The Rhythm of Life

Abstract:

Man is as much a product of music and rhythm as he is of nature.

Industrialization has robbed us of this music, leaving mankind a frustrated lot.

This article is a prayer that in the journey of life, may this music never leave us - and symbolically explores this idea via trains.

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What is it that differentiates a human from the rest of the species? All species have emotions, care for each other, search for food & shelter, reproduce. One thing which sets us apart is the ability to appreciate rhythm, dance, and enjoy music.

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Why we like music - A Scientific Experiment

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A team of scientists from University of Texas set about scanning the brains of volunteer Tango dancers in the CT-PET machine hile they were listening to music and performing simple steps of a dance (see photo). This enabled them to track the blood flow in different areas of the brain under different conditions.

Jumping directly to the conclusion, their research tells us that:

- Areas in brain like ‘Anterior Vermis’ and ‘Medial Geniculate Nucleus’ act like a Metronome, helping synchronize our movements to a guiding rhythm. Also, these areas bypass some of

the processing that takes place during normal listening (eg. via auditory cortex). That is why several times we find ourselves sub-consciously tapping our fingers/feet to music without initially realizing it.

- Precuneus contains a sensory-based map of one’s own body, helps to plot a dancer’s path from a body-centered, or egocentric, perspective.The great thing is that it seems that the primary purpose of these areas is to enable appreciation and execution of music and dance. For regular activities like walking/exercising, listening to someone, there are other areas of the brain which enable and regulate these activities.

- Brocas Area of the brain is activated both when we dance as well as when we communicate eg. speak. Both activities may be related, eg. we are hardly able to talk without hands moving and without facial expressions, even though there may not be a need to do so.

The research paper then goes into beautiful speculation into why all this may have occurred. Imagine a time long ago when humans were just starting to differentiate from apes. They could make fire and would sit around in a group each evening collectively cooking their food. This would spontaneously lead to dancing around the fire with the accompaniment of a rhythm via a simple drum or sticks. Rhythm involves some amount of mathematics to keep time, dance involves expression of feelings - and the process of doing these activities may in fact have been responsible for the development of the brain in its unique human form – combining the elements of expression/communication, spontaneous subconscious familiarity with rhythm, music and dance.

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Music and the steam loco

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Many of us are instinctively fascinated by a running steam loco.

It took a lot of reading of Bill Aitken's works and a sudden intuition to realize that the ancient dance performed around fire was not much different than the experience in the cab of a WP, or any steam loco. The aim is to develop a constant rhythm of the cylinders while performing nothing short of a group dance by the firemen, feeding to the fire its food.

(Another dance going on is the movement of the driving rods of the loco).

All music and dance is guided by a central idea, sometimes by a conductor representing this idea – and the time-table, route aspects, signaling and Sr. LP play this role in the WP.

To put forth another idea (by the great traveller Bill Aitken), mankind has always revered water (rivers are worshipped) and ice (snow peaks represent deities in the Himalayas). Water, Ice and Steam are different forms of the same element, and hence the natural reverence for steam locos too.

By comparison, modern electrics are fast, efficient, powerful, silent and hardly evoke the kind of wonder that comes via a steam loco.

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A small game with rhythm during travel

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There's something for the passengers too. Much of the music during rail-travel has been lost with the electrics and newer technology enabled welding of tracks, but one can still play a little game with rhythm while traveling in trains.

Counting the number of ‘clicks’ as the wheels pass over each joint of the track for 45 seconds will very very accurately give the current speed of the train (calculation is based on each track length being of 13 m length, it is practical to count for 9 seconds and multiply by 5). Experienced people can do this just feeling the movement of the train, even while lying down in the upper berth of an AC sleeper with their eyes closed.

True, one can now accurately get the speed using the GPS, but it is hardly as much fun.

You do not tap your fingers and synchronize with the rhythm of the journey, and do not exercise your basic instincts via ‘Anterior Vermis’ and ‘Medial Geniculate Nucleus’ and ‘Precuneus’

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The rhythm of life

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As we are growing technologically advanced, there is a danger of slowly losing the aspect of music from our lives. We are already out of rhythm with nature and are comfortable with 'quickly' destroying the last bit of forests, glaciers and pure air – and have hardly gained anything meaningful in return. Its only a matter of time before we also go the same way as the nature.

We may have come a long way since the days of dancing around fire in the middle of forests.

But let us not lose the aspect of music in our further journey of life.