agribusiness: Spliced feed for The Science Network

Friday, May 23, 2008

Spliced feed for The Science Network

Make Music, Boost Brain [Sciencebase Science Blog]

Posted: 23 May 2008 07:00 AM CDT

Power of music I’ve played guitar - classical, acoustic, electric - for three decades, ever since I pilfered my sister’s nylon string at the age of 12, although even before that, I’d had a couple of those mini toy guitars with real strings at various points in my childhood. I eventually learned to follow music and guitar tablature, but was only really any good at keeping up with a score if I had heard someone else play the music I was hoping to make myself.

Meanwhile, I took up singing in a choral group (called Big Mouth) and have been compelled to become more adept at reading music in a slightly more disciplined environment than jamming on guitars with friends. Big Mouth formed in the autumn of 2007 and I’ve been with them from about October, so that’s several months of regularly, weekly singing practice and a couple of very low-key gigs. We even put together a last-minute audition video tape for the BBC’s Choir Wars, but didn’t make it through to the heats, unfortunately.

Anyway, that’s probably enough detail. The point I wanted to make is that until I joined Big Mouth and began making music regularly with a group, I’d always felt like I was quite useless at remembering people’s names. Like a lot of people I had to make a very conscious effort to retain introducees. However, in the last few months, with no deliberate action on my part, I’ve noticed that I seem to remember stuff like fleeting introductions, the names of people mentioned in conversations, or press releases and other such transient data much better than before. I’m curious as to whether it’s the more formal, group music that’s done something to the wiring in my brain to boost this skill or maybe it’s just the new friends I’ve made joining a new, fairly large social group like this. My suspicions are boulstered somewhat by a recent TED talk from Tod Machover and Dan Ellsey on the power of music

A post from David Bradley Science Writer

Make Music, Boost Brain

Bright object near moon before dawn May 24 [Earth & Sky Podcast]

Posted: 23 May 2008 01:05 AM CDT

Friday, May 23, 2008. The waning gibbous moon and blazing planet Jupiter ascend over the horizon after midnight tonight. They can be found close together before dawn on May 24, when they will be the two brightest objects in the predawn sky.