PBS - Nova - "Musical Minds"
Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 11:48 pm
I watched this show tonight and was totally enthralled. Brain function, plasticity, neurology...are things few of us deal with on a day-to-day basis. I know some of the 'Nuts have neurological issues to deal with in their families. This show was all about music and brain function, and the therapeutic effects it can have.
-- A blind, autistic young man is a musical savant -- he can play anything he hears after listening once, but can go way beyond mere replication, playing scales and developing motifs all around the core music.
-- An orthopedic surgeon with no musical training and a taste for rock and roll is struck by lightning and becomes a composer and classical pianist.
-- A young man with Tourette's Syndrome (mostly tics, not outbursts) does not experience the tics while drumming, and even better, is working with others suffering the same symptoms to help them find ways to step outside the confines of their neurological constraints.
I was simply stunned and deeply moved. Music is something whose depths and benefits we really cannot fathom. But it is making a HUGE difference in the lives of some people who truly might have ended up in institutions or worse.
It was one of the most uplifting things I've ever watched.
-- A blind, autistic young man is a musical savant -- he can play anything he hears after listening once, but can go way beyond mere replication, playing scales and developing motifs all around the core music.
-- An orthopedic surgeon with no musical training and a taste for rock and roll is struck by lightning and becomes a composer and classical pianist.
-- A young man with Tourette's Syndrome (mostly tics, not outbursts) does not experience the tics while drumming, and even better, is working with others suffering the same symptoms to help them find ways to step outside the confines of their neurological constraints.
I was simply stunned and deeply moved. Music is something whose depths and benefits we really cannot fathom. But it is making a HUGE difference in the lives of some people who truly might have ended up in institutions or worse.
It was one of the most uplifting things I've ever watched.