This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession

Daniel J. Levitin

Paperback

Regular price $18.00
Regular price Sale price $18.00
Shipping calculated at checkout.

Items available in store will have a number before "in stock"

Availability: 1 in stock
SKU: 9780452288522
Regular price $18.00
Regular price Sale price $18.00
In this groundbreaking union of art and science, rocker-turned-neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin explores the connection between music--its performance, its composition, how we listen to it, why we enjoy it--and the human brain.

Taking on prominent thinkers who argue that music is nothing more than an evolutionary accident, Levitin poses that music is fundamental to our species, perhaps even more so than language. Drawing on the latest research and on musical examples ranging from Mozart to Duke Ellington to Van Halen, he reveals:

- How composers produce some of the most pleasurable effects of listening to music by exploiting the way our brains make sense of the world
- Why we are so emotionally attached to the music we listened to as teenagers, whether it was Fleetwood Mac, U2, or Dr. Dre
- That practice, rather than talent, is the driving force behind musical expertise
- How those insidious little jingles (called earworms) get stuck in our head

A Los Angeles Times Book Award finalist, This Is Your Brain on Music will attract readers of Oliver Sacks and David Byrne, as it is an unprecedented, eye-opening investigation into an obsession at the heart of human nature.

Publisher: Dutton
Published: 09/01/2007
Pages: 352
Weight: 0.6lbs
Size: 8.05h x 5.25w x 0.75d
ISBN: 9780452288522
Age: Young Adult


Review Citation(s):
People Weekly 10/08/2007 pg. 55

About the Author
Daniel J. Levitin, PhD, is a neuroscientist, cognitive psychologist, and bestselling author. He is Founding Dean of Arts & Humanities at the Minerva Schools at KGI in San Francisco, and Professor Emeritus of psychology and neuroscience at McGill University. He is the author of This Is Your Brain on Music, The World in Six Songs, The Organized Mind, A Field Guide to Lies, and Successful Aging. He divides his time between Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area.