Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain

Product Description

Music can move us to the heights or depths of emotion. It can persuade us to buy something, or remind us of our first date. It can lift us out of depression when nothing else can. It can get us dancing to its beat.  But the power of music goes much, much further. Indeed, music occupies more areas of our brain than language does—humans are a musical species.

Oliver Sacks’s compassionate, compelling tales of people struggling to adapt to different neurological conditions have fundamentally changed the way we think of our own brains, and of the human experience. In Musicophilia, he examines the powers of music through the individual experiences of patients, musicians, and everyday people—from a man who is struck by lightning and suddenly inspired to become a pianist at the age of forty-two, to an entire group of children with Williams syndrome, who are hypermusical from birth; from people with “amusia,” to whom a symphony sounds like the clattering of pots and pans, to a man whose memory spans only seven seconds—for everything but music.

Our exquisite sensitivity to music can sometimes go wrong: Sacks explores how catchy tunes can subject us to hours of mental replay, and how a surprising number of people acquire nonstop musical hallucinations that assault them night and day. Yet far more frequently, music goes right: Sacks describes how music can animate people with Parkinson’s disease who cannot otherwise move, give words to stroke patients who cannot otherwise speak, and calm and organize people whose memories are ravaged by Alzheimer’s or amnesia.

Music is irresistible, haunting, and unforgettable, and in Musicophilia, Oliver Sacks tells us why.

Product Details

• Published on: 2007-10-16
• Released on: 2007-10-16
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 400 pages

Amazon Best of the Month, December 2007: Legendary R&B icon Ray Charles claimed that he was "born with music inside me," and neurologist Oliver Sacks believes Ray may have been right. Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain examines the extreme effects of music on the human brain and how lives can be utterly transformed by the simplest of harmonies. With clinical studies covering the tragic (individuals afflicted by an inability to connect with any melody) and triumphant (Alzheimer's patients who find order and comfort through music), Sacks provides an erudite look at the notion that humans are truly a "musical species." --Dave Callanan

From Publishers Weekly
Sacks is an unparalleled chronicler of modern medicine, and fans of his work will find much to enjoy when he turns his prodigious talent for observation to music and its relationship to the brain. The subtitle aptly frames the book as a series of medical case studies-some in-depth, some abruptly short. The tales themselves range from the relatively mundane (a song that gets stuck on a continuing loop in one's mind) through the uncommon (Tourette's or Parkinson's patients whose symptoms are calmed by particular kinds of music) to the outright startling (a man struck by lightning subsequently developed a newfound passion and talent for the concert piano). In this latest collection, Sacks introduces new and fascinating characters, while also touching on the role of music in some of his classic cases (the man who mistook his wife for a hat makes a brief appearance). Though at times the narrative meanders, drawing connections through juxtaposition while leaving broader theories to be inferred by the reader, the result is greater than the sum of its parts. This book leaves one a little more attuned to the remarkable complexity of human beings, and a bit more conscious of the role of music in our lives. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine
Perhaps, renowned author Oliver Sacks’s insight into neurological curiosities gives him a key to reviewers’ criteria. His nine previous books, including Awakenings (1973) and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (1985), have all seen widespread critical and commercial success. And critics agree that Musicophilia is a fine addition to Sacks’s oeuvre, even though it differs somewhat from his previous works: instead of focusing exclusively on other people’s disorders, Sacks, an amateur pianist, indulges in some self-examination (one reviewer sees a link with his autobiographical Uncle Tungsten), including his own fleeting experience with amusia, a disorder that causes music to sound like sheer clatter. Luckily, it didn’t affect his ear for fine prose and provocative storytelling.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

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Customer Reviews

A deeply intelligent, loving book.
Dr. Sacks has written a book that is astounding in its depth and love for humanity, his patients, the mysteries of life and music the great connector of us all. Music, how we each perceive it and it effects us. The stories in this book amaze and awaken us to the marvels of the brain, our wiring, science and possibility.

Tales and more tales of music and the brain
I should have read the title of the book more carefully, since this book is exactly what it claims to be: a compilation of tales (on average more than 10 per chapter), most of the times lacking the neuroscientific explanations that I was looking for.

I will summarize one anecdote to exemplify what I mean: "Florence Foster Jenkins, a corolatura that attracted a sell-out audience to Carnegie Hall (...) would sing notes that were excruciatingly wrong, flat, even screechy (...) without realizing that she was doing so. (...) Whether her fans were devoted to her in spite of her lack of musicality or because of it is not clear." That's it, no further explanations. This anecdote was in a footnote, where normally I expect to find a deeper explanation left out of the text for the ease of the less scientifically interested. I think I could have come up with such a "tale" myself, without having any knowledge of either music nor neuroscience. Other tales within the text are similarly lacking deeper explanations, as the case of a man who the author met for 5 minutes (that's it, he did not mention any further study by himself or somebody else). The deepest explanations you get throughout the book are following: a) during the appearance of certain conditions, neuroscientists have used MRI techniques ("magnetic resonance imaging") to detect an activation of "x" or "y" area in the brain, which indicates that this area is involved in the specific process or b) after autopsias have been practised, neuroscientists have found out that specific areas seem larger/smaller in persons with certain conditions than in most of the people. I would have liked to know how connetions are formed in the brain like how rythm, melody or other patterns are perceived or interpreted, etc.

Anyhow, if you are a layperson like myself, the reading of so many anecdotes will give you interesting insights to a lot of conditions that you probably have never heard of. The chapter on Williams' syndrome captivated me, and imagining somebody like Clive Wearing, who had a severe amnesia is quite tough. Additionally there seems to be no other book for laypersons that covers music and the brain in a deeper fashion. The reviews for Levitin's books seemed not too promising to me, so for the moment, this is probably the book for you if you want to learn something on this truly interesting subject.

For more interesting anecdotal neuroscience themes read Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind (2-3 clinical cases per chapter but thoroughly explained, including interesting therapy that improved the patients' condition and its neurological basis) and for a more comprehensive introduction to the workings of our brain I recommend A User's Guide to the Brain: Perception, Attention, and the Four Theaters of the Brain.

Musicophilia: Reviewed
This book further detailed the fascination with music's neurological connection. Why do some people have a natural talent and others don't? Absolute pitch, musical savants, 'seeing' music, memory training, and gained/lost musical abilities from accidents/health issues/etc are a few of the many topics Sacks addresses. The majority of the book are case reviews from the author's various patients & studies. There are definitely some cases that feel repetitive (Okay great...another story about another guy struck by lighting with the same reaction as the previous 2 described). For someone who is interested in music's effect on the mind (and someone who is a bit nerdy), this book is perfect for casually picking up in the evenings and reading at leisure.

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