[Harp-L] Re: music and perception

["rick epping" <rickepping@xxxxxxxxx>]

After a few episodes back in the 1970s of awakening from sleep hearing music
in my head that was particularly loud and clear, I had the notion that it
was not all simply occurring in my mind, but was being physically generated
in my ears as well.  Just as a microphone can function as a loudspeaker (and
vice versa: an ear bud headphone jacked into a tuner's mic input makes a
pretty good contact mic for tuning reedplates), I reasoned that a
musical impulse beginning in the brain can travel down the auditory nerves
to stimulate the cochlea's cilia and onward, driving the middle ear bones to
vibrate the eardrum and create an audible sound.  For years I was convinced
that small microphones inserted into my ears might be able to record this
"mind music".  Regrettably (or perhaps thankfully!) such episodes of intense
mind music were for me mostly spontaneous and few and far between.  The few
times I actually stuck a microphone in my ear I was nowhere near the state
of mind required for coming up with the tunes.

However, a few years ago I heard that researchers have done just this: very
sensitive microphones inserted into subjects' ears were able to record
sounds generated by the eardrum.  I've developed the theory that when we are
enjoying a piece of music our brains may be responding, or playing
along by creating additional, contributory vibrations in the ear.  The
degree to which we enjoy or are moved by a piece of music may to some extent
be correlated to the degree to which our brains add to what we hear.  This
might in part explain why a piece of music may at leave us relatively
unmoved at one hearing and inspired at another; our brains may need to
actively take part in making the music in order to appreciate it.  When we
are truly transported by a piece of music we may even be experiencing a kind
of feedback loop, with the brain responding to more and more of its own
contribution to the sound waves.  While the actual volume, or amplitude of
sound created by the ear may be very little compared to that entering from
the outside world, its significance could be vastly greater.

Rick