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How Music Hijacks Our Perception of Time

nautil.us

21–30 of 32 posts

Re: How Music Hijacks Our Perception of Time

#21
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a dotjs extension (firefox) which sole purpose is to prevent those pesky huged fixed headers.

Can you provide a link? This is probably my hugest pet peeve when it comes to browsing the internet. I have no idea how fixed headers became so trendy and I find them absurdly painful. I tend to read at the top of the page and scroll down to keep my current line near the top, and (large) fixed headers really mess with that. Small ones can still be annoying, but some like Facebook's aren't that bad. I even asked a que…

Here is the link to the extension: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dotjs/

And here is the code for `~/.js/_kill-position-fixed`:

    $('div,a').css('position',
      function (index, value) {
        if (value == 'fixed')
          return 'static'
        }
    )
Then I just link the domain name of the offending website to that file:

    ~/.js $ ls -l
    _kill-position-fixed
    polygon.com.js    -> _kill-position-fixed
    techcrunch.com.js -> _kill-position-fixed
I don't remember where or from who I copied this though.

Re: How Music Hijacks Our Perception of Time

#22

Give me back my vertical screen real estate! ( inspect element ... untick position: fixed ... done)

Oh! There was an article down there! I'm embarrassed to say that I genuinely didn't notice it. I just closed the tab in disappointment.

Also, the scrolling is broken. You press "Page Down", and you miss some of the text that scrolls by. This is suboptimal.

Re: How Music Hijacks Our Perception of Time

#23
post #14

Mainstream music is impoverished by its adhesion to danceable tempos and rhythms. With classical the music 'breathes' more. Listening to the top charts on Spotify, the defining trend of today's pop music seems to be a driving bass drum through all 4 beats of the bar, and getting louder for the chorus.

It's not impoverished, it just has a different function. You could equally say "classical music is impoverished by its dismissal of danceability" (and you'd be equally wrong)

Re: How Music Hijacks Our Perception of Time

#25
post #14

Mainstream music is impoverished by its adhesion to danceable tempos and rhythms. With classical the music 'breathes' more. Listening to the top charts on Spotify, the defining trend of today's pop music seems to be a driving bass drum through all 4 beats of the bar, and getting louder for the chorus.

It's not impoverished, it just has a different function. You could equally say "classical music is impoverished by its dismissal of danceability" (and you'd be equally wrong)

> It's not impoverished, it just has a different function.

Its primary function is to make money. Compare that with the primary function of dance music from twenty years ago, which was to blow the speakers and give the listeners heart attacks.

Re: How Music Hijacks Our Perception of Time

#26
post #2

Edit: I expected an analysis of the neurological effects of music, but was not disappointed to find a critique of a String Quintet instead. In 2004, the Royal Automobile Club Foundation for Motoring deemed Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyrie the most dangerous music to listen to while driving. Clearly they've never experienced dubstep.

I highly recommend reading 'This is your brain on music' by Daniel J. Levitin if you're interested in learning more about the neuroscience side of music.

Also Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks.

Re: How Music Hijacks Our Perception of Time

#28
post #14

Mainstream music is impoverished by its adhesion to danceable tempos and rhythms. With classical the music 'breathes' more. Listening to the top charts on Spotify, the defining trend of today's pop music seems to be a driving bass drum through all 4 beats of the bar, and getting louder for the chorus.

It's not impoverished, it just has a different function. You could equally say "classical music is impoverished by its dismissal of danceability" (and you'd be equally wrong)

But there is lots of danceable classical music. My point is that mainstream music rigidly adheres to steady tempo and rhythm. If you only listen to mainstream music (like most people) then you don't hear much exploration of that entire 'dimension' of music.

Re: How Music Hijacks Our Perception of Time

#30

It's odd that the author does not specify what string quartet he is referring to, just calling it "The String Quartet"- Schubert had 15 of them.

In fact, it is a quintet, not a quartet, that the author was referring to. And it was the one in C major, as made clear in the beginning.
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