[Image: Luigi Russolo and his noise machines… something otherwise irrelevant to this post] Wired just published a conversation between neurologist Oliver Sacks and journalist Steve Silberman … about music, memory, the neurological benefits and pressures of sound, blindness, and the (possible) dangers of urban noise pollution. An excerpt:

Wired: When you were growing up, hearing music often required going to see it performed. But iPods make music ubiquitous, like mental air-conditioning. What have we gained or lost by that?

Sacks: At first it would seem to be a wonderful gain. Darwin might have had to go to London to see a concert. But I can’t help wondering if the incidence of earworms and musical hallucinations is higher now, with background music in every public place. You can’t go to a restaurant without music, and they get offended if you ask them to turn it off. They feel it’s part of their creativity – they’re doing it for you.

The brain is very sensitive to music; you don’t have to attend to it to record it internally and be affected by it. I think we may be exposed to too much loud and repetitive music. One patient of mine has epileptic seizures induced by music and has to wear earplugs in New York City. It’s a dangerous place for him. Read the rest at Wired… [posted on BLDGBLOG]

Urban Noise Generation - The Observer this week takes a look at the sounds of cities. “For some,” we read, “living in a city is a loud, unpleasant babble of intrusive noise. For others it is a soundscape of calming tones that lift the spirits and brighten the day. Now a £1m, three-year research project is building a database of noises that people say improve their environment. It will translate those findings into design principles to help architects create sweeter-sounding cities.” Wonderfully, the leader of the study “is looking for members of the public to take part in mass ’sound walks’ through cities or in laboratory listening tests, where the team will use MRI scanners to measure participants’ brain activity as they are played a variety of urban noises.” They will thus develop an artificial soundtrack for the urban future. More on BLDGBLOG.