Absolutely perfect marriage of music, psychology, and neurology

books:


	• This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession Daniel J. Levitin Plume/Penguin, 2007 - 322 pages average customer review:based on 106 reviews view larger image
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Might be too technical for the average listener

A background in music that goes beyond light listening is required to follow parts of this book easily. Or time and effort could be necessary for many readers. But that would take you away from listening to your favorite music unless you can read about music and listen to it at the same time.

Absolutely perfect marriage of music, psychology, and neurology

This was an amazing read that I absolutely could not put down. This is exactly the book I have been waiting years for. It is written for people with a deep interest in both science and music; I believe that many "engineer/scientist by day and musician by night" types will love this book. Best of all, it does not require a deep understanding of music, psychology, or neurology (although one of Levitin's premises seems to be that we ALL have a deep understanding of music, whether we know it or not!)

Levitin starts out with a chapter or so on his background and music theory. As many reviewers have mentioned, the music theory presented here (and throughout the book) may not be new material for practicing musicians, but it does lay a good groundwork for many of the definitions and ideas that Levitin uses throughout the text.

Moving on to the rest of the book, Levitin has an interesting style that I found riveting. The book is not highly dense with ideas - it is not a textbook. It often takes several pages to come to a point. However, in these pages, Levitin is either giving historical information about how the current theories have come about, telling anecdotes related to the topic, or explaining laboratory results that have shed light on the topic.

Please do not misunderstand the intent of this book . . . it is not a thesis, a textbook, a journal article, etc. It should not be used as a primary source for information on any of the topics presented. And Levitin lays this out in the forward. This book is geared toward a much broader audience.

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Very interesting

Being a musician, I was suprised at how little I actually knew about sound. The book was very interesting and well written. If you're at all curious about the phycology of sound, check out this book.

Music For The Brain?

Certainly well documented and written for those in the know. It tends to be somewhat boring on some occations but you have to continue on the read to hear the music!

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, page 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17

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