This Is Your Brain on Music

Today’s post is from Rich, a community member of Who Picked This Book? Club: 

This Is Your Brain on Music by Daniel Levitin

This book addresses the human obsession with music.  The late Francis Crick (codiscoverer of DNA) called it, “The Mystery of Music.”  Every culture has music.  Some of the oldest artifacts (50,000 years B.C.) include stone flutes and drums.  Why do we even have a facility for music?  Did our music skills evolve to help us survive or are they just an accidental capability that came along with some other skill such as language?  Why do individual’s music skills vary from being tone deaf to people with absolute pitch (AP).  One in 10,000 have AP, but why not everyone?  Why can’t all of us learn to name notes just as we learn to name colors?  What makes a prodigy like Wolfgang Mozart, who could write symphonies and operas in his head?  Is it genetic or the environment?  How does the brain process and store music?  Why does a tune get “stuck” in our mind to the point of annoyance?  Why does repeated listening of a complex work make it sound more pleasing?  Why does music invoke emotions?

Levitin is uniquely qualified to address these questions.  In his early life, he was a dedicated musician.  At age eleven he was listening to rock and roll, jazz, and classical, often turning the music up and annoying his parents.  Years later, he dropped out of college and joined a rock band in San Francisco.  They were good enough to have songs on the radio.  After a few years, he moved into the control room as he was fascinated with the various techniques of mixing and combining sounds.  He produced records for ten years.  He shared an office with American Idol’s Randy Jackson.  He worked with many well-known performers, but noticed that many who tried never made it.  He became curious about why some music was so captivating and successful while other music just didn’t connect.  He finally headed back to school.  He started with psychology to find out what our minds are doing with music.  Then he headed into brain research.  Eventually he joined a new field called cognitive neuroscience.

Early in the book, Levitin presents a good introduction to the terms used in music theory.  Throughout the book the author cites many examples of music from all areas to illustrate his points.  In their brain research, his group used a number of techniques: brain imaging such as EEG and functional MRI, studies of brain lesions and their results, and computer models to duplicate the functions of the human mind.  One computer model can listen to music and tap a mechanical shoe in rhythm.  One of their discoveries was that the ears have a connetion to the rear brain (cerebellum).  This is a primitive part of the brain involved with motor control such as running and other physical activity including dancing.  The research indicates that music may have a function in how our bodies developed to learn physical skills.  Also it was clear that the brain sets up paths, the more a music piece is heard and this allows our minds to anticipate the music and enhance our enjoyment.