hadashi's review
Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain
by Oliver W. Sacks
hadashi's review
Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver W. Sacks
hadashi's review
rating:
I enjoyed "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat," and so was very excited to read this book after hearing Dr. Sacks do several NPR interviews. He has a way of taking dry, clinical cases and terminology and making them very human stories. What is “normal” is so physiologically based, and therefore very fluid to him as a neurologist, that in reading this book, one really does start to realise that "normalcy" is easily taken for granted.
This subject is of course more interesting to me than usual, since music has been a part of my life since birth. He points out that music is hardwired into us, in very unexpected parts of the brain, and that as far as biology is concerned, music is useless and therefore even more fascinating. In addition “to this largely unconscious structural appreciation of music is added an often intense and profound emotional reaction to music. ‘The inexpressible depth of music,’ Schopenhauer wrote, ‘so easy to understand and ...more
This subject is of course more interesting to me than usual, since music has been a part of my life since birth. He points out that music is hardwired into us, in very unexpected parts of the brain, and that as far as biology is concerned, music is useless and therefore even more fascinating. In addition “to this largely unconscious structural appreciation of music is added an often intense and profound emotional reaction to music. ‘The inexpressible depth of music,’ Schopenhauer wrote, ‘so easy to understand and ...more
