It's funny how I initially came upon This is Your Brain on Music. I was sitting with a group of friends one afternoon as we talked about how we all eventually seem to get stuck or trapped in our own generations' music. I immediately thought about myself and questioned if there was perhaps a generational gene that I'd missed inheriting, because I had definitely not stayed with my generation's music. As new music is released I have moved along with it and embraced it. Perhaps it was because, for most of my life I have been a musician. Or maybe it was because I could hear the recycled riffs and shared melody from past compositions that bridged the music from past to the present. But it was that thought that led me to Googling the question 'Why do we love our own generation's music best?' And that search eventually led me to this book.
This is Your Brain on Music is a pretty hard book to argue with. Written by multi-hatted Daniel Levitin, you have to accept that the man knows where he's coming from. The non-music related jobs he's worked at professionally are as diverse and eclectic as any one human could master in a lifetime. He worked as an automobile mechanic and as a graphic designer - a typographer, a chauffeur, product manager, data analyst, dishwasher, computer operator, television repairman, fry cook, stand up comedian, door-to-door salesman, camp counselor, and wood stove salesman.
But then in his thirties he returned to school and studied cognitive psychology/cognitive science, first at Stanford University (he received his B.A. in 1992 with honors and highest university distinction) and then the University of Oregon where he received his M.Sc. (1993) and Ph.D. (1996). He completed post-doctoral fellowships at Paul Allen's Silicon Valley think-tank Interval Research, at the Stanford University Medical School, and at the University of California, Berkeley.
He has been a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University, Dartmouth College, and Oregon Health Sciences University. As a cognitive neuroscientist specializing in music perception and cognition, he is credited with fundamentally changing the way scientists think about auditory memory, showing that long-term memory preserves many of the details of perceptual experience that previous theorists regarded as lost during the encoding process, and with drawing attention to the role of the cerebellum in music listening, including tracking the beat and distinguishing familiar from unfamiliar music.
Article comments
1 - Christine Bode
This Is Your Brain on Music and The World in Six Songs are both on my must read list! Thank you for this most informative and interesting review!
2 - Ginger Haycox
Thank you too, Christine. You will enjoy this book I'm pretty certain.
3 - Ramesh Raghuvanshi
Music born with era of that age.Every age have its own problem, own test, own joy and sorrow. Naturally music reflect that and young genaration intimated with that music because it is their music
4 - Dave Jackson
Came across your site tonight, here in the tiny village of Greyton in South Africa's Western Cape. Your writing and your subjects are human, insightful and compassionate. Thanks for a real fillip. Jackson Browne, oneupmanship, book reviews and music to boot! I have catching up to do.. Dave Jackson
5 - sean
This is very interesting me.. Im going to order this book. I've always wondered why i can remember music lyric, and not other information that would of been more useful if retained.
6 - Ginger Haycox
Thank you all for the kind comments. I'm not getting to blog nearly as much as I'd like to of late, but be patient. I'll be attending a number of concerts in the next two months, so I'll be reviewing those as well as a bunch of new books.