What the heck is George doing?

Besides lookin' all buff and HAWT, I mean.

With ropes and leather. Heh.

There are certain artists, such as John McLaughlin and Allan Holdsworth, who play on a level at which my brain does not compute. I would throw the odd George Lynch solo into that category as well.

And I have always more or less presumed that these artists would forever be only semi accessible to me, but researchers at the University of Melbourne have just published a paper that sheds new light on how we learn to appreciate music.

“Our study shows that musical harmony can be learnt and it is a matter of training the brain to hear the sounds,” Associate Professor McLachlan said.
 “So if you thought that the music of some exotic culture (or Jazz) sounded like the wailing of cats, it’s simply because you haven’t learnt to listen by their rules...
What we found was that people needed to be familiar with sounds created by combinations of notes before they could hear the individual notes. If they couldn’t find the notes they found the sound dissonant or unpleasant,” he said.


So apparently, the longer you listen (ie, train your brain), the more it will make sense and the more you'll like it. Maybe. I'm not sure any force on earth could make me like Reggae. I've tried, people. I've tried.

Update: it just occurred to me that I should point out that I love what George is playing here, even if I can't exactly wrap my head around it. Lack of understanding does not necessarily imply dislike.