Science Confirms: 12-Tone Music Confusing

From the Was This Study Really Necessary? department:

"A new book on how the human brain interprets music has revealed that listeners rely upon finding patterns within the sounds they receive in order to make sense of it and interpret it as a musical composition."

You don't say. Go on...

"While traditional classical music follows strict patterns and formula that allow the brain to make sense of the sound, modern symphonies by composers such as Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern simply confuse listeners' brains."

Okay, well, first of all, both of those composers died six decades ago, so they hardly qualify as "modern." What the authors actually mean is "modernist," which was a movement that burned brightly with composers (and considerably less brightly with audiences) in the mid-20th century. These days, the number of prominent composers still working who persist in writing modernist music can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

But I'm sorry, I interrupted. You were saying...

"In the early twentieth century, however, composers led by Schoenberg began to rally against the traditional conventions of music to produce compositions which lack tonal centres, known as atonal music."

Now, there again, Schoenberg did not write "atonal" music. He created a new and complex system of tones and chord structures known as "12-tone" music. It involved all kinds of grids and math and chromatic doodads and such, but it is not, strictly speaking, atonal. Atonal means that you can just throw any combination of notes together and call it music.

Yes, I'm a nerd. But my point is that Schoenberg's music is actually more strictly organized, from a pattern standpoint, than a lot of traditional tonal music. So theoretically, our pattern-seeking brains should eventually be able to detect those patterns and relax, once we've been conditioned to hear that kind of music. And as those of us who've spent a lot of time with modernist music will tell you, that does, indeed, happen, up to a point. Your brain will never mistake Webern or Berg for Mozart, but you do eventually get a bit of an aural handle on what's going on.

"Research has shown that listening to music is a major cognitive task that requires considerable processing resources to unpick harmony, rhythm and melody."

Uh-huh. Which is why listening to a Mahler symphony is mentally exhausting (but exhilirating,) while listening to a Lady Gaga song (or, for that matter, a Strauss waltz) is the mental equivalent of eating cotton candy. But this all seems pretty common sensical. Was there some actual, y'know, science in this scientific study?

"Using brain scanning equipment Professor Kraus, who presented her findings at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Diego on Saturday, said the brainwaves recorded from volunteers listening to music could be converted back to sound.

"In one example where volunteers listened to Deep Purple's Smoke on the Water, when the brainwaves were played back the song was clearly recognisable."

Oh, for the love of... yah. Great. Can we assume that the double-blind study confirming that Wagner had a thing for tubas is on its way?