Musicophilia
Subtitle: Tales of Music and the Brain
Edition: printing (1)
Publisher: Picador
Published: 2007
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 381
ISBN-13: 9780330418379
Copyright date: 2007
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. 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' compassionate, compelling tales of people 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 hyperrnusical from birth.

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 non-stop musical hallucinations. Yet far more frequently, music goes right: it 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.
--front flap
Notes: UK
Table of contents: title: Preface ix; title: Part I: Haunted by Music; title: 1. A Bolt from the Blue: Sudden Musicophilia 3; title: 2. A Strangely Familiar Feeling: Musical Seizures 18; title: 3. Fear of Music: Musicogenic Epilepsy 23; title: 4. Music on the Brain: Imagery and Imagination 30; title: 5 B rainworms, Sticky Music, and Catchy Tunes 41; title: 6. Musical Hallucinations 49; title: Part II: A Range of Musicality; title: 7 Sense and Sensibility: A Range of Musicality 89; title: 8. Things Fall Apart: Amusia and Dysharmonia 98; title: 9 Papa Blows His Nose in G: Absolute Pitch 12,0; title: 10. Pitch Imperfect: Cochlear Amusia 131; title: 11. In Living Stereo: Why We Have Two Ears 143; title: 12. Two Thousand Operas: Musical Savants 151; title: 13- An Auditory World: Music and Blindness 160; title: 14- The Key of Clear Green: Synesthesia and Music 165; title: V l l; title: viii Contents; title: Part III: Memory, Movement, and Music; title: 15. In the Moment: Music and Amnesia 187; title: 16. Speech and Song: Aphasia and Music Therapy 2,14; title: 17. Accidental Davening: Dyskinesia and Cantillation 224; title: 18. Come Together: Music and Tourette's Syndrome 2,2,6; title: 19. Keeping Time: Rhythm and Movement 2.33; title: 20. Kinetic Melody: Parkinson's Disease and Music Therapy 2,48; title: 21. Phantom Fingers: The Case of the One-Armed Pianist 259; title: 22. Athletes of the Small Muscles: Musician's Dystonia 264; title: Part IV: Emotion, Identity, and Music; title: 23. Awake and Asleep: Musical Dreams 279; title: 24. Seduction and Indifference 285; title: 25. Lamentations: Music and Depression 2,95; title: 26. The Case of Harry S.: Music and Emotion 302,; title: 27. Irrepressible: Music and the Temporal Lobes 305; title: 28. A Hypermusical Species: Williams Syndrome 317; title: 29. Music and Identity: Dementia and Music Therapy 335; title: Acknowledgments 349; title: Bibliography 353; title: Index 369