A 4-Track Mind

Meeting Bob Milne

0:00Hey, Lulu here. Today we are reaching back into the archives for a Radiolab classic, a really good one, which I can say because I had nothing to do with making it. But it pulls off one of the most difficult and satisfying things a story, really any story in any medium can do, which is that it stretches your conception of what a human being is capable of. And besides just being a jaw-dropping portrait of a human with a brain, it also makes you wonder what obscure superpowers we might all be walking around with, totally unaware that they are even superpowers.

0:34So please enjoy this episode. We are calling A Four-Track Mind. Here we go. Wait, you're listening. Okay. All right. Okay. All right. You're listening to Radiolab. Radiolab. From. W-N-Y-C. See? Yeah.

0:57Rewind.

0:59Oh, it won't be so bad. Should we do that now? Yep. Hey, I'm Jad Abumrad. This is Radiolab. Yes, it is. No, we're doing the introduction. Oh. Ready? Here we go. Let's do it for real. Hey, I'm Jad Abumrad. I'm Robert Krolwitz. This is Radiolab. And today on the podcast, I want to tell you about a guy who hears music in a way that is just extraordinary. Yeah. And painful. Just thinking about this story makes my head hurt. That's Jessica Benko. She's a reporter. Yep. And she's the one who initially told me the story.

1:31So, a little while ago, I went up to visit this guy. Hi. Bob Milne. Bob, it's nice to see you. Nice to see you. Um, excuse my snowy feet here. And he lives in a tiny town in Michigan with his wife, Linda. Hi. It's nice to see you again. And who is he? He's an amazing piano player. Hi. Are you on the piano? The Library of Congress actually called him a national treasure. Really? He's had this special relationship with music ever since he was a boy. Did you grow up with any other instruments inside the house other than the piano, or was

2:04that what you started out on? Well, I, um, my mother made me take piano lessons, and I hated it. And I didn't like the sound of minor keys, and the piano teachers had me playing a recital in which there was a Schubert minor key piece in it.

2:25So on the recital, I played it in major.

2:34And everyone thought that was a travesty. These days, though, his main music isn't so much Schubert. It's actually ragtime. Ragtime is one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, the rhythms. So the thing about ragtime is that oftentimes the player is actually playing two different rhythms at the same time, one with the left hand, one with the right hand. And then he puts the rhythms of three in the right hand. The thing about Bob is, he can do this, like, times a thousand.

3:08Oh. What does that even mean? Well, let me back up. I first heard about Bob from a neurologist named Kirsten Betterman, who is now at Penn State. First time I heard about Bob Milne was through France. Kirsten heard about Bob from a colleague who'd seen him play for an audience. Well, I might just take a tune like a... He was actually playing multiple rhythms with his two different hands and switching back and forth between different pieces of music and carrying on a conversation at the same time.

3:42You can look up videos of Bob on YouTube and you can see him performing and throwing out jokes. But at times you'll see him carry on a full conversation while playing. From the perspective of a neurologist, this is actually really hard. Because the part of your brain that should be engaged in playing a piece of music that complicated should also be engaged in having a conversation. The talking part and the playing part are the same part? They're the same part in most of us. For most people, that sort of thing, playing a complex piece of music and having a conversation

4:12would interfere with one another. Yes, that's what you usually would think. Unless you're highly skilled and you play maybe one piece of music at a time that you've done multiple times. But even then, it would be very difficult to this degree. So Kirsten got in touch with Bob and she started asking him some questions. About the way you would perceive music. And in the course of chatting with him and talking about how he perceives music and all of this, he happened to say to her... That I could hear an entire symphony in my head.

4:44And I didn't think that was too big a deal because I always listened to two of them at once. He told her... I only have to focus on the one mentally that I want to hear at a given time. And then that's a piece I play, but I hear them all ongoing. Did he just say he can hear two? Two different symphonies. In his head. At the same time. And we thought this was very unusual. Yeah. But I mean, are we talking the full symphonies or just the melodies? Every instrument. Every instrument. And he can focus in and... Turn one of them up, one of them down, and they both run simultaneously.

5:14Huh. So then she pushed the envelope and asked me if I can hear three... Three pieces of music. I said, well, I don't know. I never tried. But he was like, yeah, I think I could do three. When we challenged him a little bit, actually he said I can do four if you ask me. What? But I wouldn't go any further than that. No, that's total b****. Just four symphonies at the same time?

5:38That's just nothing but, but noise. Absolute cacophony. You know, the four pieces of music that just, wow. I said, nobody can do this. You know, so that was really critical. Yeah, because it's not true. We had to think about how to test this. Let me tell you about how the experiment worked and then tell me if you think it's true.

Testing the mental symphony

5:59All right.

Testing the mental symphony

6:00We came up with the behavioral test. So the first thing Kirsten had to do was find a control, someone to compare Bob to. Right. So she found a conductor. Peter Perret, who's the former conductor of the Winston-Salem Symphony. Who is himself an accomplished musician. Before the test, she sent him and Bob four pieces of music. We had the Schubert Symphony. We had Brahms.

6:28We had Beethoven.

6:35And finally, one from Mendelssohn. So you have to keep in mind, these four symphonies are in different keys and different tempos. Very different in their themes and instrumentations. And the challenge for them was to learn these four pieces of music. Completely memorize them. Four different tunes. And they only gave me a couple of days to listen to them. And then play them in their mind. And we would then ask them where in a certain piece they would be after an arbitrary time.

7:08I'm not really following what they do. So here's what they did. They put these guys in the scanner. And they said to them, I want you to play the music in your mind. Play the music in your mind. Close your eyes and imagine the music. So no music is playing out loud. No music playing just inside their head. And are they imagining it however they want or like on the CD? Exactly what they had heard on the CD. So same instruments coming in and out? Yep. Same tempo? Yep. So if it was vivace on the CD, vivace in their head? Exactly. And why were they doing this again?

7:38Well, they wanted to see if these guys could track via memory these really complicated pieces of music. I see. So they put the guys in the scanner and they're laying there. And on a screen in front of them, the word start flashes. And at that moment, they start playing the first piece of music back in their head. In the control room, they're tracking the music themselves to follow the timing. The researchers. Yeah. Oh, so while Bob and this dude are imagining it, they're actually keeping track of where the real CD is?

8:09Exactly. They let it go for a while.

8:20And at an arbitrary moment, they say, stop. And then they say, sing to me exactly where you are in the music. Like the note? The exact phrase.

8:32They go back. They compare the timing. To the CD. Right. To find out if these guys can really recreate inside their heads exactly what they'd heard. And? So our conductor, our control, was able to listen to one piece of music at a time and was really right on target with the right answer and timing within a second. Wow. So this conductor's imagined symphony was only a second off from the real one? Yep. Same with Bob. So Bob's within a note or two. Not bad. Now, round two. The multi-song task, as we called it.

9:02They told them both to start that first piece of music again. And then a little bit later, they said, start the second piece of music.

9:13In your head.

9:15Simultaneously. Yep.

9:26All right. I'm already like, come on. It's crazy. Like, this is, we slipped into fantasy. Well, and that's what happened for the conductor. He couldn't do it. He couldn't do two simultaneously. Yeah, of course he couldn't do it. It's impossible. There was no chance. He said, this is an overwhelming, impossible task. His brain just shut down. Well, like, he died or something? He stopped even being able to track the first piece of music. Ah. He just got confused. Now we go to Bob. They put me into the MRI, and they asked me, start tune one in your head.

9:57So I did.

10:03And then, roughly 10, 15 seconds later, I got a message on the screen. It says, continue listening to one, start two. And then, 15 seconds later, continue listening to tunes one and two, start three.

10:28And then the same thing with tune four. Then, on the screen, it said, stamp. And then Kirsten came on a little, um, I could hear her talking to me from somewhere.

11:04And she says, Bob. Tell us, where are you? Where are you in tune one? Beethoven's symphony, right now. What do you hear? So I told her, and I described what the piece was playing at that point. And the same thing with tune two, three and four.

11:27She announced that I was exactly right on to the note in each one of the symphonies. Jess, you're telling me something that's just not. Kirsten's a really, you know, she's got a lot of integrity. It's just my common sense right now is yelling like a three-year-old. It really, it really is mind-boggling to think about. It makes my brain hurt. But, you know, we proved, yeah, you can do it. When Kirsten gave you the different pieces of music to listen to, did any of them clash?

11:55No.

11:58No, they don't clash. They're all just playing different pieces. There's nothing chaotic about it. All right. So assuming this is true, how does he do this? How does he explain to himself how he does this?

Mapping the internal orchestra

12:11So I think there's two things going on here. The first has to do with emotion. Emotion. Bob is using different brain areas, I think. In his case, probably more emotional brain centers. You know, emotion deepens the way that we experience things, makes stronger memories. And Bob has a really strong emotional relationship with music. Well, don't we all? Yeah, but it's a little bit beyond the whole minor keys make me feel sad. He has really specific emotions associated with individual keys on the scale.

12:42When I hear C major, it's a very bland key. It's like, I don't know how to describe, it's like eating water soup or something like that. But D major, the bright key that makes me want to dance even though I can't dance. And every key, every one of the keys of the piano had a different emotional attachment to me. So for Bob, if just the keys are triggering different emotions, imagine what it must be like when you get to actual music.

13:14So you think that something about how he experiences the emotions of the music makes it etch more deeply in his brain or something? Yeah, I think he's, when he's got these four pieces of music going, he's not thinking hard about tracking each one of them. He's already in them. He feels them inside his body. And you can feel more with him one feeling at a time. Huh. So that's one idea.

13:45The second idea has to do actually more with image and space, really. So Bob often closes his eyes when he's talking. It just helps him focus. So I asked him if he could try playing back two pieces of music right now. And I asked him, when you hear these two symphonies in your head, what are you seeing? I can picture two symphony orchestras sitting side by side. He actually sees the literal orchestras in his head?

14:17Yeah. And I see them as silhouettes. There's no conductor in front of either one. There's a brownish hue out in front of them, like it's the floor. But it's more the color of the deep brown of a violin. And in back of them, there's a semi-circle that's bluish in color. Then when I listen to them, I'm going to listen to Brahms' second symphony over on the left side.

14:48And over on the right side, I'll turn on the Emperor Concerto, third movement of Beethoven. So I'm listening to that. Now, these are in two different keys. Emperor's in E flat. Brahms is in D. So now, if I want to pay particular attention, oh, let's say I want to listen to the Emperor here. I'm going to go into the E major. I just sped it up. See, I can speed the thing up to go to some other part in it. I can jump backwards.

15:18Let's see, just a minute. I can hear it in F. If I can put it into any key, I want to. But I'm going to roar forward in this third movement of the Emperor here. And I'm listening to the E major variation on the piano, which is just like a, it's just rocking on this beautiful E major chord, pivoting around to the E flat note and going up and down from there on the piano.

15:43Wow. Wow. So his crazy talents may have something to do with this movie making thing that he does in his head. Yeah, but it's not just a movie. It's like a 3D movie. He can use it to find out where a specific instrument is. How do you mean? In his mind's eye, he can fly out over these orchestras and actually look down on the individual instrument he wants to see. And I'm looking down and I see the piano out in front of them. He can zoom in and see them playing their instrument. Okay, now I'm up there in the air listening to this thing.

16:14And over on my left side, I can still hear this Brahms going along. On Brahms, I can only see the silhouettes from the front, whereas the emperor over here, I can see full color in every person's face in it, plus here the lines that they're playing. And as he's flying out over these orchestras, the instruments actually get louder and softer depending on where he is. Like if he goes behind orchestra number one. I can hear the bass much louder. Let's see. Yeah, then if I go over to the left side, I'm hearing the violins.

16:46And he says he can float right above the players and actually see what they're doing. I can see every wrinkle in the pleated shirts of their tuxedos. And I can see the deep brownish-orange-ish color of the violas. And I can hear the deep sound, beautiful sound of that low viola. And I can hear every little resin scratch across their bows.

17:18God, listening to music for this guy must be like an acid trip. The way that he's describing it? I think it is. And when he listens to recorded music, it's so much diminished from what he feels when he's imagining it. Huh. So he doesn't listen to CDs. He cannot stand listening to CDs. Wow. Wow. Yeah. He's a real example of the extremes of the human mind.

Life on the road

17:41So what does he do with these crazy talents? I mean, is he like a billionaire? Nope. First of all, ragtime's not exactly the most popular form of music in the United States at this point. But it's what he likes to play. And he plays, you know, 250 shows a year. But a lot of them are at historical societies or churches. Linda and I, we've got a small motorhome. It's an airport bus. One of those little 15-passenger buses.

18:11It's got a hot shower and a bathroom and a bed, of course. So, you know, he travels around in his little motorhome with his wife when he can and without her when he can't and sleeps in Walmart parking lots. He's working on an opera, which is mostly done. And he writes it in his head while he's driving. And then he sits down in a McDonald's and writes it out on paper. And, you know, that's pretty much what he does with his life. Thanks to reporter Jess Benko for that great story.

19:02And also to producer Mark Phillips for making it sound so good. But why should we share the information the way we just did? Why not do the outro in a way that Bob Milne would fully and completely appreciate? You mean so we should say it all together in a big jumble? Simultaneously. And he'll be able to think the Jad side and then the Roberts side. Okay. Ready? One, two, three, four, one. Thank you to people who play the piano. Thank you to listeners of the piano players who play the piano. Thank you, of course, to tuners of those pianos. Thank you to Walmart and for discount cheap goods.

19:34The left hand hitting the piano. Thank you, Robert.

19:39See that? Hi, I'm Maya, and I'm from London. And here are the staff credits. Radiolab is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser. Soren Wheeler is our executive editor. Sarah Sandvack is our executive director. Our managing editor is Pat Walters. Dylan Keefe is our director of sound design. Our staff includes Jeremy Bloom, W. Harry Fortuna, David Gable, Maria Paz Gutierrez, Sindhu Nainasambandan, Matt Keelty, Mona Maud Gauka, Alex Neeson, Sarah Kari, Natalia Ramirez, Joanna Strogatz, Anissa Vietza, Ariane Wack, Molly Webster, and Jessica Young.

20:25With help from Maya Appleby Malamed, Laura Karpas, and Olivia Rose Greco. Our fact-checkers are Nora Belblidia, Hilary Elkins, Rachel Gross, Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger, Natalie Middleton, and Sophie Samai.

20:44Hi, I'm Aubrey, calling from Salt Lake City, Utah. Leadership support for Radiolab's science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Have a great day. Thank you. Thank you.