The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature |  | Author: Daniel J. Levitin
Publisher: Plume
List Price: $16.00
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Rating:  17 reviews
Sales Rank: 11411
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Media: Paperback
Pages: 368
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.8
Dewey Decimal Number: 781.11
ASIN: B002RAR126
Publication Date: July 28, 2009
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Product Description
The author of the New York Times bestseller This Is Your Brain on Music reveals music's role in the evolution of human culture-and "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.
Dr. Levitin 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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Showing reviews 1-5 of 17
 THE WORLD IN SIX SONGS: HOW THE MUSICAL BRAIN CREATED HUMAN NATURE BY DANIEL J. LEVITIN November 18, 2009
Alex Telander (Roseville, CA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Bestselling author of This is Your Brain on Music (which continues to be popular) returns with The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature, in which he posits that one of the first abilities that ancient human beings developed was music through sound and singing and the feeling this created within us, leading to developments in language and community and the forming of our ancient civilizations.
Through music and its growing complexity, humanity's thought process was able to develop and progress. Levitin breaks down music to its basic song elements, theorizing that there are six types of songs that are instrumental in our development, whether millennia ago, or for each of us alive right now. These songs, each with their own chapter, are songs of friendship, joy, comfort, knowledge, religion, and love. Levitin goes into depth with each song, providing clear examples in recent history, as well as many of his own case studies and examples from his life.
What makes The World in Six Songs not just a book of Levitin teaching and telling like a textbook, is that he includes himself in every chapter, revealing his own experiences and actions throughout his life and how music and these six specific songs have played a role from his childhood to the writing of this book. In this way the reader sees and feels the humanity of it, and is able to empathize and understand all the better for it.
For more reviews, check out the BookBanter site: [...]
 Great Book October 6, 2009
L. Perfetti (Highland Park, NJ)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book was one of the best I have ever read about song, the psychology of song, and the import of song in society and the development of civilization. The book is well-written, informative, thought-provoking and fun-to-read.
I particularly enjoyed Daniel Levitin's use of current songs to exemplify the points he is making. I am now able to think about music, and song in particular, with an historical lens, a clearer view and a broadened perspective.
I would also highly recommend Daniel Levitin's "This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsessession." It's another fascinating book to be savored.
Can't wait for Daniel Levitin's next book.
In a nutshell September 27, 2009
Bijal P. Shah (Atlanta, Georgia, USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"Music is important in the daily lives of most people in the world, and has been throughout human history."
This statement is the underlying unifying theme of the book. I enjoyed reading this book primarily because the author could relate to me, the reader. By making his book about music, which is a universal language, it automatically grabbed my attention. This review will explore the way the author brought the common theme of music and how 6 types of songs can sum up all kinds of music, and their relation to the brain.
Personally I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and loved the way the author broke each chapter down based on the type of music he was talking about, which made it easier to follow along. The author also chose realistic examples to tie into which each chapter, for example in the friendship chapter, he relates it to war and protests.
"Music and coordinated movement were thus a way of creating meaningful social bonds for
these four activities just reviewed: waging war, defending against an attack, hunting prey,
and forming work crews."
Friendship
This chapter focuses on the unity aspect of music and how the brain coordinates movements and feelings relating to friendship. The author studied how neurochemicals are released when the brain is in a happy state, which he called "happy juice". Towards the end of this chapter, the author discusses effects of drugs on the brain and how music is heard under the influence. This chapter was enjoyable to read because friendship and music is universal and it was interesting to see how he relayed the feelings of friendship in different kinds of music and how this is reflected in the connections and electrical impulses in the brain.
Joy
"Joy songs are found in every corner of human experience where we might look for them."
This chapter had a lot more examples of songs that are considered "joy" songs like "Zip -a - dee- doo- dah" and "God bless America." Songs associated with joy are used to enhance good moods and allow for a positive neural chemistry; therefore a lot of advertising companies used joyful songs attached to their products so it gives off happy vibes. Cognitively, whenever songs that are uplifting come on the radio, it is said that the brain releases endorphins which is the reason that people enjoy the music. The brain is based on a reward system - there exists pleasure centers which produce neurotransmitters that produce feelings of pleasure - which is what happens when good music is played. This chapter related a lot of the neurological aspects of listening to music and the processes in the brain whilst listening to joyful music and therefore made this chapter a lot more scientific than the previous.
Comfort
This chapter was written a lot different from the previous. The author spent more time on this chapter by incorporating a lot of stories from his past and about his family. This chapter was especially enjoyable to read because the author picked 6 songs that inspired him to become a musician and explained why he thought they were THE six songs. This is the chapter where we as readers first get to see what the author is like and how he has changed through the years, and how music has influenced him greatly. I highly recommend reading this chapter even if the reader does not read the entire book. The entire chapter is an anecdote, and less of a documentary type - which is another reason I really enjoyed reading it
Knowledge
The personality of this chapter also follows the anecdotal version but instead of it having a light mood, it is a lot more serious and talks about the author's life in academic and about his PhD. This chapter also brings in the idea of evolution in music, and musical structure. This chapter was too serious for me and I found myself drifting away and not really paying attention to it.
Religion
Rituals and cultures was the focal point of this chapter. The author talked about how the central part of any ritual is music and he compared different religions and cultures.
"Ritual behavior is evidently innate and hardwired in humans. Most children enter a stage of development
around age two, peaking around eight in which they show phases of ritual behaviors: perfectionism,
collecting, attachment to favorite objects, repetition of actions, and even preoccupation with the
ordering of things - a stage of "it has to be done this way" in which children may line up their toys to
organize their environment in particular ways"
The author mentioned religious rituals as well as uncontrollable rituals like OCD, and rituals in the animal kingdom as well. This diversified the chapters focus and still kept the reader's attention.
Love
This chapter addressed my favorite genre of songs, so I was expecting a lot more from this chapter in the book than any other one. He started the chapter off by talking about love songs from his childhood and picked a few lyrics from the songs that he enjoyed.
"Researchers have identified neurochemical changes that occur during the first few months of a
relationship; huge releases of oxytocin (the "trust" hormone) and feel good hormones like dopamine and
norepinephrine, and at such high levels that they could be regarded as inducing clinically verifiable
altered states of consciousness"
Towards the end of the chapter, the author compares love feelings to evolutionary concepts such as natural selection and competing for resources - which is an interesting perspective that he develops upon. I thoroughly enjoyed the last part of this chapter where the author combines all the different styles of writing from the previous chapters. Not only did he keep the cognitive aspect in mind, but he brought in the auditory system of the body, genetics aspect and how it interacts with the brain. Finally he ended the entire book with a song and what love means to the human race.
Overall this book was very well written and kept me engaged to the story, with a few setbacks in terms of style of writing and content. I would recommend this book to anyone who has a passion for music and the cognitive side of how we process music.
The World in Six Songs, by Daniel Levitin September 25, 2009
A2900 (Chicago & Sarasota)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is an enjoyable, very interesting and thought-provoking book by someone who knows music from both the commercial/industry and scientific sides. Levitin advances a number of ideas, based largely on science, but which really amount to conjecture -- he doesn't posit them, but he repeats them often enough that it is clear that he really believes them. I found a number of these ideas to be plausible but not necessarily convincing. This is not a criticism, but rather to say that I have other ideas and/or am not so sure that his conjectures are right. Indeed, some of these ideas seem downright simplistic.
More of a criticism -- though this may be a criticism of me, not Levitin -- is that he extensively makes references to contemporary popular music and musicians to give examples of what he is writing. Being raised on classical music, I found most of these examples useless.
I haven't read it, but, from what I have heard, another of Levitin's books, "This Is Your Brain on Music," sounds like a better and more scientifically based book. I intend to read it next.
This could be one of the most interactive books you will read. September 13, 2009
Reg Nordman (Vancouver, BC Canada)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
If you enjoyed his, This Is Your Brain On Music, here is the next one to extend your learning. It is about six types of songs and how they perhaps came about as we evolved The six fundamental forms:
* knowledge,
* friendship,
* religion,
* joy,
* comfort, and
* love
His work fascinates me as he weaves songs that I grew up with along with many others I do not know of, to illustrate exactly his points. As he makes his point I hear the song(s) playing in my head to really reinforce the idea. And then he shows you exactly why that is happening with the scientific proof. This could be one of the most interactive books you will read. Learning should be this much fun all the time. This book will really have use to you if you lead people, sell to people and/or need cross cultural awareness. [...]
Showing reviews 1-5 of 17
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