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Music and the Brain  By  cover art

Music and the Brain

By: Aniruddh D. Patel, The Great Courses
Narrated by: Aniruddh D. Patel
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Publisher's summary

Music is an integral part of humanity. Every culture has music, from the largest society to the smallest tribe. Its marvelous range of melodies, themes, and rhythms taps in to something universal. Babies are soothed by it. Young adults dance for hours to it. Older adults can relive their youth with the vivid memories it evokes. Music is part of our most important rituals, and it has been the medium of some of our greatest works of art.

Yet even though music is intimately woven into the fabric of our lives, it remains deeply puzzling, provoking questions such as: How and why did musical behavior originate? What gives mere tones such a powerful effect on our emotions? Are we born with our sense of music, or do we acquire it?

In the last 20 years, researchers have come closer to solving these riddles thanks to cognitive neuroscience, which integrates the study of human mental processes with the study of the brain. This exciting field has not only helped us address age-old questions about music; it also allows us to ask new ones, like: Do the brains of musicians differ from nonmusicians? Can musical training promote cognitive development? Is there a deep connection between music and language?

Join neuroscientist and professor of psychology Dr. Aniruddh Patel to probe one of the mind's most profound mysteries. Covering the latest research findings - from the origins of music's emotional powers to the deficits involved in amusia, or the inability to hear music - these 18 enthralling lectures will make you think about music and your brain in a new way.

Designed for music lovers and brain enthusiasts at all levels, Music and the Brain is truly interdisciplinary and assumes no prior background in neuroscience or music theory. Here is your unrivaled explanation of this marvelous gift.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.

©2015 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2015 The Great Courses

What listeners say about Music and the Brain

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Great content, awful editing

I really loved every bit of the content. The lectures are well prepared and careful designed so that the information is contextualized, arriving at the right time. However, I can't forgive the fact that the editing is just terrible. I know that people will make mistakes while reading, and that's where the editor comes in and fixes the audio. There are too many times where there are hiccups, words mispronounced and the flow stops; which could have been fixed beforehand. I hope the they receive enough complaints to make it right.

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52 people found this helpful

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This book is not about music and the brain.

This book is a boring discourse on evolution and has little to do with our brain and how music affects it. Would better be titled, "Our guess at how music evolved in our brains: An unproven work."

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43 people found this helpful

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    2 out of 5 stars
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Dry, passionless

Deathly dry delivery. Too much statistical information. Zero joy and power of music. Even the in-house compositions were expressionless. Mechanical delivery. Mechanical focus. Felt obliged to listen as is my career. Going to spend some sexy time with a Great Course Astrophysicist now and recuperate my joie-de-vivre!

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39 people found this helpful

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New Interesting Science

Would you listen to Music and the Brain again? Why?

Yes. There were many fascinating facts, and I don't remember them all. I love music, and want to understand it on every level.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Music and the Brain?

Humans have relative pitch perception, while most species have absolute pitch perception. That is why few people have perfect pitch, not just regular relative pitch perception. We perceive the octave, the fifth and other intervals because of that.

What does Professor Aniruddh D. Patel bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Music must be heard. I have a thorough enough understanding of music, I may have understood by reading, but I greatly appreciated the auditory examples, especially the illusions.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I would say fascinated and amazed.

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29 people found this helpful

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    2 out of 5 stars

Not the Best from the Great Courses

Expected something complex explained with clarity... as I have come to experience from the GC series. Got some complexity, not explained well, and not well organized. Very disappointing. Not one I recommend.

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20 people found this helpful

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Well done but not exactly what I wanted.

Like most of the Great Courses I have listened to, this course was well done. Unfortunately, it only partly addressed what I was looking for. Patel does a very thorough job of addressing the research into the effects of various components of Music on specific parts of the Brain.

I was more interested in the effects of Music on the whole Brain, Personality and Mental Health of the Listener. The last few chapters do address current research on Alzheimer, Parkinson’s and Stroke patients. He highlights some of the positive effects but points out that more research needs to be done.

The course’s emphasis on the arguments for Music as a product of Biological Evolution vs an acquired Human Practice was well presented but it’s more of interest to Academics and didn’t really hold my interest.

So I would recommend this course to Academic readers interested in the Neurological Effects of Music rather than Musicians and Music Lovers just interested in the overall effects of Music on the Culture and the Human Experience.

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13 people found this helpful

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Very interesting, and well presented

This is a very informative and interesting course on music and the brain. it has a couple confusing parts where the presenter was using visual aids, which are obviously not available here in audio format. other than that, this would be a five star presentation.

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4 people found this helpful

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fascinating

a little dry sometimes, but over all very fascinating. worth a bit of your time.

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4 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Depends on pictures

it never ceases to amaze me how many of these courses depend on video or pictures that are not supplied with the audiobook. Presumably they depend on people's aversion to returning books to make their money from these.

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3 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Learned a lot

The many musical and other audio examples added to these outstanding lectures. The only problem I had was some of it felt rushed, meaning I'll definitely give it a second listen.

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3 people found this helpful