I am not simply talking of pitch, but pretty much anything that one could perceive as out of place in a song. It could be rythm or even a simple question of mood.

You will notice that I said usually.

I'm sure you know about this Satch, but it might be interesting for others:

I was watching some documentaries about savants, in particular Kim Peek, who has memorized every note of every song of every album of every artist he's ever listened to just once. He was born with damage to his cerebellum where the bundle of nerves that connects the two hemispheres of the brain is missing.

Although he is able to memorize everything around him, it is very difficult for him to make connections between memories. So even though he has mentally mapped every note he's heard, he can't really relate them to an emotion or feeling. They're just notes.

(Kim Peek is the real life inspiration behind Rain Man)

I met him, he actually has two different issues....Agenesis of the corpus callosum and Macrocephaly.


P.S. You should check out Daniel Tammet. What makes him different than the vast majority of Savants is he can explain it to you....and in several languages.

He's one of the 1% of non-autistic Savants on the Third Rock from the Sun.

I saw the documentary The Boy With The Incredible Brain which had me thinking about it for a couple days straight

I might pick up his book, Born On A Blue Day.

Have you read it?

P.S. When you met Kim, did you speak with him? If so, what was the conversation like?

Personally, with my visual art background and horrendous abilities in math, I really have no conscious appreciation for music in a mathematical sense -- actually, this is the aspect of music that turned me away from it as a child. Additionally, this probably explains my great love of free jazz, free improvisation and noise -- rhythm is only so interesting to me; I'm more intrested in timbral combinations, stylistic contrast, and those wonderful intangables like "creativity" and "emotional intensity".

This probably relates to why I'm studying to be a "sound designer" as opposed to a "musician". The minute you call something music you bring with it all of the preconceptions and expectations of the audience as to what music is an should be -- they tend to be much more forgiving and open minded to pure aesthetic sound.

Also, I'm really starting to despise equal temperment, but I guess that's another discussion.

There is still a whole lot of math involved.

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other word would smell as sweet."

1. Yes, I have.

2. Interesting and depressing. He can break off all kinds of data, but like a computer has no real understanding of that data.

aka

There but for the grace of God....