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Table of contents
1. This is your brain on music: The science of a human obsession.................................................................

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Document 1 of 1

This is your brain on music: The science of a human obsession.

Author: Levitin, Daniel J.

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McGill University, Laboratory for Musical Perception, Cognition, and Expertise,

Montreal, PQ, Canada

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Abstract (English): This is the first book to arrive at a comprehensive scientific understanding of how humans
experience music and why it plays such a unique role in our lives. As Oliver Sacks has suggested, Professor
Daniel Levitin is one of the very few people in the world who could write it. This Is Your Brain on Music is a
meeting of the two magnificent worlds of art and science and is destined to be a landmark in cultural history.
Levitin unravels the mystery of our perennial love affair with music--but should we call it instead a love/hate
relationship? Ever have a jingle you couldn't get out of your head? Throughout history certain music has been
deemed subversive and even outlawed. Where does the power of music come from? This unprecedented
investigation of the role of music in human evolution and everyone's daily lives synthesizes psychology,
neuroscience, and musical examples from Mozart to Eminem. Levitin explains the elements of music--pitch,
rhythm, tempo, timbre, harmony, and melody. Then, building on his own research as well as that of his
colleagues, he explores the perception of music in the human brain. The parade of music continues from Bach
to Count Basie to Creedence to Van Halen as Levitin shows that a cascade of activity, from the eardrum to cells
deep inside the brain that regulate emotion, is set off whenever we hear music--at weddings, in shopping malls,
at dance clubs, at church. He also shows how composers exploit the way our brains make sense of the world,
how our musical preferences begin to form before we are born, and how musical expertise is built. Despite a
pervasive cultural distinction in the West between an expert class of performers and everyone else, Levitin
asserts that we are all more musically equipped than we think because our brains are hardwired for music.
Some leading experts have long held that music is a decoration living parasitically on the fringe of human
nature. On the contrary, Levitin argues and convincingly demonstrates that it is an obsession at the heart of
human nature, perhaps even more fundamental to our species than language. (PsycINFO Database Record (c)
2012 APA, all rights reserved)(jacket)
Links: Check for full text
Subject: Brain (major); Music Perception (major); Classification (Cognitive Process); Emotions; Expectations;
Experience Level; Human Nature; Music; Preferences; Theory of Evolution;
Classification: 2500: Physiological Psychology & Neuroscience
Population: Human
Identifier (keyword): perception of music human brain elements of music emotion musical preferences human
nature evolution musical expertise anticipation categorization
Target audience: General Public
Monograph title: This is your brain on music: The science of a human obsession.
Pages: vi, 314
Publication date: 2006
Format covered: Print
Publisher: Dutton/Penguin Books ( New York , NY , US )

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ISBN: 0525949690, 9780525949695

Language: English
Document type: Book, Authored Book
Table of contents: Introduction: I Love Music and I Love Science--Why Would I Want to Mix the Two?; What Is
Music? From Pitch to Timbre; Foot Tapping: Discerning Rhythm, Loudness, and Harmony; Behind the Curtain:
Music and the Mind Machine; Anticipation: What We Expect From Liszt (and Ludacris); You Know My Name,
Look Up the Number: How We Categorize Music; After Dessert, Crick Was Still Four Seats Away from Me:
Music, Emotion, and the Reptilian Brain; What Makes a Musician? Expertise Dissected; My Favorite Things:
Why Do We Like the Music We Like?; The Music Instinct: Evolution's #1 Hit; Appendices; Bibliographic Notes;
Acknowledgments; Index
Release date: 02 Apr 2007 (PsycINFO);
Accession number: 2006-21043-000
ProQuest document ID: 621489384
Document URL: http://search.proquest.com/docview/621489384?accountid=9784
Database: PsycINFO

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