William Beeman, Anthropology
"The Neurobiology of Opera"
Readings

• Winerman, Lea (2005) The mind's mirror, Monitor on pshychology (APA), 36 9
  download 72kb pdf
  
  
• Bachorowski J., Smoski, M., & Owren, M. (2001) The acoustic features of human laughter, J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 110, No. 3, Pt. 1
  download 702kb pdf
  
  
• M.A. Umilta, E. Kohler, V. Gallese, L. Fogassi, L. Fadiga, C. Keysers, and G. Rizzolatti, (2001) I Know What You Are Doing: A Neurophysiological Study, Neuron, Vol. 31, 155–165,
  download 518kb pdf
  
  
• Sundberg, Johann. (1977). The Acoustics of the Singing Voice.Scientific American 236, no. 3 (March)
  

Hide Abstract

     Music drama is the dominant presentational entertainment form in the world, and opera (along with musical comedy and operetta) is the variety that is dominant in the West. The popularity of opera is somewhat of a mystery, because it presents an audience with an unnatural human situation--people singing rather than speaking to each other. However, the effects of opera on an audience are undeniable. For many audience members, opera triggers autonomic emotional responses that are highly pleasurable--so pleasurable in fact, that people will return again and again to see and hear operas that they know almost by heart. Why should this be so? In this talk I will try to begin to answer some of these questions through a discussion of pre-frontal neurological structures, mirror neurons, and the unique human response triggered by the "singers formant" a unique acoustic property present in the voice of classical singers.