you worked on research you want to talk a little bit about

that so my doctoral thesis was concerned with the origins of the distinction between consonants and dissonance why are some chords considered to be perfect and others are considered diabolists and music at the devil what does the brain care the brain make a difference a distinction between those two I looked at that and I looked at auditory short-term memory and as we talked about earlier all it did was deepen the mystery so unusual things cause our brains to hang on to them a little bit longer in some cases because we need to figure out what was that so for songwriters and musicians who might be listening when you use an unusual chord kind of chord you don't hear every day when you throw in an unexpected inversion when you put in something that we weren't expecting to have happen our brains are going to be motivated to automatically think whoa whoa wait a minute what was that now and you won't think that consciously necessarily but your brain is hanging on to that object a little bit longer if that happens too often it becomes aversive that music just becomes too novel too cognitively taxing but if it can happen once or twice in the course of a a nice pop song you're intrigued and interested enough so it did inform my thinking of music and music listening your

command of the research literature is enviable and your ability to express yourself in writing is just superb you can close your ears but i'll tell the audience susan manages to be very rigorous and accurate with the science but in a way that doesn't make it seem like you're reading about science it's very conversational and fun and engaging dan thank

you for the praise but don't forget you're the one who

taught me you didn't need a whole lot

of teaching you had those writing labs where we would practice writing and still to this day i fantasize when i read something it's really really great i fantasize wow i wish i had been able to write that well when i was in dance lab

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