Levitin is a scientist specializing in musical cognition -- how the brain interprets music, and why a love for music developed from an evolutionary standpoint. I have mixed feeling about the book. On the one hand, Levitin puts forth some really interesting ideas. On the other, the book isn't very well organized. It meanders all over the place, and not in an engaging way. I wish there was more structure to the book.

At least it's an interesting read. 3 stars out of 5. ( )

Really unimpressed. Schmalzy anecdotal stuff about his time in the music industry thinly disguised as academic musicology. Very little actual solid information to hang onto the loose hypotheses he makes. Not a good read for me. Overblown, irritatingly egotistical and annoyingly patriotic. Surprised it found a publisher. I gave it one and a half stars. ( )

What can I say that other reviewers haven't? This is not a good book; I'm glad I didn't pay money for it*. It feels incomplete, and it really only hints at its premise. The word "how" should not be in this book's title -- there's no lesson here, just a ramble.

What bothered me most about "The World in Six Songs" is that it could easily have been a six-page pamphlet -- it's that thin. There is very little done with science in this book to back up Levitin's theories. He instead relies on glurgey anecdotes of his youth and name-dropping (e.g., what does Sting think about singing cavemen?) to give weight to what is basically conjecture and categorization.

When "Songs" attempts to truly educate, it does so in a broad way, as if Levitin were afraid of losing us with big words or tests. In each chapter**, it seems Levitin can only briefly mention the neuroscience and archaeology he's banking on -- he offers proofs without citation and historical dramatizations among distracting personal tales and tips-of-the-hat to his celebrity friends.

So: Classification, ego-rides, trivia, and not much else. That's how I can sum up this book. If you're looking for "how" the "musical brain" did anything, look elsewhere.

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*Support your local library, folks.
**I had only made it to the "Knowledge" chapter before the needless drama got to me. In it, Daniel recounts a walk with a comrade, describing how his eyes dramatically reflected the light of a pond as he talked about the power of music to... What? Yeck. No thanks. ( )

Hypothesis on Quality of Music....and Intelligence

Whatever the origin may be, at the beginning (creation or not; leaving this for the sovereign Individual to find his own system or confusion); there is Energy and Intelligence or only Energy. This Beginning has brought about after generations two spheres of life.

These two spheres of Life according to the Model of Harmony, which I want to deal with, are:

The Human Hemisphere and the Godly Hemisphere

The Human Hemisphere consists of

I. The social and

II. The cultural plane

The godly hemisphere consists of

III. The material and

IV. The spiritual plane.

There are also two other planes on the transcendental level, which are not a point of discussion here. Just to complete the picture, they are:

V. The human and

VI. The Absolute plane

These two Hemispheres with all their structural moments, giving room for all forms of complexity and diversity, are in Harmony with each other. The harmony lives with its diversity and complexity in order to be full of life. Significant for these two Hemispheres are Intelligence for the “Human Hemisphere” and Energy for the “Godly Hemisphere”. Whether we the Humans like it or not these two central factors would be in a harmonious relation with each other. There is a very good saying in Amharic/bible...

”Chew lerasish sitiyi tafchi weinim dingay belew yittlushal”1. For solving our problems, if we the Humans are not in a position, with all the Intelligence at our disposal, to have this Harmony always in mind, nature will take care of it with all the consequences thereafter. Concerning the interdependence, multidimensionality, and the interrelations of the different factors, for the Godly Hemisphere, it can be assumed that the theory of Relativity. has a validity in this context too. I.e. this is solved with the famous statement of Einstein:

E = mc2 ; Energy = Mass x (Speed of Light) 2 /to the power of 2/

What does it look like for the “Human Hemisphere”?

The Hypothesis proposed here is, that there is a parallel or an analogous way of generalising the social reality.

This is formulated in a similar way like the theory of relativity:

I = hq2 ; Intelligence = Humanity x (Quality of Music)2 /to the power of 2/

I= Intelligence; h=Humanity; q= Quality of Music (For further elaboration see the legend part...”the Hypothesis”).

http://berhane-hilina.blogspot.com/20...

In a statement of clarification on the above hypothesis,

Intelligence == humanity x (quality of music)2

I expresed my hope that science would one day come to substantiate the intuition, I made some four years back:

"Not only Mystics, Time and Space may evolve to render this Truth a scientific foundation. Until then it is my pleasure to live, not only with the Faith but also with the knowledge, that the fundament of this truth is supported by the (non systematic) studies I made so far, in the field of philosophy and faith, ever since the harmony model was constituted in this form."
I am happy to come across the following research, books and publications etc. . The rest is all told by the science of music Mr. Daniel J. Levitin has researched in the context of neurology:
Please look into his highly interesting documents and books:
http://www.sixsongs.net/ ( )

Enjoyable read! Levitin explores the effect that six categories of "songs" have had on human evolution, communication-to-language, and society. He illustrates his hypotheses with snippets of lyrics, and includes interesting comments from song-writers like Sting and Joni Mitchell, which enhance the book.

This is NOT much of a neuroscience book as Levitin's previous book is; it is more a speculation on evolution, though not particularly deep. That is, I feel that the book is only an introduction to a theory that songs have shaped the world, but it is an enjoyable read that I hope is followed up with continuing research, study, and analysis. ( )