Pythia

I found an entry in the Harvard Gazette about how our brains process music. (Take a quick read for yourself.) The first paragraph paints a beautiful picture:

"Your inner ear contains a spiral sheet that the sounds of music pluck like a guitar string.

This plucking triggers the firing of brain cells that make up the hearing parts of your brain. At the highest station, the auditory cortex, just above your ears, these firing cells generate the conscious experience of music. Different patterns of firing excite other ensembles of cells, and these associate the sound of music with feelings, thoughts, and past experiences.

Sound transmitted to the inner ear is broken down according to the spectrum of frequencies that make up sounds. This orderly arrangement of low to higher frequencies is mapped onto the brain much like the way low to high notes are mapped on a piano keyboard." [source.]

I don't know much about science either, but the way our brains process music fascinates me. It all sounds so beautiful and dreamy, as if an orchestra of greek and roman gods are living in your brain, stroking your inner ear and making sparklers out of your brain cells while Apollo acts as conductor.

Apollo was the patron God of poetry and music. The god Hermes made him a musical instrument called the lyre, which is a stringed instrument, like a harp or a guitar. The Romantic poet, John Keats, wrote a poetic ode to Apollo:

God of the golden bow,

And of the golden lyre,

And of the golden hair,

And of the golden fire,

Charioteer

Of the patient year,

Where---where slept thine ire,

When like a blank idiot I put on thy wreath,

Thy laurel, thy glory,

The light of thy story,

Or was I a worm---too low crawling for death?

O Delphic Apollo!

The Thunderer grasp'd and grasp'd,

The Thunderer frown'd and frown'd;

The eagle's feathery mane

For wrath became stiffen'd---the sound

Of breeding thunder

Went drowsily under,

Muttering to be unbound.

O why didst thou pity, and beg for a worm?

Why touch thy soft lute

Till the thunder was mute,

Why was I not crush'd---such a pitiful germ?

O Delphic Apollo!

The Pleiades were up,

Watching the silent air;

The seeds and roots in Earth

Were swelling for summer fare;

The Ocean, its neighbour,

Was at his old labour,

When, who---who did dare

To tie for a moment, thy plant round his brow,

And grin and look proudly,

And blaspheme so loudly,

And live for that honour, to stoop to thee now?

O Delphic Apollo!

by John Keats