Ron K. Miller
Ron K. Miller is a composer and synesthete with decades of experience across several instruments, including cello, piano, guitar, ukulele, and vocals. He enjoys playing piano and keyboard the most. When he hears music, he sees it. Color, shape, and spatial dimension show up whether he wants them to or not. He spent most of his life assuming everyone experienced music this way. They do not. That realization is one of the reasons this book exists. RESONANCE is his first book.
Miller lives in Arkansas with his wife Jessica and their three children.
RESONANCE draws on neuroscience, acoustic physics, evolutionary biology, and philosophy of perception. It is structured in three parts and a closing Coda.
Why This Book
A personal note on why RESONANCE matters, and what it took to write it.
The ideas in this book have been snowballing for most of my life. They started as questions that followed me around, made friends, and demanded answers. Why do songs give us goosebumps? Why do certain sounds feel nostalgic? What is it about a classy key change that can make me involuntarily gasp? Why does it do this and more to everyone, regardless of culture, in every recorded era of human history? Why have we spent so long calling it entertainment?
Having a son with Down syndrome changed how I thought about music in ways I didn't expect. I watched music reach him in places where other things couldn't. I watched it function as something closer to medicine than art, and that is one of the things that pushed this book from a personal obsession into something I felt obligated to write down and finish.
It took me over a year to write. I don't recall having this much fun doing research. I was into things like neuroscience, acoustic physics, evolutionary biology, and philosophy of perception. And more music. I debated these ideas with myself to pressure test things because I cared about credibility. I sought the counterarguments and kept myself accountable. It was important to build something that held up over the years.
RESONANCE begins with the personal lens because that's where honest arguments begin - with what actually happened and why it can't be ignored. It moves into philosophy because the personal observations and experience needed a framework. It ends with science, where I believe there is at least a strong foundation to provoke future generations, thanks to many brilliant minds that devote(d) their lives to the research. Sound already does both destructive and magnificent things in daily life, but there's a deeper understanding that awaits humanity if we keep playing and listening. I believe music is not something that humans invented. I believe it is something they found. And I believe that means more than we have been willing to admit.