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Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain - Oliver Sacks
Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain
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3.86 140
What goes on in human beings when they make or listen to music? What is it about music, what gives it such peculiar power over us, power delectable and beneficent for the most part, but also capable of uncontrollable and sometimes destructive force? Music has no concepts, it lacks images; it has... show more
What goes on in human beings when they make or listen to music? What is it about music, what gives it such peculiar power over us, power delectable and beneficent for the most part, but also capable of uncontrollable and sometimes destructive force? Music has no concepts, it lacks images; it has no power of representation, it has no relation to the world. And yet it is evident in all of us–we tap our feet, we keep time, hum, sing, conduct music, mirror the melodic contours and feelings of what we hear in our movements and expressions.In this book, Oliver Sacks explores the power music wields over us–a power that sometimes we control and at other times don’t. He explores, in his inimitable fashion, how it can provide access to otherwise unreachable emotional states, how it can revivify neurological avenues that have been frozen, evoke memories of earlier, lost events or states or bring those with neurological disorders back to a time when the world was much richer.This is a book that explores, like no other, the myriad dimensions of our experience of and with music.
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Format: hardcover
ISBN: 9780676979787 (0676979785)
Publisher: Knopf Canada
Pages no: 400
Edition language: English
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Community Reviews
bobsburgers23
bobsburgers23 rated it
4.0 Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain
Really cool anecdotes and not terribly technical. I would have expected a little diagram of the brain in the beginning of the book so I could have looked up what parts were happening where, but there wasn't. There was also remarkably little about why these things were happening but I suppose science...
moving under skies
moving under skies rated it
5.0 Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain
Probably my favourite of the many Oliver Sacks' books I've read throughout the years. Sacks is always fascinating, but in this book he is even more passionate and more personal than usual and as a result my usual Sacks afterglow (for some reason his books always leave me ridiculously happy and hopef...
XOX
XOX rated it
4.0 Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks is about music in the brain
That is why I would give this a four to four and a half stars, not five. Still, it is a very interesting areas to read and study. Book on music. Not about music itself but on how human experience music. As usual, this is a good read. A woman who was a musician all her life is losing this power i...
Blogged Out Ma Nut
Blogged Out Ma Nut rated it
3.0
Look, [a:Sacks|843200|Oliver Sacks|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1222681187p2/843200.jpg] is a great writer with a huge pool of research and interesting anecdotes to impart.My problem is that I don't understand what the consequence of these anecdotes is, beyond my own amusement. For t...
Nadine's Nook
Nadine's Nook rated it
Very interesting anecdotes and well written stories. The book unfortunately lacks a scientific gravity because there is no meaning or context given to the anecdotes. Feels more like a collection of random memories than a well structured book on music and the brain.
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