
The World in Six Songs
How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature
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Narrated by:
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Daniel J. Levitin
About this listen
The author of the New York Times best seller 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 best seller, This Is Your Brain on Music, enthralled and delighted audiences as it transformed our understanding of how music gets in our heads and stays there. Now in his second New York Times best seller, 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.
©2008 Daniel J. Levitin (P)2020 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“A must-read.... A literary, poetic, scientific, and musical treat.” (Seattle Times)
“Why can a song make you cry in a matter of seconds? Six Songs is the only book that explains why.” (Bobby McFerrin, 10-time Grammy Award-winning artist (“Don't Worry, Be Happy”))
“Leading researchers in music cognition are already singing its praises.” (Evolutionary Psychology)
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First published in 2000, Words and Rules remains one of Pinker's most provocative and accessible books, illuminating the fascinating relationship between the brain, the mind, and how language makes us humans.
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Amazing how much irregular verbs can teach.
- By Tristan on 04-10-16
By: Steven Pinker
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The Element
- How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything
- By: Ken Robinson Ph.D.
- Narrated by: Ken Robinson Ph. D., Lou Aronica
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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The Element shows the vital need to enhance creativity and innovation by thinking differently about human resources and imagination. It is an essential strategy for transforming education, business, and communities to meet the challenges of living and succeeding in the 21st century.
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Not Great
- By Samantha on 04-02-12
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The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking
- How Irrational Beliefs Keep Us Happy, Healthy, and Sane
- By: Matthew Hutson
- Narrated by: Matthew Hutson, Don Hagen
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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In this witty and perceptive debut, a former editor at Psychology Today shows us how magical thinking makes life worth living. Psychologists have documented a litany of cognitive biases and explained their positive functions. Now, Matthew Hutson shows us that even the most hardcore skeptic indulges in magical thinking all the time - and it's crucial to our survival. Drawing on evolution, cognitive science, and neuroscience, Hutson shows us that magical thinking has been so useful to us that it's hardwired into our brains.
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Highly enjoyable
- By David R Pinsof on 05-01-12
By: Matthew Hutson
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The Age of Empathy
- Nature's Lessons for a Kinder Society
- By: Frans de Waal
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Is it really human nature to stab one another in the back in our climb up the corporate ladder? Competitive, selfish behavior is often explained away as instinctive, thanks to evolution and "survival of the fittest", but in fact, humans are equally hard-wired for empathy. Using research from the fields of anthropology, psychology, animal behavior, and neuroscience, Frans de Waal brilliantly argues that humans are group animals.
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A Lot Of Things In Common With Our Animal Friends!
- By James on 08-14-11
By: Frans de Waal
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Memory Craft
- Improve Your Memory with the Most Powerful Methods in History
- By: Lynne Kelly
- Narrated by: Nancy Linari
- Length: 8 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Groundbreaking anthropologist and memory champion Lynne Kelly reveals how we can use ancient and traditional mnemonic methods to enhance and expand our memory.
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So grateful this is on Audible!
- By happy_reader on 02-19-22
By: Lynne Kelly
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The Bond
- Connecting Through the Space Between Us
- By: Lynne McTaggart
- Narrated by: Karen White
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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From the best-selling author of The Intention Experiment and The Field comes a groundbreaking new work---a book that uses the interconnectedness of mind and matter to demonstrate that the key to life is in the relationship between things. We are always connected with others, hardwired at our most elemental level---from the quantum level to the cellular, from personal relationships to business and societal structures.
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Horrible narrator
- By Cotran on 09-19-11
By: Lynne McTaggart
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A General Theory of Love
- By: Richard Lannon MD, Thomas Lewis MD, Fari Amini MD
- Narrated by: Chris Sorensen
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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This original and lucid account of the complexities of love and its essential role in human well-being draws on the latest scientific research. Three eminent psychiatrists tackle the difficult task of reconciling what artists and thinkers have known for thousands of years about the human heart with what has only recently been learned about the primitive functions of the human brain.
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Great subject matter-hard to listen to
- By Laurel on 07-22-19
By: Richard Lannon MD, and others
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The Worm at the Core
- On the Role of Death in Life
- By: Jeff Greenberg, Sheldon Solomon, Tom Pyszczynski
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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More than 100 years ago, the American philosopher William James wrote that the knowledge that we must die is "the worm at the core" of the human condition - a universally shared fear that informs all our thoughts and actions, from the great art we create to the devastating wars we wage.
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Skeptical at first, but they won me over.
- By Tory Giddens on 06-07-20
By: Jeff Greenberg, and others
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Bozo Sapiens
- Why to Err Is Human
- By: Michael Kaplan, Ellen Kaplan
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Our species, it appears, is hardwired to get things wrong in myriad different ways. Why did recipients of a loan offer accept a higher rate of interest when a pretty woman's face was printed on the flyer? Why did one poll on immigration find the most despised aliens were ones from a group that did not exist? What made four of the Air Force's best pilots fly their planes, in formation, straight into the ground?
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A tour de force
- By Ivan on 07-05-11
By: Michael Kaplan, and others
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Naked at the Albert Hall
- The Inside Story of Singing
- By: Tracey Thorn
- Narrated by: Tracey Thorn
- Length: 6 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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In her bestselling autobiography, Bedsit Disco Queen, Tracey Thorn recalled the highs and lows of a 30-year career in pop music. But with the touring, recording and extraordinary anecdotes, there wasn't time for an in-depth look at what she actually did for all those years: sing. She sang with warmth and emotional honesty, sometimes while battling acute stage fright.
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Fascinating
- By Jane Sheedy on 01-11-17
By: Tracey Thorn
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How Language Began
- The Story of Humanity's Greatest Invention
- By: Daniel L. Everett
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 13 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Mankind has a distinct advantage over other terrestrial species: we talk to one another. But how did we acquire the most advanced form of communication on Earth? Daniel L. Everett, a "bombshell" linguist and "instant folk hero" (Tom Wolfe, Harper's), provides in this sweeping history a comprehensive examination of the evolutionary story of language, from the earliest speaking attempts by hominids to the more than 7,000 languages that exist today.
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Hard to endure
- By Michael D. Busch on 09-09-18
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Ha!
- The Science of When We Laugh and Why
- By: Scott Weems
- Narrated by: Kalen Allmandinger
- Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Humor, like pornography, is famously difficult to define. We know it when we see it, but is there a way to figure out what we really find funnyand why? In this fascinating investigation into the science of humor and laughter, cognitive neuroscientist Scott Weems uncovers what’s happening in our heads when we giggle, guffaw, or double over with laughter. While we typically think of humor in terms of jokes or comic timing, in Ha! Weems proposes a provocative new model.
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Good place to start in the study of humor
- By Amazon Customer on 05-26-17
By: Scott Weems
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The White Devil's Daughters
- The Women Who Fought Slavery in San Francisco's Chinatown
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This Is Your Brain on Music
- The Science of a Human Obsession
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