Film Music, a Beatles Salute and 2 More Picks for Your Weekend

（Matte Cooper Nov.18）

Reel Change: The New Era of Film Music

The Los Angeles philharmonic presents this three-part series displaying music from TV. the movies and video games and organized by, respectively. Oscar-winning "Joker" composer Hildur Guónadótir, "Bridgerton's" Kris Bowers and "Succession's" Nicholas Britell. Walt Disney Concert Hall.111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L. A. 8 p. m. Friday-Saturday. 2 p. m. Sunday. $20-$192. laphil.com

The Beatles: 1962-1966

An all-star band performs a track-by-track re-creation of this 1973 album—also known as the "Red Album"—that covers the Fab Four's first four years on Capitol Records. The performance at 7 p. m. on Saturday is sold out, but tickets are available for the 2: 30 p. m. show that same day. Grammy Museum. L. A. Live. 800 w. Olympic Blvd., downtown L. A. S53-$1 30. keithputneyproductions.com

Cinderella

Mezzo-soprano Serena Malfi sings the role of the princess-to-be as Los Angeles Opera stages Rossini's 1817 reworking of the classic fairy tale. In Italian with English subtitles. Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the Music Center, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L. A. 7: 30 p. m. Saturday; other dates through Dec.12. $15 and up. with half-price tickcis available—by phone only—for ages 17 and younger. Also available: an in-person live performance outdoors on the Music Center's Jerry Moss Plaza on Nov. 28（S15. S30）and two live performances that can be viewed at home on Nov. 28 and Dec.1（S30 each）.（213）972-8001. laopera.org

Manet's Philosophers

Three large-scale portraits by the 19th century French painter, one from the Norton Simon collection and two on loan from the Art Institute of Chicago, are on display Friday through Feb. 28. Norton Simon Museum. 411 W. Colorado Blvd. Pasadena. Closed Tuesdays-Wednesdays. S12-S15 students, active military and ages 18 and younger are free.（626）449-6840. nortonsimon.org.

Some people like to listen to the Beatles, while others prefer Gregorian chants. When it comes to music, scientists find that nurture (培养) can overpower nature.

A study shows musical preferences seem to be mainly shaped by a person’s cultural upbringing and experiences rather than biological factors. “Our results show that there is a profound cultural difference in the way people respond to consonant (和谐的) and dissonant (不和谐的) sounds, and this suggests that other cultures hear the world differently,” says Josh McDermott, a scientist in Cambridge.

Some scientists believe that the way people respond to music has a biological basis and that this would overpower any cultural shaping of musical preferences, effectively making them a universal phenomenon. Some musicians, by contrast, think that such preferences are more a product of one’s culture. If a person’s upbringing shapes their preferences, then they are not a universal phenomenon.

The trick to working out where musical preferences come from was to find and test people who hadn’t had much contact with Western music. McDermott and his team travelled by aeroplane, car and canoe (独木舟) to reach the remote villages of the Tsimane people, who are largely isolated from Western culture.

In their experiments, McDermott and his colleagues investigated responses to Western music by playing combinations of notes to three groups of people: the Tsimane and two other groups of Bolivians that had experienced increasing levels of exposure to Western music. The researchers recorded whether each group regarded the notes as pleasant or unpleasant.

The Tsimane are just as good at making acoustic (声响的) distinctions as the groups with more experience of other types of music, the scientists find. Most people prefer consonant tones, but the Tsimane have no preference between them. “This pretty convincingly rules out that the preferences are things we’re born with,” McDermott argues.

“Culture plays a role. We like the music we grew up with,” agrees Dale Purves, a scientist at Duke University. “Nature versus nurture is always a fool’s errand. It’s almost always a combination,” he adds.

Musical instruments range from simple to complex. They differ from one part of the world to another. But all instruments produce sound the same way, by means of vibrations (rapid back-and-forth movements). These vibrations reach our ears as sound waves.【小题1】 Vibrations come from striking, plucking (弹或拨), and blowing on instruments, or by moving a bow across them. Faster vibrations produce higher notes.

Instruments we strike

【小题2】 When we shake a rattle, objects inside it strike the rattle’s wall and make a sound. Instruments that make sounds by striking them have been used since the Stone Age. Striking the instrument starts the vibrations.

【小题3】 This kind of instrument is a drum. The stretched membrane vibrates to produce the sound. Drums are found in nearly every culture around the world.

Instruments with strings

Some musical instruments, such as violins and harps, have strings that vibrate. Stretching the strings by plucking or striking makes them vibrate. Violins, violas, and cellos are played by drawing a bow across their strings. The guitar, lute, banjo, and harp have strings that are plucked with the fingers. 【小题4】 Pressing a key on the keyboard causes a string to be hit with a small hammer.

【小题5】

Flutes, trumpets, saxophones, and other instruments produce sound through vibrations of air. A flute sounds when we breathe air into a hole on its side or its end. By covering finger holes on the flute, we can change the pitch of the notes—how high or low the notes are.