Revised and Expanded Edition - Tales of Music and the Brain

Not an easy reading book. As a musician, I did not expect it to be a psychology book. I expected it to be how the brain and music, like mathematics and music, support each other. The writer rambles on and on about the same thing over and over in each anecdotal story he writes about - very monotonous. Stopped reading after part 1 (chapter 6). Very disappointed in the book.

Like much of Oliver Sacks' writing, this book takes on an irritating tone of self-congratulation and navel gazing. It also contains several implausible personal anecdotes in which Sacks claims he himself has experienced some of the cognitive abnormalities of his patients.

I have read that an early criticism of his writing, in which a reviewer noted the cold, clinical attitude that Sacks took towards his subjects, really got under his skin. He has since remedied this flaw with a much worse flaw. That is, after going over the juicy details of whatever neurological anomaly he is studying in a patient, he resorts to a silly formula of waxing rhapsodic about the deep connection that he felt with the patient despite his or her condition, and concludes with some metaphysical speculation about just what it all means. Hmmmmmm. It reeks of forced (perhaps false) sentiment.

Also, the amount of original work that he has done for this book is pitiful. There is a HUGE amount of self-reference in this book, especially to his book "An Anthropologist on Mars". Those who have read that book, or the similar "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" will be rightfully irritated. Even worse than these formulae, though, are the ridiculous grandiose, implausible, and often irrelevant anecdotes from his New York cultural buddies, who are as fascinated by themselves as Sacks is by himself. The chapters on synesthesia are almost unreadable.

There are a few things that save this book from being a total waste, however. His chapter on Williams' Syndrome is nicely written, new, and informative. Some of his personal experiences with Clive Wearing are also interesting, though most of the material has already been covered in the several documentaries made about Wearing.

This is the last book by Oliver Sacks I will read. I know his shtick and I'm sick of it. Unless you are really a fan of Sacks, I would pass it up.

There are four parts to this book, and each has a lot to unpack. I really feel like I just went further into the brain than I’ve ever gone before. Sacks really provides such great, interesting science, all while hooking the us in with case studies and “correspondence” from readers who share stories of their own experiences.

The footnotes are extensive–almost as lengthy as the book itself–taking up half pages. They are worth reading as you go, but pay attention because sometimes they carry on to the next page.

I was continually bothered by Sacks’ use of the term “retarded” when speaking of his patients with lower than average IQs. I find that term to be extremely derogatory. Sometimes I look the other way, especially in scientific nonfiction in older books, but this was published in 2008. That is recent enough to not used “retarded” instead of mentally disabled if not intellectually disabled (I think that’s a newer term), and writing books like this should know better.

I do wish there would have been a little bit more about mental illness, like depression or anxiety, but I suppose that’s maybe not his field of expertise. There was a short chapter on it, just as much as I was wanting.

Overall, I did really enjoy the book. It wasn’t what I would call a “page-turner,” but for science nonfiction, I definitely found it fascinating, and I have several people I want to recommend it to.

If you love neuroscience or just the brain in general, you probably already know who Oliver Sacks is. If you don't, you should probably introduce yourself and you can start with Musicophilia. At least I did. I studied psychology and the brain in college and I grew up entirely engrossed in music so this cross over just screamed my name from the shelves.

This book isn't a story, there is no plot. It's like you met Oliver at a dinner party and he proceeded to dive into his life's work, telling you all kinds of fascinating stories about clients he's had, why certain things happen in the brain, weird off the wall case studies he's come across. I was expecting more of the book to be about what music does to your brain, but it was more about strange and very unique cases of what happened to some individuals and how music was involved or helped them. Still fascinating!

It could be a bit dry sometimes though. I read at least two other books while trying to finish this one because I was just dying for some story and prosaic language. But I kept coming back to this one. A proud and forever member of my bookshelf.

In “Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain,” neurologist Oliver Sacks demonstrated the healing power of music. Through a series of fascinating narratives, the author--dubbed “poet laureate of medicine” by The New York Times--explored a variety of unique musical phenomena. Sharing observations and insights, Sachs revealed the nature of music and the roles music plays in the lives of individuals struggling with medical, psychological, and social issues. Delving into diverse case histories, the author told moving stories of how music helped and healed people with amnesia and aphasia, anxiety and depression, disease and dementia, seizures and strokes, in dramatic and unexpected ways.

I found myself reading this book in multiple small doses. Whether that's a reflection of how absorbing the book is intrinsically or of my limited capacity to read somewhat technical nonfiction, I can't say.

The book covers a wide range of topics, all involving aspects of how humans relate to music and the myriad ways (mostly positive, some negative) that music can affect people's lives. Its tone varies from clinical to deeply moving. For every topic, Sacks includes neuroanatomical details of the effect's source in this or that structure in the brain, whether inborn or as altered by illness or injury -- although he makes clear that there is a great deal more to learn about how and why music is so universal, so central, and so powerful in the human animal.

Although this book makes reference to many musical pieces and concepts, it is more about neurology than music. Like other books by Sacks, it lifts a bit of the veil over our brain functioning through case studies about bizarre phenomena, along with everyday observations. What distinguishes this book from his others is that it focuses on behavior and experiences involving music (along with other things, such as visual functioning and emotions). Although some interesting relationships between music and parts of the brain have been discovered, ultimately we don't know much about how music is produced, or its relation to other parts of our lives. Sacks does persuade us, however, that music is a very deep and meaningful part of life.

I think whether one enjoys this book or not probably depends on the things one is interested in - other reviewers have complained about everything from the book being too introspective to being too much a list of Sacks' patients.

In part, it is both these things - as a book of case studies it cannot help being the latter, as a book written by someone who is himself an amateur musician as well as being knowledgeable about and intrigued by the neuroscience behind our musical brain, it is necessarily the former. However, neither of these things, for me, detracts in any way from the book.

If you have an interest in both science and music and enjoy books that are absorbing, sometimes densely written, very informative, and written by someone with both a wide knowledge of the subject and a keen curiosity about the whys and wherefores then you will probably enjoy this book just as much as I have, which is a great deal.

Not all of the cases have explanations, which sometimes makes them more intriguing - other, apparently stranger, cases, turn out to have fairly logical reasons. Sacks explores everything from the healing power of music to its capability of irritating or even tormenting those whose brains cannot control it, and the whole thing is intensely interesting for a musician with any interest in the science behind music.

I had just learned that my toddler son may have the perfect pitch, and I was wondering what to do with his musicality in our family - my training in music is very basic and my husbands does even know musical notation and likes only the songs he remembers from his childhood - when I saw the paperback edition of Oliver Sacks' "Musicophilia. Tales of Music and the Brain" in the Longwood bookstore. I bought it immediately and since then read it twice. I think it might be my favorite among Dr. Sacks' brilliant books.

Enjoyment and creation of music seem to be unique to humans (hm... I could swear my cat liked some songs - but, of course, I cannot be sure). Superficially, listening and playing music look like a waste of time and an absurd activity, but the cultural implications are obvious. There are also profound changes in the brain, found in people trained in music or even in people simply listening to a concert.

Oliver Sacks discusses diverse connections of music and neurological phenomena. From something as simple as tinnitus (i. E. perception of ringing noise in the ears), he goes on to review complex musical hallucinations - when people hear the whole symphonies or operas, or songs from their childhood, just in their heads (sometimes waking them up; sometimes interfering with work; but sometimes wonderfully controlled and joyful). Musical savants, on the other hand, can memorize and play thousands of complex musical works just after a single hearing. The opposite can happen, too - when people are music -deaf (amusic) and music is for them just a collection of unpleasant noises they do not like, do not make any sense of and wish to escape as soon as they can.

Another extraordinary observation, not only connected to music, and discussed by many artists (for a long time) and scientists (more recently) is synesthesia, or the fusion of the senses. Sacks talks about musical synesthesia here, when different sounds on the musical scale are perceived as having distinct colors, and he returns to it in The Mind's Eye", mentioning the letters of the alphabet having different colors when viewed by a synesthete, so in theory multiple senses can get together in unusual harmony, perfect for the individual experiencing it. I think the concept is beautiful and I envy those who are capable of synesthesia...

As a physician, Dr. Sacks devotes time to talk about the influence of music on patients with various neurological issues, for example communication impairments after a stroke, memory loss, schozophrenic or demented. As always, he talks about his patients with respects and interest, discovering the qualities beyond the common knowledge. His examples are thoughtful and his observations thorough. I really appreciate the examples of real people and their experiences, patients as well as healthy people, such as composers with synesthesia of unusual musical memory. Last but not least, Sacks gives examples of his family members as well as himself, encouraging the readers to pay more attention to their own reactions to the surrounding world and their sensual perception.

Paradoxically, showing how much research has been done on the subject, this book proves rather that there is still so much we do not know of the workings of human mind and the magical effect of music. The deep connection of science and humanity, researcher's curiosity and compassion, and superb writing produced a unique book, recommended for everyone.

In The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James posits that religion is best understood by studying the testimonies of persons who experience religious feelings at their most intense: not the ordinary religious believers, but the mystics, the exalted, the luminaries, and other "geniuses in the religious line". Similarly, when studying the human propensity to music, Oliver Sacks focusses on the unusual cases: not necessarily the musicians--he doesn't study musical creativity, and some musicians have a very standard sensitivity to music--but the people who experience music differently.

The range and variety of musical experience are indeed phenomenal. There are some people who can scarcely hold a tune in their heads and others who can hear entire symphonies in their minds with a detail and vividness little short of actual perception. The same musical piece will leave one auditor flat and indifferent, while the other may be moved to the highest peak of emotion. Some music lovers cannot have it on as a background when they work; they must attend to music completely or turn it off, for it is too powerful to allow them to focus on other mental activities. For each tone-deaf or melody-impaired person, there is another gifted with absolute pitch who can immediately tell the tone of any note, without either reflection or comparison with an external standard. Some people--a surprizingly large number--"see" color or "taste" or "smell" or "feel" various sensations as they listen to music.

The "wonderful machinery" of musical perception, perhaps because it is so complex and highly developed, is vulnerable to various distortions, excesses, and breakdowns. The power to perceive or imagine music may be impaired with some brain lesions; there are many such forms of amusia. On the other hand, musical imagery may become excessive and uncontrollable, leading to incessant repetition of catchy tunes, or even musical hallucinations. In some people, music can provoke epileptic seizures. There are special neurological hazards, "disorders of skill", that may affect professional musicians. For people suffering from total amusia, music is no longer experienced as music, but as "an arbitrary succession of more or less irritating songs", as Nabokov put it.

Some conditions get undiagnosed and underreported, like synesthesia or the association of a different color for each musical tone, because they are not something that bring patients to neurologists. Musical hallucinations may be much more diffuse than previously thought, judging from the vast amount of letters the author received after writing a column on the subject in a magazine. Many people knocked unconscious, upon recovering consciousness, "heard music" they felt coming from external source. Other persons are perpetually tuned to an inner source of music generated in their brain, and have learned to live with this condition. In many cases, being diagnosed with one neurological condition--they usually go with the letter "a": aphasia, amusia, amnesia, etc.--acts as a relief, for the patient is able to put a name on his or her state and comes to realize that others are experiencing the same thing.

Only recently has the medical community begun to realize the great therapeutic potential of music for patients with a variety of neurological conditions. Music cannot make the dead dance to the piper, but it can kickstart a damaged or inhibited motor system into action again. Some people suffering from a loss of spoken language--aphasia--may still be able to sing: not only tunes, but the words of operas, hymns, or songs. For such persons, music therapy can succeed where conventional speech therapy has failed. Some brain-damaged persons--this is the case of "the man who mistook his wife for a hat"--need to recite an inner soundtrack--dressing songs, bathing songs, eating songs--when accomplishing the elementary acts of everyday life.

Oliver Sacks put so many stories in his previous books it is amazing he still have as much left for his essay on Musicophilia. He wrote about the profound effects of music on post-encephalitic patients in Awakenings. Already his prescription for The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat was a short and direct: More music! His solution to restore the human subject--the suffering, afflicted, fighting human subject--at the center of neurological practice is to concentrate on case stories, narratives and tales. Only then do we have a "who" as well as a "what", a patient in relation to a disease--a real person.

He also puts a lot of himself in his books: his family background comprising a musical father and a tune-deaf mother; his musical tastes bending heavily on the classical but without neglecting the thrill of a Grateful Dead concert; his personal recollection of musical dreams, bouts of amusia, and other medical disorders in which music played a prominent role. I was surprised to see him refer on several occasions to his experience with psychoactive drugs--taking "massive doses" of amphetamines, chloral hydrate and mescaline, apparently for experimental reasons, although the protocols of those experiments are not made clear. But what struck me most was his ability to bring to life, through sense and sensibility, each subject he discusses analytically. As Oliver Sacks puts it, "I have tried to listen to my patients and subjects, to imagine and enter their experiences--it is these which form the core of this book."

As other thoughtful yet critical reviewers have noticed, the emphasis on case studies as the structural basis for this work lend to an overall spirit of disorganization. In part, this is out of Sacks' control; he notes a lack of comprehensive, systemic study on the interrelations of music and brain function. This book is an attempt to organize and theorize the scraps of data available to scientific researchers. Still, this book is perhaps too early for our full appreciation. A similar study following a rise in scientific study on the interrelations of music and brain function would produce a more structured work with more aggressive conclusions.

In this absolutely fascinating book, renowned neurologist Oliver Sacks explores the musical side of the human brain. It seems, in fact, that we are uniquely hardwired to respond to music, which moves us, inspires us, and heals us in a way nothing else can. It activates the emotion, memory, movement, and at times even the visual centers of our brains. What's more, we're so "attuned" to it that our minds reproduce it with astonishing precision (sometimes very much against our own wishes!).

Of course, we often learn the most about the ordinary workings of the mind by studying those exceptional and extraordinary cases in which the mind behaves differently. Sacks sensitively relates numerous stories of patients who respond uniquely to music: a previously unmusical man who becomes a music-obsessed virtuoso after being struck by lightening; a patient with a memory of just a few seconds, except when it comes to music; people whose synesthesia makes music a "three dimensional" experience involving vision, smell, or taste; and many more. There are Parkinson's patients who become gracefully animated by song; dementia sufferers for whom music holds mnemonic power; aphasic patients who cannot talk but are quite able to sing; autistic savants; people gifted with absolute pitch; and those with amusia, a condition in which the individual hears music perfectly but can't "make sense" of it. Additionally, Sacks writes about Williams syndrome, a genetic condition causing severe mathematical and spatial deficiencies complemented by great gifts in social sensitivity, verbal communication, and above all, music.

Sacks' erudite yet accessible science writing is thoroughly engaging. His own love for music shines through in MUSICOPHILIA, which makes it even more of a joy to read. This book will hook you like a catchy pop song, and you won't be able to put it down.

Musicophilia is an astonishing book. Granted that is slightly skewed toward people who already have a thriving understanding & appreciation of western classical music; nevertheless, the sheer variety of ways that musical harmony is connected to the human "self", starting at the basic neurological (anatomical) level to the abstract notions of identity & personality strikes you overwhelmingly.

This book is organized by stories that reflect different kinds of aberrations in our appreciation of music. And this range of aberrations is quite simply mind-boggling. Dystonia, aphasia, disharmonia. Stories of people with the tic who can only relax while they perform music, of prodigious children with Williams Syndrome - sociable & musical all the time - but unable to add three & five. Stories of amnesiac husbands whose muscles remember only music, of people who cannot talk but can sing old songs. It is quite frankly a remarkable book to read.

Like I said, this book has a lot of nuances of western classical music stitched into many stories, & the portions on cure & treatment for a particular aberration are sporadic.

Nevertheless, even for a layman with little knowledge of both anatomy & music, this book is thoroughly enjoyable & is a wonderful chronicle of all aspects musical - & singularly human.

S!

Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, Revised and Expanded Edition
Review by R. Scott Weaver.

We have all experienced a time when a song won't leave our brain. We try to think of other songs or hum a different tune and yet the song imbeds itself into our head. That all too common human experience has been studied and the song has a name: an earworm. We learn about earworms and other strange, music-related syndromes in "Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain." Neurologist and professor Dr. Oliver Sacks presents a collection of case studies and clinical observations with music at the core. Sacks is best known for his book "Awakenings" later made into a movie featuring Robin Williams and Robert DeNiro. In "Musicophilia," we learn in minute detail how the wiring of the brain seems so conducive to music in both positive and negative ways. Sacks explores both the tragedy and triumph gained through and with music in the lives of those affected by disorders both familiar and bizarre. In one instance, we are introduced to an individual who literally cannot hear a melody. What would it be like to be in the word and yet not touched by music? We get a glimpse in the words of Dr. Sacks. From beginning to end, one cannot help but be fascinated by how music's touch is so powerful in humans. And those earworms? Imagine spending your life with only one song that won't leave you . . .

`Musicophilia' is a readable book from Oliver sacks that explores the brain in relation to music.

A lot of the book looks at neurological issues where the brain stops working as it should and highlights specific idiosyncrasies of music in the brain. Things like musical hallucinations after a stroke etc. But it also looks at synaesthesia and perfect pitch as well. One minor niggle is that this book is very classical music orientated, which isn't a bad thing necessarily, but there are other forms of music that aren`t covered in any great depth.

This has lots of case studies and first person accounts to help clarify points raised and this also adds a human elements to what could otherwise be a very clinical look at music from a neurological point of view. I particularly enjoyed the chapter on Williams syndrome and found the case studies recounted both fascinating and endearing.

If you are heavily into music then this book should have plenty to fascinate you, but if you have only a passing interest then there is still enough information in the science aspects of the book to keep you engrossed. This is a nice blend of the personal and the scientific and makes for a few days informative reading.

Feel free to check out my blog which can be found on my profile page.

This book is exactly what its title claims: a compilation of tales (on average more than 10 per chapter), most of the times lacking the neuroscientific explanations that I was looking for. Take for example the case of a man with a strange musical condition whom the author met for 5 minutes at an airport (without mentioning any further study by himself or anybody else) or following anecdote: "Florence Foster Jenkins, a corolatura that attracted a sell-out audience to Carnegie Hall (...) would sing notes that were excruciatingly wrong, flat, even screechy (...) without realizing that she was doing so. (...) Whether her fans were devoted to her in spite of her lack of musicality or because of it is not clear." That's it, no further explanations. This anecdote was in a footnote, where normally I expect to find a deeper explanation left out of the text for the ease of the less scientifically interested. I think I could have come up with such a "tale" myself, without having any knowledge of either music nor neuroscience.

The deepest explanations you get throughout the book are following: a) during the appearance of certain conditions, neuroscientists have used MRI techniques ("magnetic resonance imaging") to detect an activation of "x" or "y" area in the brain, which indicates that this area is involved in the specific process or b) after autopsias have been practised, neuroscientists have found out that specific areas seem larger/smaller in persons with certain conditions than in most of the people. I would have liked to know how connections are formed in the brain and how rythm, melody or other patterns are perceived or interpreted, etc.

Anyhow, if you are a layperson like myself, the reading of so many anecdotes will give you interesting insights to a lot of conditions that you probably have never heard of. The chapter on Williams' syndrome captivated me, people with this condition seem to be made for music and are very warm and happy people, while imagining somebody like Clive Wearing, who had a severe amnesia is quite tough. In both cases music literally "drives" their lives. Mr. Sacks mentioned Music, The Brain, And Ecstasy: How Music Captures Our Imagination in his bibliography; I've only read one chapter until now and it seems more what I was looking for, although a bit more difficult to read. It starts by how our ears are constructed, the way they receive and filter a myriad of simultaneus stimuly from sound waves lets say from an orchestra (where all instruments are playing at the same time pushing air molecules around them), how these stimuli are delivered to the brain and how the brain interprets them. The reviews for Levitin's books seemed not too promising to me either, so for the moment, if you want to learn something on this truly interesting subject, you should probably read this one as a lighter reading or engage in a deeper journey with Jourdain.

[...] February 21st: I have changed my mind.

After reading Jourdain's book, where all functions are explained in more detail, I can appreciate Musicophilia much better. Jourdain explains how it works, while Musicophilia tells you what conditions might appear when things aren't exactly that way. Musical imagery, perfect pitch and music therapy are also more vividly exemplified by Mr. Sacks. Had I read Jourdain's book first, I would have probably rated Musicophilia with 4 stars.

I've always enjoyed reading books from Dr. Sacks. He's not afraid to use really big and complicated words without apology. When I finish reading one of his books, they always make me feel smarter and more in tune with those around me. This book is no different. He presents his subject matter with careful observation and the practiced eye of a professional with many years in the field.

This particular book is a bit different in structure than previous books by Dr. Sacks. This one is theme based and the patients are spread among the themes. Some have recurring roles and some are for only one theme. From a reader's perspective, it didn't really detract too much from the stories, but it did come across slightly disjointed in sections.

Pros:
o interesting insights into how the brain processes music
o well researched and thoughtful approach to subjects
o self-examination adds credibility to stories

Cons:
o a bit disjointed at times

Overall - another solid book to add to Dr. Sacks' collection.

Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks is a fascinating book that reads as easily as a novel, although Sacks is a British neurologist who is discussing what he has observed in scores of patients for whom music is therapeudic in many unpredictable, unforeseeable ways. Some are victims of severe accidents, strokes, illness, paranoia, lightning strikes, or genetic diseases. Many of these patients have become suddenly gifted in music in some way or other, or their love for one type of music suddenly changes to a drastically different type which proves to have a healing affect on them. The book is enormous in the impact of Dr. Sacks findings, for the field of medicine and psychology and for anyone interested or gifted in music. When one says he is born with the gift of music, Dr. Sacks agrees that some actually are. This book is a wonderful read. We are actually tuned physically by the music we hear or play. And some specially gifted people are born with the ability to hear music that has never been played and then create it. Others find this is a strange gift as the result of a bad accident or illness. Amazing! I'm glad he has actually studied and documented these patients and their phenomenons for medical history.

Dr. Sacks has written about brains for decades now. He's also a decent, enthusiastic amateur musician. In Musicophilia, the good Dr. brings the brain and music together to cover what can go wrong and also oh so right when music and the brain get together.

Dr. Sacks first covers the various problems when the mind either fails to process music "normally" or attaches a variety of extra sensory reactions to music. His experience is both anecdotal and academic as he relies both on his own experiences as a neurophysiologist who has known and treated musical illnesses, and also his training as a networked professional involved in the studies of varous types of amusia and hypermusicality. I was also very interested in the positive corrolation between the higher occurrences of absolute pitch in those populations which speak tonal languages (like Mandarin).

Of special interest to me were the closing chapters on various aspects of music therapy in geriatric patients, autistics, those who suffer various types of dementia, and the very interesting introduction (for me) to those people at the opposite end from the autistics, those who have Williams' syndrome.

Some criticize the book for offering more questions than answers, but even the questions offer patterns from which the thoughtful reader can see a certain wondrous calculus emerge, a uniquely human and late-appearing link between what it means to think and how music is inextricably linked to our humanness.

Musicophilia is an astonishing book. Granted that is slightly skewed toward people who already have a thriving understanding & appreciation of western classical music; nevertheless, the sheer variety of ways that musical harmony is connected to the human "self", starting at the basic neurological (anatomical) level to the abstract notions of identity & personality strikes you overwhelmingly.

This book is organized by stories that reflect different kinds of aberrations in our appreciation of music. And this range of aberrations is quite simply mind-boggling. Dystonia, aphasia, disharmonia. Stories of people with the tic who can only relax while they perform music, of prodigious children with Williams Syndrome - sociable & musical all the time - but unable to add three & five. Stories of amnesiac husbands whose muscles remember only music, of people who cannot talk but can sing old songs. It is quite frankly a remarkable book to read.

Like I said, this book has a lot of nuances of western classical music stitched into many stories, & the portions on cure & treatment for a particular aberration are sporadic.

Nevertheless, even for a layman with little knowledge of both anatomy & music, this book is thoroughly enjoyable & is a wonderful chronicle of all aspects musical - & singularly human.

S!

Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, Revised and Expanded Edition
Review by R. Scott Weaver.

We have all experienced a time when a song won't leave our brain. We try to think of other songs or hum a different tune and yet the song imbeds itself into our head. That all too common human experience has been studied and the song has a name: an earworm. We learn about earworms and other strange, music-related syndromes in "Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain." Neurologist and professor Dr. Oliver Sacks presents a collection of case studies and clinical observations with music at the core. Sacks is best known for his book "Awakenings" later made into a movie featuring Robin Williams and Robert DeNiro. In "Musicophilia," we learn in minute detail how the wiring of the brain seems so conducive to music in both positive and negative ways. Sacks explores both the tragedy and triumph gained through and with music in the lives of those affected by disorders both familiar and bizarre. In one instance, we are introduced to an individual who literally cannot hear a melody. What would it be like to be in the word and yet not touched by music? We get a glimpse in the words of Dr. Sacks. From beginning to end, one cannot help but be fascinated by how music's touch is so powerful in humans. And those earworms? Imagine spending your life with only one song that won't leave you . . .

`Musicophilia' is a readable book from Oliver sacks that explores the brain in relation to music.

A lot of the book looks at neurological issues where the brain stops working as it should and highlights specific idiosyncrasies of music in the brain. Things like musical hallucinations after a stroke etc. But it also looks at synaesthesia and perfect pitch as well. One minor niggle is that this book is very classical music orientated, which isn't a bad thing necessarily, but there are other forms of music that aren`t covered in any great depth.

This has lots of case studies and first person accounts to help clarify points raised and this also adds a human elements to what could otherwise be a very clinical look at music from a neurological point of view. I particularly enjoyed the chapter on Williams syndrome and found the case studies recounted both fascinating and endearing.

If you are heavily into music then this book should have plenty to fascinate you, but if you have only a passing interest then there is still enough information in the science aspects of the book to keep you engrossed. This is a nice blend of the personal and the scientific and makes for a few days informative reading.

Feel free to check out my blog which can be found on my profile page.

This book is exactly what its title claims: a compilation of tales (on average more than 10 per chapter), most of the times lacking the neuroscientific explanations that I was looking for. Take for example the case of a man with a strange musical condition whom the author met for 5 minutes at an airport (without mentioning any further study by himself or anybody else) or following anecdote: "Florence Foster Jenkins, a corolatura that attracted a sell-out audience to Carnegie Hall (...) would sing notes that were excruciatingly wrong, flat, even screechy (...) without realizing that she was doing so. (...) Whether her fans were devoted to her in spite of her lack of musicality or because of it is not clear." That's it, no further explanations. This anecdote was in a footnote, where normally I expect to find a deeper explanation left out of the text for the ease of the less scientifically interested. I think I could have come up with such a "tale" myself, without having any knowledge of either music nor neuroscience.

The deepest explanations you get throughout the book are following: a) during the appearance of certain conditions, neuroscientists have used MRI techniques ("magnetic resonance imaging") to detect an activation of "x" or "y" area in the brain, which indicates that this area is involved in the specific process or b) after autopsias have been practised, neuroscientists have found out that specific areas seem larger/smaller in persons with certain conditions than in most of the people. I would have liked to know how connections are formed in the brain and how rythm, melody or other patterns are perceived or interpreted, etc.

Anyhow, if you are a layperson like myself, the reading of so many anecdotes will give you interesting insights to a lot of conditions that you probably have never heard of. The chapter on Williams' syndrome captivated me, people with this condition seem to be made for music and are very warm and happy people, while imagining somebody like Clive Wearing, who had a severe amnesia is quite tough. In both cases music literally "drives" their lives. Mr. Sacks mentioned Music, The Brain, And Ecstasy: How Music Captures Our Imagination in his bibliography; I've only read one chapter until now and it seems more what I was looking for, although a bit more difficult to read. It starts by how our ears are constructed, the way they receive and filter a myriad of simultaneus stimuly from sound waves lets say from an orchestra (where all instruments are playing at the same time pushing air molecules around them), how these stimuli are delivered to the brain and how the brain interprets them. The reviews for Levitin's books seemed not too promising to me either, so for the moment, if you want to learn something on this truly interesting subject, you should probably read this one as a lighter reading or engage in a deeper journey with Jourdain.

[...] February 21st: I have changed my mind.

After reading Jourdain's book, where all functions are explained in more detail, I can appreciate Musicophilia much better. Jourdain explains how it works, while Musicophilia tells you what conditions might appear when things aren't exactly that way. Musical imagery, perfect pitch and music therapy are also more vividly exemplified by Mr. Sacks. Had I read Jourdain's book first, I would have probably rated Musicophilia with 4 stars.

I've always enjoyed reading books from Dr. Sacks. He's not afraid to use really big and complicated words without apology. When I finish reading one of his books, they always make me feel smarter and more in tune with those around me. This book is no different. He presents his subject matter with careful observation and the practiced eye of a professional with many years in the field.

This particular book is a bit different in structure than previous books by Dr. Sacks. This one is theme based and the patients are spread among the themes. Some have recurring roles and some are for only one theme. From a reader's perspective, it didn't really detract too much from the stories, but it did come across slightly disjointed in sections.

Pros:
o interesting insights into how the brain processes music
o well researched and thoughtful approach to subjects
o self-examination adds credibility to stories

Cons:
o a bit disjointed at times

Overall - another solid book to add to Dr. Sacks' collection.

Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks is a fascinating book that reads as easily as a novel, although Sacks is a British neurologist who is discussing what he has observed in scores of patients for whom music is therapeudic in many unpredictable, unforeseeable ways. Some are victims of severe accidents, strokes, illness, paranoia, lightning strikes, or genetic diseases. Many of these patients have become suddenly gifted in music in some way or other, or their love for one type of music suddenly changes to a drastically different type which proves to have a healing affect on them. The book is enormous in the impact of Dr. Sacks findings, for the field of medicine and psychology and for anyone interested or gifted in music. When one says he is born with the gift of music, Dr. Sacks agrees that some actually are. This book is a wonderful read. We are actually tuned physically by the music we hear or play. And some specially gifted people are born with the ability to hear music that has never been played and then create it. Others find this is a strange gift as the result of a bad accident or illness. Amazing! I'm glad he has actually studied and documented these patients and their phenomenons for medical history.

Dr. Sacks has written about brains for decades now. He's also a decent, enthusiastic amateur musician. In Musicophilia, the good Dr. brings the brain and music together to cover what can go wrong and also oh so right when music and the brain get together.

Dr. Sacks first covers the various problems when the mind either fails to process music "normally" or attaches a variety of extra sensory reactions to music. His experience is both anecdotal and academic as he relies both on his own experiences as a neurophysiologist who has known and treated musical illnesses, and also his training as a networked professional involved in the studies of varous types of amusia and hypermusicality. I was also very interested in the positive corrolation between the higher occurrences of absolute pitch in those populations which speak tonal languages (like Mandarin).

Of special interest to me were the closing chapters on various aspects of music therapy in geriatric patients, autistics, those who suffer various types of dementia, and the very interesting introduction (for me) to those people at the opposite end from the autistics, those who have Williams' syndrome.

Some criticize the book for offering more questions than answers, but even the questions offer patterns from which the thoughtful reader can see a certain wondrous calculus emerge, a uniquely human and late-appearing link between what it means to think and how music is inextricably linked to our humanness.

This book is similar to most of Sack's other books in that it consists mostly of discussions of case histories. But it is very definitely more than just a listing of case histories. In particular, it deals with the relationship between music and the brain. It begins with the story of a man involved in an accident that suddenly develops a desire to play the piano, and shows what he manages to accomplish. It goes on to discuss what the author calls "earworms," in other words, melodies that get stuck in the mind (everyone encounters them). There is also a long discussion of amusia -- an affliction in which a person does not enjoy or appreciate music in any way.

I particularly enjoyed the discussion of perfect pitch. This is the ability of a person to state or pinpoint what note or tone on the piano (or other instrument)is being played. Sacks points out that some musicians have it, but others do not. In particular, Mozart had it, but Wagner and Schumann did not. He mentions that it is relatively rare in that only about 1 in 11,000 have it.

I also enjoyed the chapter on musical savants. They are people with very low IQs that have amazing musical talents or abilities. Some of them manage to memorize thousands of different melodies. Interestingly, he points out that there is no such thing as an "instant" savant; in all cases they have spent years developing their special skills. Along the same line, he discusses and analyzes the special skills of blind musicians, pointing out that in most cases they have a very strong "feeling' for the music.

Two things in the book struck close to home for me. The first was "phantom fingers"-- a situation in which someone has lost his hand but still feels his fingers. My father lost his hand, and used to tell us that his finger occassonally got itchy (but, of course, there was nothing he could do about it). The second was musicians dystonia, which is a pain or cramping of the fingers as a result of overplaying or overpractising the piano. He discusses the case of Leon Fleischer and Gray Graffman. I've known people who have suffered from this and have suffered from it to some degree myself, so it was interesting to see it discussed

Overall the book contains a lot of information, and is well-written, and there's no arguing about the authority of the author. Some may be disappointed, however, in that they didn't learn as much about music as they thought they would.

Musicophilia offers an inside look into the lives of people who experience music in atypical ways, from those who have heightened abilities and sensitivities to music to those with a partial or total lack of musical receptivity. Engaging stories about people with William's syndrome, Alzheimers, autism, synesthesia, amusia, etc., oftentimes in their own words, provide really unique insight into how we process and experience music and just how multi-faceted these processes and experiences really are. I give this book four stars instead of five only because the book is nearly 400 pages long, which makes it feel a bit like a marathon towards the end. But the various stories don't feel repetitive; on the contrary, they provide a very good overview of the varieties of musical experience. I am sure for others who have had experiences similar to those included in this book will find great relief in knowing that there are others who have experienced the same thing. I definitely won't be taking my own musicality and musical experiences for granted anytime soon. Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in music. A very accessible and engaging read.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading and studying this book. Oliver Sacks a professor of Clinical Neurology and Psychiatry, has a very engaging writing style. Sacks writes in an understandble way for most, but still uses medical terminology to be more precise.

I know from reading another book ("The Feeling of What Happens) by a neurologist (Antonio Damaisio) that neurology is filled with strange syndromes and defects/conditions. I find this book even more fascinating because Sacks emphasizes case histories. These individuals are not really "sick" but are "gifted" with special talents related to music. There are many who have various syndromes/ailments and are able to moderate their problems via music (either playing or listening to it).

My favorite parts of the book are the discussions on things such as synesthesia (unusual perception of sound/music), musicogenenic epilepsy (seizures initiated by sound/music), musicophilia and brain worms. There were however no parts of this book where I was not totally engaged and interested in the information. This may not be an easy read for everyone, but it's impossible to read it without being in awe of the power of music and the people who play it.

This book is a marvel to read. Oliver Sacks is an unafraid, and intelligent presenter of ways in which the brain and music interact.

It is quite probably the best introduction to how your brain and music work together available, and it is also filled with stories of different ways in which the gentle balance our brain requires can be distorted.
The way in which he presents facts is easy-going and often supplemented with a story about specific individuals, making it easier to set the functions he describe into context. He also presents himself in a friendly manner throughout the book, without succumbing to the trap of making himself the central theme of the book.
His presentations of the abnormalities encountered in humanity when it comes to processing and using sound/music are almost always interesting, and they make you think about just how differently perceived this world can be. That such great changes require such little physical alteration is incredibly fascinating, and it becomes obvious throughout the book just how great of a tool the human brain, and for that matter, music, really is.

Musicophilia made me realize how others perceive music. It was a shock. I assumed that everyone experienced music the same way. Wrong!

Do you ever ask anyone what happens when they hear music? I didn't before I read this book. Now I plan to ask everyone.

Dr. Sacks has the kind of fine writing style and awareness of music that makes his tales seem as appealing as the cases that Dr. Sigmund Freud wrote about. As Dr. Sacks pointed out, Dr. Freud didn't care for music so that gentleman failed to investigate and report on many of the phenomena in this book.

We don't exactly know why the mind and body interact with music in the ways that they do. Part is undoubtedly heredity. Part is undoubtedly due to exposure to musical influences. Some may relate to the language spoken in the home. Difficulties with seeing may also be an influence. Injuries to the body and brain can play a large role. Dr. Sacks does a masterly job of using case after case to explore one aspect or another of these dimensions so that a complex picture emerges that's even more remarkable than the brain processes involved in reading.

One of the biggest surprises in the book is that musical talent seems to be inhibited by some parts of the brain. In similar way, music can also inhibit some other brain functions that we would like to get rid of.

I had always wondered about those with perfect pitch, and the book explores that. There are also wonderful sections on other seemingly inherited musical abilities.

Dr. Sacks adds a lot of perspective to the history of music by making observations about various composers and the way that their compositions reflect certain musical abilities than others while explaining how the mental processes are different. Today, we can map the brain's activation in order to get clues about why certain behaviors are possible. That final perspective adds a lot to the case histories.

If you are like me, you'll find some of the cases to be heart-wrenching. I was comforted a bit to realize that music made those sad lives better so there's reason to rejoice in that sense.

So what was my big personal discovery? When I listen to classical music of any kind, I can choreograph a ballet along with costumes, sets, and props to go along with the music that I see in color when I close my eyes . . . even if the music has never been used for ballet. I didn't realize that others usually don't do that. What a wonder!

Whenever my daughter has a tune in her head that she can't shake, she has an interesting solution. "Turn on the radio," she says, "I gotta hear some different music." In effect, she tricks her brain and diverts it from one musical function to another. In this his tenth book, Oliver Sacks, Professor of Clinical Neurology and Psychiatry at Columbia University, explores how the brain processes music. As in his other books, Sacks compiles dozens of "clinical anecdotes." These are informal, inherently fascinating, and deeply human case histories of his patients. In addition, he shares at length from letters that he has received, scientific studies, the results of brain imaging techniques, and his own personal experiences.

Rooted in his own deep love for and skill in music, Sacks examines how music impacts "almost every aspect of brain function." If that sounds far-fetched, consider the range of his topics. There's musical imagery, whereby you "listen" to a tune in your mind even though there is no sound. As experience shows, this can be either voluntary or involuntary, sometimes an obsession or even something like a "possession" by the music. A long chapter explores "musical hallucinations." There are forays into amusia, dystimbria, dysharmonia, perfect pitch, and musical savants. He analyzes the relationship of music and blindness, music and color, music and speech, Parkinson's disease, Tourette's syndrome, dreams and dementia. Sometimes musicophilia results from a seizure; at other times music induces a seizure.

Sacks's book is an extended case study of the brain-mind relationship. And most mysterious of all is the question whether music even has any meaning. "While [music] is most closely tied to the emotions, music is wholly abstract; it has no formal power of representation whatever. We may go to a play to learn about jealousy, betrayal, vengeance, love -- but music, instrumental music, can tell us nothing about these. Music can have wonderful, formal, quasi-mathematical perfection, and it can have heartbreaking tenderness, poignancy, and beauty. . . But it does not have to have any 'meaning' whatever" (37). Such is the mystery of music, that although it conveys no inherent meaning, no one would question its power.

I have become increasingly interested in music as I get older, feeling and believing that music has much greater importance to a well-functioning mind than as mere commercial or entertainment salve. Who better to help explore that theory than Oliver Sachs?

Sachs is a great writer, and blessed with particularly interesting stories and experiences. He is obviously fluent in terms and references of musical appreciation.

My only complaint, and others may think it a feature, is that the book seemed to try to be both a collection of really interesting stories (stories good enough to be retold) and a compendium of medically interesting stories (which seem to be more scientifically interesting but less compelling as stories).

I'm glad that Sachs chose this as a subject, and delighted to have read the book.

Sacks does it again, merging clinical precision with insight and real affection for his patients. This time, he explores the biological foundations of music as a human experience. It turns out that music runs deep in the human brain and mind, as it does in possibly no other species. In his medical practice, Sacks has seen how music can heal, as in some Parkison's and psychiatric patients, or even harm, in rare cases where its rhythms can trigger seizures. It can reach in to patients blocked from normal communication, and it can help people reach out through stuttering or stroke-damaged failures of language. In some Tourette's patients, it can both drive creativity, and be used to channel the illness's effects away from harmful kinds of expression. It casts new light on Plato's draconian control over music in his idealized Republic - it really does have deep effect on the citizens' minds.

Since musical expression seems so deeply ingrained in the human nervous system, it seems surprising that people differ so much in how the experience it. Oddly, enjoyment and basic neurological faculties for music don't always go together. I'm one who "lack[s] some of the perceptual or cognitive abilities to appreciate music but nonetheless enjoy it hugely." I'm about as unmusical as anyone around, but usually have something playing - at least in my imagination. Others, even with fine senses of pitch or the formal nuances of music, might be quite indifferent. I found it helpful to see all the different parts of the musical sense, and to see how they fit together.

This book gives real insight into one of the most basic of human faculties. It's a study that has only recently claimed a place of its own in the scientific literature, possibly because it is so abstract and subjective. As a result, nearly everything that Sacks presents comes across as fresh knowledge. And, since it discusses parts of human nature that have rarely been discussed, it helped me to see my place in the range of human experience. My lack of musical ability has been an embarrassment, sometimes a painful one. I can, and do, enjoy it anyway, and my enjoyment is as real as anyone's.

-- wiredweird

Sacks looks at music and the neurological basis for music within the mind. He presents a variety of case studies.

People who are obsessed with music, some born so and others becoming so late in life. We read of victims of dementia who have lost all mental functions but somehow keep a sense of self through music. We read of an amnesiac man with no memory stretching beyond the moment yet who can play long pieces from memory. Victims of Williams syndrome who have very low IQs but are highly social, very outgoing, and genuine lovers of music.

And we are told of people with odd conditions but who are otherwise perfectly normal. A woman with perfect pitch, who can play instruments well, but who doesn't care or emotionally react to music at all. A woman for whom music has absolutely no meaning: any tune is to her no different than the clanking of pots and pans thrown on the floor. A man who cannot stop musical hallucinations from coming unbidden. People with synesthesia who see colours whenever music plays and who associate specific colours with specific notes.

Sacks presents all his case studies in such a way as to convey what these people feel like. Here and there he sprinkles slightly technical concepts, such as the location of the brain's speech centers behind the left ear, how lesions in this or that area can release musical activity, how blindness can induce strong auditory hallucinations because the now unused visual areas of the cerebral cortex are taken over by auditory functions. Through these technical details we come to discover hints of how our brain creates our mind and how music in most of us is deeply embedded in our sense of self.

Vincent Poirier, Tokyo

"Music hath qualities to charm the savage breast."

Congreve's familiar line reiterates the legend of Orpheus who used music to control nature and living creatures.

Whether true or not is a matter of conjecture. But there is a rising body of evidence music stimulates intellect and eases the learning process. And Oliver Sacks, the famed neurologist, enforces that argument in his new book, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain. He also stresses the healing power of music. Sacks calls the ability to appreciate music a defining quality of our humanity.

Sacks' love of music and his empathy and compassion for people whose lives have been transformed in some manner of other by music shine through his words, offering insight into a myriad of worlds most of us wouldn't have imagined. He reveals that music is so integral to our being we search it out even in the midst of the most disturbing trauma.

In the waning days of her existence my mother suffered musical hallucinations. I wish I had read Dr. Sacks then so I might better have understood what she was going through.

Sacks explains how we tend to take music for granted, to trivialize it in our daily lives, and yet it can be the most restorative factor in our health and life. It reminds me some religions teach that it is music which keeps the world in flux.

Oliver Sacks did not embark on a definitive description of how the brain handles music. Instead, he set out to describe the musical anomalies that reviewer Pletko enumerates above, such as amusia, synesthesia and musicians' dystonia.

Sacks only mentions possible causes, such as the ability of the language functions of the left brain to inhibit and drown out the musical abilities of the right brain. He also mentions the special ability of music to encode large sequences of information. In other places, he mentions the musical rhythms of the body that coordinate extraordinarily complex functions like walking and running. How the body uses music is the subject of another book yet to be written.

Do we find music pleasing because it is the multi-dimensional language of the body?

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"We humans are a musical species no less than a linguistic one...In some cases, music can provoke seizures [and other disorders]...[but] it may be especially powerful and have great therapeutic potential for patients with a variety of neurological conditions...There is now an enormous and rapidly growing body of work on the neural underpinnings of musical perception and imagery...these new insights of neuroscience are exciting beyond measure, but there is always a certain danger that the simple art of observation may be lost...and the richness of the human context ignored. Clearly, both approaches are necessary, blending 'old fashioned' observation and description with the latest in technology, and I have tried to incorporate both of these approaches here. But above all, I have tried to listen to my patients and subjects, to imagine and enter their experiences--it is these which form the core of this book."

The above is found in this fascinating book by neurologist, professor, and author Dr. Oliver Sacks.

As the book's subtitle says, it deals with "Tales of Music and the [Human] Brain." Contrary to the books title "Musicophilia," (roughly meaning "a love of music"), it profiles music (mainly classical or more correctly western art music) as a treatment and music as an affliction. (The quotation which titles this review was uttered by a famous composer.)

Note that Sacks does not give the neural mechanisms of why music is say an effective form of treatment for a particular affliction (but he does offer hypotheses). This is because research of this type is still in its infancy.

All chapters are interesting and increased my understanding a thousand fold but here are my favourite chapters:

(1) Musical seizures
(2) Musicogenic epilepsy
(3) Brainworms, sticky music, and catchy tunes
(4) Musical hallucinations
(5) Musical savants
(6) Music and blindness
(7) Music and amnesia
(8) Music and Tourette's Syndrome (a neurological disorder characterized, in advanced cases, by large involuntary bodily movements, noises like barks and whistles, and in many instances, an uncontrollable urge to utter obscenities)
(9) Parkinson's Disease (PD) and music therapy (PD is a degenerative disease characterized by rhythmic tremor and muscle rigidity)
(10) Musician's dystonia (lack of normal muscle tone due to disease or infection of the nervous system)
(11) Musical dreams
(12) Music and depression
(13) Music and emotion
(14) Dementia and music therapy (dementia is severe organic mental deficiency)

This book has extensive footnotes throughout and many of them are extremely interesting. I found that if I decided to skip a particular footnote that I did not lose the thread of what was being expressed by the author. In other words, the footnotes are optional reading.

Finally, the only problem I had was that there were no brain diagrams (or one good brain diagram) to help the reader see what brain structures Sacks was referring too. It was as if Sacks assumed everyone reading his book would have a background in neuroanatomy. (In my case, I happen to have some appropriate background but I realize all readers will not have this background.) To overcome this deficit and to make reading easier, I recommend that you photocopy a good diagram of the brain that has key structures clearly labelled.

In conclusion, I leave you with the last words that appear in Oliver Sack's incredible book:

"Music is part of being human, and there is no human culture in which it is not highly developed and esteemed. Its very ubiquity may cause it to be trivialized in daily life; we switch on a radio, switch it off, hum to a tune, tap our feet, find the words of an old song going through our minds, and think nothing of it. But to those who are lost in [some neurological condition or some other condition such as] dementia, the situation is different. Music is no luxury to them , but a necessity, and can have a power beyond anything else to restore them to themselves...at least for a while."

(first published 2007; preface; 4 parts or 29 chapters; main narrative 345 pages; acknowledgements; bibliography; index)

<<Stephen Pletko, London, Ontario, Canada>>

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The great Oliver Sachs turns his attention to neurological disturbances related to the hearing of Music. In the course of it he shows that what I suspect most of us take for granted, that we all share a basic single way of 'hearing music' to be wrong. He shows that the listening to Music is an enormously complex neurological process involving different areas of the brain. And in chronicling a wide variety of disorders he shows not only how different areas of the Brain are involved but also how social elements may play their part in these disorders. For instance in discussing musical therapy for stroke victims, Parkinson sufferers, Alzheimer patients he shows just how important with the stroke victims a therapist can be . Sachs chronicles a long list of unusual cases and disorders. He provides a great deal of personal anecdote also related to his own 'listening history'. He shows us that our being able to listen properly to music is a great and complex gift.
The reader of this book will learn not only a tremendous amount about what is involved in 'listening to music', but of the richness and variety of humanity.

Oliver Sacks is an incredibly interesting person to read. His ability to keep ideas at a fairly simple level while maintaining all the detail in a story is wonderful, and every work of his I have read I have enjoyed greatly. This is no exception; Musicophilia is a great read for anyone looking to better understand the core concept of music and the brain. Elegantly written, it is a joy to read, learn, and understand this deep relationship.

The book has four main sections:

Part I: Haunted by Music

This section of the book details a number of conditions where the person might be "haunted by music," as the title might suggest. Auditory hallucinations, brainworms, seizures, and even sudden musicophilia are all talked about in this section. While all the chapters in the section relate to this underlying theme, none are truly related to one another (and this applies to the other two sections as well), but all are very interesting and kept my attention.

Part II: A Range of Musicality

Here Sacks examines cases of synesthesia, cases of perfect and imperfect pitch, musical savants, and stereo listening. Again, these topics seem fairly unrelated to one another but Sacks' storytelling is designed to give the reader insight to specific stories and then move on to another interesting topic.

Part III: Memory, Movement, and Music

Sacks presents the influence of music on movement disorders and memory. This was the most interesting section for me out of the sear amount of knowledge presented in such a clear and understandable manner. From Tourette's to Parkinson's to dystonia, Sacks touches upon a number of disorders and shows how music can have a drastic effect on all of them.

Part IV: Emotion, Identity, and Music

In the final section Sacks examines why some music has such an influence on people and none on others, or why our tastes are different from person to person. He also examines why this music is a unique phenomenon to humans, and tries to understand some of the meaning behind that profound statement.
Book Review

Overall, the book is wonderful. Sacks is a brilliant writer who possess the ability to relay not only basic fact but in an understandable, yet interesting way. While this book is almost like a slideshow on the topic of music and the brain, touching on some many different topics with so many different stories, Sacks manages to maintain an excitement and clarity that keeps the reader interested from cover to cover. His footnotes provide even more information, and while optional, they give a wealth of knowledge that helps the reader understand concepts so well.

And that might also be the single weakness of the book. The amount of footnotes can be daunting, and sometimes it can be frustrating to have to read a focused amount of information only to come back to the main read and find that you have lost your idea. A minor problem, but still can make the reader stumble if he loses his place in his work. Additionally, for those more interested in the how instead of the what, Sacks only presents the overview of the why and the how, his lack of detail can be frustrating when a story is told with no deeper understanding. Sometimes the footnotes can make up for this lack of knowledge in the story, other times the reader is simply left with a "this is all there is?" feeling. Nevertheless, these are trifling flaws that really cannot tarnish or dull the great quality of this book. It is my favorite of his, and I have learned a lot from reading it...I hope that you will as well.

Pros/Cons:

Pros: Excellent storytelling, presented in an understandable manner, some detail and great ability to maintain the reader's focus.

Cons: Footnotes can be a stumble-block at times, lack of details or core science could be a disappointment for some.

I would recommend reading this book if you find neuroscience and/or music interesting at all. I think it is well-worth the read, and I was very excited to read it. If you have doubts about it, check out some of Sacks' interviews or other reviews, it was his one on the Daily Show that got me really excited to read it.

Music elicit emotions. In Musicophilia, Dr Oliver Sacks, a well-known neurologist and author, presented a collection of stories of people who have various types of neurological disorders. He started the book with a general introduction on the uplifting effects of music being dependent on personal strengths, weaknesses, cultural background, and life circumstances. The collection of tales are divided into four sections: (1) Haunted by Music; (2) A Range of Musicality; (3) Memory, Movement, and Music; and (4) Emotion, Identity, Music. Each section includes six to eight stories. I find this a good leisure book to read if you are interested in music and its impact on the brain. Dr Sacks' background in neurology enabled him to present interesting connections of music experience and the brain. He also shares his personal experiences with music. I resonate with his chapter on Brainworms, Sticky Music, and Catchy Tunes which describes mental replay of familiar or irrelevant music which can run for hours or days before subsiding.

I'm giving this book a 3 stars on three counts. First, the book lacks in-depth neurological information how music constructs brain networks. This may be intentional to attract general readers rather than appeal to those seeking an academic or scholarly book. Second, Dr Sacks' style of writing seems to be repetitive and long-winded. Third, there's an excessive number of footnotes, and the reader might have been better served if the footnotes had been included in the main text for a better flow and understanding.

The book is a long gallery of special and detailed studies of special cases. As such it is interesting but if you keep at that level you will get a completely scattered vision of the problem and, I dare say, there is only one central problem though it can be seen under different angles. The central question remains that of the origin of music. Sacks tackles the problem constantly and under many different lights. Is music a genetic endowment of individuals? Sacks does not clearly say yes or no but he accumulates facts and cases showing that the basic musical qualities of the individual are from birth. He does not exploit the fact that a fetus can hear from the twenty-fourth week onwards. But he insists on the fact that these musical qualities are under the influence of the environment. Before six months a child reacts at a change in rhythm or pitch in any language, even those he has never heard, all the more in the several he has heard when he has heard several. But when he turns six months old his reactivity is reduced to the language - or languages - he can hear every day. As a linguist I would say it also depends on the identification of the two or more languages, the mother's, the father's, the family's, the creche's and the kindergarten's, etc. That's how children become bilingual. But to go back to music, Sacks insists tremendously on perfect pitch and shows how a tonal language like Chinese will enable children to develop perfect pitch in proportions that cannot even compare with children from a non-tonal language like English. The proportion between Chinese and English children is 4 to 1 when music is started between 4 and 5, 9 to 1 if music is started between 6 and 7, and 42 to 0 (zero) if started between 8 and 9. But this does not mean perfect pitch is in all children at birth, even if we must be prudent because at birth the baby has been submitted to a sonic, linguistic and musical environment for at least twelve weeks. But Sacks goes on with blind-born children and children blinded in their infancy. And there only 50% of them will develop perfect pitch (as opposed to one in ten thousand for all other children). The proportion is too important for us to consider it as the result of a physical handicap. It has to do with the brain but is it structural or genetic, knowing that the structure is genetic, but meaning that the structure will do what it will be trained to do which will not hence be genetic. We can check that non-blind-born people who have developed perfect pitch demonstrate "an exaggerated asymmetry between the volumes of the right and left planum temporale" (137) but blind-born children who have that perfect pitch do not carry that asymmetry. They developed their perfect pitch in a "radical reorganization of the brain" (137). Hence that is not genetic but it is developed within the structure of the brain, where it is easier, where there is some empty space. The general structure of the brain and its potentialities are genetic, but the particular development of the particular potentialities of any individual will develop opportunistically, i.e. according to the stimulation found in the environment, but also erratically in a way since the proportions in the case of perfect pitch are far from overwhelming one way or another, and that may mean either the structural characteristics of the brains of the deprived children are different from the others, and that remains to be demonstrated; or the environment is after all not as stimulating for the deprived kids as compared to the others, but we do not know what interferes there; or that capability requires a particular gene that has not yet been identified. And what about something the human species invents that has never been thought of or done before, a new machine, or whatever (language and music are human inventions, don't forget). But Sacks goes a lot farther than that. He hints at the origin of language and music as being absolutely linked in the human species, which would mean originally the human species is both linguistic and musical or rather linguistico-musical (language and music are of the same nature). He refers - rather naively - to some studies of Neanderthalers and he forgets they were not homo sapiens, and he seems not to know at all the studies of linguists and culturalists on the oldest collected cultural works and data from the societies having produced these, I mean the Sumerian and Zoroastrian and Vedic cultures and societies in with the "Rsi" is a technician of language and memory, hence a communicator, a poet, a priest, a musician, a doctor, a scientist, a lawyer. He is the depositary and the manager and enricher of all practices having to do with or using language, music, beliefs and knowledge. He does not seem to know that the old Hebraic Bible was entirely musical in two styles, a prosody and a psalmody, the two opposed and clearly differentiated. And strangely enough he clinically deals with the role of music in keeping things in memory, even when our memory fails with age and disease, but he does not seem to emphasize that music is a memory-oriented means to learn and remember things and that we keep the musical line more than the words, at least often, and the music then brings the words back, though other non-linguistic elements could be the prompters of the words. But that book is a mine of reflection and thinking and we should keep that in mind and probably read it randomly over a long period of time and dig deeper on each section or chapter.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, Universioty Paris 8, Vincennes Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Val de Marne Créteil, CEGID

If you enjoy books that simply throw out examples i.e. John S did this, this and this, and Suzie R did that, that and that, this is a book for you. There is no in depth study of why John S did this, this and this.

Oliver Sacks delivers yet again. His inviting prose and erudite wit are keenly demonstrated in these stories of the mysterious, appealing, and infectious nature of music. As many reviewers have stated, he explores, via case studies and an intimate knowledge of musical literature, why we are in love with, need, and are plagued by ubiquitous musical structures. As Dr. Sacks maintains neurological savvy, he conjoins theory with science in the most intriguing manner. For example, when speaking of patients afflicted with fluent aphasias, he incites Luria's notion of "de-inhibition" whereby neural areas surrounding the affected region act to compensate for the loss of function and notes that language imbedded into melody may substantially increase patients' verbal functioning.
Not only does the author share stories of improved functioning (as with parkinsonian clients, aphasics, patients with various tic disorders, etc.), he helps us discover reasons why music might play such a pivotal role in our lives. Further, he elucidates music's correlation with our mood states, how we can become extremely nostalgic by hearing a certain melodic piece from a memorable era in our life, and that music, in particular rythym, facilitates our presentation of our more natural, fluid selves. Overall an interesting and relevant work, and one that will act as a great reference to everything musical.

This is exactly what a book written in the early part of the twenty-first century about the brain should be: a hodgepodge of anecdotal musings couched in good science without being subjugated by that science. There's much work to be done before anybody even reasonably approximates a complete theory of mind, and this is the premise of Sacks's casual, even poetic storytelling that matches his decades of neurological acumen with a refreshing capacity to deconstruct case studies with the simple elegance of, fittingly, music. A man struck by lightning becomes voraciously musically inclined, another man completely enclosed in his dementia can still conduct a full symphony through a mysterious mechanism of motor recall, and yet another struck in the head by a baseball develops the cognitively asymmetric ability to perfectly imprint auditory input. We are left, with Sacks's guidance, to do nothing but conjure flimsy hypotheses while marveling at the stealth relationship between mind, music, and perhaps something deeper.

I really enjoyed this book. I bought it for my kindle. I am fascinated by the inner workings of the mind, especially concerning how it processes music. I found this particularly intriguing as someone interested in pursuing a career in music therapy. The only reason I did not give it another star is because it took me a while to read--I didn't feel "sucked-in", lime I just couldn't put the book down, as I do with some books. However, that rarely happens for me with non-fiction and I do not consider this book to be lacking. I recommend Musicophilia, especially if you are someone already particularly interested in music and/or psychology/neuroscience.

It's hard to rate this book, because it aims for both a scientific and a popular auidience. So, it depends into which audience you fall. I fall into the latter, so I found the book lacking. The book really is written for a more scientific audience and the casual reader soon finds himself bogged down in medical terminology, endless footnotes, etc. Reading the whole book was an arduous task for me. Like his other books, Sacks here describes individuals with various pathologies regarding the way their minds respond to music. But the case studies were less interesting than those in his other books. But, I guess there was no other way to write a book like this. So, in many ways, it was educational. In many other ways, boring.

The content is very interesting and presented in a way that is accessible to a regular person. I love music and have an interest in how the brain works, and this book melds the two together. All the case studies helped bring the ideas into a solid thing I could grasp into. I only wished there had been more on music itself, whereas the book focuses mostly on the brain side of things. It would be interesting to hear the story told from the opposite perspective, the music being the main topic and the brain being secondary.

Oliver Sacks is a great writer in the popular medical case study genre. While his stories are understandably fuzzy scientifically, they touch upon the humanity of a disease. This point is particularly salient in neurological conditions where to those stricken it may seem like their mind is rebelling against themselves. Although there is not doubt for the author's enthusiasm for the topic, his prose is less clear than before. In particular he alludes to so many other authors that I felt ill-prepared for reading this book without also having read all those he referenced. After a while, this smacks of name-dropping and detracts from what are at heart very unique stories. From a literary standpoint, I think he has taken the genre to his limit and sacrificed clear prose for speculative and obfuscatory language. While before he walked the fine line between narrative and medicine, I feel he does neither justice in this book.

By now, it's a given that an Oliver Sacks' book is worth your time and close attention. His particular talent lies in making the science interesting without becoming a "pop-science" writer. This is not an easy achievement, but Sacks manages it with facility. He can explain the science in terms of case studies - many of which have claimed his medical attention. He does this while mixing in experiences of his own and some personal reflections which are anything but intrusions. While some of his books are essays on selected individuals ["An Anthropologist on Mars" is an example], this one has a very special focus: the minds that make music unbidden.

Music arising in the mind without prompting may seem a common enough occurence. The advertising industry has demonstated fully music as an uncontrollable meme. The cases Sacks portrays here are of another sort. In some cases the music has taken over - sometimes supplanting other thinking processes and reducing the victim to near helplessness. The chief problem is often a lack of variety. More than the adverts' jingles, particular tunes may emerge from the distant past to occupy the sufferer's waking hours. A well-disciplined mind, such as Doctor P's, may be able to use the uncalled for music in ways that get them through daily tasks. Others don't have that ability and the music proves a terrible distraction. The music renders them "incapable of hearing themselves think".

Therapy for such conditions is in its infancy and may actually be subverted by the deluge of music impinging our ears daily. Sacks notes the proliferation of the iPod devices bringing music to listeners who seem to pass the day in another realm. This, however, is not relieving a condition, but may be generating a new one. Some music therapy has been in use to overcome coordination disorders, but this is limited and selective in effectiveness. Even "classical" music, which is known to "draw the mind" into it is not innocent in causing disorders. One of the more captivating classical pieces, Ravel's "Bolero" may be both the product of "musicophilia" in an aging composer and the source of endless reptition in the mind of the listener. The tendency of the mind to retain music is demonstrated in those with advanced Alzheimer's, who lose other facilities but retain a sense for music. Is music thus something the brain holds on to as something reliable in an otherwise confusing world? Brain scans have demonstrated that professional musicians have certain areas of the brain larger than the rest of us, but as a path to therapy, this situation has offered little up to now.

The author's avoidance of simply presenting a string of clinical studies is a testament to his humanitarian approach to the various conditions he lists here. In a sense, this book is a catalog of distortions the mind may be subject to relating to music. In one case, a lightning strike turns an orthopaedic surgeon into a classical pianist. Another suffers massive brain damage, yet continues a relatively normal life so long as he can arrange things in musical forms. Others may respond positively to prompts of classical themes, while becoming emotionally distraught at modern forms. Listing the cases in such a way leaves the impression that one might as well be perusing a medical journal. In Sacks' hands, nothing could be further from the truth. He is passionate in his relating these conditions, his feelings permeating every page. A book well worth your time, whether you are intersted in music, the mind or how they combine in the minds of people you may know. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

While writing this book review I cannot help but remember the many episodes of "Reading Rainbow" that I watched as a child. Although the subject material of this book is slightly more complex than the books on that program, the feeling of nostalgia is unavoidable. I found Oliver Sacks' latest composition a pure joy to read. Within its 385 pages he expounds on some of the many neurological conditions that he has observed over his lifetime, relating to music. Most of these cases describe the conditions of others, however a few illustrate disorders with which Sacks himself was afflicted. Although some detail is lacking concerning these cases, this is perfectly understandable, considering the target audience for this book is the general population. Sacks does not attempt to answer the long asked question of why we love music, but instead hopes to provide his readers with a greater understanding of the power of music over the human psyche.

I was greatly touched by the story of Clive Wearing; he was a musician who unfortunately contracted herpes encephalitis, a disease that devastated the region of his brain concerned with memory. As a result of the illness, he suffered from retro and anterograde amnesias leaving him with a memory span of only a few seconds. In an attempt to gain some control over his disorder, Clive kept a journal of his thoughts, however the journal proved only to reveal the severity of his condition, for each entry would simply claim that he was finally awake and all previous such claims were false. Over many years and after moving to a small country residence for the brain injured, Clive learned that if he kept his mind busy in a perpetual conversation he could preserve some of his memory. Clive's wife, Deborah, described this state as being posed upon a "tiny platform ... above the abyss", for if he paused in his conversation he would invariably fall into the abyss once more. Music also proved to support Clive's memory, for example if asked if he could play Bach's "Forty-eight Preludes and Fugues" he would claim that he could not, but once placed in front of a piano his memory of the piece would generally return and the momentum of the music would propel him to continue. Recently, Clive has shown gradual improvement in his memory retention, demonstrating a memory span of up to 15 minutes and an ability to retain new semantic memories; which forces one to wonder, what portions of Clive's brain could be taking on new functionality in order to allow for this improvement?

Sacks also writes of the power of music to increase motor control in those afflicted with movement disorders. Tourette 's syndrome is a neurological condition that endows a person with uncontrollable physical and vocal tics, the severity of the condition, in some, may become so great as to hinder their ability to function normally in society. By the age of seven, Nick van Bloss' Tourette's had progressed to the extent that he began to exhibit explosive tics in class, for which he received a great deal of ridicule and bullying. Soon after his family purchased a piano, he discovered that while playing, his tics would simply melt away, enabling him to obtain some normalcy in life. Every day at school, Nick would "tic, vibrate, and verbally explode," come the end of the school day, exhausted, he would run home to his piano and play for hours on end, partially for the love of music, but mostly as a means of escape. Nick found he could redirect and focus his compulsions to touch towards playing the piano. Today, Nick estimates to have some 40,000 tics a day, seemingly a behavior not to be desired, but he recognizes the essential role Tourette's has played in his love for the piano and his music career.

In 1966 Sacks started work at Beth Abraham Hospital where eighty or so patients with encephalitis lethargica entered his care. Most appeared "absolutely motionless, frozen in a trance like state," though others exhibited the opposite symptoms, those of continuous excessive motion. Though seemingly in a trance like state, it was their perception of time that was skewed, many believed to be functioning normally, it was only when they observed the revolution of hands on a clock that they knew otherwise. However, it was common knowledge amongst the staff that these patients could move on occasion, for which music proved to be the best catalyst. Remarkably, music enabled some who "could scarcely utter a syllable," to sing with full force and expression, and others who could barely take a step, to dance with fluid motion. However, if the rhythm of this music were too strong, the patients might become entrained by the beat, helplessly moving to the tempo.

The literary structure of this book is interesting in itself. As opposed to a long dialogue, in which he might introduce a set of characters and tell a story, it's a lot of little cases that he has observed over many years. As such, when reading the book, one gains the sensation (at least I did :)) that he is having a private conversation with Dr. Sacks, while sharing a pot of tea. Except, rather than listening to your questions and answering them, he anticipates them, ready to insert a small reference to another neuroscientist's research relating to the case. With each chapter the reader gains exposure to another dimension by which music can affect our lives. In one chapter the reader will learn of those who have experienced music hallucinations, whereas in another he will learn of those who are completely blind to music, to whom Mozart and rattling cans may be indistinguishable. I highly recommend this book. It was thoroughly well written, all of the neurological conditions were presented in a clear and understandable manner, and it lends the reader a greater respect for the power of music over the mind.

"Musicophilia-Tales of Music and the Brain"
Oliver Sacks

As a new freshman at Brigham Young University-Idaho, my friend Jacob Edwards was a popular guy. With an overzealous personality, he rarely allowed two minutes of his free time go by without socializing. In between his social and academic endeavors, Jacob listened to his I-Pod. Suddenly, one brisk October morning, while running to class with his headphones in, Jacob was zapped! His headphones had shorted out, sending an electric current through his left external auditory canal, instantly smashing the tympanic membrane which blocked his Eustachian tube. After hearing incessant pounding for days, Jacob went to the doctor, who told him that his eardrum was injured. This is when Jacob realized the possible connection between the zap from his earphones and the current anguish that he was going through. Noises were so loud that Jacob couldn't bear to talk with people. Jacob became a recluse because he couldn't stand to hear the clashing sounds of voice echoing through his mind.

This is an actual scenario which portrays just one connection of music to neurology. Oliver Sacks, a professor of Neurology at Columbia University, and an eminent author, has published a fascinating collection of a vast variety of similar cases which he has encountered during his career. He captures the reader in his novel "Musicophilia-Tales of Music and the Brain," with the story of Tony Cicoria, a practicing doctor in New York who was struck by a bolt of lightning in 1994. Within the subsequent weeks following his resuscitation, Tony exhibited symptoms of neural morphology. Prior to the incident, Tony could have cared less about classical music. He had been all for rock. Afterwards, he had quickly developed a passion for classical piano music. Tony soon invested in recordings of classical piano music, bought a new piano, and taught himself how to play it. He lived in a new surround sound setting of musical imagery, and devoted his time to composing. This is just one of the freak accidents which had played a significant role in the life of a musician.

In addition, Oliver Sacks touches base on musically induced epilepsy, a case where certain pitches or timbre of musical instruments cause a person to have a severe seizure. He also shares his studies of the effects that music education has on the physiology of the brain, for it is apparent that with a brain scan, neurologists can see with precision the structural difference between the prefrontal cortex of professional musicians and those of other working professionals. For people with highly developed skills in music, the prefrontal cortex is larger than those of they who have little or no musical expertise. Oliver Sacks also addresses the effects of perfect pitch and musical memory on the brain.

When I picked up "Musicophilia-Tales of Music and the Brain," I couldn't put it down! It caused me to consider the sociological and neurological effects that my exposure to music has on my life. I have a deeper understanding now of what my friend, Jacob, was experiencing. Can you imagine having a seizure every time you listen to your favorite song? Sack's portrayal of these real scenarios, intertwined with his professional expertise, provides an understanding of how some people are driven to experience musicophobia or musicophilia.

I write as an admirer of Sacks's earlier books: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Uncle Tungsten, An Anthropologist on Mars, and Awakenings. This book, I'm sorry to say, wasted my time. We get the "case study" approach, familiar from the earlier books. What I missed is either any overarching theme or resolution. Chapter after chapter seemed little more than "this abnormality or statistical oddity has a correspondence somewhere in the brain." Well, duh-uh. Perhaps we know so little about the mind that no such theme or resolution or even narrative arc was possible. Yet I never got that feeling from Sacks before. I did like the chapter on Clive Wearing, because for once I saw a living portrait. On the other hand, I believe I had read that chapter, or an earlier version of it, in the New Yorker. As far as I'm concerned, this is Sacks on automatic.

I picked up this book in the audiobook format. Settled in to hear Dr. Sacks' tales of brain-injured patients having sudden cravings to, for example, learn to play the piano. And his detailed discourses on the functioning of the mind as we listen to music. Fascinating stories and a fascinating topic. However, Oliver Sacks has a slow, gentle way of speaking, with his lovely accent, and unfortunately, he just manages to make me bored and sleepy. This is a very long-winded book, with laborious details and descriptions. Unfortunately, it just wasn't for me. One must have a lot of patience to get through a book like this.

The author is undoubtedly brilliant and an expert in his field. His writing/speaking style just does not work for me, sadly.

* If you are aware of music theory and classical music, I would encourage you to read this book. All of his examples are from classically trained composers/performers.

* I would have loved to have heard of other cases; jazz, rock or world/traditional musicians around the world.

* If you are aware of functions and physiology of the brain alongside medical nomenclature, then this is meant for you.

* He gives lengthy discourses on all medications taken for each patient and details of each visit.

*This is an utterly fascinating book, though I would have preferred an edited version.

*The voice over narration is resonant but a little boomy, especially after 11 hours.

The ability of this writer to truly integrate scientific, cultural-thematic and empathic material is truly unusual, if not unique. Along the way, the reader is taken through a tour of Neurology, Psychology, History, his personal medical journey and into the worlds of many people who have somewhat special existences or circumstances.
While the work is very interesting, it is fragmented as are other of his compilations. The work is thus akin to factual short story compilations rather than a typical single-track novel-like stream of material. Some people may find the jargon, mostly all explained, to be interesting.
The big problem with a work so expansive is how to give enough material for many and not give too much for others.
Dr. Sacks does a good job of this, certainly much better than I could do. Whether blocks of material to highlight more detailed material (for those of a more scientific and/or musical bent) might have been a distraction or assistance is up to a reader's style. Such subtexts seen in many nonfiction works are positive, but would impact this author's narrative style.
An excellent book, but probably not for all.

Musicophilia is an absolutely phenomenal book, and will be of interest to anyone fascinated by music, mysteries of the mind, and the human condition. Sacks covers 29 different topics, ranging from synesthesia, to musical hallucinations, to savants, and beyond. In each chapter, he introduces the topic through cases (his own and famous ones in the literature--neurological and classic fictional literature, that is!), always maintaining a deep engagement with the humanity of the subjects: what is it like for these individuals? how do they describe their talent or illness or condition? Sacks also speculates on the possible neurological bases for these fascinating scenarios. This is a real page-turner, beautifully and clearly written, and it will give readers a new respect for the special place of music in our psychology, as well as a deeper understanding of the range of what it is to be human. 20 stars!

I should preface my review with an admission that I thought the book was going to take a different approach than it did. When I found out that a neuroscientist authored a book on music and the brain, being an aspiring neuroscientist myself, I jumped on it. I thought this book was going to outline leading theories on the particular neural mechanisms involved with music listening/creation, etc... Instead Dr. Sacks' focus was the role of music in the treatment of various brain diseases. This should have occurred to me earlier; Dr. Sacks has a taste for pathology (vis-a-vis "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat"). Anyway, my mixup was not the author's fault, it was mine. Regardless, this was a very enjoyable read. Music's power to bring lucidity and spontaneity to severely demented corroborates what I have always guessed about the capacity of music.

Nov. 24/10 .Just finished reading "Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain" by Oliver Sacks. I found it very interesting as I play and sing for people in Hospitals,nursing homes and seniors retirement homes. The book covers how music affects people like those I see on a regular basis and I can see how they relate to music. Today I was at the Deer Lodge Center which is a hospital in Winnipeg.......good book **** out of *****.
Doug Voice
Singer Songwriter

This book is not about music - it's about being human, and the implied hard wiring of the brain - which includes musical predispositions, maybe to most of us. But then Mr Sacks did reveal that there is no evidence from their works that either Henry James of William James had any musical interest at all.

And that's where the frustration set in. There was so much about injured people (and those who may just have been different) that pointed towards things that were - for me - not properly explored or even speculated about. There were so many hints about music and the mind, but I could never push the fog away.

I was reminded somewhat of Umberto Eco's 'The Search for the Perfect Language', a book I rated very highly. Perhaps Mr Eco struggled to do what Mr Sacks shied away from. And just, perhaps, they were talking of the same circuits in the brain. Language as music; music as language?

Some of the little stories Mr Sacks told - often from his personal experience - triggered resonances for me. Perhaps I didn't experience them as strongly as described in this book, but nevertheless I could identify with them.

By chance we have recently had a TV series on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in which a group of disadvantaged people (suffering mental illness, drug abuse and the like) were brought together to sing in a choir. Despite having limited musical training they were able to produce real music. Perhaps this was an illustration of linking into the inbuilt music circuits of the brain that Mr Sacks hints at.

other recommendations:
'The Choir of Hard Knocks' see [...]
'The Phantom in the Brain' (Ramachandran)
'The Search for the Perfect Language' (Eco)

This book is very interesting to me, as a music teacher. I teach over 500 students twice a week and sometimes their abilities and inabilities amaze me. I do ear training for 10 and 11 year-olds and the range of ability to hear and order pitches is all over the map. Sometimes it can be improved upon (usually) and occasionally I can't get them to ever actually hear and identify pitch. While this book does not suggest fixes, I am better able to understand and sympathize with my students. I have a few exceptionally gifted students also. As I am NOT one of them, it is fun to imagine how they conceive music. Great book - thanks.

I love the subject of the book, and there are some pearls... but <<gasp>> I hate to criticize such a great author, but, well, there were times where I said aloud "Come on! Get on with it!" In my humble opinion, having never written a book, there were just too many examples of the same point. Should you buy it? Well, like I said, there are some really great pearls, but you just have to wade in to collect them.

Whatever the role of music in your life, there is something here for you. If you happen to encounter it by page 10, read to the end anyway. Only a hermit could fail to know at least one person with one of the many conditions described here. By the final page you may find yourself with an uncontrollable urge to go out and buy a loved one an IPod, or to go sing to your grandmother or, even better, with her. Music.

I love music. I'm fascinated by the brain. In Musicophelia, Oliver Sacks brings the two together in an endlessly engrossing book addressing music's place in our minds, its importance in our lives, and the curious role it can play when things in our brains go horribly awry. Highly recommended, especially for musicians.

The brain is a strange machine. It is capable of so many outstanding feats. Yet we sometimes call such feats abnormal. Why? Couldn't it be that we, the ones without the ability to achieve such feats with our brain, are the ones who are abnormal?

Is music wired into us? Is music part of our DNA? This book will attempt to answer those questions. Suffice it to say that music occupies more areas of our brain than language does.

Some ancient cultures viewed music as the work of the devil. Like alcohol, music can intoxicate the soul and lead to sin. If music is truly wired into us, how could it be a sin?

This book explains the science of how music is wired into us. Some people are born with the gift (though we call it abnormal) of identifying different tunes and pitches. For example, some people can tune a piano by just using their ears, and without the use of external apparatus. Some people see music in color, and to them, we are abnormal for being unable to see it like them! Some people hear music that none of us can hear. It is as if they have their own radio station in their head.

Though some people are born with such gifts (they are hypermusical from birth), the majority of people acquire those gifts after a severe trauma or disease. To many, hearing music is a gift. Composers and musicians for example relish this gift. To others, though, constantly hearing music drives them insane. A surprising number of people acquire nonstop musical hallucinations that assault them night and day. To people with amusia, music sounds like the clattering of pots and pans. Can science find the switch to turn this internal music on and off?

Researchers are now concentrating on not why some people can hear `internal' music, but why the rest of us can't. Maybe new breakthrough will give us the ability to create new forms of music unheard off till this day! This will be a musicians dream!

Music is irresistible, mysterious, haunting, mesmerizing, and unforgettable, and in `Musicophilia,' Oliver Sacks tells us why.

I have always enjoyed books written by Dr. Sacks. This one is no different. He again provides the reader with great stories from interesting patients.

Dr. Sacks brings strange musical tales from his patients (many horribly debilitated but left with amazing musical talents) to the reader.

If you are interested in the human mind, I highly recommend all of Dr. Sacks' books. If you are interested in Music and what in our mind makes it happen, this is a must read.

Dr. Oliver Sacks is a British neurologist with a love of music and science. This book blends music and science together like no book I've ever read. There are some amazing stories here. I love the story of surgeon Tony Cicoria who developed a passion for listening and playing music after he was struck by lightning. The story of British conductor Clive Wearing is amazing too. He developed amnesia after his brain became inflammed. He has the the memory and ability to conduct and sing music, but he can't remember anything else. I also loved the story the research chemist named Salimah. Her shy personality was changed after she suffered a seizure. She suddenly had the desire to listen to music all the time. I also touched by the story of Woody Geist. He suffers from Alzheimers disease, but he still performs in an a cappella singing group. Leon Fleisher is a classical piano player who performed with one hand for many years because of a condition called dystonia which affected his right hand. I learned about a genetic disorder called Williams Syndrome in this book. Kids with Williams Syndrome have difficulty paying attention, but they often possess a love for music. I was entertained and informed by this book so much.

Readers who were fascinated by Oliver Sacks's other books about the mysteries of the human mind will not be disappointed in "Musicophilia." Sacks describes the mental state of people who cannot understand music, who remember nothing but music, and who hear music that isn't there. As always, Sacks is concerned with the person behind the ailment; ever compassionate, ever understanding. Another wonderful book from a master in his field.

Perhaps this review comes a little late, but this revised and expanded edition has plenty to recommend it. Dr. Sacks has mined a long career to provide illustrations of the many ways music becomes a powerful force in our day to day lives. Especially for those of us touched by the often devastating complications of dementia in aging family and friends the examples of music as an efficacious therapy are very hopeful and inspiring.

Thanks to Oliver Sacks for opening this window into the mysterious world of the workings of the human brain, and doing so in such a way that the rest of us have a notion of the current state of the science of neurology.

I loved Oliver Sacks's other books -- "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat" and Anthropologist on Mars." Long after reading them, I quote stories from them, even after forgetting their origin. But "Musicophila" is a drag

Though Sacks seems to follow his trademark formula -- using extraordinary tales of people with mental disabilities and injuries to shed light on normality -- it falls flat here. We learn of people with irksome musical hallucinations, folks whose musicality becomes all-encompassing after getting hit by lightning, and all sorts of epilepsy-like symptoms that involve music. There are even folks who develop selected tone-blindness -- hearing some tones flatter or sharper than then really are. But it doesn't seem to add up to anything. Certainly not to a book that makes me want to keep reading.

Musicality seem so wired into our brains. Everyone from the stoniest stoner to airiest aesthete has his or her own personal soundtrack and musical preferences. A movie without a soundtrack has no soul. A religious ceremony without it seems an exercise in atheism. A ballgame or sports roundup on the news needs its own music. Even soldiers battling in the streets of Baghdad patrol to heavy metal accompaniment. It's sad that Sacks can't give us any memorable insights into this most pervasive and seemingly vital of human experiences.

Musicophilia is another book that, in spite of the worthiness of its subject and the erudition of its author, is impossible to get through. What does it need -- more lurid examples? weirder symptoms? less cribbing from Sacks' other books?

Sounds about right.

A book that is at the same time riveting in its content and informative in its subject! Musicophilia is a must read for all! It attempts to demonstrate the power of music within the individual at times unbeknown to that very person. Through a series of anecdotal readings the reader acquaints himself/herself with a fascinating subject and discovers a truly intersting insight into this world.

This book did stimulate my interest in the study of the brain. However it was mostly ancedal and seemed unscientific in many instances. I hope that no one takes this all as being medical science and follows his implied treatment of mental disorders as science. My definition of science is objective, controlled experiments with the statistically valid number of results needed to drawn nearly verified conclusions with a stated confidence level. for example 99%. That all being said I imagine that the author is a competent neurologist and does a good job using accepted treatments on his patients. I think he was spot on in his description of TGA, temporary amnesia. I had a bout of this and he did state the commonly stated affliction. While his stories are interesting they might be written with less elaboration and implied certainty. I gave up by Part 3 mostly since I have other reading to do.

I loved this book. It gives multiple examples of an area that is not generally covered in neuropsychology. It provides multiple examples of various types of neurological disorder having to do with music. If you've ever experienced musical hallucinations, a deterioration in he appreciation of music or any of the other conditions noted it will help with diagnostic clarification. Since I do evaluations of people I find it a handy reference.

The revised edition is formidable - Sack's writing is and remains so brilliant, so engaging, so powerful. He approaches complex and thorny and bizarre syndromes with a disarmingly friendly style, not too much technical jargon, but the nonetheless with the weight of his considerable experience and gifted imagination.

This is not quite the book you would expect regarding music and the brain, and that is because Dr. Sacks provides a whole new twist on known phenomena. I don't want to spoil the book, but it's an excellent read!

I am a huge classical aficionado myself, with more than 600 CDs. And, I have, from a philosophy POV, an interest in neuroscience to boot.

Nonetheless, the book was a bit thin, to me. I think it's more anecdotal and less in the way of research, or research-based conjecture, than his top works. And, I've heard at least some of these before, or similar from other psychologists, neuroscientists and cognitive scientists.

Plus (and this is not just a complaint about Sacks, but a couple of other books on the subject as well), why don't we have case studies of people with brain issues with non-classical music, as one other reviewer notes?

This book further detailed the fascination with music's neurological connection. Why do some people have a natural talent and others don't? Absolute pitch, musical savants, 'seeing' music, memory training, and gained/lost musical abilities from accidents/health issues/etc are a few of the many topics Sacks addresses. The majority of the book are case reviews from the author's various patients & studies. There are definitely some cases that feel repetitive (Okay great...another story about another guy struck by lighting with the same reaction as the previous 2 described). For someone who is interested in music's effect on the mind (and someone who is a bit nerdy), this book is perfect for casually picking up in the evenings and reading at leisure.

Fascinating book on the power of music to disturb, inspire, or restore the mind. As always, Oliver Saks relates the story through personal stories of his patients as well as some of his own experiences with music. There are quite a few footnotes in the book, making this a somewhat more scholarly than average read.

I really enjoyed reading this book. At first I was not looking forward to it as it seems technical and very thick. However, with lots of little chapters, not only did the book read very quickly, but very few times was it bogged down with technical talk of parts of the brain etc. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in reading about what music can do to the human brain.

As a music professor, my question was would the book be of use in my teaching as well as being readable. The book is written in such a way that any intelligent reader can enjoy it. In addition the subject is treated in a highly scientific manner without sounding academic. For my students who want to investigate some of these issues the bibliography is indispensable. The author is extremely well qualified in the subject, so I guess the real surprise is that his writing manages to be interesting while still communicating the material at a high level.

This book covers an interesting topic, but I found it impossible to read. I made it through the first 30-40 pages and then gave up. The issue is that the author footnotes items that really should be in the main text. At least 80% of the pages in this book have footnotes, and not short ones, and some footnotes continue on to the next page. You'll be happily reading along and trying to follow his anecdote and then you see a 20 line footnote. You go read that (since the footnotes are interesting and usually key to his story), and then, "ok, where was I again?". Reading this book is like talking to someone who is telling you a story and keeps going on tangents; someone who is telling you about his fishing trip and ends up explaining where the boat came from, telling you about the time the engine didn't start, and then how he met his wife, before finishing the fishing story.

My husband's recent diagnosis of Parkinson's disease sparked my interest in music therapy as never before. The cases that are shared with readers by Dr. Sacks are so compelling that I could not put the book down until I had read it all, including every foot note. In this book I did find some answers to my own questions about the effects of music in stimulating or calming patients with these neurological disorders. I LOVE this book.

As a long-time fan of Oliver Sacks, I didn't hesitate to order his latest book, Musicophilia. And it did not disappoint. Possibly the most upbeat of all his books on the effects of mental disorders, here he treats those 'differently abled' with respect to music with the respect usually reserved for those more conventionally equipped. I learned a lot about music as well, and enjoyed the trip.

"Musicophilia and the Brain" is a most interesting book if you are fascinated by the brain and music as I am. I am happy that there is finally exploration being done on the effects of music to emotions and diseases. Early Chinese dynasties used to tune their music to the music of the Cosmos. They felt, as music goes - so goes society. I highly recommend this book for it's vast amount of information on music and mental and physical health.

Was different than I expected. Was recommended by a friend as she has heard me talk about how I hear music in my head most of the time. This would be a good book for those interested in the effects of music on dementia.

As a semi-professional old time musician, I looked forward to getting this book to see what it had to say about that music that all my musical friends and myself have running around in our heads most of the time. I am very happy with this book. I believe it explains much that I have often wondered about that ever present music that fills my days with entertainment andyes, even practice without instruments. You can indeed practice within your mind and it does do you some good. Sometimes it all the practice that is needed. I highly recommend Dr. Sacks book to all.

For anyone with an interest in music and/or neurology, Dr. Sacks is the one to read. And you don't have to be super-educated to enjoy his writing or to learn from it. I came away from this book with a lovely understanding of why I am the type of musical person I am. A great read. Thank you, Dr. Sacks.

As usual with Sacks, the book is packed with many interesting cases and examples. However, they don't come together to make a coherent narrative. The book just doesn't "flow". It reads almost like a first draft. When the footer notes take up more space on the page than the actual text, and then spill over to take up most of the next page, too - it's time to re-write the chapter.

This book is written from the perspective of Oliver Sacks, a psychologist for many decades. He writes of the the multitudinous experiences of people with musical aspects that he has come across, both in his practise, and in people who have made contact with him. It is riveting reading for me as a musician with some minor neurological dysfunction at times as well as perfect pitch, to hear of many stories of people who have similar status, and what Sacks has been able to discover.

This is a fascinating read, in the same style and presentation as Sacks other ancedotal volumes (The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, etc.). I would recommend this to any person interested in the mysteries of the brain.

The book was fascinating. In addition to offering a comprehensive set of narratives about extraordinary mental conditions involving the perception of music, it provided an entry into awareness of the activities of the brain, as they are now known. It also suggested some provocative philosophical and theological questions. ``

Dr. Sacks is a superb author-- I've also enjoyed THE MAN WHO MISTOOK HIS WIFE FOR A HAT and UNCLE TUNGSTEN. MUSICOPHILIA is excellent too; I am interested both in classical music and in current theories of how the brain works... and this book weaves these two subjects together. Fascinating!

This is a fascinating read, in the same style and presentation as Sacks other ancedotal volumes (The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, etc.). I would recommend this to any person interested in the mysteries of the brain.

The book was fascinating. In addition to offering a comprehensive set of narratives about extraordinary mental conditions involving the perception of music, it provided an entry into awareness of the activities of the brain, as they are now known. It also suggested some provocative philosophical and theological questions. ``

Dr. Sacks is a superb author-- I've also enjoyed THE MAN WHO MISTOOK HIS WIFE FOR A HAT and UNCLE TUNGSTEN. MUSICOPHILIA is excellent too; I am interested both in classical music and in current theories of how the brain works... and this book weaves these two subjects together. Fascinating!

Oliver Sacks is an intelligent man. His understanding of psychology and appreciation for music are unquestionable. The case studies of various music-brain disorders and phenomenon are fairly interesting.

The principle problem with this text is the author's clear lack of musical understanding, historically and personally.

Most Musicians will find the following statement from the text frustrating:

"music is wholly abstract, it has no formal power of representation whatever. We may go to a play to learn about jealousy, betrayal, vengeance, love - but music , instrumental music, can tell us nothing about these."

As a professional musician, I completely disagree. Sacks drives this point home several times. Finally I got tired of reading his un-musical opinions and realized he was an outsider desperately trying to understand music from a silly intellectual point of view. Maybe similar non-musically inclined people will enjoy speculating on why music is so powerful and continue to distance themselves from it through a academic bubble of elitism.

Music is not abstract! It has real historic reasons for being the way it is. Sacks is not a music historian so he prefers to treat it like a funny byproduct of evolution...sort of an accident of biology. Sort of a backwards way of talking about something so important and central to human experience.

I've had students who think like Sacks. They come to music with an intellectual perspective and think they can reason their way through it. Of course, this is not really why music exists, nor is it really why they like studying music. For all of his psychological understanding, Sacks remains unaware of why he actually enjoys the thing he wrote an entire book about.

This book is a brilliant discussion of the neurology of music. It discusses the 'musical brain' and how the brain is connected to musical perception and expression. Oliver Sachs is a wonderful writer. If you have any interest in music, this book will captivate you.

Oliver Sacks has written many books for lay people. As they all are, this book is informative, interesting, funny, personal. It shows how important music is to humankind. In case vignettes and in discussion Sacks shows how music affects us positively and sometimes, alas, negatively. It is throughout very compelling.

It is refreshing to see how a specialist still retains the ability to be marveled by the cases he sees in his office. Too often scientists get so blasé over their practice that they miss the finer human aspects of every case. Sacks leads the reader gently by hand, even while using neurological jargon, into amazing stories of patients who live through situation we would not have imagined. And they all involve music and how humans experience it.

I believe this book is a must for musicians, who will probably acquire new understandings regarding the dimensions of their music in relation to their own brains.

This book is based on clinical case studies of patients suffering from various conditions of the brain. The author explains the different effects on patients who are exposed to music. Some of the studies are amazing.

My particular interest is a book that examines music from a musician's point of view, i.e. why do we create it, why do we feel differently from others about the same piece of music, why some music takes you somewhere new, strange and beautiful. Something on the concept of improvisation would be nice too!

If anyone has seen or heard of such a work, please reply by making a comment. Please don't tell me to write my own. Thanks!

Caveat: Since I just lent my copy to someone else today, this is a little off the top of my head:
Sacks is a neurologist, and that is more evident in later chapters, but the first few shed a whole lot of light,
I think, on the field of psychology and psychiatry: Basically it explores the question, "When do hallucinations indicate clinical madness(pre-pc term), or not(Muses, Madmen, and Prophets: Rethinking the History, Science, and Meaning of Auditory Hallucination)?"

The middle, more strictly neurological chapters make me anxious, I admit. Especially the one about the guy
who lost all short-term memory except how to play music he already knew! He kept saying to his wife, "Well,
here you are!" when she'd been there for hours. If it was all I had, would my own musical canon be enough?

The middle chapters also tell you some little-known stuff I felt I already knew; probably because it revisited material from his earlier books. Well, fine. OK. The last chapter is not bad on the effectiveness of musical therapy, which has been a "new field" since at least the 80's, a new field where it is tough to find employment. Nice way to wind up. But on the whole, I recommend the first few chapters. I believe it is the finest writing in the book.

An opthamologist I know, who laid the groundwork for Sacks' book on the island of the colorblind, would say he's more of a story-teller than a researcher; but that's no small thing. Freud(The Interpretation of Dreams) was a great storyteller, too.

When i bought this book ,i thought it would be a very interesting read about how music influences the brain and how it's the reaction of people towards certain kind of music and since this book was in the music /permorfing arts section at B&N i thought it was about all that. But no, what it really is it's more neurological stuff , brain strokes and a lot of medical terminology. It is boring and complicated to understand if you are not a surgeon.
I Couldn't reach even to the middle part of the book . I dropped it around page 50 something...

The book is just a collection of short documented field observations. The author does not provide any significant or thought provoking insights stemming from his experience. No questions are asked and hence no major answers are provided to anything. It is just psychology as curiosity and oddities of the human species. The author may be a compassionate therapist but not a deep thinking intellectual.

We gave this book as a gift to our grandson--a 10th grader who is an accomplished musician (piano, French horn, and voice) and who is also interested in studying the various functions of the brain. It was a perfect selection for him.

My wife thoughtfully purchased this book for me. I had read about it and was very excited to dive right in. Unfortunately I ended up really having to convince myself to finish it, as it became redundant fairly quickly. Sacks presents (too) many case studies regarding music and the brain, but the presentation feels random and somewhat unfocused. Had his editor suggested grouping the studies by themes or urged Sacks to provide more neurological background information it perhaps would have better kept my attention. It felt as if the reader had to do a lot of work to pull together some of the concepts.

As for the perceived redundancy, I kept waiting for the conclusion or wrap-up that would provide the overarching theme to all the seemingly disconnected patient stories, but to no avail. It almost felt as if the stories were starting to repeat themselves but with different patient names. The length too felt far too long, almost as if everything presented in the first half were just recycled for the second. Additionally, the writing style is very informal and easy to digest, which is not necessarily a positive. The book begins to feel as if the author were afraid to intelligently, academically, and thoroughly dissect the subject matter for fear of alienating too many readers. The result is a glossy feeling, like you're reading the U.S.A. Today version of something that could have really offered some insightful perspectives.

Promising topic, but presented without much organization, background information, or conclusion. I'm surprised that an editor would allow such breadth to be published without any true depth.

Superb story-teller neurologist Dr. Olie Sacks emblazens this masterpiece with unforgettable descriptions of amazingly critical discoveries in the area of mind/brain music research. This humorous book is anything but a fast read - - it's a mull-over or nothing!

While I enjoyed learning what this book had to teach, I found the last hundred pages in particular redundant.
The entire book could have used a good edit which has not been an issue with the other books I've read by
Dr. Sacks.

This book is so poorly written as to make it's fascinating subject matter almost uninteresting. Oliver Sacks is so narcissistic, self absorbed and self referential that is it a distraction. Keep looking for the ultimate book on music and the brain.

The major problem this books faces is that we don't understand the workings of the brain, so the chapters are merely phenomenological expositions of various abnormalities which in most (but not all) cases relate in some way to musical abilities. In none of these cases do we know what the underlying causes of the disorders are and so this is just a collection of anecdotal stories about human musical oddities.

The footnotes are also just painful to read as there are so many of them, and as one of the previous reviewers said they make points that should have been in the main text

I was very disappointed by this book, as it seems to be little more than a re-hash of his earlier work. Even the title is misleading, since the book is not actually about the love of music. It is about the amazing power of music to cut through many cognitive and physical dysfunctions. Here, it seems that all he can add is more and more examples, with no new insights. And all that more and more tediously provided examples can ultimately tell us is that the effects of music can apply to a lot of people and situations. And that could be taken care of in a few words.
For those that haven't read Oliver Sacks It may be worthwhile, but for those that have read him I'd say it is (or was, for me at least) a waste of time and money.

If you are looking for conclusions about the relationship of music to the human brain, look elsewhere. The book consists mostly of case studies of people with brain disorders that somehow relate to music. With no attempts by the author to synthesize the information into useful observations, reading it makes one feel like a voyeur at a freak show.

I was expecting some information on how the music affects the mind, learning, etc. However, this was just a bunch of unrelated stories about the strange effect of brain injuries on people. Maybe I would have read more if the stories were developed enough to care about the people in the stories, but I stopped reading the book 1/2 way through. Sacks seems to have "phoned it in" on this one.

I read it in french.
I began this book pleasure and spirit, impassioned by the subject... The book starts rather well with the first chapter then what a disappointment!
The author who starts with a scientific step ends up shelling a catalog of pathologies having more or less a relationship with the subject, then that leaves in all the directions and the end is well neglected. He spends more time giving his opinion or tells his own adventures (What him arrived from there at this Mister between the musical hallucinations until the loss of pleasure at the listening of the music!.) He supports sometimes his remarks by mails sent by people who quotes their own experiences. What a step pseudo-scientist! And then, he can thank these people for having written a quarter of the book. He should transfer royalties to them! In short, that one would have been happier if Antonio Damasio Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain or Christophe André had written the book so much this one quickly becomes uninteresting.