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A review by iseefeelings
Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
4.0
“Music, uniquely among the arts, is both completely abstract and profoundly emotional. It has no power to represent anything particular or external, but it has a unique power to express inner states or feelings. Music can pierce the heart directly; it needs no mediation.”
*
This book is rather an excessive amount of storytelling than extensive research. It requires a good foundation in both music and psychology to be well understood and I, therefore, feel like I need to re-read it later on to have a better insight. One thing that is worths noting is that most of the music genres mentioned in the book are instrumental and classical music.
*
I only read this book as a part of my reading challenge (books about music) but I was quite pleased with this choice I made out of the music section in my local library.
My favourite chapter must be In the Moment: Music and Amnesia which is the story about Clive Wearing with his half-a-minute memory span and the unconditional love of Deborah Wearing to him.
*
A few things I jotted down in my reading journal:
- Absolute pitch is more common in cultures where the language is tonal (Vietnamese and Mandarin) compared to nontonal language (English)
- Tony Cicoria who gut struck by lightning and suddenly became a musicophilia
- Nietzsche on the ‘tonic’ effect of music on people with depression
- Freud’s resistance to the seductive and enigmatic power of music
- The dominance of the brain side can shift if damage occurs before and after birth
- Some drugs can cause music hallucinations (aspirin, quinine, propranolol, imipramine)
- Brainworms (or ‘earworms’) are, in fact, the clear sign of “the overwhelming, and at times helpless, sensitivity of our brains to music”. It works like how people with OCD/autism/Tourette’s syndrome may be “hooked by a sound or a word or a noise and repeat it, or echo it, aloud or to themselves, for weeks at a time.