Believe Your Ears

Believe Your Ears is the memoir of composer Kirke Mechem, whose unorthodox path to music provides a fascinating narrative. He wrote songs and played music by ear as a newspaper reporter, a touring tennis player, and a Stanford creative-writing major before studying composition and conducting at Harvard. He describes his residencies in San Francisco, Vienna, London, and Russia, and gives detailed attention to his choral music, operas, and symphonies. He writes that “the twentieth century gave us much brilliant music” but shows how atonality came to dominate the post-war period. His lyric style belongs to no particular “school,” avoiding the trends, –isms, experiments, fads, and lunacies of the period. He encourages younger composers who are trying to bring back beauty, passion, and humor—even entertainment—to classical music. He asks music lovers to believe their own ears, not the lectures of “experts.” Believe Your Ears is addressed to all who love classical music. Along the way, readers will meet Dimitri Shostakovich, Wallace Stegner, Billie Jean King, the Grateful Dead, Richard Rodgers, Benjamin Britten, Bill Tilden, and Aaron Copland—a who’s who in Mechem’s storied career.

In this ground-breaking synthesis of art and science, Diana Deutsch, one of the world's leading experts on the psychology of music, shows how illusions of music and speech--many of which she herself discovered--have fundamentally altered thinking about the brain. These astonishing illusions show that people can differ strikingly in how they hear musical patterns--differences that reflect variations in brain organization as well as influences of language on music perception. Drawing on a wide variety of fields, including psychology, music theory, linguistics, and neuroscience, Deutsch examines questions such as: When an orchestra performs a symphony, what is the "real" music? Is it in the mind of the composer, or the conductor, or different members of the audience? Deutsch also explores extremes of musical ability, and other surprising responses to music and speech. Why is perfect pitch so rare? Why do some people hallucinate music or speech? Why do we hear phantom words and phrases? Why are we subject to stuck tunes, or "earworms"? Why do we hear a spoken phrase as sung just because it is presented repeatedly? In evaluating these questions, she also shows how music and speech are intertwined, and argues that they stem from an early form of communication that had elements of both. Many of the illusions described in the book are so striking and paradoxical that you need to hear them to believe them. The book enables you to listen to the sounds that are described while reading about them.

Discusses the sense of hearing, and how the ear works to interpret sound, includes simple experiments to investigate hearing.

Why do we do what we do? Why can’t we do what we want? How can we achieve and maintain psychological health? What are the consequences, especially for our kids, when science and education take a back seat to myth? Why are we not happier? What makes for good relationships? How can we adapt to the massive changes driven by a shrinking world, a shrinking middle class, and exponential growth of digitization? Helpful answers to many of these kinds of questions are often found in obscure scientific journals. Many of these hidden bits of wisdom offer the best perspective to help us lead psychologically healthy lives, but we never see them. Now, they are boiled down here, in over 100 simple, short, fresh, and sometimes humorous chapters, to help you live well between your ears.

I'm not hanging noodles on your ears. In Moscow, this curious, engagingly colourful assertion is common parlance, but unless you're Russian your reaction is probably "Say what?" The same idea in English is equally odd: "I'm not pulling your leg." Both mean: Believe me. As author Jag Bhalla demonstrates, these amusing, often hilarious phrases provide a unique perspective on how different cultures perceive and describe the world. Organized by theme - food, love, romance, and many more - they embody cultural traditions and attitudes, capture linguistic nuance, and shed fascinating light on "the whole ball of wax." For example, when English-speakers are hard at work, we have our "nose to the grindstone," but industrious Chinese toil "with liver and brains spilled on the ground" and busy Indians have "no time to die." This surprising, often thought-provoking little tome is gift-friendly in appearance, a perfect impulse buy for word lovers, travelers, and anyone else who enjoys looking at life in a riotous, unusual way. And we're not hanging noodles from your ear.

This book is based on an extensive filmed conversation between Howard Burton and Diana Deutsch, Professor of Psychology at UC San Diego and one of the world’s leading experts on the psychology of music. This conversation provides behind the scenes insights into her discovery of a large number of auditory illusions, including the so-called Octave Illusion, which concretely illustrate how what we think we’re hearing is often quite different from the actual sounds that are hitting our eardrums. This carefully-edited book includes an introduction, Revealing Mistakes, and questions for discussion at the end of each chapter: I. Eclectic Beginnings - Music, art, philosophy, and philosophical psychology II. Tones, Pitches and Critical Values - Intriguing results in music and memory III. The Octave Illusion - How to confuse the brain with tones IV. Medical Applications - A highly suggestive result for epilepsy patients V. Eyes vs. Ears - The neurophysiological differences between vision and hearing VI. Gut Issues - The impact of discomfort VII. The Scale Illusion - Auditory scene analysis and evolutionary factors VIII. Surrounded by Illusions - From the Glissando Illusion to Tchaikovsky’s 6th IX. Perfect Pitch & Tone Languages - Why Mandarin might help your musicianship X. Towards Monotony? - The tonal implications of globalization XI. Embracing Discomfort - The benefits of being confused About Ideas Roadshow Conversations Series This book is part of an expanding series of 100+ Ideas Roadshow conversations, each one presenting a wealth of candid insights from a leading expert in a relaxed and informal setting to give non-specialists a uniquely accessible window into frontline research and scholarship that wouldn't otherwise be encountered through standard lectures and textbooks. For other books in this series visit our website (https://ideas-on-film.com/ideasroadshow/).

In this book you will read about common life experiences. You will quickly learn of the uncommon approach by the author. There are many examples offered and questions asked. Much of this information has been received via a strong intuitive process. There may be many surprises along the way that have you contemplating your approach to the world. Without college degrees or religious protocol, this author has learned to listen to a much more reliable source. The human condition is changing and it involves everyone, including you. With an open mind and an open heart, you will be placing yourself in a position to listen to your own intuition. Do not keep yourself in our current standard of only following the latest trend or relying on the experts. Our world is not going to end. It is changing and moving in directions that allow all of us a much more desirable experience should we choose. You are not as far away from knowing how to listen to those intuitive thoughts and feelings as you might think. This book is delivered directly from such a place. You will find clarity in these chapters that will cause you to gain understanding and control unlike anything you have known.