Music, the Brain and Ecstasy: How Music Captures Our Imagination

by Robert Jourdain

What makes a distant oboe's wail beautiful? Why do some kinds of music lift us to ecstasy, but not others? How can music make sense to an ear and brain evolved for detecting the approaching lion or tracking the unsuspecting gazelle? Lyrically interweaving discoveries from science, psychology, music theory, paleontology, and philosophy, Robert Jourdian brilliantly examines why music speaks to us in ways that words cannot, and why we form such powerful connections to it. In clear, understandable language, Jourdian expertly guides the reader through a continuum of musical experience: sound, tone, melody, harmony, rhythm, composition, performance, listening, understanding--and finally to ecstasy. Along the way, a fascinating cast of characters brings Jourdian's narrative to vivid life: "idiots savants" who absorb whole pieces on a single hearing, composers who hallucinate entire compositions, a psychic who claims to take dictation from long-dead composers, and victims of brain damage who can move only when they hear music. Here is a book that will entertain, inform, and stimulate everyone who loves music--and make them think about their favorite song in startling new ways.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Science, Psychology, Neuroscience, Art, Brain

333 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[Jill · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have a dream. I don't think it's an unrealistic dream. In fact, it's one that seems to have been realized multiple times -- except this dream is a damn tease, and it's all lies, and leaves me bereft every time I think it's come true.

My dream is simple: I am cheerfully reading a non-fiction book about the emotional/psychological effect of music.


I keep looking -- and in looking, I have read about the following topics a million FREAKING times, so no: I don't care about layperson sonic physics. I don't care about which side of the brain likes melody and which likes rhythm. I don't care about why a violin needs a body to amplify its strings. I DON'T CARE ANYMORE. I'm DONE. Can we PLEASE devote more than the last chapter to how music makes you feel? There's got to be research being done in this. There HAS to be some kind of aesthetic philosophy about it. WHY THE FUCK, in a 330-page book titled Music, the Brain, and Ecstasy, does ecstasy receive LITERALLY FOUR PAGES of explanation?!

To say this book was a disappointment would be an understatement. But -- John Powell's How Music Works was also a disappointment in that my dream remained unfulfilled. But that book, unlike this one, was actually good. It was witty, engaging, lucid, and informative. So: being that I am now clearly the authority on pop-science music books because I've read like 3 of them, I have some suggestions for Robert Jourdain.

1) Retitle your book. Classical Music and the Brain: Why Art Music Is Superior to All Other Types and Peasants Who Like Popular Music Are Morons is a much more fitting title.

2) Examine your damn bias. The directly implied superiority of:
a) Western music
b) classical Western music
c) long classical Western music pieces
d) long classical Western music pieces that exclude most listeners' interest
was unpalatable after the first mention. Just a few sentences you may want to reconsider:

"Composers working with [non-Western] scales must labor harder to devise deep musical relations, their melodies will prosper more by contour than harmony, and ultimately their music will go less far." (78)
Um. According to whose damn defintion, Mr. Hegemony?

"It is the absence of complex meter in the West that is anomalous..." (122)
Okay, cool -- the West has developed harmony far more than meter, for whatever reason, but the development of African drumming is on par, right? FUCKING WRONG.
"[Western composers] didn't want [complex rhythmic] devices in their music...Harmony inherently holds out more musical potential than meter." (152)
LIKE BRO, FOR REAL, CHECK YOUR CULTURAL BIAS. To your ears it holds more potential. You can't say for an entire species -- particularly when you later explain the importance of the individual listener in the musical experience -- that harmony is better.

"Devotees of classical music complain that the obsession with beat trivializes everything it touches, appealing to our lowest instincts, like greasy food. ... Enthusiasts of phrase and form, or just of an old-fashioned melody, are often to be found cowering with fingers in ears, their sole consolation in reflection upon a tradition that has lasted centuries and survived greater assaults. The battle is far from over." (154)
The battle is far from over.
THE BATTLE IS FAR FROM OVER.
Gee I wonder which side you're on, Rob.

"Where music once nourished a healthy appetite, whether in the concert hall or the village square, now a perpetual banquet of song serves only to soothe a blunted palate. We live in an age of widespread musical obesity."(245)
Sorry, grandpa. I'll turn it down.

And finally, my favourite:
"It's hard to imagine a human mind going any further in writing great music." (333)
Culture is dead, everyone. Pack up your efforts and head to the glass bead game.

Just a sampling of a truly offensive collection of hegemonic bullshit. If there's nothing directly stated, the implications run rampant: my art music is better than yours; you're stupid if you listen to pop music (that one IS directly stated, actually); whine whine whine music is going to shit and rock concerts are so loud and I'm not sure if you got the point that you're STUPID if you don't like FUGUES and SYMPHONIES and Mozart and Beethoven.

I am not stupid, Rob. My experience of music is valid. What makes this book so frustrating is that my experience, and that of literally anyone non-Western, and probably most peoples', is completely invalidated. According to you, the best music has already been written, centuries ago -- and nothing since could possibly compare. People who respond emotionally to "banal" pop music are just eating "a bread roll, not caviar." Fuck your elitist bullshit, Rob -- you have no right to write a book about such a universal, powerful phenomenon.

So my final suggestion.

3) Give your research to someone else so they can rewrite this entire thing. Keep some of the info; it was interesting. But your voice, your bias, makes the experience of reading it so damn frustrating and alienating that it's not worth the effort. And for the record: I love classical music. But that doesn't make me better than anyone else. And my ecstatic experiences of what you'd call banal music are, I think, beyond what you can imagine.

So someone ---- SOMEONE --- please rewrite this book?
Or maybe just tell me where I can find a better one.

[Kyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one of the best books of this topic I have ever read. It is exponentially more informative that This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession and much more accessible than Music, Language, and the Brain, making it the perfect entry book for someone who is interested in the science of music.

Robert Jourdain (NOT Robert Jordan), provides an intelligent examination of what music does to our brains, how our brains process and organize music, and why musical prodigies, like Mozart, can do what they do from an early age. He pulls from a wide range of disciplines and sources to provide the reader with a relatively complete survey of the topic. Ever wanted to know why we love music? What happens to us when we listen to it, and how humans are able to produce it? Well, if you answered yes, then this is the book for you. Get to it. If you answered no, then maybe you should read the book anyway, and perhaps you'll find an interest in the topic you never knew you had.

[Duffy Pratt · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was excited to pick up this book. The topic is right up my alley, and I liked the overall conceptual structure of the chapters - Sound, Tone, Melody, Rhythm, etc... And I really liked the beginning chapters. The stuff he was saying about the brain and perceptual systems was both new to me and fascinating.

Then doubts started to creep in. When he was talking about the need for temperament and different temperament systems, he jumped almost directly from Just Intonation to modern Equal Temperament. Worse, he said that Equal Temperament was what Bach and Mozart and Beethoven used. This is false. Bach advocated the Well Tempered system. Its likely that Mozart and Beethoven used one of the variations of the Meantone system to tune their pianos. I started to wonder, if he got stuff wrong about the areas that I do know about, how much could I trust what I don't know about?

Then he started throwing around his own prejudices as if they were fact. Harmonic richness is deeper than rhythmic richness. Thus, even though Western art music is much simpler rhythmically, in general, than, say, African drum music, none of that mattered because the Western music is obviously better and more advanced.

Then it became clear how narrow his view of even Western art music is. In his world, Mendelssohn and Saint Saens were failures. He emphasizes this point several times. It's partly because he claims that they did not live up to the promise they showed as child prodigies. I just googled top classical composers of all times, and looked at the first one ranking a Top 100. Mendelssohn comes in at 13 on this list and Saint Saens at 37. Even if this list is wildly inaccurate, and they both rank somewhere in the second 50, that means that all but fifty classical composers through all of history have been failures. Compound this with the "obvious" idea that all popular music is also worthless, and it leaves me wondering why someone who hates so much music would bother to write a book about how great it makes us feel.

As the book moves to later chapters and becomes more abstract, it also becomes more vague, and more obvious that his points are largely made to support his preconceptions. Longer pieces of music are better than short ones. Why? Because they are more demanding on the intellect and require more focus and brain power to comprehend. Compare this to what Busoni said about Chopin's Prelude in A major. For context, its 16 measures long, repeats essentially the same theme twice, and takes about 50 seconds. Busoni said that he first started playing it when he was about six years old, and has played it every day of his life since he learned, but that he never got to the bottom of it. On the question of musical depth, if Busoni and Jourdain disagree, I will side with Busoni.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

okay, so it took me a while to read this book, but i finally finished it, hooray! two reasons: 1. it was a self-task of mine to read this book, even though i knew most of the information presented there. 2. i went on 2 tours with 2 different bands over the 3-week period.

now that i've got those excuses out of the way, on to the good stuff. so i think this book is wonderful for those who want a general, nontechnical approach to music cognition (including psychoacoustics and neuromusicology). great for the students i will hopefully have in my class next quarter (introduction to music and the mind). jourdain has a distinct writing style - appropriate for the masses, yet technical enough for those who have a little more serious interest, as well as organized in a logical manner (from sound...to tone...to melody, etc).

however, the difference between his broad and technical language isn't very consistent. in other words, he'll describe the specific functions of the parietal cortex on one page, and write "color hearing" instead of using the term "synesthesia." perhaps he's more knowledgeable in those areas he explores more deeply, but at least offer that as an explanation instead of skirting over particular terms/topics. furthermore, jourdain is a bit overly wordy in some of his descriptions - a little redundant at times.

i could've used more discussion on cross-cultural studies in music cognition, but hey, the book is already over 300 pages.

good read overall - it's hard to say, but it may be my first pick for a basic book on music cognition.

[Matthew Hodge · Rating 4 out of 5]

First off, I should clear up that the "ecstasy" in the title refers to the pleasure listeners derive from music - this is not a book about the rave scene.

Jourdain explains how the ear and then the brain processes music and why it is we like and understand some types of music but don't get others.

Unfortunately, he's somewhat of a classical music snob so all his illustrations are in terms of classical music, which would probably be quite off-putting if that wasn't your type of music.

However, for me, the value of the book lies in Jourdain's analysis of why we like certain types of music. His ideas about peer pressure being the biggest influencer of musical taste and the idea of the four types of listening - melodic, harmonic, rhythmic and phrasing - helps explain why large complex pieces of music (like much classical music) is not enjoyed by so many people today.

We're in early days yet, but I believe that any classical music organisation that decided to take these principles and run with them would be able to reach a much larger audience. And that really would be exciting.

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

A better "This is your Brain on Music." Jourdain speaks to the musician throughout, while shaking hands with neurological evidence and kissing interesting historical factoids. Similar to an arriving cadence he drives the reader forward, always dangling the carrot of more clarity just out of reach. But as he so eloquently put it, "Reaching an unsatisfying cadence after much anticipation is a sign of an elementary composer." Well, Jourdain, the same can be said for the final chapter of your book, Ecstasy. I arrived, anticipated enlightening resolutions, but was left unsatisfied, by an elementary writer. Hinting to a climax without a delivery is frustrating for those seeking pleasure. Read and you'll see.

[Alissa McCarthy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gregg, a friend at the bagel store I frequent, gave this book to me knowing my love of music and I am very grateful he did. This book intertwines discoveries from science, psychology, music theory, paleontology, and philosophy to examine why music speaks to us in ways that words cannot, and why we form such powerful connections to it. In clear, understandable language, Jourdian guides the reader through a continuum of musical experience: sound, tone, melody, harmony, rhythm, composition, performance, listening, understanding—and finally to ecstasy. As a life-long musician, I found this book entertaining, informative, and stimulating, and it made me them think about both my favorite music as well as new music in an entirely different light.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Masterful! The author systematically analyzes the structure of Western music, starting with the most basic elements and building to higher-level arrangements, then examines the human brain and the way sound, especially music, is experienced in the various parts of the brain. Finally, he examines the nature of pleasure and pain and proposes some intriguing ideas as to why good music can have such an intense and direct emotional impact on listeners.
This book offers plausible answers for some questions that I've been wondering about for as long as I can remember, and I think it will enable me to get even more pleasure from music from now on.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fascinating overview for the layperson of how our brains and bodies process music, in listening to, performing, and composing it. Jourdain presents the physics and neurology involved in music processing (as well as the evolution behind some of it) in easily understood terms. Much of the brain is not well understood, and he made sure to make that clear as well, often presenting multiple theories and the arguments for and against each one. Along the way he provides an overview of the history of (mostly Western) music, highlighting various famous and less well-known music personalities. Reading this book put me once again in awe of the complexities of our brain. Despite some minor criticisms (a bias towards Western, classical music, and a focus on virtuoso musicians), I highly recommend this book. For a more complete review, see http://booksandmiscellany.wordpress.c....

[Dameun Strange · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a comprehensive study of all this music, from acoustics to the physiological effects of listening, to the psychology of composers and musicians. This book changed my musical life. I only wish I had read it before I went to college.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent primer on music psychology for the layman. Has absolutely nothing to do with the drug ecstacy; would recommend a title alteration.

[Science and Fiction · Rating 4 out of 5]

How sounds affect our neurology is fairly straightforward, even though, as Jourdain explains, hearing was the last of the senses to evolve: first were the tactile senses, then taste, then vision – all long before hearing. But why people prefer one type of music over another is a much more complex issue rooted in psychology. As such, this is a difficult topic to write about, but in the end I felt Jourdain’s exploration was worth the deep dive.

Jourdain begins by outlining the topics to be explored and says “For every musical style there is a style of musical expectation. Some people use music as a stimulant, others as a tranquilizer; some seek intensity and beauty, others distraction and clamor . . . [in this book] we’ll focus on the brain’s ability to attend and anticipate, and how [our own] experience tailors our ears to particular musical genres.”

However, you will have to be highly motivated to get to that concluding bit of understating in order to tolerate Jourdain’s many tangential wanderings. Case in point: whether orchestras tune to 440 as is common today, or 415 as was common in Bach’s time doesn’t really impact the overall thesis of the book of how we respond to the music. As the author says himself, except for a minority of people with perfect pitch, humans and most animals are far more sensitive to the relationship between sounds (the contour of a melody) than the actual pitch. So why spend pages talking about the tuning and temperament of scales?

Also, this book will not be for everybody as it assumes a decent familiarity with composers and genres of music. If you skipped Music Appreciation 101 this is probably not the place to start. As professor Percy Buck said in Psychology for Musicians: “The power to appreciate great music is not a gift; it is a reward.” That is, the ability to comprehend and be moved by a complex symphony by Mahler isn’t just handed to us on a platter by right of DNA. We must have a desire for growth and expansion of our understanding of the world around us, and this, as the good professor says, “depends on the effort you make in readjusting your mind and increasing your receptivity.” Almost anybody can appreciate the superficial aspects of music: the sound of a blaring trumpet versus a mellow clarinet, a distinctive rhythm that you tap your feet to, a catchy tune, and the general mood, whether calm or stirring that it creates. But for most it’s a long road from “Happy Birthday” to The Art of Fugue.

The same holds true for literature: we start with children’s books, work our way up to Young Adult books, and some are content to stay at that level. It’s a small minority who willingly pick up Dostoevsky unless it’s part of a required curriculum as a literature major. There’s nothing especially elitist about this beyond the obvious fact that very few are interested in developing a more discerning level of appreciation in the arts. They’ve made an assessment of effort versus reward and found that maybe they’d prefer to put their attentions elsewhere. Same with sports training: some are completely dedicated to the point of making extreme lifestyle changes, others with a “got to do this” attitude reluctantly go through the motions on weekends.

All that to say that if you have the motivation - the utterly burning desire – to understand why music affects us as it does, this is as good a book as any to attempt to unravel those mysteries.

[Jim MacKinnon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Drawing on the fields of music theory, music cognition, psychology, and neuroscience, Jourdain offers a comprehensive overview of how music is put together from sound to tone to melody to harmony, etc., as well as how music is perceived, and, finally, how music can bring us to states of pleasure and ecstasy.

[Quiver · Rating 5 out of 5]

After a somewhat more technical and slower start, this is hands down the best introductory text for anyone wishing to comprehensively understand the phenomenon of music. Jourdain contextualises, details, expands on, and even ventures the occasional poetic moment. With few exceptions, his insights are worth pondering, researching, and returning to. My copy of the book is covered in dense marks and notes — so inspirational did I find the text.

Highly recommended for every library. It's one of those books that ought to be taught in school.

[Elazar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating topics. I learned a lot. And, didn't understand a lot 🙂

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

Harmony gang shit

[Ava · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bye

[Klerik · Rating 4 out of 5]

By and large, I had fun reading this book. The blend of neuroscience, psychology and musicology(?) works very well indeed. Together with Jourdain's fluid prose, it makes for an inspirational and educational read.

It is, however, not entirely without issues. Though Jourdain explains all the necessary music terminology needed to follow along, I still sometimes felt like I was missing something which would have been clear to a more musically inclined mind. Also, he sometimes spends a lot of time to explain concepts covered earlier, which makes for boring breaks in the otherwise very fluid writing. These complaints are fairly minor, though.

Overall, the book does what it sets out to do, with the caveat that a lot of the questions it raises must be answered with "we don't know" and some speculation based on current theories. Considering the scope of the questions, though, I guess we can't really hope for more. It is also a very inspirational book, and though it may be an exaggeration to say you'll never look at music the same way again, I suspect it does open the ears of non-musically inclined people like myself to many beautiful aspects of music.

[Soohyun · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was true and true pleasure while I was reading this book. I just started reading this for the topic research. It was't serious. But in the end this book becomes something so important and huge to me. I don't know what future awaits me. I don't know how my life leads and directs me. I don't know whether my life would disturb me to the way I want to go or not. I don't know anything. But I know now something for sure right now. This books have me realize myself more. This book gives me an idea, very exciting and ambitious. It got me from the nineth chapter. Just I feel so happy and full with joy.
By the way I just found the book, "The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Diasaurs." on his reference list.

[Christina · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was absolutely fascinating! I was captivated throughout the entire book. Excellently written with higher-level vocabulary and was entertaining and not too nitty gritty when it came to explaining the science behind music, but still very in-depth. The examples and figurative language used helped me understand the meanings of some of the scientific terms, and made everything crystal clear. I highly recommend this book, even to those who are not musicians or composers or not interested in this subject; if you listen to any sort of music, then this book is a must.

[Juan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Muy interesante estudio sobre la ciencia detrás de la música. El autor comienza describiendo la música como un fenómeno físico (ondas de sonido) y va subiendo el nivel de abstracción en cada capítulo, mis favoritos fueron los últimos, cuando habla sobre la composición y como escuchamos y entendemos la música.

[Preethi Krishnan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Its true. Music will never seem the same again

[Rahul Verma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Music, The Brain, and Ecstasy

The book is an in-depth exploration of how music and the mind are connected. It progresses through the sequence starting from tone, moving forward to melody, harmony…..understanding, and finally to ecstasy. I loved the way in each of the section the links between the human mind and music are examined and questioned from different perspectives such as history, psychology, neurology, and sociology. For me, the best discovery was how music’s progress depends much on and is limited to a great extent by the level of audience’s understanding and comprehension capability.
If after listening to music you wonder why you feel the way you feel, then this book can provide some of the answers. I felt the book had a very wide target audience in music listeners, composers, performers, music teachers, students, philosophers, and anybody interested in the working of the brain.

[Ismael de Leon H. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I had read this book years ago. Although it contains way too much information, I think it is important for me to go again through it and take notes on every concept that explains some aspect of the awe-inspiring phenomenon of music appreciation.

It is difficult to explain, but after going through every explanation, I realize that living and appreciating being alive has much in common with music appreciation. Evident psychological aspects of human beings come into play similarly on different sources of ecstasy-promoting disciplines.

There can hardly be another example of a study of the mind that can be so well explained and with excellent examples to solidly establish every point. In this case, the study has to do with music appreciation, but can vary well be extrapolated to every field of the mind.

[Pauline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of very interesting information in this book, though it also frequently had more background information on some topics than I really cared about. For the most part I was able to understand the concepts as long as I paid close attention, but occasionally I would read a few sentences over and over before finally concluding that I wasn't sure what Jourdain was saying and I might as well just shrug my shoulders and go on with what came next. It took me nearly two months to finish, which is a long time for me to spend on a book.
I learned a lot about what goes into the creation of music, both performance and composition, and the enjoyment of music, physically and emotionally, but in the end I'm not sure how well he explained why music is enjoyable, which was what he had set out to explain, or why we differ as we do in what kinds of music we enjoy.

[Kristin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would say this is really a 4.5 star book. The prose inclines a bit flowery at times, but the book is very informative, and I learned a lot. The main reason I didn't give it 5 stars is because I found the last chapter a bit disappointing, as I didn't feel that the author really answered the main question the book posed. This is still very well worth reading.

[Birdie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would say this is really a 4.5 star book. The prose inclines a bit flowery at times, but the book is very informative, and I learned a lot. The main reason I didn't give it 5 stars is because I found the last chapter a bit disappointing, as I didn't feel that the author really answered the main question the book posed. This is still very well worth reading.

[Candace · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ok, I wanted to love this book. I was excited to read it. I didn’t finish it. I’m giving 2 stars because there were a few passages that were interesting that I enjoyed. Overall, it is tedious and hard to engage with. Didn’t capture my interest enough for me to force myself to finish it. Will be looking for more intriguing books on this subject.

[Lyle Raymond · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although Jourdain’s language seems at times to betray a sense of elitism, and his treatment of post-tonal music can be negatively biased, this is a fine survey of the neurological aspects of the enjoyment of music.

Never too dry but perhaps slightly long enough to test one’s patience, Jourdain does an expert job in attempting to devise a sort of “unified theory” of music cognition.

[Alain Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Robert Jourdain has a phenomenal feeling to perceive the Music’s fundaments within our Mind. Regardless the reader’s Music level, it’s a brilliant reasoning. For Composers & Musicians, it’s deeply rewarding.