The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature
The author of the New York Times bestseller This Is Your Brain on Music reveals music’s role in the evolution of human culture in this thought-provoking book that “will leave you awestruck” (The New York Times).

Daniel J. Levitin's astounding debut bestseller, This Is Your Brain on Music, enthralled and delighted readers as it transformed our understanding of how music gets in our heads and stays there. Now in his second New York Times bestseller, his genius for combining science and art reveals how music shaped humanity across cultures and throughout history.

Here he identifies six fundamental song functions or types—friendship, joy, comfort, religion, knowledge, and love—then shows how each in its own way has enabled the social bonding necessary for human culture and society to evolve. He shows, in effect, how these “six songs” work in our brains to preserve the emotional history of our lives and species.

Dr. Levitin combines cutting-edge scientific research from his music cognition lab at McGill University and work in an array of related fields; his own sometimes hilarious experiences in the music business; and illuminating interviews with musicians such as Sting and David Byrne, as well as conductors, anthropologists, and evolutionary biologists. The World in Six Songs is, ultimately, a revolution in our understanding of how human nature evolved—right up to the iPod.
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The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature
The author of the New York Times bestseller This Is Your Brain on Music reveals music’s role in the evolution of human culture in this thought-provoking book that “will leave you awestruck” (The New York Times).

Daniel J. Levitin's astounding debut bestseller, This Is Your Brain on Music, enthralled and delighted readers as it transformed our understanding of how music gets in our heads and stays there. Now in his second New York Times bestseller, his genius for combining science and art reveals how music shaped humanity across cultures and throughout history.

Here he identifies six fundamental song functions or types—friendship, joy, comfort, religion, knowledge, and love—then shows how each in its own way has enabled the social bonding necessary for human culture and society to evolve. He shows, in effect, how these “six songs” work in our brains to preserve the emotional history of our lives and species.

Dr. Levitin combines cutting-edge scientific research from his music cognition lab at McGill University and work in an array of related fields; his own sometimes hilarious experiences in the music business; and illuminating interviews with musicians such as Sting and David Byrne, as well as conductors, anthropologists, and evolutionary biologists. The World in Six Songs is, ultimately, a revolution in our understanding of how human nature evolved—right up to the iPod.
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The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature

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

by Daniel J. Levitin
The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature

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

by Daniel J. Levitin

Paperback(Reprint)

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Overview

The author of the New York Times bestseller This Is Your Brain on Music reveals music’s role in the evolution of human culture in this thought-provoking book that “will leave you awestruck” (The New York Times).

Daniel J. Levitin's astounding debut bestseller, This Is Your Brain on Music, enthralled and delighted readers as it transformed our understanding of how music gets in our heads and stays there. Now in his second New York Times bestseller, his genius for combining science and art reveals how music shaped humanity across cultures and throughout history.

Here he identifies six fundamental song functions or types—friendship, joy, comfort, religion, knowledge, and love—then shows how each in its own way has enabled the social bonding necessary for human culture and society to evolve. He shows, in effect, how these “six songs” work in our brains to preserve the emotional history of our lives and species.

Dr. Levitin combines cutting-edge scientific research from his music cognition lab at McGill University and work in an array of related fields; his own sometimes hilarious experiences in the music business; and illuminating interviews with musicians such as Sting and David Byrne, as well as conductors, anthropologists, and evolutionary biologists. The World in Six Songs is, ultimately, a revolution in our understanding of how human nature evolved—right up to the iPod.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780452295483
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date: 07/28/2009
Edition description: Reprint
Pages: 384
Sales rank: 142,590
Product dimensions: 5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Daniel J. Levitin, PhD, is a neuroscientist, cognitive psychologist, and bestselling author. He is Founding Dean of Arts & Humanities at the Minerva Schools at KGI in San Francisco, and Professor Emeritus of psychology and neuroscience at McGill University. He is the author of This Is Your Brain on Music, The World in Six Songs, The Organized Mind, A Field Guide to Lies, and Successful Aging. He divides his time between Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area.

Table of Contents

The World in Six SongsChapter 1: Taking It from the Top or "The Hills Are Alive . . ."

Music and poetry. The two uniquely human components of the music brain.

Chapter 2: Friendship or "War (What Is It Good For)?"

Social bonding, synchronous coordinated movement, the evolution of emotional bonding, protest music for group cohesion.

Chapter 3: Joy or "Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut"

The first song. Neurochemical effects of music and music therapy.

Chapter 4: Comfort or "Before There Was Prozac, There Was You"

Why we listen to sad music when we're sad. Lullabyes and the blues. (And a short story about depressed restaurant workers pushed to the edge by a happy song.)

Chapter 5: Knowledge or "I Need to Know"

Music as an information-bearing medium. Learning, memory, and oral histories.

Chapter 6: Religion or "People Get Ready"

The role of music and ritual in creating order, reducing ambiguity, and commemorating important times and events.

Chapter 7: Love or "Bring 'Em All In"

The sense of hearing and the prefrontal cortex. Tools, musical instruments, and shaping the environment. The evolution of social structure.

Appendix
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index

What People are Saying About This

Scott Turow

"This wonderful, lucid book takes on one of the great eternal questions: Why is there music? What does music do for humanity-for individual development and for a culture--that in turn accounts for its existence in every known society? Daniel Levitin is not only the preeminent expert in answering such questions, but one of those unique writers about science who understands his field so profoundly that he can make the complex straightforward. This is an exciting, revelatory book."--(Scott Turow, author of Presumed Innocent and Ordinary Heroes)

Sting

"Music seems to have an almost willful, evasive quality, defying simple explanation, so that the more we find out, the more there is to know, leaving its power and mystery intact, however much we may dig and delve. Daniel's book is an eloquent and poetic exploration of this paradox. There may be no simple answer or end in sight, but the ride is nonetheless a thrilling one, especially in the company of a writer who is an accomplished musician, a poet, a hard-nosed scientist, and someone who can still look upon the universe with a sense of wonder."

Elizabeth Gilbert

"Daniel Levitin writes about music with all the exuberance of a die-hard fan, and all the insight of a natural-born scientist. This is a fascinating, entertaining book, and some of its most inventive themes may stay stick in your head forever, something like a well-loved song."--(Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love)

From the Publisher

"A must-read. . .A literary, poetic, scientific, and musical treat."
-Seattle Times

"An exemplary mix of scientist and artist, student and teacher, performer and listener."
-Library Journal, starred review

"A fantastic ride."
-New Scientist

"Leading researchers in music cognition are already singing its praises."
-Evolutionary Psychology

Jamshed Bharucha

"I was skeptical when I began reading. The stated goal seemed outlandish. But by the time I was about one-third the way into The World in Six Songs, I realized just how powerful it is. It really is a tour de force. It is exquisitely written, and brings together a vast array of knowledge, tying things together in creative ways, while always remaining accessible. This promises to be not only another widely read hit, but also an important document for the field of music cognition."--(Jamshed Bharucha, Provost and Professor of Psychology, Tufts University)

Jon Appleton

"To try to cover the meaning of music throughout the history of mankind to how we still use it everyday is extraordinarily ambitious. Combining musical expertise, psychology, anthropology and evolutionary science, Daniel Levitin's Six Songs has accomplished this astonishing task."--(Jon Appleton, Composer and Professor of Music, Dartmouth College and Stanford University)

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