Mr. Bullerdiek, you are a human geneticist and have written a book with the soprano Christine Süßmuth about the effect and fascination of music: “Why music is in our genes”. An unusual duet. Are you musically inclined?
Jörn Bullerdiek: No, I have very few points of contact there. My research area is tumor development, especially head and neck tumors and currently gynecological tumors. For a while I worked with Harald zur Hausen, who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2008. But I like listening to music and have always been interested in opera.
Ms. Süßmuth studied early music in Bremen and performs as a soloist and in ensembles. How did you meet each other?
Not at a concert, but at a party with a mutual friend. At that time she asked me whether absolute pitch – the ability to determine pitch from a standing position – is hereditary. I had to look that up too. We then met again. On a trip to Hamburg together she told me a lot about old moods. I had heard of the “Well-Tempered Clavier”, but not much else. My curiosity was piqued and we exchanged ideas regularly.
Let’s clarify right away: Is perfect pitch inherited?
It has a lot to do with environment and education. Perfect pitch is more commonly found in people who speak native tonal languages such as Chinese. It definitely has to do with genetics, you have to have a certain predisposition. But you also have to be introduced to music at an early age. If you miss this development window, even the best genetics won’t help. Christine Süßmuth and I discussed a lot whether it is actually a musical ability or rather a comparative ability. Because if you have a reference tone, anyone can determine the pitch distances with a little practice. From there we came to consonant and dissonant intervals and the question of whether the feeling for them is genetically determined.
And, is she?
No, that is a cultural influence. For example, anyone familiar with traditional Indian music will find our harmonies dissonant. A tribe in the Amazon region was studied that had never come into contact with Western music: Dissonance didn’t bother these listeners at all. So it is by no means the case that Vivaldi or Beethoven are equally valued everywhere. It depends on what our brain is used to.
Back to the book: It is unusual in several ways. First of all, because they embed their specialist knowledge into the conversations they have and garnish them with lots of anecdotes. For example, if you use a skeleton photo to discuss the finger span and possibilities of the harpsichord player Johann Sebastian Bach, or talk about a genetic syndrome to which the devil violinist Niccolò Paganini may owe his dexterity.
After much reading and discussion, one of us said: You could almost write a book about it. We found the form of dialogue, in which no one lectures the other but rather informs the other about unusual stories, very stimulating. When the Springer publishing house jumped on the concept, we were forced to act. The doctor Dietrich Grönemeyer, the brother of the famous Herbert, also encouraged us – he also wrote the foreword. Ms. Süßmuth and I then partly took over our conversations like this.
It is also unusual that you frame the whole thing in the report of a week-long research trip to Naples and the surrounding area and cover a different topic every day of the week. On Monday it’s about stories, on Wednesday it’s about heredity, on Thursday it’s about animals – the Bremen Town Musicians also appear there – and on Saturday it’s about feelings. How did you agree on this?
The strict, not too scientific structure with only one noun as a heading helped us sort things out. And in Naples, the former world capital of music, there are many points of contact. If you look at the Bay of Naples, you will see at least two or three places where the sirens are said to have lived. So let’s start in the classic way with these mythical creatures who lured people to their deaths with their singing. In addition to Orpheus, who tames animals and the creatures of the underworld with his song, the sirens are the most fascinating of the many musical myths from antiquity. How is it that people do not evade them despite the known danger to their lives? It’s like magic flutes or military trumpets: with many genes involved, you come across strong reward systems and dopamine release. The author Navid Kermani goes even further with the sentence: “Music makes us forget our mortality for an hour or two.”
What did you learn about music from working on the book?
I became aware of the amazing capabilities of our brain. To put it bluntly: music is created in our heads, previously it was sound waves. It’s amazing how quickly we recognize melodies – it takes less than a second. Another example: There is also a genetic component to choir singing. Choristers have to integrate into a team and not push themselves forward. Having the right genetics helps, as temperament is also genetically determined. However, social components also play a role, probably even a larger one.
They also discuss the music of songbirds and whales. This brings up the question of the famous cows. Do cattle really give more milk when they hear beautiful tunes?
An old story, the first reports of it appeared in the 1930s. Back then, cows were still milked by hand. Today it is assumed that the milkers simply became calmer, more balanced and more patient through nice music. With machine milking, the differences are hardly measurable. This probably became a press topic at some point during the pickle season. “More milk with Mozart” sells better than the headline we invented “No luck with luck”.
The interview was conducted by Sebastian Loskant.
To person
Jörn Bullerdiek (68)
is a native of Bremen and has long headed the Center for Human Genetics at the university in his hometown. Today he works as director of the Institute for Medical Genetics at the University Medical Center in Rostock. He is a convinced supporter of interdisciplinary collaboration.
Info
Jörn Bullerdiek, Christine Süßmuth: Why music is in our genes. Springer, Berlin. 238 pages. €24.99.
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2023-12-19 04:14:30
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