Product Description

This is the first book to offer a comprehensive explanation of how humans experience music and to unravel the mystery of our perennial love affair with it. Using musical examples from Bach to the Beatles, Levitin reveals the role of music in human evolution, shows how our musical preferences begin to form even before we are born and explains why music can offer such an emotional experience.Music is an obsession at the heart of human nature, even more fundamental to our species than language. In "This Is Your Brain On Music" Levitin offers nothing less than a new way to understand it, and its role in human life.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2043 in Books
• Published on: 2008-05-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 328 pages

Review
"'Music seems to have an almost willful, evasive quality, defying simple explanation, so that the more we find out, the more there is to know... Daniel Levitin's book is an eloquent and poetic exploration of this paradox. There may be no simple answer or end in sight, but the ride is nonetheless a thrilling one, especially in the company of a writer who is both an accomplished musician, a hard-nosed scientist, and someone who can still look upon the universe with a sense of wonder.' Sting * Fascinating... Levitin's extremely skilled at laying out complex concepts in understandable terms... an absorbing explanation of the mechanics of why music affects us the way it does. - Jonathan O'Brien, Sunday Business Post * Endlessly stimulating. - Oliver Sacks * Despite illuminating a lot of what goes on with music this book doesn't "spoil" enjoyment - it only deepens the beautiful mystery that is music. - David Byrne, Talking Heads"

Oliver Sacks
`Endlessly stimulating.'

About the Author
Daniel Levitin runs the Laboratory for Musical Perception, Cognition, and Expertise at McGill University, Canada, where he holds the James McGill Chair. Before becoming a neuroscientist, he was a session musician, sound engineer and record producer. He has written extensively for scientific journals and music trade magazines.

Customer Reviews

With a song in our heads
When a rock musician, a sound engineer and a neuroscientist combine their talents to explain how we think about music, it promises to be interesting. When those three individuals are present in one man who also writes well, the result is compelling. With a strong scientific foundation - no little of that from his own work - from which to build, coupled with his production experience, Levitin has launched a new phase in the understanding of how the mind deals with the outside world. In the manner of colours we think we see, sounds are simply vibrations of air until our brain identifies and translates them for us. Without descending into arcane terms for either the brain or music, he skilfully guides us through the process of "music appreciation" - and why we do.

Musicians enter our lives more intimately than almost anybody else. They can inspire us, influence our lives in innumerable ways, and they are available at any time - virtually at our command. We welcome their presence even when we haven't consciously sought them out. Music is always a personal relationship, sometimes very intense, generating emotions perhaps hidden or suppressed. How can the movement of air molecules generate such reactions in us?

In answering that question, Levitin takes the reader on describes the path sound takes from its entry into the ear. Nerve impulses from sound have a number of paths open to them. Widely dispersed areas of the brain process the signals, further triggering a variety of reactions. Much new information about sounds and the brain's reaction to them has come to light in recent years. When the sound is music, the brain actually goes through mathematical calculations to register timbre, pitch and other musical elements. Familiar music activates responses in the brain's temporal lobes, working with the hippocampus to retrieve memories and formulate new, integrated ones. Areas in the brain, particularly the cerebellum, display increased activity when listening to music, far less so when hearing simple or incoherent noise. Recent studies also point out the influence of the cerebellum in emotional response, a find challenging long-held views of that part of the brain's role. Music's generation of feelings is non-specific - we don't necessarily associate it with those around us. When we do take neighbours into account, it generally enhances the feelings - so long as those folks aren't interrupting our listening.

Lest the reader think all this neuroscience is lofty, obscure and "soul destroying" analysis, take heart. Levitin introduces his book with a discussion of "what music can teach us about the brain, what the brain can teach us about music - and what both can teach us about ourselves". The range of music he uses as examples is clear indication of the breadth of his interests and research. At one point, he visits John Pierce, the founder of "psycho-acoustics" who sought the six tunes best exemplifying rock and roll. The choices are illustrative, but Pierce proved more interested in how sound was manipulated by the performers than in the songs. Although the limits of the research preclude detailed analysis of classical pieces, Levitin examines Bach's flute cantatas to explain how variations in sounds stimulate emotional reactions. Mahler's music brought innovation to the symphonic format in ways that made his compositions particularly effective in evoking listener response.

Providing a wealth of information, this book is a treasure. You needn't be a musician or a critic to gain from it. Any listener, and all of us are that irrespective of our "taste" in music, will be impressed by what is going on in our minds when hearing music we adore or which repels us. In fact, even "new" music which may not attract us on first hearing it, can become another trigger for positive emotional response. Read this book and listen to it again. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Music to my eyes...
A very interesting explanation on what makes music sooo attractive to the vast majority of us... the first two chapters are in my opinion, heavy to read (I had to go back several times to try and get the idea); actually, in this regard I found the first statements of the author a little bit contradictory, since as he somehow explains, science (technical facts) should be explained "easily"... well, it wasn't in my opinion for the most of the beginning. After that, the book gets much lighter, much friendlier and "simple" to understand.

The way -Daniel Levitin explains- how our brain rather than "concentrate" certain functions or types of information in particular parts of our brains (as it was thought), rather "distributes" them in several to be first accumulated and then processed between all of those (and others) I found new and fascinating. Also, the property that our brains have to adapt and learn new things (tricks!) is overwhelming too... (There's hope then!), contrary to the ancient believe that as we grow old, new knowledges are difficult to learn (assimilate). Then he explains how these and other characteristics add to make music sooo enjoyable... (it is possible to live without TV, but not without a radio!).

Good book. I'm glad I ordered it!

This Is Your Brain On Music
'This Is Your Brain On Music' looks at the neuroscience behind listening to and performing music. Although I've read many popular science books and am familiar with the style of writing, I found this to be quite a hard going book at first. The first couple of chapters look at the structure of music and are quite dry to plow though. If you know music theory this will cover familiar ground and if you don't I'm sorry to say that this is a laboured way of gaining that understanding. However after you get through these chapters this books really comes into it's own, with lots of fascinating experiments and facts it starts to pique your interest and you become more engrossed in the points being made. The chapter linking our auditory system to the cerebellum and the associated emotional linkages made for especially interesting reading. Overall this is a interesting read and if you can get past the first hundred pages you are in for some interesting ideas, presented in an engaging and informative way. 3 1/2 - 4 stars.

Dedicated to Stephen A. Haines whose reviews inspired me to read some amazing science books and who will be greatly missed.