Musicophilia : tales of music and the brain / by Oliver Sacks
Publisher: London : Picador, 2008Description: 425p.; 20 cm001: 12516ISBN: 9780330418386; 0330418386Subject(s): Brain | Music | Psychology | PhysiologyDDC classification: 781.11 SACItem type | Current library | Collection | Call number | Copy number | Status | Date due | Barcode | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Book | MAIN LIBRARY Book | 781.11 SAC (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 088551 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
From the best-selling author of 'The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat', this book explores the ability of music to arouse, inspire and comfort us. Sacks explores this phenomenon through various unusual case studies, including that of a man struck by lightning who subsequently became obsessed with Chopin.
Originally published: 2007.
Includes index
Excerpt provided by Syndetics
Reviews provided by Syndetics
Library Journal Review
Everyone's favorite neurologist considers how music affects us. With a six-city tour. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.Publishers Weekly Review
Sacks is an unparalleled chronicler of modern medicine, and fans of his work will find much to enjoy when he turns his prodigious talent for observation to music and its relationship to the brain. The subtitle aptly frames the book as a series of medical case studies-some in-depth, some abruptly short. The tales themselves range from the relatively mundane (a song that gets stuck on a continuing loop in one's mind) through the uncommon (Tourette's or Parkinson's patients whose symptoms are calmed by particular kinds of music) to the outright startling (a man struck by lightning subsequently developed a newfound passion and talent for the concert piano). In this latest collection, Sacks introduces new and fascinating characters, while also touching on the role of music in some of his classic cases (the man who mistook his wife for a hat makes a brief appearance). Though at times the narrative meanders, drawing connections through juxtaposition while leaving broader theories to be inferred by the reader, the result is greater than the sum of its parts. This book leaves one a little more attuned to the remarkable complexity of human beings, and a bit more conscious of the role of music in our lives. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reservedCHOICE Review
Avid readers of Sacks's other work (e.g., The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, 1985; Awakenings, 1972) will delight in this treatment of the neurology of music. Those in the fields of psychology and physiology have written books about music's effect on the brain, but none of those works is as readable, and few are as insightful, as this one. Sacks (Columbia Univ. Medical Center) argues that human neurology is designed for music in the same way it is designed for language. Until quite recently, scientists learned about the normal human brain primarily by studying brains gone awry. Sacks acknowledges that technological innovations will reveal much about the brain, but he believes that case histories are equally legitimate sources of information. The case histories included here include a man who could remember nothing but music for more than seconds, a man struck by lightning who took up the piano, and a woman plagued by musical hallucinations. Sacks also includes general examinations of intriguing topics--absolute pitch, synaesthesia, amusia, music "stuck" in one's head. But the book's best quality is Sacks's clear, probing, yet compassionate writing. He demonstrates how understanding human engagement with music can help one understand the meaning of being human. Summing Up: Essential. All readers, all levels. M. Neil Augustana College (IL)Booklist Review
Music seems to be meaningless, and our love of it inexplicable, but neurologist Sacks, one of the foremost physician-essayists of the day, charmingly argues that music is essential to being human in ways that have only begun to be understood. In many different circumstances, music may arise involuntarily within a person, as attested to by Sacks' initial presentation of cases of sudden intense affinity for music and development of musical skills, of so-called brain worms or tunes that automatically repeat within the mind, and of musical seizures and hallucinations. Despite the range of individual experience of music, from amusia, or incomprehension of melody and/or rhythm and/or harmony, to absolute ( perfect ) pitch to synesthesia (e.g., seeing the colors of tones), it seems from the clinical literature that anyone could have a sudden loss or gain in musicality. Indeed, the seeming universality of musical mental imaging, even in the utterly deaf, has encouraged the therapeutic use of music to treat an ever-increasing number of illnesses, including the results of severe brain damage, congenital retardative conditions, and such degenerative neuropathies as parkinsonism and Alzheimer's. Sacks' reporting on all of this makes for quite an omnium-gatherum on the main contention that, in essence, musicality is humanity. His customary erudition and fellow-feeling ensure that, no matter how clinical the discussion becomes, it remains, like the music of Mozart, accessible and congenial.--Olson, Ray Copyright 2007 BooklistKirkus Book Review
The gentle doctor turns his pen to another set of mental anomalies that can be viewed as either affliction or gift. If we could prescribe what our physicians would be like, a good number of us would probably choose somebody like Sacks (Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood, 2001, etc.). Learned, endlessly inquisitive and seemingly possessed of a bottomless store of human compassion, the neurologist's authorial personality both reassures and arouses curiosity. Here, Sacks tackles the whole spectrum of the human body's experience of music by studying it from the aesthetic as well as medical viewpoint. Fantastical case studies include a young boy assaulted by musical hallucinations who would shout "Take it out of my head! Take it away!" when music only he could hear became unbearably loud. Less frightening are stories about people like Martin, a severely disabled man who committed some 2,000 operas to memory, or ruminations on the linkage between perfect pitch and language: Young children learning music are vastly more likely to have perfect pitch if they speak Mandarin than almost any other language. A gadfly and storyteller as well as a scientist, the author can't resist a good yarn even when it's not likely to be true, such as the anecdote about Shostakovich claiming that he heard beautiful new melodies every time he tilted his head to one side, due to a piece of German shrapnel lodged in his brain. Sacks is as good a guide to this mysterious and barely understood world as one could ask for, mixing serious case studies with personal takes on music and what its ultimate uses could possibly be. As the book wears on, however, his loose approach makes some later chapters more work than they should be. Pleasantly rollicking, but with a definite hint that the grand old man is taking it easy. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.There are no comments on this title.