Parting Shot

Mickey Hart

“i have a rhythm-centric view of everything,” says mickey hart, the Grateful Dead’s former drummer. For years, the percussionist and musicologist has been promoting the healing powers of music. In 1991, the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging invited Hart and the late neurologist Oliver Sacks to testify about the positive impact rhythm can have on Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. And this spring, at the American Museum of Natural History’s Hayden Planetarium in New York, Hart performed “Musica Universalis: The Greatest Story Ever Told,” a sonic and visual voyage spanning 13.8 billion years in 30 minutes, from the Big Bang onward. As he played an electric, 8-foot aluminum instrument modeled after Pythagoras’ monochord, a giant MRI revealed the effects of all that sonic stimuli on his brain. “The whole universe operates with rhythm, and we are all rhythmic animals in it,” adds Hart, who spoke to Newsweek just prior to his band, Dead & Company, going on tour. Now that Oliver Sacks is gone, who is your go-to neuroscience guy? Adam Gazzaley, at the University of California, San Francisco, is ɿnding out what rhythms do to speciɿc parts of the brain. What does a healthy cell look like sonically? What frequencies could damage it? He’s a Deadhead, by the way.

Didn’t Sacks have a Grateful Dead moment?

The movie The Music Never Stopped was based on Oliver’s essay ţthe Last Hippie,ť which tells the story of someone who hadn’t spoken a word since the late ’ 0s. Oliver brought him to a Dead concert. All of a sudden, the man said, ţwhere’s Pigpen?ť Pigpen used to be >the Dead’s@ lead singer.

Who has good rhythm?

As Carl Sagan said, ţwe are made of star stuff.ť When you’re healthy, your heart and lungs are pumping, your blood is ʀowing, you’re in sync. Good rhythm would be peace. Look at the Dalai Lama—talk about a rhythm master! The Chinese destroyed his culture, and he doesn’t hate themū. I would hope our president would learn a bit from him. It’s very sad. Mr. Trump doesn’t know how to dance.

Any advice for young drummers? You have to have a good mother. My mom, when the neighbors would complain when I practiced Gene Krupa’s ţsing, Sing, Sing,ť would stand at the door with a broom: ţover my dead body!ť —Jeff Perlah

“Look at the Dalai Lama— talk about a rhythm master! I would hope our president would learn a bit from him.”