Something You Should Know - How to Harness Your Intuition & The Surprising Science Hidden in Music

Episode Date: September 15, 2025

It might sound strange, but the way you evaluate your relationship could actually depend on the chair you’re sitting in. Multiple experiments suggest that posture and stance can influence how you judge your marriage or partnership. In the opening segment, I explain this fascinating connection. https://archive.nytimes.com/well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/08/how-your-stance-may-test-your-marriage We all talk about intuition — that gut feeling when you know what to do without being able to explain why. But is intuition a real thing, or just a name we give to quick decision-making? And if it is real, can you actually strengthen it? To explore these questions, I’m joined by Laura Huang, professor of Management and Organizational Development at Northeastern University, who has also taught at Harvard Business School and the University of Pennsylvania. She’s the author of You Already Know: The Science of Mastering Your Intuition (https://amzn.to/45H7iRt). Music isn’t just art — it’s built on math and science. From Einstein using music for inspiration, to 50,000-year-old instruments unearthed by archaeologists, to the surprising role astronomy plays in the sound of the world’s most expensive violins — the links between music and science are everywhere. David Darling, science writer, music producer, and author of A Perfect Harmony: Music, Mathematics and Science (https://amzn.to/45H7zUv) joins me to uncover the hidden science behind the music we love. Finally, as summer fades, so do the mosquitoes — but have you ever wondered why some people seem to get bitten far more than others? The answer lies in how mosquitoes find their targets — and surprisingly, drinking just one common beverage can make you a mosquito magnet. I explain the science in this final segment. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0028991 PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS!!! INDEED: Get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Indeed.com/SOMETHING⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ right now! DELL: Huge savings on Dell AI PCs with Intel Core Ultra processors are here, and they are newly designed to help you do more, faster.  Upgrade today by visiting⁠ https://Dell.com/Deals⁠ QUINCE: Keep it classic and cool this fall with long lasting staples from Quince! Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Quince.com/sysk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns! HERS: Whether you want to lose weight, grow thicker, fuller hair, or find relief for anxiety, Hers has you covered. Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://forhers.com/something⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to get a personalized, affordable plan that gets you! SHOPIFY: Shopify is the commerce platform for millions of businesses around the world! To start selling today, sign up for your $1 per month trial at⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://Shopify.com/sysk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With Amex Platinum, you have access to over 1,400 airport lounges worldwide. So your experience before takeoff is a taste of what's to come. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Conditions apply. Today on something you should know, how could the chair you sit in affect what you think about your love life? Then understanding intuition. You know that gut feeling you get. Gut feel doesn't shout, right? It's quiet.

It whispers. We need to be better at listening to what whispers and not what screams. Our gut feel is always there. We might just not be noticing it because it's quiet and it's whispering. Also, how exactly do mosquitoes find you to bite you? And some of the fascinating science about the music you love, from Beethoven to the Beatles. What's interesting about the Beatles, actually, is if you try to you. trying to play along with some of the early tracks,

you play along with your guitar, say, as I've done, you'll find that you're actually out of tune with what the Beatles were playing. All this today on Something You Should Know. I'm Amy Nicholson, the film critic for the LA Times. And I'm Paul Shear, an actor, writer, and director. You might know me from The League, Veep, or my non-eligible for Academy Award role in Twisters.

We come together to host Unspooled, a podcast, where we talk about good movies, critical hits. Fan favorites, must-season, and in case you missed them. We're talking Parasite the Home Alone. From Greece to the Dark Night. So if you love movies like we do, come along on our cinematic adventure. Listen to Unspooled wherever you get your podcast. And don't forget to hit the follow button.

Something You Should Know. Fascinating Intel, the world's top experts, and practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know. Rothers. So why would you think that the divorce rate goes up after an earthquake? That sounds so weird, doesn't it? And that's what we're going to start with today. Hi and welcome to something you should know. So people who sit on wobbly chairs or at wobbly tables are more likely to think their relationship is in trouble. And this research stems from the observation that there are more divorces after an earthquake. In other words, physical instability leads to relationship instability.

Researchers tested 20 couples sitting at wobbly workstations rather than at stable workstations in one study. In others, more than 100 subjects filled in a questionnaire while standing on one foot rather than on two feet. And another study involves sitting on an inflatable seat cushion rather than a rigid one. The researchers found in all of these studies that physical instability led people to perceive their relationship to be less likely to last. These perceptions were associated in turn with reporting less satisfaction and commitment. So, pondering one's romantic relationship during an unsteady workout or a bumpy commute could undermine your sense of relationship stability. And that is something you should know.

We all understand the idea of intuition, that gut feeling that you can't quite explain. Some people swear by it. Others dismiss it as unreliable, biased, and unscientific. I've always been a bit skeptical myself, but still, most of us have stories where intuition seem to work, where we just knew what decision to make, and it turned out to be right. So what exactly is intuition? How does it work? Can it be trusted? And if so, can you sharpen it and make it work better? Well, my guest, Laura Huang, is here to dive in and explain. She is a professor of management and organizational development at Northeastern University and has held faculty positions at Harvard Business School and Wharton at the University of Pennsylvania. She's the author of the book

You Already Know, The Science of Mastering Your Intuition. Hi, Laura. Welcome to something you should know. Hi, thanks so much. It's a pleasure. So can you explain what intuition is? Is it a thing, or is it just a word to describe your collective wisdom that you pull up to make decisions? I think it's a little bit of both.

Intuition is absolutely a real thing. But where we go wrong with intuition is that we all sort of have a lay definition of what we think intuition and gut feel is. And when we don't actually have an accurate, a scientific definition of what it is and how it operates, that's where it can lead us astray. But when we really understand what it is and how we can hone it, harness it, and train it, that's when it actually is a superpower. That's when it can be trained to help us make the right decision.

attain greater levels of achievement. And then it truly becomes something that, you know, when they say intuition doesn't lie. Your gut feel doesn't lie. That's when it absolutely, you know, when we accomplish that. But can you explain what exactly is it? What is your intuition? It's our brain's intelligent synthesis of both external data. So it absolutely is data, but also the entirety of our personal experiences. And that's where it culminates in this summary, this executive summary that is data plus our personal experiences. Okay.

So what is the science of it? What is the scientific explanation of what my intuition is? Yeah. The first piece of it is that it's actually a process. And during this process, what's happening is our brain is not thinking in a linear way. Right. We tend to do lots of things linearly. Right. We read books linearly. We put together to-do lists and work through the to-do list linearly. But intuition is actually not something that's very linear. Right. So what's happening is that we're both we're both taking into account signals that are hitting us at the moment. We notice the smell of something. We notice the way that someone's tone, how they're speaking to us. But we're also blending together lots of things that are happening or have happened, things that we call our priors, right? So this is our prior experiences, our expertise, our background.

And what we're doing is we're sort of combining those things. But it seems that in that mix of things you're combining could be emotions, biases, tendencies that could cloud your judgment. And, you know, this is where I sort of, you know, I love this sort of analogy that I sometimes talk about. You know, emotions are sort of like children, right? You don't want them driving your car because they're going to crash it. But you also don't shove your children in the trunk because they might die, right? You want your children in the backseat where they can be seen and heard and attended to, but they're not actually fully in control, right? And I sort of love this. metaphor because that's sort of what's happening during this process, this intuiting process.

We're not supposed to suppress our emotions. We're supposed to give it the right seat. Emotions are a part of the process. They just shouldn't be steering. And so this is where a lot of people get mixed up because we tend to treat gut feel like it's an emotion. But what we're really doing is processing it. It's more layered. It's more nuanced. It's this lived experience. where we're subconsciously sometimes engaging in pattern recognition and using our memory, and all of this is rolled into an internal executive summary that then whispers to us. It whispers to us quietly and calmly and confidently. And so is intuition something you turn on and off,

or is intuition something that just speaks to you? And here's my example. So you're walking down the street and you're going to turn down this dark alley. And then you say, no, I'm not going to turn down that dark alley. Look, it's a dark alley. Is that my intuition? Is that common sense? Is that a thought process of just solving a problem before it happens?

What is that? That is your gut feel. That is your intuition. It has common sense rolled into it as well. So it's certainly, you know, common sense is a part of it. But that's a spitey sense, right, that you might have. You might not exactly be able to explain why you shouldn't turn down that. that dark alley, but you are feeling something. There is something that is there. And it might be

because you recognize patterns, right? That dark alley, something dark, you've walked down a dark alley before and you felt scared or you've been under danger or something. There's patterns there. There's memories there. There's emotions there. There's physical manifestations there. And so what happens is that our gut feel actually presents itself to us in three different ways. of three ways. And all of us have the ability to feel one of those three things. They're either eureka moments, spiky senses, or jolts. But how each of those present themselves to each of us is very unique, right? You might feel something in the pit of your stomach. Somebody else might start to get a headache or start to feel panicky. Somebody else might feel it in their shoulders

or some sort of soreness. We feel it differently, but we all experience ureca moments spidey senses and jolts wait a minute i i never thought of intuition as causing you discomfort or pain i thought it was a revelation of thought not if i'm feeling it in my lower back oh it absolutely has a physical piece to it as well so it's not necessarily positive or negative in nature. It's something that is inspiring you to action. And maybe that action is not going down that dark alley that you mentioned. Maybe it is leaving a certain career trajectory that you've been going down, but now you decide to go down a different avenue. Maybe it is moving to a different city. Maybe, you know, all of these are inspiring some type of action. And they're based on a judgment

or a gut-feel judgment that you're making. But what makes them so special? Because they can be, and probably often are wrong, you come to a decision based on your intuition, and it turns out you were incorrect. So how special was that? There's a couple of things that in terms of intuition, when I spoke earlier about your intuition doesn't lie, right?

Your gut feel doesn't lie. The first is around the type of problem that you're trying to solve, right? And again, this goes back to the science of intuition. There are four different types of problems that are out there, right? There are simple problems. There are complicated problems. There are complex problems and there are chaotic problems, right? And these are very, very different types of problems that are out there. With the simple problems, the ones that have some sort of probabilistic outcome, there is actually a right answer. We don't need our intuition, right? For complicated problems,

which are just actually a series of simple problems. We also don't need our intuition. But sometimes we use our intuition anyways for those types of problems and they might lead us astray. With complex and chaotic problems, the best we're going to do is get 80% of the information that we need.

There's always going to be some information that's missing. And that's why we need to trust and rely on our intuition. Something you said earlier, though, that I think is really relevant to this piece as well is, you know, how do we know that it's not just something, you know, how do we know that we should be paying attention to this? Well, Godfield doesn't shout, right? It's quiet. It whispers. And this is where I always, where I always tell people, we need to be better at listening to what whispers and not what screams. Right. We are, our gut feel is always there. We might just not be noticing it or we might be pushing it aside or ignoring it because it's quiet and it's whispering. And we live in this society now where there are so much that is shouting at us, so much that it's loud. We're discussing your intuition, what it is and how to use it. And I'm speaking with Laura Huang. She is a professor at Northeastern University and author of the book, you already know the science of mastery. your intuition. Tim's new scrambled egg loaded croissant.

Or is it croissant? No matter how you say it. Start your day with freshly cracked scrambled eggs loaded on a buttery, flaky croissant. Try it with maple brown butter today at Tim's. At participating restaurants in Canada for limited time. Hi, I'm Adam Gidwitz, host of Grimm, Grimmer, Grimmist. On every episode, we tell a grim fairy tale. Not the cute, sweet versions of the fairy tales that your children have heard so many times.

No. We tell the real grim fairy tales. They're funny. They're weird. Sometimes they're a little bit scary. But don't worry. We rate every episode grim, grim, grimmer, or grimist. So you, your child, your family can choose the episode that's the right level of scary for you. Tune in to Grimm, Grimmer, Grimmist, and our new season, available now. So, Laura, here's what often happens. So you have a decision to make and you sit down and you write down all the pros. and all the cons. Maybe you're going to thinking about moving to a new city or something and you talk to your friends and, you know, I've thought this through. And somebody says, well, what does your gut tell you? And the implication or the, what I infer from that is that somehow that's a better voice,

that your gut will show you the way. But I don't know that that's true. It's just maybe another voice. But there is this implication that your gut feeling. trumps everything. When you actually have gone through the exercise of understanding what your gut feel is and understanding that there is this process and there is this outcome, your gut feel does trump everything. And the reason why is because your gut feel already embeds that pro-con list. And not only does it have that pro-con list in it, but it also understands that there are nuances

where you change one variable and everything in that pro-con list is also going to change, right? That job ends up being in Chicago rather than New York. Well, many of those things on your pro-con list may now shift. You change one variable and the entire equation now needs to be balanced. And unless you use your gut feel, you're not taking into account that those pros and cons and the people you've talked to and all of the experiences you have and everything that you're triangulating fits together in a different way. But then how do you know that's right?

Well, what it is is because it's a process, you take that action and you're constantly sort of tweaking and iterating to make that decision the right one for you. So let me give you an example, right? So like flipping a coin, for example, when we're making a decision and we're flipping a coin like oh i should do this or i should do that i flip a coin it says

heads okay i'm not going to do that that moment that you flip the coin there's going to be a feeling where you are thinking uh i'm glad that it was heads because now i get to take option a or there's a moment where you say oh i wish it was tails because then i would have been told to take option b they're embedded in that that is your gut feel. You're getting a signal. And you can follow that, even though you flip the coin and it told you one direction or not, because you noticed that split second feeling of, I'm glad it was heads or I wish it was tails. You take that decision and you will make that the right decision, right?

Because you follow your gut feel and then you course correct whatever you need to do to make that decision the right one. So it's not sort of a, oh, how do I even know, or then how do I know, or then how do I know and constantly sort of second-guessing yourself? You're taking that summary judgment, that moment, and you're trusting it because you've put in the work, you've put in the effort to really hone it, to harness it and train it. So oftentimes people are faced with a decision, like you get offered a job and you have an immediate reaction that I really want this job. but then you go through this process of pros and cons and should I or should and I and what implications and then you use your quote intuition to come back to that initial reaction

and say well my gut told me to do it well was that your gut that told you to do it or was that just seems like a good idea or I mean what what's the difference at the moment where you thought I really really want this job right and you keep coming back to I really, really want this job, regardless of all of the due diligence that you're doing, the pros and con list, and all of those sort of things, right? If you realize that I really want that job came from somewhere, then that is that, you know, that catalyst for making that decision, right?

A trick that you can use, even at the very, at any stage upon, at any stage along this process, is you ask yourself, right, am I acting from clarity? or am I, or is it from a feeling I haven't yet named, right? If I was completely calm, would I be still making the same decision? And if the answer is yes, it's probably gut feel. If the answer is no, it might be something else. It might be, you know, someone else trying to convince you of something. It might be some sort of emotion that you haven't figured out, right?

Those are the things that you can do, right? You can also, if you're feeling urgency, pushing you towards some decision, give it 24 hours. If it's truly your gut, that clarity will remain. But isn't there a concern that when you have that gut feeling in the beginning, when you go, oh, I really want this job, and then you go to do your due diligence to see if it really is a good idea, since you've already pretty much decided, you're going to be looking for things that confirm your decision

rather than really being objective about maybe this really isn't such a great idea. you will continue to have those maybe this wasn't such a great idea kind of feelings come up that's the whisper the whisper isn't oh i really really want this job it's what keeps coming back to you what's that clarity that continues to come back to you what's that feeling that continues to come back to that you might be pushing away what are those whispers that you continue to be pushing away in favor of something else. Can somebody else's intuition guide you? No. Could your mother say, yeah, I just, sweetie, I just don't think that's a, knowing you as I do,

I don't think that's a good idea. Absolutely not. So our intuition is personal to us because we do not have the same experiences, the same background, the same personality, the same, any of the same things as anybody else. Each of us is unique. And therefore, each of us are going to have our own unique intuition and gut feel. So meaning if I'm experiencing something and I'm trying to make a decision, your gut feel might tell you something very, very different than my gut feel. And your gut feel is going to lead you in one direction.

Mine's going to lead me in another direction. It's going to be the right decision for each of us because we do have very different backgrounds, personalities, life experiences, and so on and so forth. So what I'm really want to get a handle on here is, is intuition the thing you use to make a decision every time that at the end of the road, it's basically up to your intuition? Or is intuition an option that you can disregard and go in a different direction? Or is intuition always the deciding thing? It's always the deciding thing for complex and chaotic problems where there is not a definitive right or right. wrong solution. But it is never the thing that you should rely on for simple problems or even complicated problems where there is a definitive, correct, probabilistic answer. So comment on this,

it's just kind of came to me that because I've also heard that much in life when you have a decision to make, it isn't so much the decision. Any decision could work, but it's your commitment to the decision. And if you feel good about your ability to use your intuition, it makes the decision better because you feel confident about the decision, regardless of what you end up choosing. Absolutely. If you use your gut feel and you know where that came from, you make it the right decision. You make it the right decision for yourself in all of the subsequent things, all of the subsequent actions that you take. So can you make your intuition, better, can you develop it and be more intuitive or your intuition is your intuition, that's

what you got and that's what you got? No, no, absolutely. There's a tutorial. There's a way to actually train it. So an exercise might be something as simple and I have a series of different things, but one example is when you're brushing your teeth, if you're right-handed and you're normally used to brushing your teeth with your right hand, you're so-called an expert. If you now take the opportunity to brush your hand using your left hand, right? You brush your teeth using your left hand. You start noticing things. You start noticing things like, oh, like this feels kind of awkward or, hey, I'm missing this part of my mouth that I usually maybe don't brush as well on or, oh, my gums kind of, like, hurt a little bit on this side. And you start to notice things, even though you're an

expert. And that helps you start to embed different data points and different, you know, considerations, even into just brushing your teeth. Now, you can think if you do this in other aspects of your life with different exercises and different ways that I encourage that I teach around how do you practice being a novice, it expands your mental models, your schemas, your prototypes, the ways that you think about things, and allows you to make better judgments and decisions in the long term. Well, great. One, I now have a much better understanding of what intuition is and what it's good for, what it's not good for, and how to use it. Laura Wong has been my guest. She is a professor of management and organizational development

at Northeastern University, and her book is called You Already Know, The Science of Mastering Your Intuition. And there is a link to her book, if you'd like to buy it, in the show notes for this episode. Thanks, Laura. This was really insightful. All right. Thank you so much. Do you love Disney? Then you are going to love our hit podcast Disney Countdown. I'm Megan the Magical Millennial. And I'm The Dapper Danielle. On every episode of our fun and family-friendly show,

we count down our top 10 lists of all things Disney. There is nothing we don't cover. We are famous for rabbit holes, Disney theme games, and fun facts you didn't know you needed, but you definitely need in your life. So if you're looking for a healthy dose of Disney Magic, check out Disney Countdown wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, join me, Megan Rinks, and me, Melissa D.Montz, for Don't Blame Me,

but Am I Wrong. Each week, we deliver four fun-filled shows. And Don't Blame Me, we tackle our listeners' dilemmas with hilariously honest advice. Then we have, but am I wrong, which is for the listeners that didn't take our advice. Plus, we share our hot takes on current events. Then tune in to see you next Tuesday for our listener poll results from But Am I Wrong. And finally, wrap up your week with Fisting Friday, where we catch up and talk. all things pop culture. Listen to Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. When you listen to music, you probably just enjoy it without stopping to think about what's really happening. But behind every note, every rhythm, lies a surprising amount of science and math. The pattern, structures, and formulas in music are fascinating, and once you understand them, you'll gain a whole new appreciation

for how music is created and performed. And here's something you might not expect. Astronomy, the science of the stars, actually plays a role in music, which you're about to hear from my guest David Darling. David is a science writer and music producer and author of several books, including a perfect harmony, music, mathematics, and science. Hi, David, welcome to something you should know. Hi, Mike. Nice to be here. So, of course, there's math and science in music, just as there is math and science involved in how my car works.

But I don't need to know all that much about the science of how my car works to drive and enjoy driving my car. And most people don't know that much about the science and math of music. Yet they still enjoy it. So why do we need to explore this? Well, of course, you don't have to know about the science of music to enjoy it. Thank goodness we can all sit back and listen to a Beethoven symphony or the Beatles without knowing the physics of what's going on.

Nevertheless, it's an intriguing story. And it's an important story to tell because these three areas have evolved together right from the dawn of civilization and pre-civilization, actually pre-history. So I think it's a story to tell. It's not necessary, you know, to your everyday life to know about these things, but I just think it's an interesting story to tell, and one that hasn't really been dealt with that much in the past. So give me a quick story, a quick example of how science and music intersect.

Well, for example, we all know that start a story. of vari violins sell for astronomical amounts, you know, millions of dollars. And these violins were made in the, I suppose, late 17th, early 18th century in Cremona area of Italy. And there's something about them makes them different than, you know, other violins. Otherwise, they wouldn't be so expensive. They have a very rich tone to them. So what is it about them that is different? Well, the woods, the woods from which these violins were made came from forests that grew in what we call the Little Ice Age, which is about between the 16th and 19th century, where global temperatures were lower than normal. Now, what this meant was that the trees didn't grow as much in summer as they would have done otherwise, and the growth rates were low throughout the year, similar in winter to summer. So that meant that the woods in these trees is very hard.

And if you make a violin from hard wood, it's going to have a greater resonance than if you make it from wood that has gaps in it, as it were, gaps in the tissue. So why was there a little ice age? Because the amount of heat that we got from the sun was lower. The sun goes through phases where it gives us less radiation at times than others. And so these violins have this wonderful tone because of the density of the wood, which in turn is related to the behavior of our neighborhood star. So you've got there a direct, well, it's not an obvious connection, but it certainly exists between the musical sounds that an instrument makes

and the behavior of our nearest star. So talk about the Beatles, the science there, because as you had mentioned a moment ago, you know, a lot of musicians don't, I mean, they didn't even read music, let alone. know about the science of it all, but what is the science of the Beatles? What was special about the Beatles? Well, they emerged at a certain time. They obviously had a natural talent between them, McCartney and Lennon in songwriting.

They were aided by advances in technology at the time, in studio equipment, and had a very good musical director as well. And so these ingredients came together. What's interesting about the Beatles actually is if you, try to play along with some of the early tracks, say from the, you know, one of the original albums, the first one or two. You play along with your guitar, say, as I've done,

and you tune your guitar to what you think is the concert pitch where A, middle A, is 440 cycles per second. That would be what you'd get off your tuning for. You'll find that you're actually out of tune with what the Beatles were playing. Now, that doesn't mean that the Beatles were, you know, playing badly, or they were purposely playing out of tune. But what they did was, they would roll up to the studio. They didn't have much money, so they had to tune into whatever instrument was available, which was usually the upright piano. And if that piano happened to be not in concert pitch, neither would their instruments be.

So they were in tune with themselves, but not with, for example, what an orchestra would have been. So that was one of the curiosities of early studio recording. You get some of these songs that are on these well-known albums, and they're not actually in the pitch that they really should be in. Isn't that interesting? You would think that that's something that you'd get right if you're going to record a song. Well, it is right. I mean, in the sense that, you know, they didn't write music for others to play along with, in a sense. They didn't really think about it.

They were in a hurry to get recorded, so they all rolled in with their instruments, which would presumably be all out of tune because guitars, he could. go easily out of tune. So what would they do is they would tune into whatever instrument was available and would and would be in tune with itself at least and that would be generally the piano. So if the piano was a few cycles per second out of, you know, true pitch, that's what the piece would be played in. And you find this quite a lot in the early Beatles. It can be sometimes a little bit high, sometimes a little bit low. They're all in tune with each other. So it sounds great, but it's just not in standard tuning. Of course, they

had to fix that eventually because they started playing with orchestral instruments, and you can't expect an orchestra to tune to whatever you happen to be tuned in. It's the other way around. So these days, you find that that doesn't happen. Of course, you're electronic tuners and all the rest of it,

so that's not a necessary a problem. You do find it back in the 60s music. So throughout history, new instruments have come and And have any of those instruments messed with the science of music? Have they been revolutionary and changed things? The piano is the biggie, because once you get a keyboard instrument like that,

I mean, if you've got a string instrument, for example, you can easily retune it. Or if you've got a wind instrument, you could have a variety of wind instruments. They're fairly simple. So you could have, for example, a variety of flutes where the holes are at different places, spacings. But something as big as I say a church organ or a piano, you know, it's fixed. You can't go around retuning the piano every time you want to play in a different key. So they did have a big effect on music. And that's what led to equal temperament.

And that's kind of what drove the changes to the modern system of music. But there's no instruments which we kind of broke the rules. They all follow science. They all have to play together ultimately. Of course, eventually we ended up with the electronic instruments. which can play any sound you want because they're created artificially. And that changed how music sounds in the modern age.

But they all have to follow the rules of physics, ultimately, and they all have to sound good when played together. It's just that the physics behind them is quite different, and music has evolved to accommodate greater complexity as time has gone on. Well, what you just said about electronic instruments being able to make any sound, but I like to think that I can tell the difference between a real violin and a fake violin,

the fake violin sound of an electronic instrument, that they can't really get it perfect? Well, it can be so close that it's sometimes very hard to tell. You're probably right. It depends on how sharp your ear is. I work with a musician, a musical director, that he's got a fantastic ear. He can pick things out that I just go over my head, you know.

But certainly, um a synthetic violin that you could for example produce on a home studio it's it's so close that you know you wouldn't want to bring in a full orchestra to uh to replace what it sounds good enough i mean it's it's it's so good that if you looked at the waveforms you'd be hard pressed to see much of it and it's getting closer and closer all the time so i think the strides certainly you know in the last decade or so have been so great that you know it's It's as good as you can, you know, that's as good as you need it, really, in most cases. Tell me another story of the science of music that most people probably don't know that was really instrumental.

Yes. Instrumental in the instrumental music business. Exactly, yeah. Well, if you look at a fellow such as Einstein, he was a very, very good amateur musician, violinist in particular. I also played the piano. And I think he said that, you know, in another life, he would have been a musician and music was vitally important to him. If he got stuck on something, you know, stuck on an aspect of his theory or the mathematics of it, general relativity, for example, he would take himself into another room and he would just play. And he would play composers that he believed were inspired.

And by that, I mean, composers that believed that the music they composed was not coming from themselves, but was coming from outside. They act as like as aerials. And I think a lot of musicians say this, you know, that they just received a song or they received a piece of music. They were just receptive to it, you know. And Einstein was very much into this way of thinking. So he would play pieces that he believed had been essentially given to these composers. And he said many, many times in his writings and his speeches that that's where he got inspiration for his science. He would do this, he would play his music, and then he would sit down again, and very often there was the answer,

because he believed that the inspiration for his theories, again, came from outside. It wasn't him thinking away and being a genius and inventing stuff. He was just being receptive. He was open enough to these ideas that were already out. out there in the cosmos and he was able then to put them down on paper. So he drew a direct parallel between musical inspiration and scientific inspiration. And he used music to drive his own progress. And so did Max Planck as well.

He was one of the pioneers of quantum mechanics. And he was a very, very good organist, a keyboard player, pianist. And he said that he could easily have gone into music as a career. And he also drew inspiration. for his own theorizing from playing music. So there's just a direct parallel. These are some of the greatest scientists who've, you know, in the 20th century, you've said this.

I wanted to ask you about the science of sad songs. And sad songs are oftentimes in the eye of the listener. But there are songs that I think most people would agree. Yeah, it's kind of a sad song. So is there a science to that? If you want to create a sad song, is there something called sad music and there's a science to it? Well, we talk about happy and sad. It's obviously a pretty sharp distinction.

You could have things in between there. But if, for example, I'm speaking to you, let's say I was going to give you some bad news, not something terrible. Let's say, for example, I've just put in a proposal, or you knew about it, I was putting in a proposal for a new book. And I'm now going to tell you what the outcome was. I might say, oh, Mike, you know, that proposal I put in for a book. Well, the publishers rejected it, so that didn't work out too well. Or if I gave you the good news that it had been accepted, I'd say, hey, Mike, guess what? You know, that proposal I put in, they accepted it, you know?

One's sad, one's happy. What's the difference? Well, in the first case, I was talking very flat, you know, my speech wasn't varying very much. It was within a kind of a fairly narrow range. And it was slow as well. It was the other one. It was bouncy. It was covering quite a rim.

Voice was going up and down. All the rest of it. So that's what happens in speech. The same thing happens in music, you know. If you think of a sad, thinking of the funeral march, you know, it sounds so depressing. But if you speed it up, you know, Dan, da-da-d-d-da-da-da-da-da-da, you know, all of a sudden it sounds like a Jewish wedding song, you know.

It depends how the music is presented very often. But that's not universal because in some cultures, it can be reversed so that what seems to us sad, you know, they take to be that's pretty upbeat. You're not upbeat in the sense of fast, but it makes them feel joyous. So a lot of it has to do this sort of cultural thing as well. And if we're brought up to think that, you know, low and slow and within a limited range is sad, that's what our music will be. So that's a kind of a simple thing. Obviously, what's going on in the brain is pretty complicated, but I think there's a direct relationship between our speech and how we receive music. There's something about music and the brain that I assume is science.

And I'll give you an example so you can comment on it rather than try to explain. it, I'll just give you some examples of what I've heard, that there are singers, musicians, Tony Bennett as a singer, and Glenn Campbell as a guitar player. Both of them had dementia in their later years, but Tony Bennett could still remember all the lyrics to his songs. Glenn Campbell could still play the guitar like crazy, even though he had trouble remembering names and faces and things. What is that? Well, I mean, I could give you a Another example is my mom, when she was young and when I was a little kid, she was a very good amateur soprano singer. So she was singing operatic stuff, you know, and she would sing it around the house.

So I'd be downstairs playing with my toys and she'd be upstairs doing something. And she would be singing in full voice, you know, like an opera singer, which to most people would seem quite strange. But to me, because it was happening every day, it was just the normal thing. My friends would come in and say, you know, what's that coming from? I said, it's just my mom's singing. They think it was on the radio or something. So later in life, towards the end of her life, she had Alzheimer's. But the strange thing was, and I think many people have seen this too,

is that if something came on the radio or song on the radio that she knew from when she was young, all of a sudden, she remembered the lyrics, she remembered the tune, and she'd be singing along with it just like the old days, you know, even after she could barely form a sentence. So that had a powerful effect on me. because I thought there's something going on here that music is different, you know? There's parts of the brain that are not affected as much by Alzheimer's. The musical ability, at least, is not as touched.

And of course, these days, Alzheimer's choirs, dementia choirs, are springing up everywhere because people are, you know, realizing the benefits that music brings to community singing, but people with Alzheimer's who can still enjoy life, because they can come alive when they're singing music. So music has this almost sort of magical effect. Well, I like that. I like that there's magic to music

because, yes, there's science and math in music, but that doesn't make music science. It is an art, and there's some magic to it. I think there has to be. Another thing is music universal. And this is where I think it is because it's mathematical in its basis. So you probably know that we've got a couple of spacecraft that are now in interstellar space. The Voyages 1 and 2.

And they both have an LP essentially attached to the side carrying 90 minutes of music, everything from Beethoven to Chuck Berry, you know, to samples of their music. Even with a little – so it's just like a regular LP, and they've even included a little stylus, sort of any aliens, it they can figure out how to play it and it makes you wonder if would they recognize it as music do they have music and would we recognize what they play as music I believe we would because there are common elements to all of the varieties of human music which are tremendously varied I mean they might

have different hearing for example they might have different styles of music I think we still recognize it as as music so So I think it kind of has like a cosmic significance as well as being something human-related. And certainly there's music in the animal world. I mean, gorilla mothers, for example, will hum to their young, just as human mothers do, you know, sort of make up a little lullaby on the spot. So it goes beyond human experience, certainly. And I believe that if there is, you know, intelligence out there,

that it will have a form of music too, and we would probably recognize it as music. You know, we've talked before about how music is universal. Every culture has some form of music. Music goes way, way back before anybody knows. But do we have any idea? What's the oldest musical instrument that's ever been found? Earlier, possibly the earliest, is called the Neanderthal flute, which has been dated to 50,000 to 60,000 years ago, It was found in a cave in Slovenia,

and it was found near a hearth that was used by Neanderthals, so we're not even talking about modern humans here. And it's a bone of a bone of a cave bear, a young cave bear, and there's been holes board in it at certain spacings, and replicas of this flute have been made today, and you can actually play tunes on it. You can play, you know, intervals that today we would be playing are represented on this flute, which is 50,000 plus years old. And certainly by 40,000 years ago, we were finding bone flutes with many holes in them, and these were obviously being used as musical instruments.

So the origins of music go back tens of thousands of years, but obviously before that, you know, you come. don't record songs, they don't they evaporate. So we've lost touch with the origins of music, but certainly we know that by around 50,000 years ago, humans and pre-humans were playing musical instruments, which can play tunes that we would recognize today. Well, certainly music touches everybody's life, and it's fun to hear about the science and the history of it.

David Darling has been my guest. He is a science writer. and a music producer, and he's author of the book, A Perfect Harmony, Music, Mathematics, and Science. There's a link to that book in the show notes. Thank you, David. Thanks a lot, Mike. Pleasure. If you live in an area that has mosquitoes, then you know one of the good things about the end of summer is the mosquitoes tend to go away. Have you ever wondered why it's so hard to avoid mosquitoes? Well, the answer is, because they're really good at finding you.

They pick up the scent of carbon dioxide. That's the gas we exhale. They detect that, and they can smell it from up to 30 feet away. They then use their visual sense to determine if you are a person or other appropriate creature. Then when they get close, they sense your body heat to help them zoom in on just the right spot. Mosquitoes are attracted to some people more than, and others, and that seems to have to do with microbes on your skin. Some of those microbes on some people seem to repel mosquitoes.

However, mosquitoes do seem to go for beer drinkers, microbes or not. And that is something you should know. We love that word of mouth advertising. That's how we get new listeners is when you tell people that you know about this podcast and clue them in so they can give a listen. So it would be appreciated if you would share this podcast, or tell people about it and help us grow our audience. I'm Mike Hurruthers, thanks for listening today to something you should know.

Let me tell you about, well, actually, let me recommend a podcast to you. It's called Think Fast, Talk Smart. And it's a podcast that will help you be a better communicator in every situation. Every Tuesday, the host, Stanford Lecturer Matt Abrams, talks with experts to get their best advice to develop and sharpen your communication skills. So maybe you need help with your presentation skills, or you want to be better at small talk.

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