- Email: [email protected]
Book Review: Why music gets the brain excited
Review Musicophilia: Tales of music and the brain by Oliver Sacks, Picador/Knopf, £17.99/$26, ISBN 9780330418379/9781400040810
HOW MUSIC MOVES US ALL Music does some remarkably strange things to the brain. Frances H. Rauscher is inspired by a valiant attempt to make it all make sense
■
THOMAS GRAY/MILLENNIUM
THE cover of Oliver Sacks’s new book shows the author listening to Beethoven’s Pathétique Sonata. He looks ecstatic, which is appropriate for his exploration of the marvels of music, in particular the intricate relationship between music and the brain. Musicophilia is a wonderfully good read. A renowned neurologist and prolific writer, Sacks was raised in a “house full of music”, though it wasn’t until 1966 when he started working with sleeping sickness patients that he began to wonder about its therapeutic qualities. These patients – the basis for his
book Awakenings – had survived an encephalitis outbreak in the 1920s which left many of them in frozen state, unable to move. Yet they would come alive to music and dance and sing, only to retreat into their frozen state once the music stopped. Sacks later used an experimental drug on them which resulted in miraculous, if temporary, recovery. The new book is essentially a collection of compelling case studies like this. He writes of a musician who had suffered such severe damage to his temporal lobe that he could not recognise his children nor recall anything
for more than 10 seconds after it happened – yet he could conduct an entire symphony. Another man developed extraordinary musical gifts after being struck by lightning, rising thereafter in the middle of the night to play his compositions on the piano and attempt to notate them, and generally becoming obsessed by music. In another chapter, Sacks writes about people who experience vivid musical hallucinations. More disturbingly, he tells of people who cannot perceive music at all, a condition known as amusia. Sacks himself has experienced amusia twice, once while listening to a Chopin ballade in his car and once while playing the piano. He describes the experience as “a sort of toneless banging with an unpleasant metallic reverberation, as if the [music] were being played with a hammer on sheet metal”. Some people suffer an even more bizarre condition in which they experience pitch distortions of up to a minor third in certain ranges. How do such idiosyncrasies
come about? Why do people with dementia, aphasia and Parkinson’s often benefit from music therapy? More generally, can these case studies that Sacks relates so eloquently tell us anything important about cognition and the structure and workings of the brain? Sacks answers these up to a point, though he might have gone further with the last one. For example, the cases he discusses suggest there is very little
“He developed a gift for music after being struck by lightning” evidence for a “music centre” in the brain; the various skills involved in playing and appreciating music appear to have a certain degree of neural independence. Furthermore, it appears that the brain areas responsible for music partially overlap with those responsible for language. While Sacks offers scientific explanations for the unusual phenomena he reports, the book would have benefited had he taken the discussion of these kinds of complex issues further, for they are at the cutting edge of research into music cognition. That said, his research is unquestionably current, and he includes several studies that have not yet reached publication. These are captivating tales, and Sacks’s storytelling is vivid and informative. His great strength is in putting faces to the neurological conditions that scientists study. There have been several books written on music and the brain in recent years and this is among the best. It should inspire doctors and scientists, and anyone with an interest in understanding the role of music in human life. It has given me greater insight into the power of music to move us, even when we may not wish to be moved. ● Frances H. Rauscher is professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh
52 | NewScientist | 8 December 2007
www.newscientist.com
HOW MUSIC MOVES US ALL Music does some remarkably strange things to the brain. Frances H. Rauscher is inspired by a valiant attempt to make it all make sense
■
THOMAS GRAY/MILLENNIUM
THE cover of Oliver Sacks’s new book shows the author listening to Beethoven’s Pathétique Sonata. He looks ecstatic, which is appropriate for his exploration of the marvels of music, in particular the intricate relationship between music and the brain. Musicophilia is a wonderfully good read. A renowned neurologist and prolific writer, Sacks was raised in a “house full of music”, though it wasn’t until 1966 when he started working with sleeping sickness patients that he began to wonder about its therapeutic qualities. These patients – the basis for his
book Awakenings – had survived an encephalitis outbreak in the 1920s which left many of them in frozen state, unable to move. Yet they would come alive to music and dance and sing, only to retreat into their frozen state once the music stopped. Sacks later used an experimental drug on them which resulted in miraculous, if temporary, recovery. The new book is essentially a collection of compelling case studies like this. He writes of a musician who had suffered such severe damage to his temporal lobe that he could not recognise his children nor recall anything
for more than 10 seconds after it happened – yet he could conduct an entire symphony. Another man developed extraordinary musical gifts after being struck by lightning, rising thereafter in the middle of the night to play his compositions on the piano and attempt to notate them, and generally becoming obsessed by music. In another chapter, Sacks writes about people who experience vivid musical hallucinations. More disturbingly, he tells of people who cannot perceive music at all, a condition known as amusia. Sacks himself has experienced amusia twice, once while listening to a Chopin ballade in his car and once while playing the piano. He describes the experience as “a sort of toneless banging with an unpleasant metallic reverberation, as if the [music] were being played with a hammer on sheet metal”. Some people suffer an even more bizarre condition in which they experience pitch distortions of up to a minor third in certain ranges. How do such idiosyncrasies
come about? Why do people with dementia, aphasia and Parkinson’s often benefit from music therapy? More generally, can these case studies that Sacks relates so eloquently tell us anything important about cognition and the structure and workings of the brain? Sacks answers these up to a point, though he might have gone further with the last one. For example, the cases he discusses suggest there is very little
“He developed a gift for music after being struck by lightning” evidence for a “music centre” in the brain; the various skills involved in playing and appreciating music appear to have a certain degree of neural independence. Furthermore, it appears that the brain areas responsible for music partially overlap with those responsible for language. While Sacks offers scientific explanations for the unusual phenomena he reports, the book would have benefited had he taken the discussion of these kinds of complex issues further, for they are at the cutting edge of research into music cognition. That said, his research is unquestionably current, and he includes several studies that have not yet reached publication. These are captivating tales, and Sacks’s storytelling is vivid and informative. His great strength is in putting faces to the neurological conditions that scientists study. There have been several books written on music and the brain in recent years and this is among the best. It should inspire doctors and scientists, and anyone with an interest in understanding the role of music in human life. It has given me greater insight into the power of music to move us, even when we may not wish to be moved. ● Frances H. Rauscher is professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh
52 | NewScientist | 8 December 2007
www.newscientist.com