The book I read was in your eyes...

Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain


I'm not normally into book reviews, but this book is an exception. I originally read Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks for a university module.... I soon grew to love this book as it is devoted to the cognitive miracles of music.
I never thought about it before reading this book, but it's amazing that if I merely type "the Mission: Impossible theme tune" or "Beethoven's Fifth", you will probably start humming these tunes to yourself.


It's something we all take for granted, but how is it possible? What is going on in our brains? Oliver sacks says "It really is a very odd business that all of us, to varying degrees, have music in our heads."


Oliver Sacks's interesting and sympathetic study is about the pathologies of musical response and what they might teach us about the "normal" faculty of music. It reports that a musician's brain is easily distinguishable on a scan from those of others; and the passage from ear to brain is not a one-way conduit, but works both ways. Mostly Musicophilia is about the more mysterious, and currently inexplicable ways in which music affects the brain, for good or worse. 


Musicophilia outlines some very remarkable stories about those with profound Amnesia, or Alzheimer's disease, for whom music can "restore them to themselves". Also, People with aphasia can be taught to speak again through singing. On the other hand, previously healthy people begin to have "musical hallucinations" and others have seizures in response to music. As a musician, the thought of developing any kind of "musicogenic epilepsy" both scares and intrigues me.


There is, of course, a continuum between the pathological states that Musicophilia discusses and everyday experiences of music. The phenomenon of irritating tunes and jingles that get lodged in our heads is only one step away from a full-blown musical hallucination and Oliver Sacks also compares it to the obsessive ticcing of Tourette's syndrome. It is intriguing, too, to wonder where on the continuum certain historical figures could be placed. Here, for example, is Tchaikovsky as a child: "This music! It is here in my head. Save me from it!" Was he suffering from vivid musical hallucinations, which he learned to manage by writing them down?


At the other end of the continuum are those Sacks describes as "amusic", who do not seem to understand or feel music at all, this is a condition that is completely alien to me. He considers with pity the case of Vladimir Nabokov, who famously said he experienced music merely as "an arbitrary succession of more or less irritating sounds". Another lady also described her experience of listening to music as "knives and forks falling to the ground".


Another part of the book which caught my attention were the stories of people who were awakened to profound musical powers after some kind of brain injury. For example, a 42-year-old man struck by lightning suddenly experiences an unquenchable thirst for music, learns to play the piano, and becomes a composer.


I recommend this book to anyone, It has really got my brain going!