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

Title: This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession Author: Daniel J Levitin ISBN: 9780452288522 Publisher: Plume/Penguin Published: 2007 Binding: Paperback Language: English Publisher Description: 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