Book Review: This is Your Brain on Music by Daniel Levitin - Page 3

We tend to take communication — language — for granted once we acquire it; for most of us, music just is in the same way. It is fascinating and reassuring that science seems to indicate that this is more than mere coincidence. To our brains, it may be that music is just another language that we learn to understand.

Of course, the magic of music and language isn't just in the structure. Structure is necessary, but it's not the point. The best music, the best speeches, the best books transcend the rules of their forms. They aren't just technically right: They make us feel something.

Even the most uptight and analytic among us expect to be moved by Shakespeare and Bach. We can marvel at the craft these geniuses have mastered, a facility with language or with notes, but ultimately that facility must be brought into service for a different type of communication.

In This is Your Brain on Music, Levitin achieves that higher level. He helped me understand the interplay between the physics of sound and the physiology of my brain, he made me feel something bigger. Levitin loves music, and is amazed by how complicated a thing it is that music touches us, that the song remains the same — and different— on a steel pan or a theremin or a Stratocaster. Levitin was curious about music, and in writing about where that curiosity led him, he brought me not just an increased understanding, but also an increased sense of wonder. It's a feeling that echoes every time I listen to a good song. I know what I like, and I like my brain on music.

Article Author: Bonnie

Bonnie writes about books every Thursday at Fourth-Rate Reader, about everything else at Signifying Nothing, and sometimes she resorts to pictures. She lives in Toronto.

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