This Is Your Brain on Music

Posted on 19 August 2017 by Daniel J. Levitin

Whether you load your iPod with Bach or Bono, music has a significant role in your life even if you never realized it Why does music evoke such powerful moods The answers are at last be coming clear, thanks to revolutionary neuroscience and the emerging field of evolutionary psychology Both a cutting edge study and a tribute to the beauty of music itself, This Is Your Brain on Music unravels a host of mysteries that affect everything from pop culture to our understanding of human nature, including Are our musical preferences shaped in utero Is there a cutoff point for acquiring new tastes in music What do PET scans and MRIs reveal about the brain s response to music Is musical pleasure different from other kinds of pleasure This Is Your Brain on Music explores cultures in which singing is considered an essential human function, patients who have a rare disorder that prevents them from making sense of music, and scientists studying why two people may not have the same definition of pitch At every turn, this provocative work unlocks deep secrets about how nature and nurture forge a uniquely human obsession. New Download eBook This Is Your Brain on Music Author Daniel J. Levitin – kino-fada.fr A book is the wrong medium for this information As I read this book, I kept wishing I was watching a PBS show version of it instead, where I could HEAR the music Mr Levitin was referencing, and see visuals of the brain showing what parts are being affected by music, and how they all link up Instead of having to tell us in excruciating detail what an octave is, he could demonstrate on an instrument, and we could hear it for ourselves When discussing half steps and whole steps, we could both h A book is the wrong medium for this information As I read this book, I kept wishing I was watching a PBS show ve...There s a lot of amazing stuff in this book to contemplate, but the author tries too hard to make it relevant for readers who listen to the Eagles and Mariah Carey musicians he specifically sites , and he gets caught up in the most mundane details of his personal interactions with his colleagues at meetings and dinners and such, and who ordered what, and how everybody was dress...It wasn t until I was half way through this book that things started to get really interesting As a musician, the first half was like retaking Music 101, but I felt this was a book I need to read, so I plowed on I am looking for answers to the questions Why, when I near any musical interval, my brain automatically zips through all the tunes I know which start with that interval, and I start humming one of them and Why the hell have I had 76 Trombones on my mind for the last 6 weeks Is It wasn t until I was half way through this book that things started to get really interesting As a musician, the first half was like retaking Music 101, but I felt this was a book I need to read, so I plowed on I am looking for answers to the questions Why, when I near any musical interval, my brain automatically zips through all the tunes I know which start with that interval, and I start humming one of them and Why the hell have I had 76 Trombones on my mind for the last 6 weeks Is this what happens when musicians age I feel like I m nearing the answers, and its getting quite interesting I m still reading the book I finally finished the book and solved the mystery of 76 Trombones it just so happened my cousin who lives on the East coast was playing trumpet in a production of The Music Man that telepathic experience had nothing to do with the book As for the intervals reminding me of tunes, that has something to do wit...Seemingly for musicians or composers this book isfitting a read for scientists and doctors Not much content is musicianship related Middle third is a bore.What I learned There is no sound in space there are no molecules to vibrate Virtuosity comes from hours of practice talent and absolute pitch play a small role Learning to play an instrument after 20 is hard the brain is done developing Percussion is a primitive musical trait affirming my ...From the reviews I ve seen here, the material seems to have passed over most people s heads by being too rough, or the phrase you ll come across a few times, I didn t feel like I walked away exclaiming eureka or the book angeredexpert readers by its simplicity, but it wasn t meant to talk of new discoveries as much as it was meant for a general public The book takes a while for an average person, and I d say you have to have some knowledge of chorded instruments and such where yo From the reviews I ve seen here, the material seems to have passed over most people s heads by being too rough, or the phrase you ll come across a few times, I didn t feel like I walked away exclaiming eureka or the book angeredexpert readers by its simplicity, but it wasn t meant to talk of new discoveries as much as it was meant for a general public The book takes a while for an average person, and I d say you have to have some knowledge of chorded instruments and such where you d come across ideas such as frequencies ringing together to form major and minor chords It covers various interesting topics, and I speculate the reason people walk away feeling not ...I really despise myself for giving what should be an awesome book only 2 stars I know I am mentally feeble, but was this ever dry Interesting topic neuroscience music but the author did go on at times too much music theory, god I hated studying that and I m a musician and took the scientific aspects to a degree where I often found myself stopping to ponder what the hell is he talking about It read like it could be someone s dissertation The second half is slightlyintere I really despise myself for giving what should be an awesome book only 2 stars I know I am mentally feeble, but was this ever dry Interesting topic neuroscience music but the author did go on at times too much music theory, god I hated studying that and I m a musician and took the scientific aspects to a degree where I often found myself stopping to ponder what the hell is he talking about It read like it could be someone s dissertation The second half is slightl...This is one of those books that I think is a valuable read but not necessarily an enjoyable one..at least for the general reader If you bring a background in neuroscience then this is a treasure chest of information My personal interest lies in music specifically and I saw this as an opportunity to better understand how our brains engage with music Coupled with Oliver Sacks collection The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat we begin to unlock the mysterious properties of music to help us com This is one of those books that I think is a valuable read but not necessarily an enjoyable one..at least for the general reader If you bring a background in neuroscience then this is a treasure chest of information My personal interest lies in music specifically and I saw this as an opportunity to better understand how our brains engage with music Coupled with Oliver Sacks collection...A for effort and ambition and C for execution He tries to be all things to all people, bouncing too much from folksy to scholarly and from self referential to didactic perspectives Levitin has a substantial music background, both in performance and production, and a very productive track record in cognitive neuroscience Thus, his personal ambition to account for the neural basis of music, music listening pleasure, and musical creativity is compelling to him, and that motivation is infecti A for effort and ambition and C for execution He tries to be all things to all people, bouncing too much from f...Someone left this behind in the cubby of the plane seat on a flight I took in December As I d finished my magazines, I picked it up, and then couldn t put it down What was most fascinating about the book was the ease at which concepts I d struggled with years ago were made crisp, clear, and, well, obvious, as they should have been back then Introductory concepts of music were never made as clear ...In Daniel Levitin s own words, This book is about the science of music, from the perspective of cognitive neuroscience I ll discuss some of the latest studies I and other researchers in our field have conducted on music, musical meaning, and musical pleasure H ow can we account for wide differences in musical preference why is it that one man s Mozart is another man s Madonna p 11 After reading these 270 pages, I m sure I can t tell you I m pretty disappointed, but then I had real In Daniel Levitin s own words, This book is about the science of music, from the perspective of c...

English
19 August 2017

Daniel J. Levitin