A 4-Track Mind

Lulu Miller (0:01)

Hey, 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.

So please enjoy this episode. We are calling a four-track mind.

Jad Abumrad (0:40)

Here we go.

Lulu Miller (0:41)

Wait, you're listening. Okay.

Jad Abumrad (0:43)

All right.

SPEAKER_3 (0:48)

You're listening to Radiolab.

Jad Abumrad (0:50)

Radiolab.

SPEAKER_3 (0:51)

From. WNYC.

Rewinds.

Jad Abumrad (0:59)

Oh, it won't be so bad.

Oh, do you, should we do that now? Yep. Hey, I'm Jad Abumrad. This is Radiolab.

Latif Nasser (1:06)

Yes, we, yes it is.

Jad Abumrad (1:07)

No, we're doing the introduction.

Latif Nasser (1:08)

Oh.

Jad Abumrad (1:09)

Ready? Here we go. Let's do it for real. Hey, I'm Jad Abumrad.

Latif Nasser (1:12)

I'm Robert Krollwitz.

Jad Abumrad (1:13)

This is Radiolab. And today on the podcast, we'll tell you about a guy who hears music in a way that is just extraordinary. Yeah. And painful.

Jessica Benko (1:23)

Just thinking about this story makes my head hurt.

Jad Abumrad (1:26)

That's Jessica Benko. She's a reporter. Yep. And she's the one who initially told me the story.

Jessica Benko (1:31)

So a little while ago, I went up to visit this guy.

Hi. Bob Milne.

Lulu Miller (1:37)

Bob, it's nice to see you.

Bob Milne (1:38)

Nice to see you.

Jessica Benko (1:39)

Excuse my snowy feet here. And he lives in a tiny town in Michigan with his wife Linda.

SPEAKER_3 (1:45)

Hi.

Jessica Benko (1:45)

It's nice to see you again.

SPEAKER_3 (1:46)

And who is he?

Jessica Benko (1:47)

He's an amazing piano player. The Library of Congress actually called him a national treasure.

Jad Abumrad (1:54)

Really?

Jessica Benko (1:55)

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 that what you started out on?

Bob Milne (2:05)

Well, my mother made me take piano lessons and I hated it. 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. So on the recital I played it in major.

And everyone thought that was a travesty.

Jessica Benko (2:40)

These days though, his main music isn't so much Schubert. It's actually ragtime.

Bob Milne (2:45)

One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, the rhythms.

Jessica Benko (2:50)

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.

Bob Milne (2:58)

And then he puts the rhythms of three in the right hand.

Jessica Benko (3:05)

The thing about Bob is he can do this like times a thousand.

Jad Abumrad (3:08)

Oh, what does that even mean?

Jessica Benko (3:11)

Well, let me back up. I first heard about Bob from a neurologist named Kirsten Betterman, who is now at Penn State.

Kerstin Betterman (3:19)

First time I heard about Bob Milne was through friends.

Jessica Benko (3:21)

Kirsten heard about Bob from a colleague who had seen him play for an audience.

Bob Milne (3:25)

Well, I might just take a tune like a...

Jessica Benko (3:28)

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.

You 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.

Jad Abumrad (4:04)

The talking part and the playing part are the same part?

Jessica Benko (4:06)

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 would interfere with one another.

Kerstin Betterman (4:14)

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 will be very difficult to this degree.