Bob Milne is one of the best ragtime piano players in the world, but his talents go further than that – right into the land of amazing. Bob’s brain works a little differently to the rest of us, as he can compartmentalise various functions, which allows him to play complex piano pieces while carrying on a conversation. But when Penn State neuroscientist Kerstin Betterman decided to investigate Bob’s incredible ability, she discovered something even more amazing: he can ‘play back’ four different symphonies at the same time in his head, and what’s more, he says he ‘sees’ these symphonies being played in his head in three dimensions, and can fly around within this audio-visual space and listen to the music change from different perspectives. Here’s an NPR Radiolab feature on Bob Milne and Kerstin Betterman from a couple of years ago that tells the story:
Sometimes you really do wonder what sort of latent abilities we all hold that we might one day all be able to harness.
(h/t @thecoverlap)
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