This is your brain on music
Subtitle: understanding a human obsession
By: Daniel Levitin
Edition: Paperback edition
Publisher: Atlantic
Published: 2008
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 322
ISBN-13: 9781843547167
Copyright date: 2006
Subjects: Music; Psychological aspects; Psychology
Description: This is the first book to offer a comprehensive explanation of how humans experience music and to unravel the mystery of our perennial love affair with it. Using musical examples from Bach to the Beatles, Levitin reveals the role of music in human evolution, shows how our musical preferences begin to form even before we are born and explains why music can offer such an emotional experience. Music is an obsession at the heart of human nature, even more fundamental to our species than language. In This Is Your Brain On Music Levitin offers nothing less than a new way to understand it, and its role in human life.
Notes: Originally published: New York: Dutton, 2006; London: Atlantic, 2007.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 277-306) and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction: I love music and I love science; title: why would I want to mix the two?; title: What is music? : from pitch to timbre; title: Foot tapping : discerning rhythm, loudness, and harmony; title: Behind the curtain : music and the mind machine; title: Anticipation : what we expect from Liszt (and Ludacris); title: You know my name, look up the number : how we categorize music; title: After dessert, Crick was still four seats away from me : music, emotion, and the reptilian brain; title: What makes a musician? : expertise dissected; title: My favorite things : why do we like the music we like?; title: The music instinct : evolution's #1 hit.