This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession
Written by Daniel J. Levitin
Narrated by Edward Herrmann
3.5/5
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About this audiobook
What can music teach us about the brain? What can the brain teach us about music? And what can both teach us about ourselves?
In this groundbreaking union of art and science, rocker-turned-neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin (The World in Six Songs and The Organized Mind) explores the connection between music-its performance, its composition, how we listen to it, why we enjoy it-and the human brain. Drawing on the latest research and on musical examples ranging from Mozart to Duke Ellington to Van Halen, Levitin 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
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. 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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Reviews for This Is Your Brain on Music
567 ratings37 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Levitin first offers a short course on music theory, before launching into a fascinating discussion of how music affects our brains and how our brains affect the music.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This Is Your Brain on Music is a fascinating book for music lovers and neuroscience lovers alike. The author, Daniel Levitin explores the neuroscience of music: how we listen to it, why we enjoy it, and even why some music is more likely to get "stuck" in our heads than others. Levitin also takes time to explain the science of music itself: timbre, rhythm, pitch, and harmony. Several sections are also dedicated to how music affects us, why we like what we like, and the discussion about whether or not the development of music was accidental in evolution or and indicator of higher level brain functioning.I found this book both fascinating and dull, depending on what I happened to be reading. I love music, but science has never been my "thing". For non-science minded people, I found that this book often talks over our heads. This book would be best used with juniors and seniors in high school. Students taking music of any sort will find this new look at music entertaining and informative.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I liked that this book started with a primer on music and then moved into the neurology involved in listening to music. This was a really interesting book and I'm wondering if my guitar-playing son would appreciate it.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is a scientific approach to music and how it affects the brain and your emotions and feelings. Involves neuroscience and how/why music affects your brain the way it does
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A professional musician turned neuroscientist explains to non-musicians and non-scientists how our brains process, recall, and react to auditory stimuli and why music plays such a key role in cultures around the world. While the majority of the information is accessible for lay people without formal psychology, medical, or musical training, I found some of the chord discussions confusing to digest using text alone--seeing the arrangements on an illustration of printed sheet music or the neck of a guitar would have been a big help. Bottom Line: Levitin's interesting, insightful, and well-composed book definitely got my neurotransmitters humming--recommend!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is another of those books well worth finishing that I simply didn't finish. I allowed myself to be sidetracked by other books.But it's a fascinating book. After a detailed analysis of the elements that comprise music, the author looks carefully at how music affect the brain and its emotions. It's filled with fascinating factoids about the nuances of popular recordings.But I didn't finish it. Shame on me.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Well done survey on a complicated but fascinating subject. A good read and goes well with other books about neuroscience or consciousness.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fine book, wonderfully educational about what music is and who we are as people. I'd seen good reviews of the book, and the subject areas certainly intrigue me, but I'd put off reading it because of the inane title. My mistake! Please, if this seems like an interesting book, then give it a try. Dumb title, great book.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5For me this was a brain appreciation exercise rather than a music appreciation one.Lots of neuroscience here and a very educational read. Interesting to read about the various approaches in research. As for the music: this neither increased nor decreased my appreciation of music. Nor did it fundamentally change the way I listen to and think about music.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5It was all very interesting and informative, until the author started speculating about evo-psych crap. As a genetic researcher who has studied human evolution, I can ensure that none of his arguments about the evolution of music would pass a real scientific peer review. It’s hard to remember the good parts from the beginning of the book when he ends with such utter nonsense.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Incredibly disappointing. Not anywhere near as light as expected. Much more about neuroscience than about music at all - the author even goes on tangents that have nothing at all to do with music.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The narrator is very dry and unenthusiastic sounding which can make this material - which is at times very dry - hard to get to excited about. However it is very interesting. This was a required in my Psychology of Music class which I took as part of my Music Therapy degree. A lot of the information was hard to process when I first read it since it's heavily scientific so now hearing it years later has helped clear a few things up for me. However it is much more scientific than it is musical. Some might think that over analyzing something like music and why we do or don't like certain types of music can take all the mysteries and enjoyment out of it. In some cases you may be right. As a musician I found some of it enlightening and other parts tedious; it's all a matter of how much you want to know about what happens neurologically when you listen to or play music.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Ok, so, I didn't hate this book; the book has some pretty cool facts that make you think. I just couldn't get into a rhythm with this book. This is Your Brain on Music is very well written and presented. I found it to be dry; which is probably why I tend not to read much non-fiction. Also, being a musician for the better part of my life, the elementary theory sections, while useful to non-musicians, were not of value to me. So I skipped a good portion of the first part of the book. So if you are into science and have a fancy for music this is a good read for you; however, if you are a musician who, like me, isn't that into science (I was terrible at science in college)this is one to bypass.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Some concepts too simplified and made too 'pop-science', but some of the conclusions drawn were excellent.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Good popular science books have to strike a sort of balance between the specialized language of the subject matter and plain language to describe it. This is Brain on Music, though, is both too vague for experts and too general for the unitiated. The last chapter, however, is truly exciting and strikes this balance very well. I wish Levitin had started from here. The bulk of the book has preliminary kind of feeling to it.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I am not one for Science books, but I do love music, so I thought I would give this a try. Levitin does a wonderful job of explaining both music and the brain for the lay reader. Very in-depth and informative, but still very readable and enjoyable.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5If you ask someone if music is a big part of their life, he or she will most likely say yes. But why is that so? We know that music has been around since the dawn of humankind, but did we create music, or did music create us? Daniel Levitin is a neuroscientist and throughout the book he argues that we humans would not be who we are if it wasn’t for music, and he’ll prove this by both the scientific and physiological properties of music and the brain.In this book, you’ll see the answers to these questions:•What are the basic components of music including rhythm, pitch, and timbre?•Why do certain emotions and memories are associated with music we like?•How do teenagers get attached to music and how it all begins with before we are born?•Does music really make you smarter? (aka The Mozart Effect)•Why do songs get stuck in our head?•How some abilities and disabilities like Absolute Pitch and Williams syndrome affect music?•What does the cerebellum, the oldest part of the brain, have to do with music and how does it relate to reptiles?•What makes a musician and how much practice does it take to be great?•If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it makes a sound?•How does human and animal courtship us music and other forms of creativity naturally.Levitin explains everything in such a way that everything is crystal clear. His goal is to simplify things without oversimplifying. If you’ve always been curious of how music works, how it affects our brain, and why we like it so much, then read this book to discover what your brain is on music. You won’t be disappointed.Rating: Four and a Half Stars **** ½
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5wonderful speculation and research on the ways music makes its home in the head and heart
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Incredibly disappointing. Not anywhere near as light as expected. Much more about neuroscience than about music at all - the author even goes on tangents that have nothing at all to do with music.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I really enjoyed this book. It got a little biographical at times, although I suppose that made it more readable. The explanations of how music fits into the brain and even the basics of music itself have really opened my eyes (and ears) to new things. Very glad I got through this one!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I thoroughly enjoyed - and learned a lot from - this study of how music affects the human brain. The author's background as a musician and record producer who became a cognitive neuroscientist means that he is well placed to write about the intersection of music and the brain, and I also enjoyed the range of musical examples - from punk through classical - he uses. My only gripes are some annoying typos, and that the book is too short.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Superbly accessible, comprehensive, and written by someone who obviously knows his music. This book presents the latest understanding on music and the brain in a highly readable and engaging format; it's that rare thing, a science book which is a genuine page-turner. The only slight detractor would be the final chapter, which aruges against Steven Pinker's "music as cheesecake" hypothesis (that music simply excites neural structures which were already present for other reasons) - this is not totally convincing, and sounds a little like too much protestation. This is a very minor quibble, and does not diminish the rest of the work, which is lucid, comprehensive and well-reasoned.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Written by a music recording engineer turned neuroscientist, this book discusses the different ways we are impacted by the music we hear. He explains some basic music theory and shows us the scientific evidence that even nonmusicians are aware of changes in key, rhythm, melodic phrasing and harmonics. When we listen to music, our entire brains become active, from the oldest, "reptilian brain" cerebellum to the highest, most recently developed frontal cortex, and many areas in between. He argues that, contrary to some opinions, music is not useless consequence of human evolution. He takes the stand that music was a basic step in human development, perhaps even earlier than spoken language.I found the book to be well-written. The scientific concepts are explained clearly and are easy to understand. The musical concepts were also presently clearly and with dozens of examples. I enjoyed it very much.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A fairly readable overview of the basics of music and what we know about the brain’s response to music. It’s best at making the points that (1) we are all experts at listening to music, even if the formal vocabulary escapes us, and (2) the modern separation of music from movement has distracted us from the deep connection between the two—music comes from the body as well as the brain. Near the end he gallops pretty fast through the supposed evolutionary benefits of music, though this evo-psych stuff always has a just-so flavor for me so that’s always going to be the part I think makes the least sense. (For example, did you know that you can explain the role of music in human evolution solely in terms of how it helped prehistoric men win prehistoric women’s affections, demonstrating males’ ability to perform the complex motions required to hunt successfully and their ability to cooperate with others? This is totally why women can’t sing or play instruments, and why some kinds of music are nonetheless gendered female in modern culture! Is that what people mean when they say “trufax”? To be fair, Levitin is only responsible for the first sentence of this aside, but that first sentence is—without the awareness that some musical bodies are getting left out of the story except as choosers—not an unfair summary of his coverage of the topic.)
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Levitin is a recording engineer turned scientist. In this book, he takes a comprehensive look at the science of music, from it's component level (pitch, beat, timbre, tone, etc.) to the neuroscience behind what is happening when we listen and play music (and how those with disorders such as Williams Syndrome and Autism show differing results) to the evolutionary benefits leading it's development in the human species.Of these three major divisions in the book, I enjoyed the first part (musical definition) because of his anecdotal experience as a recording engineer. Levitin brings in samples from all music genres, from classical to the Beatles to the Ramones. The middle if the book discussed which parts of the brain are responsible for various elements of listening to and playing music. While some of this caused my eyes to glaze over, some of the revelations were interesting, particularly his assertion that we all become "expert listeners" to music by age 6, but developing musicianship skills can take a fair bit longer. He also discusses the 10,000-hour theory (that it takes 10,000 hours of doing a thing to become good enough to achieve greatness), suggesting that it more or less follows suit in music as in other artistic forms. Early on, Levitin discusses an episode from a visit to an African tribe, where the idea of passively listening to music was unheard of (everyone sings, everyone dances, everyone at least bangs a drum). Music was completely participatory, and they couldn't fathom it being any other way. At the end of the book, Levitin returns to this theme in postulating a theory on how music has evolutionary importance in the rise of the species, refuting claims by Steven Pinker that music was a useless parasite that developed on the back of language. Levitin trots out archeological evidence suggesting that music actually preceded spoken language by a fair bit, and then returns to the tribal example, claiming that such participatory music would be a display of virility. He then transposes the notion to modern times, where popular [male] musicians attract huge followings of the opposite sex willing to sleep with them...but these same women, by and large, are not interested in musicians for long-term relationships. This suggests that the genetic makeup embodied in a popular musician is a stronger attractant than more pragmatic considerations such as life-long stability. At some point in time, this must have been one and the same...as tribal dances are feats of endurance lasting hours, a primeval musician may have been showing his stamina that translated into prowess at the hunt, when a wounded animal might have been chased for sometime before it expired.All in all, I think Levitin made a good case for the evolutionary benefits of music. It's been about 20 years since I've read Pinker's The Language Instinct, and I wonder if current evidence would have him reconsider his harsh stance.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Daniel J. Levitin’s This Is Your Brain On Music: The Science of a Human Obsession is a fascinating study about what happens in the brain when we listen to music. Levitin, a neuroscientist and former session musician and producer, has crafted an excellent study that both scientists and lay readers whose grasp of science is somewhat limited will find informative.Perhaps best of all, Levitin’s book doesn’t ruin the enjoyment of listening to music.Levitin primarily takes a thematic approach in examining how the brain functions when listening to music. Although the first chapter, which explains the basics of music like pitch, timbre, meter, may be sow-going for the musically-challenged, the remaining chapters are enlightening. With topics including how the brain remembers and recalls music, why music can impact our moods, and why musical preferences can vary from person to person, Levitin explains the processes occurring in the brain without overwhelming the reader with overly-technical and academically-dry details.Perhaps the most interesting chapter is the final one, which makes a case for the evolutionary origins of music, arguing against scientists who believe music was a happy accident or an unplanned byproduct of language development. Levitin shows how music may have played a role in human survival and evolution, including aiding in cognitive development, serving as a key factor in promoting early human interactions, and giving musical males an extra advantage in the grand reproductive race.Written for non-experts who might not know the difference between a hippocampus and a hippopotamus, This Is Your Brain On Music successfully manages to explain how we listen to music without reducing music to a series of neurons and brain waves. Levitin writes in an intelligent but not overbearing or condescending tone; his passion for music is apparent throughout the book. An excellent integration of science and music, Levitin’s book examines the brain’s role in listening to and processing music without downplaying any of the emotions we experience when listening to music. I enjoyed the book, particularly the science of the brain and its relation to music.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fascinating book. A must read for all music lovers and especially those who have had some musical training. You'll finally find out why songs get stuck in your head, or why some music brings tears to your eyes, or takes you back to another time and place in an instant. Lots of "aha" moments.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Levitin presents some interesting observations on the link between brain and music, but for my liking he spends too much time explaining introductory material.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A good overview of some general mind concepts, applied to music. Also a good introduction to the structure of music. There are some great tidbits in the book, like needing 10,000 hours to be an expert at something, but overall the book wanders too much, especially into Levitin's personal history. I think the book could have been much shorter and more focused. The best concepts are pattern recognition, how we like/dislike complex music, music in evolution, and emotion. But overall it's hard to go back and bring out the best parts as the book isn't structured very well. Also, be prepared to try to remember/YouTube lots of classic rock, especially the Beatles, if you want to follow his references to songs.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A really interesting and informative yet fun way of really explaining many details about music and why us as humans are so interested in it.I recommend this book for anyone who has ever seen the connections between music and it's prevelance and need for it in our lives. i loved it