This is Your Brain on Music by Daniel J. Levitin: A Review

There's a marvelous bookstore near my home. It's so wonderful in fact, that I'm afraid to go in there. Every time I do, you see, I walk out with a book. Or two, or three. Being a law abiding sort, I pay for these books, of course, and that's the essential problem. I'm a student, and usually fairly short of disposable income, but the siren call of the books is impossible to resist. Last time I strayed in there I walked out with a copy of This is Your Brain on Music by Daniel J. Levitin.

It must be said, in this case the spending of my hard earned cash was well worth while. I read the book on the bus on the way home. Once home I decided against cooking dinner, instead deciding to eat toast while reading. The next day I took the book everywhere with me in my handbag.

This is Your Brain on Music is a fascinating book. Levitin has a musical background as well as a scientific one, and this shines through in his writing which is engrossing and makes complex ideas easy to understand and appreciate. I particularly enjoyed the chapter on musicianship in which he contemplates the idea of talent and expression in music and if either are innate or can be taught.

Levitin also has a way of skilfully weaving in personal experiences and anecdotes which makes the book immediate and personal, and maintains your interest long after other books which are so heavy on scientific content might have lost it. I found I reached the end of the book and was surprised- I would have happily kept reading for many more chapters. Levetin is a skillful judge of attention span and provides enough information to satisfy the reader, but doesn't bog down his explanations in unnecessary detail or derail on tangents. Such a finely judged book is rare indeed, especially when it crosses the domains of music and science.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in music, as a listener, musician or both, especially if you are interested in why exactly the opening bars of your favorite song can take you back in time ten years, or why that infuriating ad jingle lodges in your head for days on end. There is something in this book to interest almost every reader, and quite apart from anything else, you'll have an answer ready whenever small talk leads to the inevitable "Read any good books lately?"