Great book, really interesting especially if you are into science and music. This ties together two of my favorite subjects so I found this really interesting. It talks about why people like music. It also researchs how far back music really goes. The effects of music on the brain is the major topic in this book. Interesting book, but only if you already know a little bit about anatomy and physiology and music.

What is your brain doing while you're listening to or making music? Why do you like or dislike a particular piece of music? Lots of questions are addressed, some more satisfactorily than others - inevitably some answers have to be 'we don't know yet'. But this book does give a great insight into what is going on and how much that we like is learned from our culture.
Well worth reading if you're interested in what music does to you. ( )

This Is Your Brain on Music
Daniel J Levitan
Aug 23, 2009 9:39 PM

Despite the unfortunately cute title, this was actually a sophisticated book, partly music theory, history of rock and roll, and psychophysiology. Levitan is a recording engineer and rock musician turned psychologist, who is interested in the activation of the brain with music. He comments on the processes of remembering a melody even in a different pitch, on discriminating rhythm and memorizing music. He suggests evolutionary reasons for music persistence in humans. The writing is very clear and engaging. One interesting illusion formed by music he mentions is the quintana; a fifth female voice that seems to emerge from four males singing Sicilian church music. ( )

A 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.) ( )

Levitin 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. ( )