This Is Your Brain On Music: Understanding a Human Obsession

The book unravels the mystery of our perennial love affair with music. "What do the music of Bach, Depeche Mode and John Cage fundamentally have in common?" Music is an obsession at the heart of human nature, even more fundamental to our species than language. From Mozart to the Beatles, neuroscientist, psychologist and internationally-bestselling author Daniel Levitin reveals the role of music in human evolution, shows how our musical preferences begin to form even before we are born and explains why music can offer such an emotional experience. In "This Is Your Brain On Music" Levitin offers nothing less than a new way to understand music, and what it can teach us about ourselves.

"Music seems to have an almost wilful, evasive quality, defying simple explanation, so that the more we find out, the more there is to know."

"Daniel Levitin's book is an eloquent and poetic exploration of this paradox" (Sting)

"You'll never hear music in the same way again." (Classic FM magazine)

"Music, Levitin argues, is not a decadent modern diversion but something of fundamental importance to the history of human development" (Literary Review)

CONTENIDO:

Introduction: I Love Music and I Love Science. Why Would I Want to Mix the Two?

1- What Is Music? From Pitch to Timbre
2- Foot Tapping. Discerning Rhythm, Loudness, and Harmony
3- Behind the Curtain. Music and the Mind Machine
4- Anticipation. What We Expect from Liszt (and Ludacris)
5- You Know My Name, Look Up the Number. How We Categorize Music
6- After Dessert, Crick Was Still Four Seats Away from Me. Music. Emotion, and the Reptilian Brain
7- What Makes a Musician? Expertise Dissected
8- My Favorite Things. Why Do We Like the Music We Like?
9- The Music Instinct. Evolution's #1 Hit

Appendices
Bibliographic Notes
Acknowledgments
Index