If you are a self-teacher then you can't miss this one. Daniel shows how practice plays the most important part in being a great musician contrary to popular belief of "inborn talent"."What is Music? From Pitch to Timbre" describes the elements of musical sound. "Foot Tapping: Rhythm, Loudness, and Harmony" discusses structural elements and qualities that combine to produce a physical response in the listener. "Behind the Curtain: Music and the Mind Machine" describes how auditory signals become neuro-chemical impulses, which lead both to emotional responses (the soundscape) and to intellectual decoding (thematic content). Familiarity and novelty lie at the heart of "Anticipation: What We Expect from Liszt (and Ludacris)."
With those chapters under their belts, readers, no matter what their own musical preferences, begin to understand the various musical genres. In short they are ready to tackle ideas of the way the mind categorizes music--and other things as well. They make the same leap that Levitin does, from experiencing music to exploring the science of perception and cognition, musical and otherwise.
Next readers plunge beneath the thinking mind to the living brain. They sit with a young Levitin who has been offered a rare invitation to join the "professor's lunch" at the Salk Institute. Four seats away is Institute Director Francis Crick, best known for his work on the structure of DNA, but admired by Levitin for his books "The Astonishing Hypothesis," which argues that consciousness arises from the physical structure and electrochemical activity in the brain.
At the lunch table, Levitin reflects on a passage from Crick's autobiographical "What Mad Pursuit." Like Levitin, Crick was several years older than his fellow students and had limited academic achievement when he entered graduate school. Finally, Crick realized that "lack of qualification could be an advantage. By the time most scientists have reached age thirty they are trapped by their own expertise."
But as a visitor, all Levitin can do is listen respectfully. When he finally gets his chance to talk to the great man, the conversation is memorable. "Look at the connections," are Crick's parting words. A few months later, he would be dead. Crick's advice resonates through the remaining chapters. "What Makes a Musician?" dissects expertise in music and in other realms--and disputes the so-called "Mozart Effect" as well as the claim that Mozart achieved expertise in an inordinately short time. "My Favorite Things" explores individual--and universal--musical preferences.
The final chapter, "The Music Instinct," makes a powerful case in opposition to noted cognitive scientist, Stephen Pinker, who argues that music evolved as a happy by-product of linguistic ability. This is simply not so, argues Levitin. Our minds and our bodies would have evolved very differently without it.
Like a peacock's tail, music serves as a powerful display of reproductive fitness. It is also far more effective than language in creating emotional bonding between individuals and among members of a group. From the most primitive to the most advanced subsystems, every human brain is on music, including yours.
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