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Whether you listen to Bach or Bono, music has a significant role in your life--even if you never realized it. Why does music evoke such powerful moods? The answers are at last becoming clear, thanks to revolutionary neuroscience and the emerging field of evolutionary psychology. Both a cutting-edge study and a tribute to the beauty of music itself, this book unravels a host of mysteries that affect everything from pop culture to our understanding...
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"Oliver Sacks explores the place music occupies in the brain and how it affects the human condition. In Musicophilia, he shows us a variety of what he calls "musical misalignments." Among them: a man struck by lightning who suddenly desires to become a pianist at the age of forty-two; an entire group of children with Williams syndrome, who are hypermusical from birth; people with "amusia, " to whom a symphony sounds like the clattering of pots and...
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"How does time shape consciousness, and consciousness, time? Do we live in time, or does time live in us? And how does music, with its patterns of rhythm and harmony, inform our experience of time? Uncommon Measure: Reflections on Music, Performance, and the Science of Time explores these questions from the perspective of a young Korean American who dedicated herself to perfecting her art until, crippled by performance anxiety, she was forced to give...
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"Why are we able to recognize melodies before we are born? Why does making music actually switch off the genes that signal stress? It is because music is part of who we are at the deepest level-and we don't need any special talent or training to harness its power to enhance our lives. With Music Medicine, music therapist Christine Stevens presents an information-packed resource, filled with scientifically based practices for accessing and attuning...
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*Updated with a new chapter on digital curation* "How Music Works is David Byrne's incisive and enthusiastic look at the musical art form, from its very inceptions to the influences that shape it, whether acoustical, economic, social or technological. Utilizing his incomparable career and inspired collaborations with Talking Heads, Brian Eno, and many others, Byrne taps deeply into his lifetime of knowledge to explore the panoptic elements of music,...
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"A surprising look at the hidden power of sound, revealing how people and brands can use it to inspire and persuade -- or annoy From horror movie scores to national anthems to the crunchy sound of potato chips, sound and music greatly impact how we feel about our lives and the messages and products we encounter every day. With the right tools and understanding, anyone can cut through the meaningless noise competing for our attention and learn to use...
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In September 1941, Adolf Hitler's Wehrmacht surrounded Leningrad in what was to become one of the longest and most destructive sieges in Western history -- almost three years of bombardment and starvation that culminated in the harsh winter of 1943-1944. More than a million citizens perished. Survivors recall corpses littering the frozen streets, their relatives having neither the means nor the strength to bury them. Residents burned books, furniture,...
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"A legendary record producer-turned-brain scientist explains why you fall in love with music. This Is What It Sounds Like is a journey into the science and soul of music that reveals the secrets of why your favorite songs move you. But it's also a story of a musical trailblazer who began as a humble audio tech in Los Angeles to became Prince's chief engineer for Purple Rain, and then create other No. 1 hits (including Barenaked Ladies' "One Week")...
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"Why does music affect us so profoundly? The songs we love do far more than bring back happy memories. They impact the way we think, talk, feel, behave, and even spend money. With his conversational style, humor, and endless knowledge, scientist and musician John Powell explores the fascinating science of music, showing that shoppers spend more money in stores that play classical music and that music can even change the flavor of wine! With chapters...
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Levitin explores how the evolution of our brains made music, art, science, and society possible. He uncovers six fundamental ways that songs communicate emotion and ideas--songs of friendship, joy, comfort, religion, knowledge and love--and so have built human nature. Mixing cutting-edge neuroscience, his own sometimes hilarious experiences in the music business, and illuminating interviews with experts from Sting and David Byrne to conductors, anthropologists,...
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"Berlioz should know. He didn't just hear the symphony when he fell in love with an Irish actress back in 1827, he wrote it. What was love like for the people who could really feel that song coming on? Symphony of Seduction tells of the romantic misadventures, tragedies and occasional triumphs of some of classical music's great composers, and traces the music that emerged as a result.For the eccentric Erik Satie, love came just once - and even then,...