This Is Your Brain On Music

Review Fluent and readable... [Levitin] rightly insists that we are all better equipped to perform and appreciate music than we think... We are, he says, hard-wired for music. Source: Observer Fascinating... Levitin's extremely skilled at laying out complex concepts in understandable terms... an absorbing explanation of the mechanics of music. Source: Sunday Business Post Consistently interesting... Music, Levitin argues, is not a decadent modern diversion but something of fundamental importance to the history of human development. Source: Literary Review Endlessly stimulating. Author: Oliver Sacks 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. Source: Sting Product Description Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award The Independent best books of the year The Guardian best books of the year 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. Book Description Ever wondered why you can identify your favourite song from hearing only the first two notes? Or why you can't get that annoying jingle out of your head? Daniel Levitin's breathtaking - and wholly accessible - book, now published in paperback, explains why. 'You'll never hear music in the same way again.' Classic FM Magazine From 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. From the Inside Flap 'Endlessly stimulating' Oliver Sacks 'Daniel Levitin is a one-time record producer who now works as a neuroscientist. No one could have better qualifications to write a book exploring how the human brain perceives music, and how composers exploit our instinctive reaction to musical material to beguile and challenge us... He writes with catchy enthusiasm and has a knack of couching complex ideas in user-friendly language. The book begins with Levitin deconstructing the fabric of sound itself, asking questions about why our ears find some harmonies beautiful and other grating, and there's a whole chapter about why we tap our feet in time. He opens our brain up to analysis, suggesting that many of our responses to music are formed while we're still in the womb. The chapter entitled 'What makes a musician?' explores what's inherent in the little grey cells to make a musical genius - and the bad news is you either got it or you ain't. Drawing on examples from Bach, Beethoven and Mozart to Frank Sinatra, Miles Davis and Johnny Cash, this book is a delightfully informative read. I guarantee, you'll never hear music in the same way again.' Philip Clark, Classic FM Magazine Fluent and readable... Levitin rightly insists that we are all better equipped to perform and appreciate music than we think, so conditioned are we to believe in music as the preserve of an elite. We are, he says, hard-wired for music. You might think that even the basic mechanics of music are beyond you, but Levitin will calmly guide you through all you need to know before explaining the cognitive processes our brains undergo when the music begins... Now we know what we have long suspected: great music, Shakespeare's 'food of love', affects the same part of our bra