Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain

"Whenever my daughter has a tune in her head that she can't shake, she has an interesting solution. "Turn on the radio," she says, "I gotta hear some different music." In effect, she tricks her brain and diverts it from one musical function to another. In this his tenth book, Oliver Sacks, Professor of Clinical Neurology and Psychiatry at Columbia University, explores how the brain processes music. As in his other books, Sacks compiles dozens of "clinical anecdotes." These are informal, inherently fascinating, and deeply human case histories of his patients. In addition, he shares at length from letters that he has received, scientific studies, the results of brain imaging techniques, and his own personal experiences.

Rooted in his own deep love for and skill in music, Sacks examines how music impacts "almost every aspect of brain function." If that sounds far-fetched, consider the range of his topics. There's musical imagery, whereby you "listen" to a tune in your mind even though there is no sound. As experience shows, this can be either voluntary or involuntary, sometimes an obsession or even something like a "possession" by the music. A long chapter explores "musical hallucinations." There are forays into amusia, dystimbria, dysharmonia, perfect pitch, and musical savants. He analyzes the relationship of music and blindness, music and color, music and speech, Parkinson's disease, Tourette's syndrome, dreams and dementia. Sometimes musicophilia results from a seizure; at other times music induces a seizure.

Sacks's book is an extended case study of the brain-mind relationship. And most mysterious of all is the question whether music even has any meaning. "While [music] is most closely tied to the emotions, music is wholly abstract; it has no formal power of representation whatever. We may go to a play to learn about jealousy, betrayal, vengeance, love -- but music, instrumental music, can tell us nothing about these. Music can have wonderful, formal, quasi-mathematical perfection, and it can have heartbreaking tenderness, poignancy, and beauty. . . But it does not have to have any 'meaning' whatever" (37). Such is the mystery of music, that although it conveys no inherent meaning, no one would question its power. "
~ Written on 2008-10-06

"Sacks books are enjoyable and informative reading, but this one just didn't tell me what I bought it to learn. Uncle Tungsten, by contrast, made my friends ask "WHY are you reading THAT?!?" Well, I'm a chemist, but the anecdotes made that book a delight.
I had hoped Musicophilia would give more insight as to the interplay between musical melody and lyrics, that occipital-temporal thingy. Maybe we just don't know the answers to why people must sing along while others are annoyed by it, why relative or perfect pitch work, and what elicits the emotional response to chord structures and dissonance.
Instead, I found the book to be rather clinical (no faulting Sacks on that one) and entainingly anecdotal (why his work is popular) but not insightful with regard to musical and amusical issues.
Still worth reading this and all his books! This one didn't move me."
~ Written on 2008-09-14

"Sacks looks at music and the neurological basis for music within the mind. He presents a variety of case studies.

People who are obsessed with music, some born so and others becoming so late in life. We read of victims of dementia who have lost all mental functions but somehow keep a sense of self through music. We read of an amnesiac man with no memory stretching beyond the moment yet who can play long pieces from memory. Victims of Williams syndrome who have very low IQs but are highly social, very outgoing, and genuine lovers of music.

And we are told of people with odd conditions but who are otherwise perfectly normal. A woman with perfect pitch, who can play instruments well, but who doesn't care or emotionally react to music at all. A woman for whom music has absolutely no meaning: any tune is to her no different than the clanking of pots and pans thrown on the floor. A man who cannot stop musical hallucinations from coming unbidden. People with synesthesia who see colours whenever music plays and who associate specific colours with specific notes.

Sacks presents all his case studies in such a way as to convey what these people feel like. Here and there he sprinkles slightly technical concepts, such as the location of the brain's speech centers behind the left ear, how lesions in this or that area can release musical activity, how blindness can induce strong auditory hallucinations because the now unused visual areas of the cerebral cortex are taken over by auditory functions. Through these technical details we come to discover hints of how our brain creates our mind and how music in most of us is deeply embedded in our sense of self.

Vincent Poirier, Tokyo"
~ Written on 2008-09-14

"Oliver Sacks has written many books for lay people. As they all are, this book is informative, interesting, funny, personal. It shows how important music is to humankind. In case vignettes and in discussion Sacks shows how music affects us positively and sometimes, alas, negatively. It is throughout very compelling."
~ Written on 2008-09-07

"I received the book I ordered very promptly. It was in excellent condition just as stated by the seller. Thank you for such good service."
~ Written on 2008-08-24