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

This Is Your Brain on Music

The Science of a Human Obsession

2006 • 314 pages

Ratings19

Average rating3.6

15

Long overdue, therefore not full of surprises, but very solid and still endlessly interesting. He starts with a 101 on music and sounds (pitch, timbre, tempo ..) and then tells us why our brain prefers certain harmonies and melodies over others. Why the church banned the ‘chord of evil' from music (Tritone), why our neuronal feedback loops get hooked on rhythms, and why Pinker was wrong in calling music “auditory cheesecake”. It don't think there has been or will be a book that had me singing out loud that often.

December 14, 2014Report this review