Brains and music

When I was very young, my mom won a boxed 20-album classical music set at Bingo. Neither of my parents liked classical music much, but I was fascinated with the set, especially the discs with Strauss's waltzes and Saint-Saens' "Danse Macabre." The only other music I remember listening to back then was my mom's album of the soundtrack to "Love Me or Leave Me" by Doris Day (and to this day, snatches of "Sam the Old Accordion Man" or "Shakin' the Blues Away" come unbidden into my mind). I have vivid memories of sitting on the floor, head over the portable record player, watching the vinyl spin and smelling the warm phonograph tubes and listening intently to the music. When the Beatles hit it big in 1964 (when I was 7), my babysitter got me interested in them and I bought all their singles and albums for a couple of years, then lost interest. The only records I bought after that were soundtracks... until 1968, when I suddenly found myself immersed in top 40 music. WCOL-AM was on my transistor radio all the time, and most of my allowance was going to buy records at downtown Lazarus (2nd floor). I can't recall a specific "conversion" moment, I just that by the summer of 1969, all of my spare time was devoted to listening to and reading about music. I largely lost interest in current pop music in the mid-90's, but music still plays an important everyday part in my life.

All of this tedious personal detail is just prelude to my very brief discussion of a new book, "This Is Your Brain on Music" by Daniel Levitin, a former rock musician and producer who is now a professor in the "psychology of electronic communication." The book looks at how music is processed by the brain, and how the brain conjures up all the visceral and emotional reactions we have to music. I thought I was the perfect audience member for this book, as music does cause all kinds of reactions in me; mostly I'm interested in how vividly sights and smells and events from over 30 years ago return suddenly when I hear music from my past. Levitin uses a wide range of examples of music to help make his points, though he largely ignores classical music (I wish he'd devoted some time to ambient music, though his interest in clearly in popular music). My problem is that, just when I think I understand what Levitin is saying, he delves into scientific jargon and loses me. He does a fairly good job in the beginning with explaining musical terminology (timbre, harmony, tones)--as much as I love music, I never really got into playing it; I sang in a high school chorus, and taught myself guitar in college, but I never really mastered it, or reading music, so his explanations are appreciated. But the larger points about the brain were lost on me. I did like his last chapter in which he makes an argument for music having a part in our evolutionary history, but overall the topics of the chapters feel a bit randomly chosen and placed. I also would have liked a little more anecdotal evidence. I admit to skimming several chunks of the book; I'm glad I read it, but I'm also glad I got it from the library.