Book Review: This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession by Daniel J. Levitin - Page 2

Over the years he has worked with the likes of The Grateful Dead, Santana, Steely Dan, Chris Isaak, Joe Satriani - just the beginnings of a very lengthy list of musicians. He has won awards from the Sundance Film Festival as well as the Venice Film Festival.

On the music/sound effects side of things he's worked at A Broun Soun in San Rafael, California, building speaker cabinets for The Grateful Dead, for whom he later worked again as a consulting record producer. He was invited and became one of the golden ears used in the first Dolby AC audio compression tests, a precursor to mp3 audio compression.

I know one of the first things out of people's mouths is to wonder how dry this book is. Admittedly, the first part is a bit, but only a bit. It's by no means something that would put you to sleep. Not by a long shot. Daniel writes in the introduction:

By better understanding what music is and where it comes from, we may be able to better understand our motives, fears, desires, memories and even communication in the broadest sense. Is music listening more along the lines of eating when you're hungry, and thus satisfying an urge? Or is it more like seeing a beautiful sunset or getting a backrub, which triggers sensory pleasure systems in the brain? Why do people seem to get stuck in their musical tastes as they grow older and cease experimenting with new music? This is the story of how brains and music evolved - what music can teach us about the brain, what the brain can teach us about music, and what both can teach us about ourselves.

You find that Daniel can tell a very good story too. He imparts many in this book and you begin to wish you could have been a fly on a lot of walls during some of the times he tells about. You also come to understand yourself a little better and understand about things such as ear worms, that which makes songs stick in our heads for much too long sometimes. He tells about finger snapping and toe tapping and how they differ from each other.

Article Author: Ginger Haycox

I am an unwilling, nomadic soul looking for a place to put down permanent roots. I have lived in too many of these 50 states, as well as 3 Canadian provinces. So who am I? I admit I'm still learning. Suffice to say, I am different things to different people. …

Visit Ginger Haycox's author page — Ginger Haycox's Blog