the eastern, buddhist -- a different approach, the genre of music that i have been involved, developing some brain wave research with that -- seems to solicit other kinds of responses. have you looked at other types of music that gets into these spaces between the tones, opens up that quantum field aspect? >> the question about other music is an interesting one. one thing i can say about music of other cultures, each of us is exquisitely attuned to the conventions and rules of our own culture, such that we can hear a chord sequence, we can pretty much nail down what the motion is intended to be. but if i put on chinese opera, indigenous music of the ural mountains, i will probably not have a clue about it, and they will not have much of a clue about our music. things that we take for granted.

major accord being happy, minor chords being said. it is the same as language. we understand the ones we are exposed to. there is a critical period during the first 12 years of life, one needs to be acculturated to those types of music. there are people in the field -- stay tuned -- we will have news about them soon. >> my question is how our brain remembers music. is it processed differently, stored differently than other types of memories? i ask that because, i can remember songs that i sang in second grade but i cannot remember my teacher's name, my friends. >> a lot of that have that experience. women go to old age homes, some of the last member is preserved in the elderly, even with alzheimer's, other decay, they

remember songs from their childhood when they cannot even remember their spouse's name, what year it is. music has thiese musically reinforcing views. in a good piece of music, you have the elements of rhythm, pitch, harmony, meter, articulation, timbre, all working together, so that you may not remember every note, but the ones you do remember inform the missing ones. it becomes a pattern of multiple queues. that is one thing. the other thing we found interesting from girl imaging studies -- narrow imaging studies is when you are remembering a piece of music, it activates almost identical circuits as when you are hearing it. so much so when you compare the bring activation of someone in imagining music, remembering, to

someone listening, it is virtually indistinguishable by looking at the brain scan. i wonder -- and brings up the question, how did it would you say your musical imagery is? when you imagine music, is it like a little tape playing in your head? >> yes, it is. and it works the other way, from the point of view from the composer, trying to compose something. i might be sitting on an airplane and i will remember some experience. let's say running with anticipation, or something you saw. maybe you saw something spectacular, an illusion of light or something, and it creates an image. i will try to read something done quickly because i am trying to capture one that is.

and of course, that stuff is very fleeting. the other thing, musicians who played the guitar, something with your fingers, they feel as if they are remembering in their fingers. oftentimes, you play a passage and you cannot think your way through it. your fingers have to play the way through it. muscle memory. from a scientific standpoint, if i were to scoop your brain out of your head, your fingers would not remember, but there is a motor cortex that remembers the sequence. there is a whole field that studies the sequence, how one movement is remembered in a succession of a sequence. >> the process of creating, trying to start creating music is not that different for me that it is remembering music. it is revoking some kind of image or movement.

-- evoking some kind of image or movement. >> can i ask, i am a musician, do you have any advice -- often have trouble losing -- moving away from my everyday and getting into music. do you have any recommendations on how to speed up that context switching? >> i am assuming that as a professional musician, he doesn't have to do with complicated problems. >> you would not want me doing that. believe me. >> still, you have the context switch of being creative, non creative. >> that is true. sometimes you need something to wipe the slate clean. it could be taking a walk. these days, disconnecting.

i have a studio. when i go there, is a place to work, i did not need to take my cell phone out there. having a physical location you can go to -- this is where i do this -- even just a quarter of your room. >> from a cognitive neuroscience standpoint, if you dedicate a place, if you are religious about it -- or clock 30 i am going to spend an hour -- 4:30 i'm going to spend an hour here or there. that contextual aspect helps. inform is now wrapping up all of our events by asking our speakers, ourselves included, the following question. alex, what is your 60-second the idea to change the world?

>> i think everybody should listen to music from other cultures. even daniel has said that, you know, we need to have that in printing when we are young to understand balinese monkey chants or something to put it into context. i travel a lot. i just came back from asia. i was given a lot of career in music, a lot of ethnic music -- a lot of korean music. even though you may not have a cultural context, if you give it a little bit of a chance, it is an opportunity to open up your mind a little bit. when you do that, it may on sub -- some subconscious level give you a better understanding of why people are the way they are in different parts of the world and who they are. i think we should all be listening to each other's music

and all try to play a little bit of music or sing. i think it is -- yeah. 60 seconds there? [applause] >> and you, daniel, what is your 60-second idea? >> as an educator and teacher, i think my 60-second idea to change the world is better education. if we could teach the next generation of kids to be critical thinkers, just not accept what they are told but to decide for themselves, to give them the tools to make informed decisions about what is right and what is not, about what has been established and what is just here say, what really has a grounding in fact versus rumor, i think the world would be a much safer, more peaceful, and more prosperous place. [applause]

>> let's get a big, final round of applause for this nice, informed foray into neuroscience and music with myself, daniel levinson, and the great guitarist and composer, alex degrassi. now, this meeting of in forum and the commonwealth club is adjourned. [applause]

>> i am the director of visual arts programming at intersection for the arts. intersection for the arts is based in san francisco and has always been an organization that looks at larger social political issues through the lens of practice, and we are here today at our exhibition of "chico and

chang." the original inspiration was drawn from a restaurant chain in new york city. half of their menu is -- what struck me was the graphic pictures and a man in a hat on a rig truck carrying take that time is containers and in the black sea to representation of a mexican guy wearing a sombrero and caring a somali horn. it struck me that these two large, very subversive complex cultures could be boiled down to such simple representations. chico and chang primarily looks at four topic areas. one of the man was is whose stories are being told and how. one of the artisans in the show has created an amazing body of

work working with young adults calling themselves the dreamers. another piece of the exhibition talks about whose stories of exhibition are actually being told. one artist created a magnificent sculpture that sits right in the center of the exhibition. >> these pieces are the physical manifestation of a narrative of a child in memory. an important family friend give us a dining table, very important, and we are excited about it. my little brother and i were 11, 14. we were realizing that they were kind of hand prints everywhere on the bottom where no one would really see, and it became this kind of a weakening of what child labor is. it was almost like an exercise to show a stranger that feeling

we had at that moment. >> the second thing the exhibition covers is how the allocation is defined, a great example on the theme, sculpture called mexicali culture. another bay area artist who has done residencies in china and also to what, mexico. where immigrant communities really helped define how businesses look of a business' sign age and interior decoration, her sculptural piece kind of mismatches the two communities together, creating this wonderful, fantastical future look at what the present is today. first topic is where we can see where the two communities are intersecting and where they start colliding. teresa fernandez did a

sculptural installation, utilizing the ubiquitous blue, white, and read patterns of a rayon bag that many communities used to transport laundry and laundromats to buy groceries and such. she created a little installation kind of mucking up the interior of a household, covering up as many objects that are familiar to the i and the fabric. fourth area of investigation that the exhibition looks at is the larger concerns of the asian and latin communities intersecting with popular cultur one best example -- when he's exemplified is what you see when you enter into the culture. >> this piece refers to restaurants in tijuana.

when you are driving, to speak chinese and you read chinese characters. you see these signs. i was trying to play with the idea of what you see and the direction you read. when you start mixing these different groups of people, different cultures, i like the idea. you can comment on somebody else's culture or someone else's understanding about culture. >> one of the hopes we have for visitors is that they go away taking a better understanding with the broadest and the breadth of issues impacting both the asian and latin communities here in california and how they spell out into the larger fabric of the communities we live and work in.