Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain

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Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain

by Oliver Sacks (Goodreads Author)

3.83 of 5 stars 3.83 · rating details · 14,951 ratings · 1,289 reviews

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 evi...more

Hardcover, 400 pages

Published October 16th 2007 by Knopf Canada (first published January 1st 2007)

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Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung by Lester Bangs

Best Non Fiction About Music

9th out of 699 books — 479 voters

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks

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Medicine and Literature

34th out of 714 books — 726 voters

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Community Reviews

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Jan 10, 2008 Sarah rated it 4 of 5 stars

Sacks is, for me, a perfect meeting of a science writer and a writer of creative non-fiction. He has an equal interest in telling an affecting, human story and with exploring how (and why) the brain works. While lots of science writing is dry and objective (as it should be) and while mainstream feature writing often ignores the more complicated science stuff, Sacks is a rare talent who has a penchant for story telling and for explaining the newest research on the brain. He doesn’t condescend, an...more Sacks is, for me, a perfect meeting of a science writer and a writer of creative non-fiction. He has an equal interest in telling an affecting, human story and with exploring how (and why) the brain works. While lots of science writing is dry and objective (as it should be) and while mainstream feature writing often ignores the more complicated science stuff, Sacks is a rare talent who has a penchant for story telling and for explaining the newest research on the brain. He doesn’t condescend, and he doesn’t mind forming personal relationships with his subjects.

In Musicophilia, Sacks focuses on the mysterious and fascinating connection between music and the brain. Through studying musical oddities in patients, he hopes, we can hope to better understand our greater relationship with music - something that, although it is universal among cultures, doesn’t seem to have a clear function or origin.

For example, the book opens with a middle-aged man who is struck by lightening. He isn’t badly hurt, but since the accident, he’s been obsessed with the urge to play the piano. He’s never really played before or had an interest in music, but suddenly he’s up all night composing and trying to get better. Why has this happened? Why is unaffected except for this urge, which takes over his life? Brain scans show that his left frontal lobe has been damaged and Sacks hypothesizes that the left hemisphere of the brain might actually inhibit the more creative and musical right side of the brain. Left brain damage might lead to more “freedom” in the right brain.

The book moves on from there to cover a huge spectrum of diseases, phenomenones, and rarities - spanning from music therapy for those with dementia and Alzheimer’s, to people who suffer from musical hallucinations, to people with perfect pitch, to people with amusica (to them, music sounds like noise - Nabokov suffered from it), to musical savants. The structures of the chapters are very satisfying to me: they start with a story of an individual and then, by the end of the segment, lead to a more general description of the science behind the patient’s symptoms.

One of the more fascinating chapters covers children with William’s Syndrome, which affects about one out of 10,000 people. These people, who all have strangely elfin features, suffer from severe mental disabilities: they can’t ad 5 + 3, they can’t draw a square, they can’t tie their shoes. They have IQs around 60. However, they also tend to be very verbal, very social, and exceptionally musical. Most have perfect pitch and start composing as toddlers. Unlike some cases of severe autism who show a more mechanical and isolated musical talent, patients with William’s Syndrome love to play music in groups - within a community. Sacks visits a camp for children with William’s Syndrome - which is a constant drum circle, sing-along, and musical wrapped up in one.

As in all of his tales, Sacks is sure to find the hope and humanity in even the most difficult patients. One man, an amnesiac who has a short-term memory of only a few seconds, can only stay present within himself while he plays the piano.

More importantly, Sacks doesn’t see his patients as freaks or abnormalities who are simply interesting to read about, but rather as windows into how we can collectively understand how we function. In Musicophilia, I was truly moved by what I read - both by the humanity of the patients and by the awesomeness of the science.
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Mar 18, 2008 Mike rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 50-books-2008

Dr. Sacks' Musicophilia covers a wide range of tremendously interesting instances of musics odd effects on the mind, however it's anecdotal nature is both its greatest strength and greatest weakness. Because the stories fly by quickly it is easy to tear through a number of them and find your self saying, "Huh. Weird." But because it lacks a thorough exploration of many of the stories, the anecdotes often remain nothing greater than anecdotes. Most tend to involve Dr. Sacks stating the name of a...more

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Apr 03, 2010 Joshua Nomen-Mutatio rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: neuroscience, cognitive-science-and-or-psychology, music

The neurologist Oliver Sacks has a great book called Musicophilia (and a series of talks available on YouTube) which goes into some really interesting descriptions of the brain's relationship to music. One story involves a man getting hit by lightning and afterward having a newly acquired and deeply profound love of music (almost any music, too), profound to the point that he would feel a euphoria akin to religio-mystical rapture or an extremely pleasurable drug experience in all situations if m...more

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Oct 14, 2008 Jafar rated it 2 of 5 stars

This book was interesting, I guess. Lots of anecdotes about the effect of music on behavior and personality, but not enough analysis. Sacks usually is more of a story teller than a hardcore neuroscientist in his popular book – at least in the other two that I’ve read by him – but in this book he fails to be a good story teller too. Too many tidbits and little stories. I definitely recommend This Is Your Brain on Music over this book if you’re interested in a real scientific analysis of music and...more

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Mar 02, 2008 Matt rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Oliver Sacks has been one of my favorite authors ever since I first read The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat. I still completely amazed, and a little bit disturbed, when I think back to his account of the woman who lost her sense of proprioception - the internal body sense that lets you know your body is there, even when you have your eyes closed. No other author (since Proust) has explored the nuances of consciousness so carefully, nor pointed out how tenuous the our grip on reality can be.

I...more

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Mar 05, 2008 brian tanabe rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is my first oliver sacks -- I always meant to read the Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat but alas never got around to it.

I love mr. sacks' delightful anecdotal storytelling and his intellect that makes fresh and accessible the study of the brain. It *almost* makes the issues dealt with in the book pleasant.

In a nutshell, this book is about the power of music, backed by many accounts from the medical perspective of the interaction between music and the brain. It's hard to tell without a lot...more

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Nov 17, 2011 Denae rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2011, challenge-1010-by-2020

I cannot remember a time in my life when I have not loved music and loved to sing. I was raised in an environment where singing, and singing in front of others was pervasive. That being said, other than voice lessons, I have very little formal knowledge of what music is. I do not play an instrument or read music easily, and I most certainly have never been taught how music impacts the brain. Fortunately for me, in Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain Oliver Sacks addresses the latter, and...more

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Nov 10, 2009 rachel rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In his characteristic compassion and curiosity Oliver Sacks looks at what seems to be the infinite ways that music interacts with our brains- from the worms that play maddeningly in our heads to the power of music as an aid in communication with people who either from birth or from stroke or other life altering situation have lost the ability to vocalize. And okay, this blows my mind, that people who otherwise cannot remember the sequence of basic routines in life, like getting up, shaving, mak...more

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Jan 24, 2008 liz rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

I wasn't hugely impressed with this. Sacks's writing sometimes gets extremely dry as he goes into the technicalities of how the brain functions. I found his other books, with chapters each covering a variety of conditions ("Anthropologist on Mars," "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat"), to be much stronger, even though they were less consistent thematically. It seemed that at times Sacks had to stretch to find patients with some of the musical conditions he described -- not a good sign, sinc...more

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Jan 17, 2008 Alex rated it 4 of 5 stars

Musicophelia is an enchanting read, though one is struck more by the phenomena depicted—amusias, musical hallucinations, comatose patients suddenly "awakened" by nothing more than a familiar melody—than the manner of their depiction. Sacks has always been lauded for his fluid, personable style, and for good reason, but in the wake of classics such as The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Uncle Tungsten, his writing seems excessively florid and repetitive—neither tight enough nor substantial...more

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Nov 27, 2007 Pamela rated it 3 of 5 stars

I've never read any of Sacks's other collections, so perhaps Musicophilia rates so highly with me because I've never read The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat. Despite Sacks's overwhelming bias towards classical music as the only kind of music worth discussing as well as his suspicious extensive personal history of music-related neurological phenomena, I found this collection to be an interesting and diverse set of case studies. I'm kind of a sucker for psychological and neurological oddities,...more

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Jul 28, 2009 Mimi rated it 5 of 5 stars

Oliver Sachs is a musician as well as a neurologist, and both his careers inform this book. I've always suspected that musicians hear more than I do when they listen to music and this book confirms the fact. It is extremely interesting. Sachs is interested in how the brain works, how it processes and how it is changed by music. It gets a little technical for those people who have forgotten biology.

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Feb 28, 2009 Aaron rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science, non-fiction

Starts off with a fairly unsatisfying collection of anecdotes around loss or gain of musical ability. The real heft arrives halfway as Sacks starts pulling together the real research and making implications.

The message here is that music is not some frivolous side effect of our neurology. Rather, music is processed by dedicated machinery in our brains and can affect us in profound and surprising ways.

There are tantalising implications that humans have the capacity for much greater musical abilit...more

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Nov 23, 2007 Bobby rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: did-not-finish

I really tried to perservere with this book, but after 100 pages I had to put it down. First, although marketed to a popular audience (even making it to the best sellers list), there are massive amounts of musical jargon and a background of musical knowledge would be extrememly helpful. Second, the books seemed to lack cohesive threads or narritive. I found it extremely disjointed with every few paragraphs changing to a different patient with very few being fully developed or resolved. Third, I...more

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Jan 06, 2008 Richard rated it 4 of 5 stars

I'm reading this slowly and between other books. I have it on my electronic reader and so usually focus on it when I'm traveling. I always feel I learn something from Sacks, and this book is no different in that respect.

Now finished. I love Sacks. I always learn something. His 'stories' or examples are terrific. And there is an underlying humanity to him that always seems to understand what is good about someone, no matter how serious the neurologic, etc. defect. In this book, he explores the p...more

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Dec 08, 2007 Jim is currently reading it Recommends it for: People interested in what makes us human; music lovers; Sacks fans

Have just dipped in to this, another excellent entry from humanist neurologist Oliver Sacks. This book deals with music and its effect on the brain and by extension on our lives as humans. Sacks has the ability to take you inside states of mind that you might not have been able to imagine before. What puts him a cut above is his passionate humanism. He is always interested in the people he treats, not as clinical subjects, but as complicated and beautiful people with long histories, loves, hates...more

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Mar 02, 2009 Keith Putnam rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I am a huge sucker for pop science about human consciousness. Sacks, unfortunately, has the habit of boring me with far too many anecdotes which he fails to link in any progression of Greater Understanding.

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Mar 20, 2008 jeremy rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: music

this book left me somewhat disappointed. as one with a deep affection for music, i was rather eager to delve into musicophilia. very quickly, and much to my chagrin, i found myself wearied by repetitive prose and dull analysis. while most of the cases sacks describes are indeed fascinating and remarkable, there is little substance from which a reader can glean any real knowledge. the book's narrative drive is completely anecdotal, and i guess i expected a bit more scientific insight and depth fr...more

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Jan 20, 2012 Henk-Jan van der Klis rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: neurologie, muziek, music, hersenen, psychiatrie, psychiatry, brain, neurology

Oliver Sacks' stelling dat muziek uniek voor de mens, werkt hij in dit boek uit aan de hand van verschillende thema's, symptomen en ziektebeelden, waarin neurologie en muziek samenkomen. Van mensen die kleuren zien als ze muziek horen, überhaupt doof zijn voor muziek of gedeprimeerd raken door het horen van muziek.[return][return] [return]Van absoluut gehoor voor muziek, tonen en toonzetting (vader snuit z'n neus in G), het zonder dat een instrument speelt of stereo aanstaat toch een compleet or...more

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Jan 11, 2011 Mangoo rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Sacks owes his popularity to his ability of telling cases of patients with spirit and kindness, crafting little stories out of each. What is important in every depiction is not much the details, as the overall truth and the perspective adopted.
He Sacks has compiled a massive book (this is the updated and expanded version) about case stories of people affected by neural disturbs that prevent them from a normal musical experience. This is admittedly one of his passion, and in principle an interes...more

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Jan 01, 2009 Racquel rated it 4 of 5 stars

It's interesting to read through the reviews from other readers on these pages: such a wide range of responses to this book. Some felt it was too technical, others not technical enough; some see the author as a scientist, others as a popular writer pandering to the audience. Many had an expectation that there should have been more substantive analyses of the issues raised, while a few felt it was too analytical. Having read "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" many years ago, Musicophilia st...more

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Dec 08, 2008 Paula rated it 2 of 5 stars

I don't know why I keep trying to read books about music. I've finally come to the conclusion that music is never going to be important to me and that I shouldn't bother trying. Which, ironically, is why I picked up this book.

"Musicophilia" is a bunch of case studies about how the brain functions in relation to music. And when I say case studies, it really is a series of case studies. The author, who's written several books in a similar vein, often says "A patient I once had..." or "M.S. came to...more

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May 21, 2013 Mikael Lind rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: music, neuroscience, psychology

Read the first chapter and you will be instantly blown away. Read a bit more and you will realize that the odd tales in the first chapter are not unique; there are a lot of odd tales concerned with music and the brain. Keep on reading, and soon you will have to put the book back on the shelf for a while, because it has become repetitive.
No doubt, this book has some of the most amazing stories that I've ever hear about music and its effect on people. However, the book lacks structure and progress...more

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Apr 25, 2013 Bjorn rated it 3 of 5 stars

Music, as Sacks points out in this book, is a peculiar thing. It's the only human art form that is (almost) completely abstract and yet resounds emotionally with most people; sure you can set words to it, you can specifically use it for something, but the musical notes, melodies, harmonies and rhythms themselves don't have any logical meaning. We are perfectly aware of this (Sacks quotes Arthur C Clarke's Overlords from Childhood's End, saying humanity is the only species they've ever come acros...more Music, as Sacks points out in this book, is a peculiar thing. It's the only human art form that is (almost) completely abstract and yet resounds emotionally with most people; sure you can set words to it, you can specifically use it for something, but the musical notes, melodies, harmonies and rhythms themselves don't have any logical meaning. We are perfectly aware of this (Sacks quotes Arthur C Clarke's Overlords from Childhood's End, saying humanity is the only species they've ever come across to invent something as useless as music). And yet it's everywhere; in our oldest archeological findings, in every single culture, in maternity wards and in old folk's homes, in wars and in love scenes... And it seems to work on us on a much deeper level than simple enjoyment, deeper than memory, deeper than language.

Sacks (Awakenings, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat) is a neurologist and psychiatrist first and foremost, but also an amateur musician and very knowledgeable (classical) music fan. In Musicophilia he collects a number of case histories of people who have been mentally damaged, either from birth, illness or accidents, some more severely than others, and their relationship to music; those who suddenly find themselves unable to even hear music as anything but random noise, those who suddenly find an almost pathological passion for music take over their entire life, musicians who suddenly find their brains going out of tune... but also musical idiots savants, people suffering from severe memory loss or brain damage who are still able to communicate with their loved ones and live through music, people who have been locked inside themselves for decades but who can be woken by a familiar song. He can tackle both the rather mundane problem of tunelessness and the very serious cases, like the man whose short-term memory has been reduced to mere seconds but can still conduct an orchestral piece that's much, much longer.

Musicophilia is consistently fascinating and occasionally both heartbreaking and -warming in the stories it tells; but personally, I think I came at it from the wrong direction. Sacks, as a doctor, gives plenty of examples of how music works in relationship to various cases, how it can be used to help people or how he's seen people's relationship to it change with their illnesses, and the specific workings in our brains that help (or hinder) us process information; but never really gets to the heart of what music means to us in a larger sense. He's a good writer and the book is an easy read, but to a layman like me, the book could have used more of a frame story, a cohesive theory... relevance to make it more than just a collection of interesting case studies. Still, at the end of it, you'll know a lot more both about how we work and how music works with and on us; but if the Overlords ever come asking, you may not have an easier time explaining it to them.(less)

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Mar 14, 2013 Jennifer rated it 4 of 5 stars

Oliver Sacks is a well-known author and neurologist. One of his books, Awakenings was made into a movie that starred Robin Williams and Robert DeNiro. In this book, Musicophilia, Sacks writes about that strange organ known as the brain, and the more peculiar effects of brain function in his many books. His books mostly focus on case study of particular patients. His case studies are fascinating, and he has basically repeated this same formula with this book, Musicophilia, where he focuses on mus...more Oliver Sacks is a well-known author and neurologist. One of his books, Awakenings was made into a movie that starred Robin Williams and Robert DeNiro. In this book, Musicophilia, Sacks writes about that strange organ known as the brain, and the more peculiar effects of brain function in his many books. His books mostly focus on case study of particular patients. His case studies are fascinating, and he has basically repeated this same formula with this book, Musicophilia, where he focuses on music and the brain specifically.

We learn in the book about how music is integral in the development of humanity and the brain, but also how music and the brain can go awry and cause strange or disturbing effects. From stories about people who cannot speak but who can sing, to that annoying "earworm" phenomenon, Sacks takes us on a journey through the brain and music. The author is a music lover himself, and this gives him an interesting perspective on study of how the brain and music go together.

Some parts of the book frighten me, as I think would any of Sacks' books telling of neurological impairment. The brain is both strangely fragile and strangely robust. It may only take a fall, a car accident, a disease, a strike of lightning, to change your brain, which changes who you are. That innate being that existed before is no more, and something else is there in its place. The consequences may be dire. Imagine you awaken after a car accident to have no short term memory. Scary.

On the other hand, the brain is amazingly adaptive. People with terrible injuries may recover and rebuild themselves. You may become a different person in many ways, but it isn't always a negative change. Imagine getting struck by lightning and suddenly loving music when you never cared for it before. That's what happened to one of the patients in this book. In the book we also learn that music can be used to get through to patients with neurological conditions when other methods do not work, showing the power that music has on the brain.

The book was fascinating in many ways, but I think its complete focus on music had some drawbacks. This is a long book. I got a little tired of it through my reading. I wondered as I read how the author could possibly have more to say about the topic, but apparently he did. While the book was broken up into sections, the author did not make enough distinction between the various sections - it felt something like the same stories over and over. I also thought the book was lacking slightly in analysis. It was heavy on the storytelling, but short on adapting that into meaning for the reader. I would have liked to have seen more in that area.

Overall, it is a pretty interesting book. I hope to go back and read some of Dr. Sacks' earlier works.(less)

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Mar 13, 2013 Linda rated it 4 of 5 stars

I have always loved music. When I ceased to have the opportunities to play or sing, I felt part of me was missing. I finally have a piano and am nearly ecstatic when I play, even when practicing something over and over. Sacks helped me understand why.

Music is an art of-the-moment. The actual performance that you hear can never be repeated the same way. We can't contain it within covers or on canvas. It appears to be innate since babies even want to "sing" along with their parents and attempt to...more

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Feb 17, 2013 Marco rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: popular-science

Much like The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat, also by neurologist Oliver Sacks, I picked this from the bookshelf due to its title. Whatever Musicophilia is exactly, I could only guess based from its component roots: Music and "philia," ancient Greek for "love." Love of Music?

This was a delightful read. As with The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat, the book is not laden with technical writing but it does have much more neurology vocabulary, which can be difficult to keep up with, especially...more Much like The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat, also by neurologist Oliver Sacks, I picked this from the bookshelf due to its title. Whatever Musicophilia is exactly, I could only guess based from its component roots: Music and "philia," ancient Greek for "love." Love of Music?

This was a delightful read. As with The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat, the book is not laden with technical writing but it does have much more neurology vocabulary, which can be difficult to keep up with, especially since the book is long. I recommend this book only to those who are fans of The Man with Prosopagnosia (yes, this does sound better than The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat, although it may not necessarily have turned out to be a bestseller if it was named otherwise).

In Musicophilia, Sacks explores music's effects on the mind and the brain's responses to music - how music can be the best "drug" or therapy a patient could have, to how some people hate music and in fact "suffer" from music. In the typical, Sacksian, case study-based, story-telling writing, he talks about the experiences of patients, musicians and everyday people who do not have everyday responses to music.

Also like his other works, Musicophilia is divided into four parts: Haunted by Music; A Range of Musicality; Memory, Movement, and Music; and Emotion, Identity, and Music.

The first part talks about how music can change a person's life, with stories like that of a man who gained a sudden appreciation of piano music after being struck by lightning, developing "sudden musicophilia," as Sacks describes it. There are also cases of some people, including himself, who had seizures from listening to music or hear loud music in their seizures, generated by their own mind, which Sacks calls "musicogenic epilepsy." It is interesting to note a case of woman who, every time she hears a certain genre of music, will have an epileptic seizure; she has 30 seconds to stop the music otherwise she knows that she will have a fit. Other cases are of people who experience getting music stuck in their head playing ceaselessly in their minds, described as "brainworms," and others who have more intense musical hallucinations.

In Haunted by Music, music is shown as an affliction, whereas in A Range of Musicality, music (or lack of!) is portrayed as windows into a new world, talking about cases such as that of people with no sense of music at all - they lack the brain circuitry that analyses music and so they cannot detect timbre, rhythm or the pitch of notes and they simply do not appreciate or enjoy music like we do. Other causes include that of people with absolute pitch. On a side note, I love the chapter title "Papa Blows His Nose in G!" There are also cases of "musical savants," people who are mentally challenged or autistic and yet have a repertoire of over two thousand operas, and others of a repertoire of hundreds of songs... in 40 different languages! And then there is a chapter dedicated to synaesthesia, a condition people could only every dream about... Synaesthesia is a condition where sensory stimulus manifests itself through the stimulus of a secondary sensory pathway. To cut it short - patients with synaesthesia, known as synaesthetes, mix up their senses. For example, someone who listens to music may see colours, others may taste a certain flavour when they hear someone's name. In the chapter, there was a case of a musician who gave up music simply because he could not focus on the music when so many different colours could be seen. There was also a case of a musician who had absolute pitch but could only tell apart between the notes by the colour they saw! It seems so amazing to have such a condition, but it is something only I could every dream of.

Part Three was on the theme of how music can be used as treatment, talking about cases of people with Tourette's Syndrome whose tics (repetitive movement that is a symptom of Tourette's Syndrome) disappeared whilst they were playing music, or people whose ticcing turned into rhythmic movement like dancing by using music to channel their tics, since tics are usually non-rhythmic. There was also the story of a man who has severe amnesia and can remember nothing except his wife and his ability to play music. He also speaks about how musicality is not just about perfect pitch, but it is also the ability to perceive emotions, rhythm, etc. from the music. There also tales of aphasic patients (aphasia is an impairment of language ability) who could not understand or speak, but could sing songs with words, since singing and music work at a different part of the brain to speech, which could be damaged by a stroke, although their ability to understand the words is a grey area. Similar to the tales of the patients with Tourette's Syndrome, people with Parkison's Disease are treated with musical therapy to rid the patients of their dyspraxia, a condition when the body cannot coordinate its movements or struggle to initiate motion.

Emotion, Identity, and Music talks about what it says on the tin - how music affects our emotions. Although you may think this is a simple concept, the actual neurology is actually very interesting and has profound implications. For example, there are cases of music causing depression, and vice versa, depression causing people to listen to more music, and how the temporal lobes are affected by frontotemporal dementia to increase musical creativity. He also talks about Williams Syndrome, a genetic condition that leads to developmental retardation and strong language skills. Sufferers often tend to be very chatty. They also seem to appreciate music more, as problems in the right parietal lobe can lead to other parts of the brain to develop better, so most sufferers are also more likely to have perfect pitch.

I think this book is a great book especially for music and neurology lovers but it is not good to read if you have a time-limit, i.e. buy it, don't borrow it from the library. Musicophilia is a very interesting book - I just find it very long and it is impossible to read in one sitting. There are many cases which could have been left out, such as the stories of people who regularly find music constantly playing in their head, since it was rather repetitive, pardon the pun. This is worth the read if you have the time. The only think I don't really like about it is that it is a series of case studies that do not really link that well into each other, unlike with The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat. The only bond that links the stories together is Sacks's passion for music and his empathy for his patients - he truly appreciates his patients as individuals and talks not only as a doctor, but also as a scientist.

I leave you with my favourite quote from the book:

"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 as unique power to express inner states or feelings. Music can pierce the heart directly; it needs no mediation."(less)

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Feb 10, 2013 Kate rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: hypochondriana

I really wanted to love this book. I loved the movie, "Awakenings", which I knew Dr. Sacks had something to do with, but I'd never read a Sacks book. I probably won't read another. To put it in musical terms--This book is a series of very simple, barely related melodic phrases that never, ever reach a satisfying resolution. He provides many, many, TOO MANY anecdotes of neuro-musical oddities,along with one or two possible explanations for them--or maybe not. Sort of like being trapped on a long...more

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Jan 10, 2013 Emily rated it 4 of 5 stars

So I found this book fascinating. Having an avid interest in Psychology and a unequivocal love for music, how could I not pick up this book? Though readers might get lost in Sacks' lingo and terminology (best to have an understanding of the different lobes of the brain and their functions prior to reading this book), I was quite perplexed and utterly absorbed from the get-go. Maybe because I really related to certain things (absolute pitch, musicality, wondering whether I would turn out to be on...more

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Jan 05, 2013 Débora rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Eu não sou muito dada a fazer resenhas, sempre me perco no meio do caminho, e ela fica um pouco confusa. Mas resolvi começar a praticar.
O modelo de resenha, foi inspirados pelo blog Coruta em teto de zinco quente da Luciana Darce, que é um site que eu gosto muito, e que sempre acompanho as resenhas.
Então o primeiro livro que escolhei para esta missão foi, Alucinações Musicais, do neurologista inglês Oliver Sacks.

Sinopse do livro: A música é uma das experiências humanas mais assombrosas e inesque...more Eu não sou muito dada a fazer resenhas, sempre me perco no meio do caminho, e ela fica um pouco confusa. Mas resolvi começar a praticar.
O modelo de resenha, foi inspirados pelo blog Coruta em teto de zinco quente da Luciana Darce, que é um site que eu gosto muito, e que sempre acompanho as resenhas.
Então o primeiro livro que escolhei para esta missão foi, Alucinações Musicais, do neurologista inglês Oliver Sacks.

Sinopse do livro: A música é uma das experiências humanas mais assombrosas e inesquecíveis, e este livro do neurologista e escritor Oliver Sacks nos faz entender por quê. A exemplo de seus livros anteriores, entre os quais se destacam Tempo de despertar e O homem que confundiu sua mulher com um chapéu, Sacks nos oferece aqui histórias musicais cheias de drama e compaixão humana envolvendo pessoas comuns ou portadoras de distúrbios neuroperceptivos. O que se passa com o cérebro humano ao fazer ou ouvir música? Onde exatamente reside o enorme poder, muitas vezes indomável, que a música exerce sobre nós? Essas são algumas das questões que Oliver Sacks explora, em seu estilo cativante, nesta admirável coletânea de casos, mostrando, por exemplo, como a música pode nos induzir a estados emocionais que de outra maneira seriam ignorados por nossa mente ou ainda evocar memórias supostamente perdidas nos meandros do cérebro.
É impossível não se impressionar com a história do médico que experimenta, depois de atingido por um raio, uma irresistível compulsão por música de piano, a ponto de se tornar ele mesmo um pianista. Ou com os casos de "amusia", uma condição clínica que faz Mozart soar como uma trombada automobilística aos ouvidos da pessoa afetada. Sem contar as histórias de gente afetada dia e noite por alucinações musicais incessantes.
O estudo de casos surpreendentes de pessoas com distúrbios neurológicos ou perceptivos ligados à música reitera a crença de Sacks em uma medicina que humaniza o paciente e tenta, junto com a abordagem clínica, integrar as dimensões psicológica, moral e espiritual tanto das afecções quanto de seu tratamento.

Sacks, como eu disse mais acima, é um neurologistas inglês um pouco diferente dos outros. Ao invés de tratar seus pacientes como números, um aglomerado de sintomas, ele os trata como humanos. Seu modo de clinicar já é bem diferente (e distante de nossa realidade), pois ele acompanha seu paciente intimamente. Visitando-o em sua residência, observando-o em convívio social e de como sua "patologia" se comporta nestas situações, e de como as pessoas de seu círculo social se comportam com esta pessoa. Uma de suas frases favoritas é "não é a pessoa que tem uma doença, mas a doença que tem uma pessoa".
Estou lendo os livros dele como material para a criação na disciplina de Montagem Teatral (sim, isto é uma disciplina) neste último ano da faculdade (pra quem não sabe, eu faço Artes Cênicas). e confesso, antes de conhecer os relatos de Sacks, mal sabia da existência destas doenças.
Diferentemente dos outros livros dele que li até agora (falarei deles também); "Alucinações..." traz mais relatos sobre casos clínicos de várias pessoas em relação a música, do que da história dos seus pacientes em específico. Ele cita sim, a história de vários pacientes, e ás vezes até experiências próprias, tanto com alucinações quanto com amusia, mas ás vezes somente para elucidar ou ilustrar a questão sobre um tema maior.
Vindo de uma família muito musical, Sacks pesquisa o tema música e seus efeitos no cérebro desde sempre e neste livro reúne vários casos e relatos de suas pesquisas. Mas longe de ser um livro teórico com muito vocabulário específico da Medicina e da Neurologia, ele consegue te fazer entender, ao menos superficialmente, as questões médicas que ele insere em seus contos. Mas maior do que isto, é a questão humana, e é aí que ele te pega!
Na primeira parte do livro ele trata de musicofilia (pessoas que não reconhecem tons, timbres ou ritmos da música). E também fala sobre brainsworms, aquelas musiquinhas chatas que não saem da cabeça. Fala também de amusia, ouvido absoluto, relato sobre o aparelho auditivo e o modo como escutamos e sentimos a música. Há também sinestesia musical! Pessoas que podem associar sons com cores ou gosto, elas podem sentir a música com um sentido a mais do que com a audição.
Há relatos também sobre a potência e a influência em doenças e anomalias graves como a Síndrome de Tourette, Autismo, Parkinson, a síndrome de Korsakov (amnésia irreparável, ás vezes o paciente perde a memória recente em poucos minutos e fica preso no seu próprio presente para sempre).
Todas as histórias que Sacks conta em seus livros são portas que se abrem em nosso entendimento do mundo e sobre o que é normal e o que não é normal na humanidade. Ele quebra com o nosso senso comum e mostra que mesmo com doenças graves podem ter um outro lado. E que as pessoas são adaptáveis, nenhuma doença é tão irreparável que não possa ser superada de certa forma, por um caráter forte e determinado.

resenha original: www.estranhomundinhoinsano.blogspot.com (less)

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About Oliver Sacks

Oliver Wolf Sacks, CBE (born July 9, 1933, London), is a British neurologist residing in the United States, who has written popular books about his patients, the most famous of which is Awakenings, which was adapted into a film of the same name starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro.

Sacks was the youngest of four children born to a prosperous North London Jewish couple: Sam, a physician, and E...more Oliver Wolf Sacks, CBE (born July 9, 1933, London), is a British neurologist residing in the United States, who has written popular books about his patients, the most famous of which is Awakenings, which was adapted into a film of the same name starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro.

Sacks was the youngest of four children born to a prosperous North London Jewish couple: Sam, a physician, and Elsie, a surgeon. When he was six years old, he and his brother were evacuated from London to escape The Blitz, retreating to a boarding school in the Midlands, where he remained until 1943. During his youth, he was a keen amateur chemist, as recalled in his memoir Uncle Tungsten. He also learned to share his parents' enthusiasm for medicine and entered The Queen's College, Oxford University in 1951, from which he received a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in physiology and biology in 1954. At the same institution, he went on to earn in 1958, a Master of Arts (MA) and an MB ChB in chemistry, thereby qualifying to practice medicine.

After converting his British qualifications to American recognition (i.e., an MD as opposed to MB ChB), Sacks moved to New York, where he has lived since 1965, and taken twice weekly therapy sessions since 1966.

Sacks began consulting at chronic care facility Beth Abraham Hospital (now Beth Abraham Health Service) in 1966. At Beth Abraham, Sacks worked with a group of survivors of the 1920s sleeping sickness, encephalitis lethargica, who had been unable to move on their own for decades. These patients and his treatment of them were the basis of Sacks' book Awakenings.

His work at Beth Abraham helped provide the foundation on which the Institute for Music and Neurologic Function (IMNF), where Sacks is currently an honorary medical advisor, is built. In 2000, IMNF honored Sacks, its founder, with its first Music Has Power Award. The IMNF again bestowed a Music Has Power Award on Sacks in 2006 to commemorate "his 40 years at Beth Abraham and honor his outstanding contributions in support of music therapy and the effect of music on the human brain and mind".

Sacks was formerly employed as a clinical professor of neurology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and at the New York University School of Medicine, serving the latter school for 42 years. On 1 July 2007, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons appointed Sacks to a position as professor of clinical neurology and clinical psychiatry, at the same time opening to him a new position as "artist", which the university hoped will help interconnect disciplines such as medicine, law, and economics. Sacks remains a consultant neurologist to the Little Sisters of the Poor, and maintains a practice in New York City.

Since 1996, Sacks is a member of The American Academy of Arts and Letters (Literature). In 1999, Sacks became a Fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences. Also in 1999, he became an Honorary Fellow at The Queen's College, Oxford. In 2002, he became Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Class IV—Humanities and Arts, Section 4—Literature).[38] and he was awarded the 2001 Lewis Thomas Prize by Rockefeller University. Sacks has been awarded honorary doctorates from the College of Staten Island (1991), Tufts University (1991), New York Medical College (1991), Georgetown University (1992), Medical College of Pennsylvania (1992), Bard College (1992), Queen's University (Ontario) (2001), Gallaudet University (2005), University of Oxford (2005), Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (2006). He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2008 Birthday Honours. Asteroid 84928 Oliversacks, discovered in 2003 and 2 miles (3.2 km) in diameter, has been named in his honor.
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