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There is an article entitled, Neuroscience has identified why some works of art become
universal phenomenon by Susan Roger. In this article, Rogers tries to explain why Hamilton,
the musical, has become such a huge novelty in society. Rogers puts forth that humans are so
interested in the artistic work because it provides familiarity through the genre of music, while
also captivating audiences with a story thats not so familiar to all. This story is of Alexander
Hamilton, one of the founding fathers of the United States. Though this story should be more
well known, it is often one people usually learn while in elementary school and then forget.
Rogers puts forth that our familiarity with the music of our culture allow us to grasp to
things that incorporate that music quickly. Though many people are never musically trained
formally, our culture teaches us many things. The TV shows we watch, the radio commercials,
and other media outlets all teach us foundations of music. This informal training allows us to
anticipate what comes next in a song or even how a sing will end, even if we have never heard
the song before. Our brain is also stimulated when there is something in music that is not
familiar, like dissonance. Dissonance provides unresolved feelings or even feelings of tension.
Hamilton, the musical, allows for these things. It has the familiarity of rap, along with some
unfamiliar musical elements, all while using a story that many people dont know. This is a
Emotional responses to pleasant and unpleasant music correlate with activity in paralimbic
brain regions by Anne J. Blood, Robert J. Zatorre, Patrick Bermudez and Alan C. Evans. The
researches were interested in looking at the effects of musical dissonance on the brain using
position emission tomography (PET). The study used ten volunteers. Each volunteer was
scanned while listening to six versions of a musical passage with varying degrees of dissonance.
The study shows that participants more familiar with the Western Tonal System respond quicker
to increasing dissonance. This supports the claim that people internalize the tonal rules of our
There are many overlaps between the articles. However, there are differences being that
one is for scientific research while the other serves to answer questions in pop culture. The
scientific article explains that increasing consonance and dissonance both elicit changes in the
paralimbic and neocortical areas, not just dissonance. Though consonance and dissonance did
activate separate structures in those areas. From this, the researchers were able to support further
Rogers also used other articles to support her theory on why Hamilton has become such a
huge cultural phenomenon. Though the article didnt provide data, Rogers didnt stray too far
away from what the research supported. She used the research and in her own words, explained
why Hamilton and other works like it could completely capture a culture.