The power of music

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I thought this was lovely; a reminder of how music can transcend anything and reach anyone.

That's so cool! Really puts a smile on your face, doesn't it? You can instantly feel how that would be the highlight of someone's entire career. It's just such a strikingly genuine reaction. And the story behind it makes it even more meaningful. Really nice.

I wish you could post short clips of Youtube videos, but unfortunately that's not possible yet, so... pretend this video stops after the first few seconds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2d3dOam9Hg4&t=148s

That's what brought a tear to my eye - the unfiltered, totally genuine reaction, and yeah - I bet it certainly was a career highlight for most of the orchestra.
You just know the music really reached him, that all the complexities of the piece and the performance worked, delivering something which can only truthfully be met with... "Wow!".

And how great is it that it was a Mozart piece?
It's no jolly, tuneful piece either: all the more amazing that it captivated a 9-year old.




Corvids are incredible and excellent mimics - there was a magpie near an apartment I lived in which made calls exactly like an old Trimphone. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnVDn0FzumA)
YouTube has loads of videos of their performance in tests, demonstrating their problem-solving abilities.
There's also this - a young girl feeding crows who was rewarded with gifts.

The late Oliver Sacks talked about how music is one of the very few things that can get a response out of patients with severe Parkinson's, who cannot move or speak most of the time.

That's incredible, how simply mentioning Op. 49 generating an internal rendition is enough to cause the same response as an external one. The internal rendition isn't the surprise (I find it quite easy to "play" organ pieces internally) - but it having the same effect of overcoming Parkinson's as a physical rendition? That's basically saying sounds, imagined or real, can act as a medicine to create profound physical changes - and that's amazing.

There is so, so much unknown about the functioning of the mind, but it seems certain that music is one of the keys to unlocking it. Nothing else floods a listener with such emotions or feelings - way beyond that from words or images, I think.

I knew of a lady, a professional pianist, retired to a care home suffering with severe Alzheimer's. I don't think the staff there discovered the trigger (probably music-related) but occasionally she would flower again and give virtuoso performances on the battered upright they had. She became fully aware through playing the music - joyous, responsive and talkative almost as if the Alzheimer's had never happened.
But then, after a short time she would fade back into the grip of the disease and worst of all, she was aware of the regression occurring - a situation the staff found very difficult to handle.
Mercifully this unimaginable torture didn't last long and she died within a few months.

It's interesting though, the song doesn't sound mournful (to me, at least). It sounds contemplative and celebratory. I can imagine something like Carl Sagan talking about the wonders of the universe with that in the background. I wonder if the kid felt the same.

I think it's also interesting how the kid knew to react at the exact appropriate time. A second earlier or later and it just wouldn't have had resonated as strongly.


It's amazing how parrots and corvids seem to naturally develop relationships (both positive and negative) with people as if we were members of the same species. I wonder what could it be about their social instincts that allows them to recognize people as equals when we're so physically different. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with selection/evolution by/alongside humans as it is the case with dogs.

That's pretty interesting too about music and degenerative diseases.

It is incredible. My guess though is that in that case it's not necessarily like an earworm, but more like a choreography that you have rehearsed but can't do anymore because you've lost your legs. Sound binds the experience together, but I imagine that the fact that there's motor memory involved may be at least as important in causing that strong an effect without external stimuli.

I think that's very likely, and I agree about the piece sounding contemplative more than mournful. It shifts on several layers and is all the more complex because of that.
I guess it also speaks to the genius of Mozart, encapsulating something so perfectly that it still speaks fluently across generations and societies, without explanation, to the mind of a child where it bursts into life.

Yes - and despite appearances and assumptions of being non-verbal he is clearly and keenly very aware. Hopefully his parents will build on this experience and use it to help - I bet he'll become a natural musician with an in-built understanding of music.

It's bizarre, isn't it?
You'd think a lumbering great tower of flesh and bone would be enough to terrify any self-respecting bird!

Agreed, it's definitely working on a deeper and more significant level than an earworm. Viewing it as a kind of choreography makes perfect sense, even in the absence of actual motion because yes, the sound binds it all together.