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The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature (2008)

door Daniel J. Levitin

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6661534,436 (3.35)31
The author of This Is Your Brain on Music showcases his theory of how the brain evolved to play and listen to music in six fundamental forms--for knowledge, friendship, religion, joy, comfort, and love. Preserving the emotional history of our lives and of our species, from its very beginning music was also allied to dance, as the structure of the brain confirms; developing this neurological observation, Levitin shows how music and dance enabled the social bonding and friendship necessary for human culture and society to evolve. Blending scientific findings with his own experiences as a musician and music-industry professional, Levitin also incorporates wisdom gleaned from interviews with icons ranging from Sting and Paul Simon to Joni Mitchell, and David Byrne, along with classical musicians and conductors, historians, anthropologists, and evolutionary biologists.--From publisher description.… (meer)
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1-5 van 15 worden getoond (volgende | toon alle)
La tesi che il libro vuole dimostrare è a dir poco ambiziosa ("tutto ciò che la musica ha fatto per l'uomo può fondamentalmente essere riassunto in sei tipi di canzoni") e benché Levitin faccia di tutto per dimostrarlo le sue argomentazioni convincono solo fino a un certo punto, soprattutto quando il confine fra un tipo di canzone e l'altro è molto debole e/o quando il racconto indulge un po' troppo in episodi personali. I tanti testi citati non sempre aiutano, probabilmente il messaggio di Fatti di musica era più forte (oltre che per il maggio rigore e la compattezza della struttura)perché là si parlava per l'appunto più di musica che di canzoni. ( )
  d.v. | May 16, 2023 |
Fascinating reading.
  Elizabeth80 | Oct 18, 2020 |
Warning! You probably won't be able to get through this book without stopping to listen to the songs the author mentions. I discovered some new ones, and listened to many old favourites while reading this book.

The book is not what I expected. It's not based on scientific research or a hypothesis. Rather, it presents the author's personal framework for how music forms the core of human nature,and how it helped the brain evolve. It was interesting, but rambled a bit.

Another unexpected element is the mismatch between the title and the contents. My husband asked me which were the six songs. And,there aren't six songs, but six types of songs. And should have been more than six types, as I think he sometimes "shoe-horned" songs into his framework. ( )
  LynnB | Sep 1, 2020 |
Summary: Proposes that all the world's songs can be grouped into six categories, and explores the evolutionary, cultural, and musical reasons for each category.

According to Daniel J. Levitin, I could reorganize the music in my collection into six categories--at least the music meant to be sung.

They are songs of:

Friendship: These are the songs that emphasize the bonds within a group, from the classic "Smokin' in the Boys Room" to protest songs like "For What It's Worth" that promoted solidarity around a cause.

Joy: Songs that express delight, the thrill of a wonderful experience, or of just being alive. These include everything from ad jingles like "Sometimes I feel like a nut" to "You are My Sunshine" and often have a TRIP structure (Tension, Reaction, Imagination and Prediction). Singing these songs often releases endorphins and oxytocin, hormones often release during peak physical experiences including sex.

Comfort: These are the cathartic songs that lift our spirits in times of crisis, from "God Bless America" (during the aftermath of 9/11) to many country and blues songs, that comfort through the release of prolactin, a hormone associated with crying replacing sorrow with a kind of peacefulness and hopefulness for the future.

Knowledge: Many of these are songs that convey information that help us learn everything from the alphabet (A-B-C-D-E-F-G) to counting songs like "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" to "Thirty Days Hath September." He explores why sung words are so readily remembered (as I found out the Karaoke night when I got called out to sing "American Pie" and discovered I knew most of it from memory!).

Religion: He includes here all the songs we use for the important rituals of our lives such as "Pomp and Circumstance" and "The Wedding March" and why they are not appropriate outside certain settings. He proposes evolutionary origins behind why music may be so powerfully connected to the rituals that express ultimate human concerns.

Love: He explores the paradoxical quality of the romantic songs we sing and how they often express some ideal version of real human relationships. Yet there are others that express more realistically the choices in love, such as Johnny Cash's "I Walk the Line," the line being one between marital faithfulness and philandering.

The author is a researcher in Music Perception, Cognition and Expertise at McGill University, but has also worked as a professional musician and music producer. What is surprising is that this is not a research-based book. There is no research by Levitin or others cited to justify his six categories. It seems, rather that this is simply his own conceptual schema, which he fills out in this book. Chapters are made up of a mix of musical examples, musical anecdotes including interviews with musicians ranging from Joni Mitchell and Paul Simon to David Byrne and Sting. He also incorporates speculative theory on evolutionary origins of particular aspects and effects of music, and draws on cognitive research on the neurophysiology of music, a field where he has made his own contributions, as may be found on his website [http://daniellevitin.com/publicpage/books/the-world-in-six-songs/].

I found this an interesting but rather "rambling" book. The particular song type of each chapter seems just a starting point for a wide-ranging mix of research, song lyrics and anecdote, that doesn't always seem well connected, but certainly reflects his wide experiences playing with bands like Blue Oyster Cult, visiting the hotel suite where John Lennon, Yoko Ono, staged their "bed-in" and recorded "Give Peace a Chance," as well as his explorations of evolutionary biology and cognitive research.

I came across a small factual error where he refers to the four "student protesters" (p. 69) who were killed at Kent State. In actual fact, only two of the four were protesters, the other two were students in the vicinity walking between classes who were not part of the protests. This factual inaccuracy (easily checked online) led me to wonder about the author's method and how much he relied on recollection as opposed to carefully documented and cross-checked research. I would probably place the highest confidence in those areas most directly related to his own field of cognition.

One of the most moving sections was in his chapter on "Religion." He writes of attending his Jewish grandmother's funeral and the powerful effect of singing a version of Psalm 131. He writes:

"It was not the memorial speeches that brought us to tears, not the lowering of her casket into the ground, but the haunting strains of that hymn that broke through our stoic veneer and tapped those trapped feelings, pushed down deep beneath the surface of our daily lives; by the end of the song, there wasn't a dry cheek among our group. It was this event that helped all of us accept the death of my grandmother, to mourn appropriately, and ultimately, to replace rumination with resolution. Without music as a catalyst, as the Trojan horse that allowed access to our most private thoughts--and perhaps fears of our own mortality--the morning would have been incomplete, the feelings would have stayed locked inside us, where they might have fermented and built up tension, finally exploding out of us at some distant time in the future and for no apparent reason. Grandma was gone; we had shared the realization and etched it in our minds, sealed with a song" (p. 228).

While Levitin's ideas sometimes get lost in his rambling narratives, his categories and discussion do help us understand the different ways that music powerfully works in our lives, and what might be going on in our brains as it does so. ( )
  BobonBooks | Aug 27, 2017 |
First off, this book should to be retitled. Instead of "The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature" it ought to be called "Evolution and Music: How the Great and Powerful Evolution Gifted Us with Music." The six songs aspect of the book, in spite of the title and layout of the chapters, was more of an afterthought than the main point of this book, and the way that Levitin speaks of evolution is like he's speaking about a being, rather than a force of nature. Which brings up another complaint. I follow the Church's teaching on evolution laid out here, and as such, I would have been okay with discussions on evolution if Levitin had been willing to discuss evolution as the theory that it is, instead of trying to make it look like it is as much of a law as the law of gravity. It bothered me and I do think that there has been at least some evolution, if someone who believed purely in creationism was reading the book, then the constant discussion of evolution in this way would have meant that the said creationist would almost certainly have shut down and not considered the few interesting things that Levitin had to say, because of the way that discussions on evolution were carried out.

I was skeptical of the "six songs" view, and unfortunately, Levitin's meager discussions on the subject that gave the book its title, were not enough to win me over to his view. His six song types are friendship, joy, comfort, religion, knowledge and love.

In his discussion of friendship, he attempted to claim that work, propaganda, protest, war, and peace songs were all friendship songs. I'm sorry even if you can argue work songs into the friendship category because they help people to coordinate their movement, and you can argue that war and propaganda could be the same, or that propaganda and protest are the same, you can't put all of those together under friendship. In the chapter on friendship Levitin also tried to sell me drugs. Seriously, there were whole paragraphs on the effects of drugs, and why we should try them. He named some of his favorite artists who had used drugs 'responsibly,' but quite a bit of the discussion was just talking about what different drugs do to the brain, without even mentioning the effect they have on a person's enjoyment of music. It was in this dreadful chapter, also that Levitin decided that a) he could misrepresent history, and b) he could decide who deserves to be saved from genocide, and who doesn't.

Levitin said "I understood World War II--my grandfather had fought in that, and although the war was terrible, the reason for it was clear. A tyrant was trying to kill all the Jews; we were Jewish, and some countries came to our aid." While I do agree that the genocide of the Jews would have justified WWII, even if it weren't already justified, that isn't why any of the countries that fought Hitler fought him. Most of the countries of Europe were still anti-Semitic themselves, and it was the Holocaust that helped to wake them up to the horrors that this way of thinking could produce, and none of them were fighting to save the Jews. They were fighting to save themselves and/or their allies.

Levitin then claims, multiple times, that the war in Vietnam was not justifiable. I still don't know where I stand on the subject of the Vietnam war, the justifications for the Vietnam War are certainly less black and white than WWII, but it can still be justified. I have Vietnamese friends who would probably never have been able to escape the Viet Kong if the US hadn't gone to fight. The treatment of Cardinal Nguyễn Văn Thuận and other political prisoners of the North Vietnamese alone is enough to make one reevaluate one's position on the war. Add to that the fact that the Cambodian genocide occurred, in part, because the US pulled out (right when they could have won) and you may really be filled with doubt. I didn't live during the Vietnam War, so like I said, I really don't know where I stand on its justification, but what I got from Levitin's approach on the subject (that really didn't need to be in this book in the first place) was that the genocide of the Jews was evil and unacceptable (which is true) but the genocide of people in small Asian countries was fine (which is not true.)

The discussion of joyful songs was much more convincing than the discussion of friendship songs. For one thing, Levitin actually managed to (mostly) stay on topic, and not list a slew of different song types that he believes to be part of joy.

The chapter on comfort was also (mostly) on subject, but Levitin started it by telling half of a story, then explaining about his theories on why we find comforting songs comforting, and what songs we find comforting, before going back to finish the story. By that time I'd put the first half of the story out of my mind and mostly forgotten about it. It didn't seem very important, so the return of the narrative forced me to go back to the beginning of the chapter and remind myself of what the heck was going on in the story.

He used the same broken up storytelling/facts/storytelling in the knowledge chapter, to the same unfortunate mistake. He also seemed like he was doing a lot of name dropping throughout the book, but it was particularly bad in this chapter. Levitin did manage to make me want to travel to Yugoslavia and Gola of West Africa to hear the ballads and song/storytelling there.

I went into the religion chapter apprehensively. I am Catholic, and, in spite of his statement that he was Jewish, the vibes I was getting from Levitin was that he was either a liberal atheist or a liberal agnostic. He wasn't horrible, but he wasn't great either. At one point he said one of the most significant events of all times was the 'invention' of monotheism. -_- Even if he isn't Jewish now, having once been, you'd think he'd at least consider the possibility that monotheism has been around since before polytheism. He also made a statement that 'none of us have ancestors who died in infancy.' This depends on who you consider your ancestors, I mean, would a great-aunt or uncle who died in infancy not be an ancestor? Obviously no one from the straight line of your family has died in infancy, but the siblings of your great-great-great-grandparents could arguably be your ancestors. I also don't remember the verse of 'God Told Noah' that Levitin quotes, and frankly, it doesn't feel like it fits correctly into the verse rhythm. And his claim that we do 'jazz hands' on the word glory... Phfft. No we wave our hands back and forth above our head, we don't jiggle them next to our faces.

And then there was the love chapter. Levitin first acknowledged that what current society deems as 'love' isn't truly love, then goes on to talk about society's 'love' songs, as well as outright lust songs, but pretty much ignore the actual love songs, as well as actual love. Every chapter went on some kind of a tangent about how, when and why 'mother evolution' provided us with each kind of song, but the love chapter was the crowning glory of evolutionary tangents. Levitin talked about everything from why we are less likely to jump at the noise after seeing a pin pop a balloon a couple of times, to how our 'ear hairs' are similar to an insect's leg hairs. This chapter was just plain painful to read. It felt like Levitin was trying to draw it out as long as he possibly could. The last few pages were devoted to hero-worship of a couple of a couple of pop-musicians, none of whom I'd ever heard of.

That was another major problem with the work. Levitin mostly uses pop artists from between the 1960s and the 1980s, mostly from the US, Canada, and the UK. This may have made the examples recognizable for many people I'm sure, but I'm pop-musically challenged, and recognized very few of the artists and songs he talked about. Whenever he wasn't using pop-artists, he usually used hypothetical music that he believes the early humans would have used (often presenting his belief that they would have used these kinds of songs as fact, rather than a possibility.)

Because Levitin spent a relatively small portion of the book actually developing his hypothesis that there are only six kinds of songs in the world, he didn't even come close to convincing me to take this position. In addition to war, peace, propaganda, protest and lust, I feel that Levitin missed sad songs. He briefly mentioned this in the chapters on comfort and religion, and I do agree that songs of sadness and heartbreak will sometimes fall dually in those areas, but I also feel that they deserve their own category. Another type I felt that was skipped over was songs of determination. Determination songs could fall under protest songs, but while I was thinking of this I was thinking of Beethoven's fifth symphony, which was written right about the time Beethoven lost his hearing. Beethoven was depressed and seriously considered suicide, but chose not to because he thought that the music he hadn't written yet deserved to be heard. This quote; "I shall seize Fate by the throat; it shall certainly not bend and crush me completely," has been associated with the fifth symphony, and while the symphony is too complex to be called a 'song' if there is a more simplified vocal song encapsulating these feelings, then it would be a determination song without being easily placed in any of the other categories. And "Sweet Liberty" from the Jane Eyre musical is full of longing without being either a comfort song or a love song.

Then there are songs of vengeance. Where are they in Levitin's book? Or songs about making plans? Like In the Dark of the Night or Be Prepared. Even if we used the excuse that these songs aren't songs of vengeance or planning because they're in movies and only meant for entertainment, there would still be entertainment songs left without a category. Given the fact that Friends on the Other Side doesn't strictly fit into either making plans or vengeance, but simply acting on evil desires, where does that song go?

There really are an infinite number of categories and sub-categories that Levitin chose to ignore.

When I read the first chapter (that was really more like an introduction) I was thinking, okay, this book isn't great but it wasn't as bad as I'd heard it was, I can probably give it three stars. By the time I was done with the second chapter, I knew it wasn't going to be much fun, but was prepared to give it two stars. By the time I finally finished it, I could only give it one star. Sorry.

Hopefully this review wasn't as painfully long and rambling as Levitin's book. Anyhow, I'm off to reorganize it, remove all personal pronouns and (probably) shorten it so that I can turn it in as a book report. ( )
  ComposingComposer | Jun 1, 2016 |
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Daniel J. Levitinprimaire auteuralle editiesberekend
Röckel, SusanneÜbersetzerSecundaire auteursommige editiesbevestigd
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On my desk right now I have a stack of music CDs that couldn't be more different: an eighteenth-century opera by Martin Marais whose lyrics describe the gory details of a surgical operation; a North African griot singing a song, offered to businessmen passing by in the hopes of securing a handout; a piece written 185 years ago that requires 120 musicians to perform it properly, each of them reading a very specific and inviolable part off of a page (Beethoven's Symphony no. 9).
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The author of This Is Your Brain on Music showcases his theory of how the brain evolved to play and listen to music in six fundamental forms--for knowledge, friendship, religion, joy, comfort, and love. Preserving the emotional history of our lives and of our species, from its very beginning music was also allied to dance, as the structure of the brain confirms; developing this neurological observation, Levitin shows how music and dance enabled the social bonding and friendship necessary for human culture and society to evolve. Blending scientific findings with his own experiences as a musician and music-industry professional, Levitin also incorporates wisdom gleaned from interviews with icons ranging from Sting and Paul Simon to Joni Mitchell, and David Byrne, along with classical musicians and conductors, historians, anthropologists, and evolutionary biologists.--From publisher description.

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