The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature

by Daniel J. Levitin

book data

78 ratings, 3.23 average rating, 36 reviews (more data...)

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5		14%
4		23%
3		41%
2		15%
1		6%

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published

August 19th 2008 by Dutton Adult

binding

Hardcover

isbn

0525950737 (isbn13: 9780525950738)

description

The author of the New York Times bestseller (six weeks and counting) and Los Angeles Times Book Award Nominee This Is Your Brain on Music (more than 1...more

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Best books of August, 2008

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02/22/09

David rated it:

Readable analysis by a neuroscientist/musician/music-cognition-researcher classifying the world's music by song type (friendship, joy, comfort, knowledge, religion, love) and speculating on how our enjoyment of each could reflect evolutionary processes.

Read skeptically, there is a lot of "just-so" story-telling without much evidence base (...and perhaps songs with this type of rhythmn facilitated social bonding, which would make those who could sing them rise in the status ...more

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03/08/09

Adam rated it:

bookshelves: music, non-fiction, psychology, science

Read in March, 2009

recommends it for: Those with interests in some combination of psychology, evolution and music

I have to say I'm a bit disappointed at my second encounter with Daniel Levitin's musical exploration.

While from a psychological standpoint I wholly agree that music has played an undeniable role in human evolution, I for some reason find the overall concept of this book to be, almost, silly. Sure, there are obviously some discernible categories of songs but to narrow it down to just six is, well, quite a feat.

Levitin does do a good job of supporting why he chose these c...more

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02/14/09

Kathy rated it:

Read in February, 2009

This book I half liked. The part about the songs we love as human beings, the types that run through all sorts of cultures and times. That was great as the author has a wonderfully diverse sense of music and really went to great lengths to insure he was well rounded in talking about songs the world over. There were some great comparisons and some new thoughts. You have to love a book that references the Bible and Lord of the Rings in the same paragraph.
But then the section the subtitle ref...more

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02/05/09

Bookmarks Magazine added it

Fans that have read This Is Your Brain on Music are in for another treat; newcomers to Levitin will still find much to enjoy in this consideration of music and human civilization. Levitin writes with both knowledge of neuroscience and evolutionary biology and a deep appreciation for the musician's craft��one that will resound loudly with musicophiles. The New York Times Book Review, however, questioned some of Levitin's "unprovable" scientific claims, and others faulted him for taking

...more

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02/16/09

John rated it:

Levitin begins with an extremely promising premise: Why did the musical brain evolve and how did its evolution mold our humanity? However, the execution of his premise lacks coherence and cogency. Much of his scientific evidence seemed far to anecdotal and far too simplified for a lay reader. Without this evidence, his claims seemed far too speculative and sweeping.

I believe he has definitely struck some gold in his thesis, but he won't convince anyone in this conflicted mess of a w...more

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11/09/08

Anne rated it:

Read in November, 2008

Another book/author that needs a stronger editor. Some intriguing ideas, but unfocused, too many other things going on, lack of making the point clear.
However, I'll love to have his iPod.

The six songs/chapters:
-- Friendship or War(What is it good for?)
-- Joy or "Sometimes you feel like a nut"
-- Comfort or "Before there was Prozac, there was you"
-- Knowledge, or "I need to know"
-- Religion, or "People get ready"...more

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03/27/09

Brant rated it:

Read in March, 2009

I was excited to read this after reading his "This is Your Brain on Music," which I really liked. I was in a waiting area as I began reading this and someone nearby noted that he had recently read it. His comment was that he was disappointed in it and wished that it had been more about music. I agree. This is an attempt to look at the interaction of music with enculturation, but it feels more like an excuse to ruminate on ideas the author has that can be interesting, but just didn't ha...more

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01/16/09

John rated it:

Read in May, 2009

Enlightening. This music researcher has an evolutionary psychology explanation for musical communication through songs, and the reader learns as much about this scientific framework for understanding human beings as about music ("this is your basal ganglia on love songs.") Having read The Moral Animal, my experience of this book was as an extension of evolutionary psychology thinking into my personal life as a music hobbyist, and frankly I found the experience a bit depressing. We resp...more

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11/16/08

R. rated it:

Read in December, 2008

The World in Six Songs makes an attempt to theorize how the Human Brain's evolution was influenced by music. Former shot order cook/guitarist Daniel Levitin is now a presiding music professor at the University of Chicago. Despite initial misgivings and name dropping, Levitin proposes six themes of music. Similar to Joseph Cambell's the Monomyth, Levitin looks at all music through a structural scope. Like most theorists, Levitin threads the needle through the necessary material to make his cl...more

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09/20/08

Tony duncan rated it:

bookshelves: education, philosophy, psychology, science

Read in October, 2008

recommends it for: anyone that musics effects deeply

I am really looking forward to reading this book. My main interest in his previous book "this is Your Brain on Music" was about the connection to human nature and apparently he goes whole hog into it with this one.

OK I read it and there are parts of it that are brilliant. he has done his homework, and he makes a very strong case for music being an essential component of what drove human evolution. this is a tremendous step forward from the old view that music and the other ...more I am really looking forward to reading this book. My main interest in his previous book "this is Your Brain on Music" was about the connection to human nature and apparently he goes whole hog into it with this one.

OK I read it and there are parts of it that are brilliant. he has done his homework, and he makes a very strong case for music being an essential component of what drove human evolution. this is a tremendous step forward from the old view that music and the other creative arts are just peripheral developments in human evolution.

Unfortunatley, I think his knowledge of evolutionary theory is either not strong enough or too easily captured by the evolutionary psychology strand, and he has evidently read nothing about developmental biology (see review of "the dependent gene"). Many of his specific conclusion, are in my opinion based on a fanciful extrapolation of some of these ideas. Some may be true, but I believe they miss the forest for the trees I do not think that this damages his argument, but I think it might make it harder for him to see some of the deeper significance of the important conclusions that are accurate.

He makes extremely powerful arguments for the evidence of musics universal character being deeply entwined with the possibility of human evolution, connecting it to various emotional factors that have ben ignored by evolutionary biologists until recently. But he puts much too much weight on the idea on the supremacy of the "selfish gene" of Dawkins fame. I think he correctly points out that Music may have ben a precursor to language, and that the effect of music on motivation and survival options for pre humans is likely of tremendous evolutionary significance. When he gets specific about the scenario's he points out. i think sometimes he is talking out of his ass! For example he starts his narrative with an imaginary war party whooping and hollering and singing in ominous rhythms to scare a victimized village. Now, I have no doubt that this has happened, and it may well have happened in our transition to humanity, but the connection is tenuous at best, and is a typical evolutionary psychology story that sounds extremely appealing, but which has all sorts of possible flaws, that I won;t go into! In essence I see no reason to believe that this was a crucial factor in the development of music, as there is , to my knowledge, no causal relationship between aggressive territorial expansion and the development of any cognitive human characteristics. that does not mean that there isn't, but in my view it is too easily explained by the modern human bias in evolutionary biology to attribute aspects of intelligence to male and violence based scenarios, rather than any sound scientific principle

I would be very interested in others assesement of his thesis who know more about developmental biology than I do.

And I think his lack of understanding of development makes him miss, what I think is the key connection with music, the ability to affect emotions. he discusses this, but in my view the change in the purpose of emotional response in human beings, from other primates is possible what allowed intelligence and the myriad other human specific cognitive functions to emerge, and I think music was a crucial medium for that occurrence to happen in many of the ways that he describes(less)

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09/11/08

Gphatty rated it:

Read in September, 2008

I did like this book -- Levitin is a good story-teller, and he balances personal, relevant anecdotes with scientific information in good, measured doses. I do wish there was more science, however. The heavy reliance on personal experiences, commentary from famous musicians, etc. undercuts some of the more interesting science info.

Biggest complaint, however, is the arbitrary nature of his song divisions. In brief, he posits that songs (with lyrics) can have the following types: fri...more I did like this book -- Levitin is a good story-teller, and he balances personal, relevant anecdotes with scientific information in good, measured doses. I do wish there was more science, however. The heavy reliance on personal experiences, commentary from famous musicians, etc. undercuts some of the more interesting science info.

Biggest complaint, however, is the arbitrary nature of his song divisions. In brief, he posits that songs (with lyrics) can have the following types: friendship/emnity; joy; comfort; information; relgious; and love. Early on, he confesses that many songs will fit multiple types, and then each chapter goes into detail about song types, and why they have probably evolved the way we know them to be. The chapters provide many examples of specific songs from many cultures and time periods, and they are typically paired with milestones in evolution where the human brain would have benefited from making these types of songs.

By the time I got to religion, however, my patience was tried. He spent the majority of the chapter trying to demonstrate that religious songs, by nature, have to be sung/performed at specific rituals or events. But everyone of his examples was obviously a friendship or knowledge song. He even comments on this, but still asserted that religious songs were fundamentally different.

I called BS; I couldn't keep reading at first, as I was upset at being asked to accept his arbitrary definition. I was even more upset that he gave such short shrift to the type of religious song I believe does have a different purpose, the songs that are created to instill religious feeling or spiritual awakening.

So by the time he got to love -- arguably a subset of friendship & joy, two other categories -- he had lost his argument with me entirely.

Still, the science is useful. The writing is good and enjoyable. The argument is very weak, like a stoned college kid and his friends trying reductive reasoning at 3am -- just with more research at his fingertips to couch their arguments.(less)

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12/30/08

Erica Schweizer rated it:

bookshelves: 2008

Read in December, 2008

Daniel Levitin argues that music is a core element of human evolution through the examination of six different groups of songs; Friendship, Joy, Comfort, Knowledge, Religion, and Love. Music is a form of communication that helped our ancestors survive, procreate, and form complex societies.

This book was interesting, if sometimes repetitive. I couldn’t help wondering what it would be like in a medium where you could actually hear the music, such as a six part radio show.

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12/11/08

Laurel rated it:

Read in November, 2008

Levitin, author of "This is Your Brain on Music," has done it again - and topped himself. Wow. Adam Gopnik (Paris to the Moon, Through the Children's Gate)said, "...Levitin takes the most sophisticated ideas that exist about the brains and mind, applies them to the most emotionally direct art we have, our songs, and makes beautiful music of the two together." I can't say it better. Levitin presents his theory about how music shaped humans across cultures and history, affecti...more

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03/17/09

Kathryn rated it:

This song divided the world's songs into six catagories, and the author then gave examples of songs that would fit that catagory and why. He also delved into history and psychology as to why a song was important and again how it fit in the catagory. The history and psychology references were what I found interesting. He was more detailed on why certain songs fit into a catagory than I was interested in!

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12/09/08

Tracy rated it:

This book had me downloading MP3s for weeks. What Levitin does is explain why we are musical creatures in an evolutionary sense by dividing music into six categories, and then explaining the purpose and benefit of each type. It was am entertaining, informative, humorous, and heart warming book.

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10/25/08

Nick rated it:

bookshelves: music

Read in October, 2008

Levitin's previous book, This Is Your Brain on Music <http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/141565.This_Is_Your_Brain_on_Music_The_Science_of_a_Human_Obsession>,
really impressed me. This one impressed me, too, but less. Levitin is best when discussing music and the neuroscience findings about music and why we like it, play it, sing it. When he is writing on music and neuroscience, Levitin has my attention and his prose is striking, convincing. When he is theorizing about evolutionary...more

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03/14/09

Anne marked it as to-read

bookshelves: non-fiction, to-read

Saw this at Third Place books. This book blends science and art - studying how the musical brain created human nature. It's question: Could music unlock the mystery of who we are and how we think?

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01/03/09

Peter rated it:

bookshelves: science

Read in August, 2008

A follow up to his very successful your brain listening to music...and an intriguing argument about how the biological wiring intersects with the cultural underpinnings.

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02/13/09

Paul rated it:

Read in February, 2009

Uneven, but some interesting spots. Oh. He knows Sting. He'd probably want you to know that. He mentions it enough.

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05/01/09

Ellen added it

Read in April, 2009

Currently reading -- enjoying this exploration of the meaning of music in human life and history/culture/society.