Polley show: David Sulzer and The Physics and Neuroscience of Music
Welcome to this week’s edition of the Polley Music Library radio program on KZUM. For those
unfamiliar, the Polley Music Library is a public music library located on the 2 nd floor of the Bennett
Martin library downtown at 14th and N streets. The Polley Music Library is a service of Lincoln City
Libraries funded by the Lillian Helms Polley Trust. We have books about classical music, jazz, rock, pop,
blues, musicals, folk, hip hop, sacred music, and musical traditions from around the world. And we have
books about music education, music therapy, environmental sound and field recordings, music
production, recording, mixing and mastering, record collecting, music theory, the ins and outs of the
music business—you name it! Stop by any time Bennett Martin Public Library is open, and you can check
out materials with your library card!
Over the last decade or so, there have been a few notable books that have attempted to look at music
from the perspective of the sciences: Oliver Sack’s “Musicophilia” comes immediately to mind, full of
stories of music having seemingly unusual effects on the emotions or thinking of psychology patients or
those with neurological disorders. Then we have books like Music Genome Project head Nolan Gasser’s
“Why You Like It: The Science & Culture of Musical Taste,” in which he explains the kinds of musical
markers he and other researchers are finding that sometimes point toward getting relatively consistent
reactions from listeners. Clearly there’s something to that work, as the algorithms simmering under the
hood of services like Spotify or Apple Music depend on these things to keep listeners listening. We have
a whole section in Polley of books along these lines, this confluence between music, psychology, science,
and how music helps to inform the human experience, and I always love reading these. I think they’re
fun for both musicians and non-musicians alike. If you ever happen to drop by and want to check out
some books like this, try looking around the 781.1 or 781.11 area, and you’ll find a bunch.
Today I want to highlight the latest addition to this part of our collection, a great new book called
“Music, Math and Mind: The Physics and Neuroscience of Music” by David Sulzer. The author seems like
the perfect person to add to our common understanding of these issues, as he’s lived a life with a foot
firmly in both camps: by day, most probably know him as a professor of Psychiatry, Neurology, and
Pharmacology at Columbia University Medical Center. But many others know him as Dave Soldier, the
name under which he has led a rich musical career for decades. I think I first heard of his musical work
myself back in the 90s, for his excellent album “Smut” that came out on Avant Records in 1994. He’s
been on hundreds of records since then spanning a wide range of genres, and participated in some
really unusual kinds of musical projects, too, like the Thai Elephant Orchestra, which is incredibly just
what it sounds like, a group made of up to 18 elephants in northern Thailand improvising on musical
instruments which have been made to a larger, more elephant-friendly scale.
Our humble but highly-qualified narrator starts his introduction by telling us that “no one needs this
book”—you can enjoy music, or make music without ever knowing anything in here, and you’ll be fine.
This is followed by recounting the Renaissance origins of the conservatory system that’s still the basic
model for teaching music. Simply put, it was a system of educating orphans about music so they could
work as musicians. I never thought about the implications of this before: we think of these places as fine
art institutions, and of course in their way they are, but fundamentally they’re built on a trade school
model. Then Sulzer contrasts this mode of music education with other kinds of intuitive or instinctual
kinds of music-making. I’m already feeling good about the possibilities that lie ahead, and we’re only on
page 2. What was that about no one needing this book, again?
A few pages later, we get a list of the main questions Sulzer will address through the course of the book,
including things like:
Which sounds are in and out of tune, and how are musical scales derived?
How does the brain understand what it is listening to?
How are emotions carried by music?
How are we able to identify many sounds that occur simultaneously?
And many more.
Once we get into the heart of the book, Sulzer takes a gentle but systematic approach that’s both
satisfying for musicians and gentle enough for non-musicians to follow along with most concepts.
Starting with properties of sound waves in general, he then focuses in on the range of sound waves used
in music, which leads to harmonic overtones, which then lead to scales, harmony, and tuning issues.
Along the way, sidebars called “math boxes” focus in on specific concepts, and chapters all end with
listening recommendations to put concepts into an immediate context.
Eventually we go from harmonic concepts to rhythmic concepts, and most of our journey through this
first half of the book relates more to the physics of sound. The second half of the book addresses more
of the neuroscience aspects of sound and music, which are in some cases less fully understood by the
scientific community, but we can start putting together what is known to get some good ideas. Starting
with how the brain’s function relates to concepts of rhythm (something we talked about on the show
before, by the way, as these relationships were an area of focus for recently-departed percussionist
Milford Graves) and the chemical transmitters associated with delivering and storing emotional
responses in the brain, Sulzer gradually brings the physics and the neuroscience together. There’s a
particularly good narrative in chapter 9 that follows the a sound traveling into the brain, detailing its
typical neural pathway in detail.
The final chapters offer a quick overview of sound-related neural disorders and how those can affect the
understanding and appreciation of music for those with such conditions, and an overview of what we
understand so far about several animals’ relationships to music and sound. As you might expect, Sulzer
gets into more detail here about the Thai Elephant Orchestra project, which is fascinating to read. We
may not be able to determine definitively how many animals are reacting to music, but certainly it
seems like there are some notable relationships in the animal kingdom.
In the end, as Sulzer suggests at the beginning of the book, you might learn a lot of interesting facts
about sound, music, the physics of how it interacts with our bodies, and the neuroscience of how it’s
processed in our minds through this book, and you probably don’t need to know any of this stuff to be a
successful and satisfied musician. But it seems like knowing about these issues is likely to greatly
enhance your relationship with music, too, and impart as much specificity as we presently have toward
how it works its magic inside our bodies and minds. And that’s always a good thing.
Now let’s hear some examples of music that our author has been involved with on the music side of his
career. And remember we’ll find his music published under the name “Dave Soldier.” Here’s a fine
chamber piece to get us started, called “Fluor, Phospher, Lumen and Candle” from a larger piece of his
called “Sontag in Sarajevo.”
Dave Soldier – Fluor, Phospher, Lumen and Candle – Chamber Music – 2007, Mulatta 7:24
Starts at
Next, let’s hear a piece from Soldier’s involvement with the Thai Elephant Orchestra. As mentioned
earlier, you’re not hearing people performing here, but instead Soldier and several others have built
instruments for the elephants to play, and they’re improvising together here. This track is called “Thung
Kwian Sunrise.”
Dave Soldier & Richard Lair – Thung Kwian Sunrise – Thai Elephant Orchestra – 2000, Mulatta 5:18
Starts at
Another interesting project involving Soldier without his own actual composing was called the Tangerine
Awkestra. This group was featured as part of an experiment Soldier was exploring that involved notions
of so-called “nonartists” imitating music. Long story short, the group is made of children aged 2 to 9 who
listened to Ornette Coleman and Roscoe Mitchell albums, and were then set loose on a set of
instruments to make their own free jazz. In a sort of modified Turing test, 5 out of 8 listeners were able
to determine that this music was not so-called “real” free jazz in comparison to hearing some recordings
of free jazz on the Knitting Factory label. Here’s one of the pieces by the kids called “Everything is Soft,”
the end of their free jazz suite, which is called “Aliens Took My Mom.”
Tangerine Awkestra – Everything is Soft – Aliens Took My Mom – 2001, Mulatta 3:26
Starts at
And finally, let’s hear a piece by Soldier written for the Organ. This is called “A Year for a Pomegranate.”
Dave Soldier – A Year for a Pomegranate - Organum 2012, Mulatta 10:18
Starts at
I hope you enjoyed this introduction to the David Sulzer’s book, “Music Math and Mind: The Physics and
Neuroscience of Music!” And remember: we have lots of other music books, histories, biographies, and
much more for a huge variety of musical styles. And it’s all free with your library card! Any questions?
I’m always glad to help. You can reach me at polley@lincolnlibraries.org, or call the Polley Music Library
at 402-441-8520. Thanks for tuning in, and I hope to see you at the library soon!
