Friday, December 08, 2006

Brain On Music

There's a nice website for Dan Levitin's book This is Your Brain on Music. The Science of a Human Obsession. I wanted to have part of this book required for the ANTH398D course but, for several reasons, I replaced it with Ian Cross's discussion of the evolutionary impact of music. Levitin's book may still be an entertaining read and his site is full of interesting bits about music from a rather broad perspective (that of both a professional musician and a psychology prof).

2 comments:

  1. This is a great book. I'm halfway through it and what an enjoyable experience so far.
    I find it facinating to find out more about how our brain works in regards to music. Levitin's info seems very current and up-to-date, as are his musical references (ex:Lizst to Ludacris).

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  2. Glad you're liking it. In fact, I'd really appreciate it if you used your reading of it in some of our discussions. I didn't yet get a chance to read it all but I've listened to several interviews Levitin has given.
    An obvious difference between our (ethnomusicological) approach and Levitin's (psycho-physiological) approach is that Levitin doesn't address cultural context very directly whereas we focus on cultural context. But both approaches can merge, to a very large extent.

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