conservatory Lab Charter School in Boston, every student receives music instruction.

“It doesn’t matter whether they have had music instruction before or not,” says Diana Lam, the head of the school.

The school, which accepts new students by lottery, is bucking a national trend, as more and more cash-strapped school districts pare down or eliminate music programs.

Lam says music is part of her school’s core curriculum because it teaches students to strive for quality in all areas of their lives — and because it gets results.

“Music addresses some of the behaviors and skills that are necessary for academic success,” she says. “Since we started implementing El Sistema, the Venezuelan music program, as well as project-based learning, our test scores have increased dramatically.”

Musically Trained Kids With Better Executive Functioning Skills

But what does the latest scientific research tell us? The question, according to neuropsychologist Nadine Gaab, is not simply whether music instruction has beneficial effects on young brains.

“There’s a lot of evidence,” Gaab says, “that if you play a musical instrument, especially if you start early in life, that you have better reading skills, better math skills, et cetera. The question is, what is the underlying mechanism?”

At her lab at Boston Children’s Hospital, Gaab leads a team of researchers studying children’s brain development, recently identifying signs in the brain that might indicate dyslexia before kids learn to read, as we discussed in an earlier report from this series. Gaab and her colleagues are also looking for connections between musical training and language development.

“Initially we thought that it’s training the auditory system, which then helps you with language, reading and other academic skills,” she says.

Instead, in a study published last month, Gaab and her team delineated a connection — in both children and adults — between learning to play an instrument and improved executive functioning, like problem-solving, switching between tasks and focus.

“Could it be,” Gaab asks, “that musical training trains these executive functioning skills, which then helps with academic skills?”

MRI scans show brain activation during executive functioning testing. The top row, row A, is of musically trained children. The bottom row, row B, is of untrained children. There’s more activation in the musically trained children. (Courtesy Nadine Gaab)

To find out, researchers gave complex executive functioning tasks to both musically trained and untrained children while scanning their brains in MRI machines.

“For example,” Gaab says, “you would hear the noise of a horse, ‘neigh,’ and every time you hear the horse, whenever you see a triangle you have to press the left button and whenever you see a circle you have to press the right button. However, if you hear a frog, the rule switches.”

While noting the children’s ability to follow the rules, the scientists also watched for activity in the prefrontal cortex of the brain, known to be the seat of executive functioning.

“We were just looking at how much of the prefrontal cortex was activated while they were doing this ‘neigh-froggy’ task in the scanner,” Gaab says. “And we could show that musically trained children and professional adult musicians have better executive functioning skills compared to their peers who do not play a musical instrument. We could further show that children who are musically trained have more activation in these prefrontal areas compared to their peers.”

So does music-making enhance executive functioning?

Gaab hastens to add, “We don’t know what’s the egg and what’s the hen.” That is, whether musical proficiency makes for better executive functioning, or vice-versa.

But Gaab cites other studies which imply the former.

“It’s most likely the musical training that improves executive functioning skills,” she says. “You could just hypothesize that playing in an orchestral setting is particularly training the executive functioning skills because you have to play in a group; you have to listen to each other.”

And Gaab says that’s analogous to what happens in the brain of a musician.

“There are a lot of different brain systems involved in successfully playing even a small musical piece: your auditory system, your motor system, your emotional system, your executive function system; this playing together of these brain regions, almost like in a musical ensemble.”

Changing ‘Brain Plasticity’

But the question remains: Why would acquiring musical skills influence language and other higher brain functions? Neuropsychologist Patel has developed a theory he calls the OPERA hypothesis.

“The basic idea is that music is not an island in the brain cut off from other things, that there’s overlap, that’s the ‘O’ of OPERA, between the networks that process music and the networks that are involved in other day-to-day cognitive functions such as language, memory, attention and so forth,” he says. “The ‘P’ in OPERA is precision. Think about how sensitive we are to the tuning of an instrument, whether the pitch is in key or not, and it can be painful if it’s just slightly out of tune.”

That level of precision in processing music, Patel says, is much higher than the level of precision used in processing speech. This means, he says, that developing our brains’ musical networks may very well enhance our ability to process speech.

“And the last three components of OPERA, the ‘E-R-A,’ are emotion, repetition and attention,” he says. “These are factors that are known to promote what’s called brain plasticity, the changing of the brain’s structure as a function of experience.”

Patel explains that brain plasticity results from experiences which engage the brain through emotion, are repetitive, and which require full attention. Experiences such as playing music.

“So this idea,” he says, “that music sometimes places higher demands on the brain, on some of the same shared networks that we use for other abilities, allows the music to actually enhance those networks, and those abilities benefit.”

One striking example of this is the use of singing to restore speech. At the Music and Neuroimaging Lab at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Dr. Gottfried Schlaug has pioneered singing as a therapeutic method of rehabilitating victims of stroke and other brain injuries, as well as people with severe autism.

And some of the most recent music neuroscience research is using music as a tool to better understand, and even predict, language-based learning disabilities.

But not all of the ideas behind this research, or even the methods, have come from scientists.

Using Music To Test Literacy Ability

Paulo Andrade teaches music at Colegio Criativa, a private school in Marilia, Brazil. He and his wife Olga, who’s also a teacher there, became interested in the relationship between musical and language skills among their elementary school students.

“We both work with the same children,” Andrade says, “and we started to exchange information about how the children were going. I could relate the musical development of children to their language ability and literacy.”

Andrade developed some collective classroom tasks to identify children at risk of learning disabilities. He asked his second-grade music class to listen to him play a series of chord sequences on the guitar, and identify each one.

“I asked [the] children to write visual symbols to represent the sound sequence they were hearing,” he explains, “a simple line to express chords in the high register and a circle to represent the chords played in the low register.”

Andrade made the students pause before writing down the identifying symbol. This would test their working memory, a kind of mental Post-it note crucial to language comprehension.

“What I presented to children was simple rhythm, for instance, [Andrade imitates the sound of his guitar] ti-tum-tum-chi. I counted the meter one, two, three, four, and then they start to write.”

What Andrade saw was that the kids who had severe difficulty with the task were also struggling with reading and writing. He knew he had good data, but he needed help from a scientist to analyze his data and methodology, and to write up the findings for publication.

“I read some papers by Nadine Gaab, and I searched for the page on the Internet and found Harvard and emailed her,” he says.

Recently, Andrade was in Boston on a Harvard fellowship, working on a follow-up to his research at the Gaab lab.

“We have found that this task, given to second-graders, can predict their literacy ability in the fifth grade,” Andrade says.

About her collaboration with the Brazilian music teacher, Gaab says, “I think that’s a really nice example of neuroeducation, bridging neuroscience and education.”

And she adds that Andrade’s musical test is particularly useful, in that it can be administered cheaply and easily to whole classrooms, regardless of the students’ native language.

“What we would love to do is replicate this study in the U.S.,” Gaab says, “but there’s no funding right now, so we’re working on that.”

Funding Concerns

Patel, the Tufts professor, says that getting funding for research in music neuroscience is often a challenge. It’s still a young field, he says, “and funding bodies tend to be very conservative, in terms of the kind of research they fund.”

The difficulty in sustaining funding may be similar to what music educators are facing.

“In terms of music in the schools,” Patel says, “it’s interesting that music is often the very first thing to be cut when budgets get tight, and as far as I know, that’s never based on any research or evidence about the impact of music on young children’s lives; it’s based on the intuition that this is sort of a frill.”

Gaab, Patel’s fellow neuropsychologist, agrees.

“Currently there’s a lot of talking about cutting music out of the curriculum of public and private schools, and I think it may be the wrong way to go,” Gaab says. “It may cut out some of the important aspects, such as to train executive functioning and have fun and emotional engagement at the same time.”

Both Gaab and Patel believe that music neuroscience is paying off, not only in showing the tremendous practical importance of music education, but also to help answer fundamental questions about the deepest workings of the human brain.