Contending that a strong emotional response and attachment to music--or musicophilia--is an innate feature of the human species, Oliver Sacks sets out in Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain to explore case-by-case accounts of our neurological experience with music. What influence does music have on the brain, and what happens when that relationship is broken, distorted or severed?
Musical Synesthesia: Color and Pitch Associations
Some neurological phenomena, such as synesthesia, are already quite familiar, made famous through the works of composers such as Scriabin. Mimicking the condition in which one sensory stimulus produces a sensation perceived by another sense (i.e. seeing colors when hearing sounds), Scriabin's color organ assigned a color to every pitch of music.
And while Oliver Sacks devotes a chapter to synesthesia and music, he also takes his case studies a bit further, examining conditions such as musical hallucinations and amusia, discussing people with a nonstop radio in their head and people who can't distinguish "Mary Had a Little Lamb" from "Happy Birthday."
Musical Hallucinations: Why Won't the Music Stop?
Those who have seen True Stories, directed by the Talking Heads frontman David Byrne, may remember Ramon, the character with the distinctive ability to "tune in" to secret radio waves. This condition may seem quirky, if not downright crazy, but for people suffering from musical hallucinations, hearing mysterious music from nowhere is quite commonplace.
Perhaps fear of stigma keeps the condition under-reported, but Sacks has determined that musical hallucinations are much more common than doctors originally assumed. Those who are going deaf tend to experience musical hallucinations because their brain lacks the normal auditory experiences it was used to and compensates by "playing" tunes already embedded in memory.
Amusia: It's All Noise and No Music
For those suffering from amusia, everything sounds like a Cage concert: there is no recognizable thread that helps an amusia patient distinguish a tune from mere noise. Those with amusia cannot distinguish between higher and lower pitches or recognize melodies, even if played over and over again.
Musical Savants, Amnesia, Parkinson's Disease and Distonia
Sacks also treats a wide array of conditions, including the musical affinities and expertise of those otherwise regarded as mentally deficient. Sacks relays the experiences of a man suffering from amnesia so severe that every moment was a new discovery, and yet the man could still play a Bach prelude if he sat at a piano. Another chapter recounts the therapeutic effects of music on those with Parkinson's Disease. And Sacks also discusses distonia, a muscle spasm condition that can make it nearly impossible for musicians (such as the pianist Leon Fleisher) to perform.
The relationships between the brain and music, between our perceptions of music and what music seems to do to us, are a fascinating thing to study. Through story telling, Sacks treats each topic in an engaging way that keeps the reader wanting to know more.
Sarah Canice Funke - Sarah Canice Funke was home-schooled through primary and secondary school in beautiful Colorado. She obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in ...
