This Is Your Brain on Music
The Science of a Human Obsession
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Average rating3.5
In this groundbreaking union of art and science, rocker-turned-neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin explores the connection between music—its performance, its composition, how we listen to it, why we enjoy it—and the human brain. Taking on prominent thinkers who argue that music is nothing more than an evolutionary accident, Levitin poses that music is fundamental to our species, perhaps even more so than language. Drawing on the latest research and on musical examples ranging from Mozart to Duke Ellington to Van Halen, he reveals: • How composers produce some of the most pleasurable effects of listening to music by exploiting the way our brains make sense of the world • Why we are so emotionally attached to the music we listened to as teenagers, whether it was Fleetwood Mac, U2, or Dr. Dre • That practice, rather than talent, is the driving force behind musical expertise • How those insidious little jingles (called earworms) get stuck in our head A Los Angeles Times Book Award finalist, This Is Your Brain on Music will attract readers of Oliver Sacks and David Byrne, as it is an unprecedented, eye-opening investigation into an obsession at the heart of human nature.
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Long overdue, therefore not full of surprises, but very solid and still endlessly interesting. He starts with a 101 on music and sounds (pitch, timbre, tempo ..) and then tells us why our brain prefers certain harmonies and melodies over others. Why the church banned the ‘chord of evil' from music (Tritone), why our neuronal feedback loops get hooked on rhythms, and why Pinker was wrong in calling music “auditory cheesecake”. It don't think there has been or will be a book that had me singing out loud that often.
I highly recommend the audiobook version of this book. While there is much to be gained by reading any book, hearing examples in the audiobook really adds to what a reader/listener can learn.
As someone who has studied a bit of music theory and plays the clarinet (in a mediocre fashion in a summer village band), I found this book to be a nice refresher.
Beyond music theory, there are a number of interesting psychological studies relating to how the brain processes music are referenced in the latter half of the book.
