We've learned that musical ability is actually not one ability but a set of abilities, a dozen or more. Through brain damage, you can lose one component and not necessarily lose the others. You can lose rhythm and retain pitch, for example, that kind of thing.
Interpretation
Musical ability comprises multiple distinct skills that can be affected individually.
This quote highlights the complexity of musical ability, suggesting that it is not a single, unified skill but rather a collection of different abilities. It illustrates that even if one aspect of musicality, like rhythm, is compromised due to brain injury, other components, such as pitch, may still remain intact, emphasizing the diverse nature of our cognitive functions related to music.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of music education, this quote can illustrate the multifaceted nature of musical skills.
As soon as you hear a proposition, the creative brain in humans assumes for the moment that it's true, and starts trying to find evidence. It's what computer scientists in the old days used to call 'Fifo:' first in, first out. The first piece of information that gets in has a privileged position, even if it's misinformation.
What music is better able to do than language is to represent the complexity of human emotional states.
Information overload refers to the notion that we're trying to take in more than the brain can handle.
That walk around the block, that fresh air, is going to help you work more quickly and effectively when you get back.
There are a lot of books about how to get organized and a lot of books about how to be better and more productive at business, but I don't know of one that grounds any of these in the science.
There's an ancient connection between movement and music. Most languages don't make a distinction between the words 'music' and 'dance.' And we can see that in the brain. When people are lying perfectly still but listening to music, the neurons in the motor cortex are firing.
Perhaps one day earthquakes, hurricanes and financial crashes will all be predictable. But we don't have to wait until then for seismology, meteorology and economics to become sciences; they already are.
If we examine the accomplishments of man in his most advanced endeavors, in theory and in practice, we find that the cell has done all this long before him, with greater resourcefulness and much greater efficiency.
Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas.
I'm in favor of changing the destination of humans. There are a lot of manned missions that can be done, but not in the direction of the moon.
On Friday the 13th, April 2029, an asteroid large enough to fill the Rose Bowl as though it were an egg cup will fly so close to Earth that it will dip below the altitude of our communication satellites. We did not name this asteroid Bambi. Instead, we named it Apophis, after the Egyptian god of darkness and death.
When a coil is operated with currents of very high frequency, beautiful brush effects may be produced, even if the coil be of comparatively small dimensions. The experimenter may vary them in many ways, and, if it were nothing else, they afford a pleasing sight.
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