Product Description
In this groundbreaking union of art and science, rocker-turned-neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin explores the connection between music—its performance, its composition, how we listen to it, why we enjoy it—and the human brain. Drawing on the latest research and on musical examples ranging from Mozart to Duke Ellington to Van Halen, Levitin reveals:
• How composers produce some of the most pleasurable effects of listening to music by exploiting the way our brains make sense of the world
• Why we are so emotionally attached to the music we listened to as teenagers, whether it was Fleetwood Mac, U2, or Dr. Dre
• That practice, rather than talent, is the driving force behind musi… More >>
This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession
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What happens when someone takes a wonderful idea and betrays it?
Narcissistic
Inaccurate
Distasteful
Remember that the majority prefers mediocrity and that’s why a book like this becomes popular.
Rating: 1 / 5
This was a gift. The person who received thought it would be good reading.
Rating: 5 / 5
The book was used..a lot actually..the cover was a little bit broken and it looks like somebody did throw water on the book..also it has some black spots on the pages..but at least I could read what’s written on it..
Rating: 2 / 5
I have an IQ of 156, and have been involved in music for over 30 years, as musician, performer, reviewer, promoter, photographer, judge, vocalist, and Karaoke. I was intrigued in the extreme by the book ‘s description. I have to say I was disappointed. The author is both very experienced and very educated, and knows a lot about the brain and about music. At the end of the book I find I still don’t understand. Why does a foot tap to a piper or fiddler? There is no drummer, rhythm instrument, etc. Why does a minor chord make us feel wistful? I still don’t know. In my opinion the book lacks wit, heart and soul. Many of the qualities we get from music itself.
Rating: 2 / 5
Several reviewers with considerable expert knowledge in the area have – it is fair to say – excoriated this book on this site. Levitin may be a clever experimentalist, and possibly a good music producer. That did not qualify him to attempt a project of this nature. The musical errors are elementary, and at times close to maddening, as several reviewers have pointed out. For example, as alluded to in one of these reviews, p. 238 shows that Levitin has never actually played with a real jazz ensemble; the “chorus” is indeed the whole form, not the “B” section. Or is it the old adage in bad jazz – “if you make a mistake, be sure to repeat it” that obtains here as in his playing?
Levitin’s work is an example of why cognitive science in progressing only slowly. On P. 180 the cat is out of the bag; “Crick’s own search had encouraged me to take my lack of experience as a licence to think about cognitive neuroscience differently than other people” Quite. Regrettably, then, even when the discussion on the neuroscience of music shows signs of competence (eg 227-228), I am disinclined to follow anything up.
One cannot enter an established academic field – or two, in this case – with a gragbag of techniques and less than fully-baked ideas and hope to get away with it. For those who want a solid grounding in a generative theory of music, try Jackendoff and LerdahlA Generative Theory of Tonal Music. Our own edited collection Language, Vision, and Music: Selected Papers from the 8th International Workshop on the Cognitive Science of Natural Language Processing, Galway, Ireland 1999 (Advances in Consciousness Research)features writers at a much higher stage of competence than Levitin
Seán O Nualláin Ph.D. 4u Meitheamh 2009
Rating: 1 / 5