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Jan 10, 2008

Sarah rated it:

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...

2 comments like (15 people liked it)

Mar 18, 2008

Mike rated it:

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 More...

0 comments like (9 people liked it)

Apr 03, 2010

Joshua Nomen-Mutatio rated it:

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 More...

10 comments like (7 people liked it)

Oct 14, 2008

Jafar rated it:

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...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Mar 02, 2008

Matt rated it:

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 More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Mar 05, 2008

brian rated it:

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 ha More...

6 comments like (4 people liked it)

Dec 05, 2011

Denae rated it:

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...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 10, 2009

rachel rated it:

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, More...

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Jan 24, 2008

liz rated it:

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 - More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 17, 2008

Alex rated it:

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 More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Nov 27, 2007

Pamela rated it:

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 odditie More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 28, 2009

Mimi rated it:

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.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 28, 2009

Aaron rated it:

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 muc More...

8 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 23, 2007

Bobby rated it:

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 More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 06, 2008

Richard rated it:

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 ex More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 08, 2007

Jim is currently reading it

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, h More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 02, 2009

Keith rated it:

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.

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Mar 20, 2008

jeremy rated it:

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 dept More...

1 comment like

Apr 20, 2009

Mike added it

Nah, don't bother. 100 pages in and it still hasn't taken me to the bridge let alone kicked in with a chorus. Case study vignettes follow each other with no depth, explanation or overview. One note. (are the music metaphors a bit overdone you reckon?)

What I'd really like to know is why, neurologically, certain progressions of notes trigger a melancholy response (Gavin Bryar's "Jesus Blood..", Arvo Part's "Spiegel im Spiegel"), a sense of utter beauty (Goldberg Var More...

4 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 20, 2012

Henk-Jan rated it:

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:

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:

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, Mu More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 08, 2008

Paula rated it:

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 on More...

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Mar 15, 2011

Qi rated it:

Sackes collected a large volumes of studies relatiing to music, people who have excessive response to it, people who lack such responses, and people who experience illness and trauma and their changed response to music.

There is no universal experience to music; all of us bring our whole self to such audible experience. I am entirely unmoved by many, but there are several classic pieces do have the ability to piece through. Largely unexposed to music during my childhood, I discovered, More...

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Feb 28, 2011

Christian rated it:

So there was a Nova special not too long ago that featured Oliver Sacks rather prominently and ran through some quick highlights of the research he's done regarding music and the brain. The program was interesting enough for me to make a note to look him up and 448 pages later, here's what I can say.

I've no idea who the audience for this book is. There were certainly parts where I had neither the musical nor medical vocabulary necessary to understand what exactly was being related or i More...

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Jan 10, 2011

Mike rated it:

Your reaction to this book will probably depend on your interest in the subject matter, but there are so many great points of entry to this topic that it's sure to be fascinating to just about anybody.

Musicophilia is essentially a neuroscientist's report on the effects of music on the brain. There is a ridiculously wide variety of topics covered, from musical hallucinations, to savant composers and performers, to the role of music therapy in treating a variety of disorders, to perfect More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 07, 2010

Nate rated it:

Musicophilia:

Fascinating Tales of Music's Place in Human Life

Have you ever really thought of what music exactly is? What a strange concept, nothing but a sequence of tones, yet this “music” can create feelings within us that written word could never evoke. In Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, author Oliver Sacks writes of this and of how music has affected people's lives. This compelling nonfiction read is set in modern day Earth. It tells the story of author Olive More...

1 comment like

Apr 03, 2010

notgettingenough marked it as to-read

I wrote to Sacks just after starting this, suddenly thinking he was the man to answer a question I'd been asking musicians for years.

When I was little I played violin and piano to a high standard, but although I was technically supposed to be equal in both, the fact is I was a fine violinist and a crap pianist. I never really liked the piano.

Being lefthanded, it never surprised me that I was good at the violin, since, after all, the left hand does more or less everything More...

6 comments like

Dec 31, 2009

Alan rated it:

The human mind is inherently fascinating (although, as Emo Philips reminds us, it's important to remember exactly who's telling you this), and Oliver Sacks has made the mind's quirks and lacunae his life's work. In groundbreaking popular books like Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Sacks captivated readers with his poignant, scholarly but eminently readable tales of people whose minds work differently from the norm, in fascinating and illustrative ways.

Musicophilia More...

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Jun 01, 2009

Vee rated it:

I picked this book up in Borders one day and promptly went to the library and checked it out on CD

Musicophilia, by Oliver Sacks, narrated by John Lee:

In Musicophilia, Sacks talks about the music and the effects it has on the brain. I was reading this as research project for myself. I was hoping to find the place where music can become an emotional healer and how I can use it as such..

The book opens with a middle-aged man who is struck by lightening. Since the More...

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