The Music Instinct

Monday 6 December 2010, 18:00 for 18:30-20.30
The Library, The Chemistry Centre, Burlington House

Tickets: £6 (including drinks)

Why do we like music? What makes a tune catchy? We had our first intimate café-style discussion at The Chemistry Centre.

All human cultures seem to make music - today and through history. But why they do so, why music can excite deep passions, and how we make sense of musical sound at all are questions that have, until recently, remained profoundly mysterious.

Even with what appear to be the simplest of tunes, the brain is performing some astonishing gymnastics: finding patterns and regularities, forming interpretations and expectations that create a sense of aesthetic pleasure. The latest research in music psychology and brain science is piecing together the puzzle of how our minds understand and respond to music.

Ranging from Bach fugues to Javanese gamelan, from nursery rhymes to heavy rock, award-winning popular science author Philip Ball provided the first comprehensive, accessible survey of what is known - and what is still unknown - about how music works its magic, and why, as much as eating and sleeping, it seems indispensable to humanity.