Book Review: This Is Your Brain on Music by Daniel J. Levitin

Many freely admit they are addicted. I am among them. We can't go through a day without listening to music on the radio, a stereo, or MP3 player. Purchase of concert tickets or of a new release by a favorite artist ranks among the necessities of life. Snippets of songs heard in passing almost immediately bring back memories of other times and places. Regardless of how many times we may have heard them, other songs inevitably give us goose bumps.

It all seems so easy. The music just goes in your ears, and there's a range of positive to negative reaction. But as Daniel Levitin makes clear in his book, This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession, there is so much going on behind the scenes that even the world's top scientists and psychologists cannot explain it. And although far from perfect, Levitin's effort and its related website is a worthy exploration of what we know about how and why music is such an integral part of the human experience.

Levitin's book is, in his words, "about the science of music, from the perspective of cognitive neuroscience." Don't let that scare you off. The introduction establishes that this isn't going to be simply a dry recitation about music, science, and the brain. In fact, Levitin's introduction is reminiscent of the scene in Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous, where the young, fictional Crowe becomes entranced listening to The Who's Tommy while exploring and staring at the LP cover.

For Levitin, it was not LP covers but headphones. They revealed a depth to music he had never encountered.

To me, records were no longer just about the songs anymore, but about the sound. Headphones opened up a world of sonic colors, a palette of nuances and details that went far beyond the chords and melody, the lyrics, or a particular singer's voice.... Headphones also made the music more personal for me; it was suddenly coming from inside my head, not out there in the world.

That experience helped lead Levitin to become a session musician, recording engineer, and record producer. Yet his fascination with the perception of sound and music took him even further, leading him to a degree is neuroscience and, ultimately, to the head of the Levitin Laboratory for Musical Perception, Cognition, and Expertise at McGill University in Montreal.

The introduction is typical of how Levitin approaches his subject. He blends experiences all of us have had, songs most of us know, and his personal history with the more straightforward details of music, science, and scientific studies to help us understand the impact of music. And, in that respect, the title may be perfect. Borrowed from the advertising campaign on the impact of illegal drugs on the brain, Levitin shows us the entirely legal effect music has on our brains and brain chemistry.

Article Author: Tim Gebhart

Tim Gebhart lives in Sioux Falls, SD, where he practices law in order to provide shelter for his family, his dogs, and his books. He is a member of the National Book Critics Circle and his blog de guerre is A Progressive on the Prairie.

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