You Are What You Hear: How Music and Territory Make Us Who We Are

232 Pages·2010·3.96 MB·English

by  Harry Witchel

Y A W Y h
ou re hAt ou eAr
h M t
oW usicAnd erritorY
M u W W A
Ake s ho e re

Y A W Y h
ou re hAt ou eAr
h M t
oW usic And erritorY
M u W W A
Ake s ho e re
h W
ArrY itchel
Algora Publishing
New York
© 2010 by Algora Publishing.
All Rights Reserved
www.algora.com
No portion of this book (beyond what is permitted by
Sections 107 or 108 of the United States Copyright Act of 1976)
may be reproduced by any process, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form, or by any means, without the
express written permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data —
Witchel, Harry.
You are what you hear: How music and territory make us who we are. Includes
bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-87586-804-2 (trade paper : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-87586-805-9 (hard
cover : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-87586-806-6 (ebook) 1. Music—Psychological aspects.
2. Human territoriality. I. Title.
ML3838.W58 2010
781’.11--dc22
2010027180
Front cover image: © Michael Kloth/Corbis
Printed in the United States
To my father

A
cknoWledgeMents
It is not possible to complete a project of this size without a phenomenal amount
of help from many different contributors, and I can only hope that my gratitude to all
those people is equal in sentiment to their tangible contributions. This research project
and the book to accompany it took over five years to write up, and there are still aspects
of the program that are ongoing. Originally the project started as a series of third-year
physiology projects at the University of Bristol, and I am very lucky to have had several
sets of quite talented students, most of whom were medical students intercalating in our
Honors Physiology program. They contributed their creativity, enthusiasm, and hard work
to the making of the data that framed the thinking in this book. My thanks go out to my
students Amy Crees, Tim Knowles, Umar Yousuf, Rachel Jennings, Duncan McLauchlan,
Lauren Van Lancker, Alice Sai, and Aisha Egala. Special thanks go to Natalie Davies, who
in her role as my assistant psychophysiologist was critical in realizing many of the goals
that I conceived.
The project morphed into a more entertaining and popular endeavor when it was
put before the public. Although I had given numerous public lectures on other topics
pertaining to pleasure, I had never thought to present a lecture on music because I knew a
lecture with recorded music would be cheesy. It was Elaine Snell, then working with the
Dana Centre for the Brain in London’s Science Museum, who had the inspiration to have
me put together a music talk for the lay public with live musicians; it went exceedingly
well right from the start, and the talks that developed from that event have gone from
strength to strength, appearing internationally at science festivals and even in formal
academic meetings, so I am grateful to Elaine. As a result of her efforts I met two marvelous
musicians: clarinetist extraordinaire Karl Dürr-Sørensen and master French horn player
and composer Dominic Nunns. Many thanks to the boys for all the fun and music we have
shared on our travels. And on behalf of all three of us, I cannot thank enough all the event
managers, festival teams and venue directors for bringing our mixture of science and music
to your region (or country) and for making the events go as wonderfully smoothly as they
have done.
The process of turning this into a book would have been unthinkable without my
book team, whose efforts have been intellectually and creatively gratifying over these past
five years. No amount of praise could do justice to what has been contributed by Paul
Rauwolf, Clare Richardson, Peter Reid, Felix Marx (who did all the research from German
language sources), Dylan Trigg, Sonia Afzal, Elena Gualtieri, Martin Trigg-Knight, Nancy
Sai, Bruce Humphrey, Clare Nicholls, and Kate Richardson. It would literally have been
impossible but for their help. I also thank Martin DeMers and his excellent editorial team
at Algora Publishing for making it all come together in this book.
Most importantly, I have been supported by the people in my life, my profession, and
my office, who have bravely tolerated me over these last five years as the project took
shape. It could not have happened without Milton, Leigh, Pat, Julia, Sylvia, Fred, Cat,
Dafna, Giuli, Cath, Mette, Mal, Anna, Joey, and Lawrence. They have shaped my territory.
My final thanks go out to my audiences, who have stimulated me and made me think
in a thousand new ways about the pleasures inherent in music.