Every Brain Needs Music: The Neuroscience of Making and Listening to Music

Playing an instrument requires the resources of the nervous system, including cognitive, sensory, and motor functions. Composition and improvisation demonstrate the brains capacity for creativity. Larry S. Sherman and Dennis Plies collaborate to show how our brains and music work in harmony, considering music in all the ways we encounter it. Every Brain Needs Music provides new perspectives on learning to play, teaching, practicing and performing, and the ways we react to music.

Format: Hardback
Length: 288 pages
Publication date: 16 May 2023
Publisher: Columbia University Press

Whenever a person engages with music, whether it's a piano student practicing a scale, a jazz saxophonist riffing on a melody, a teenager sobbing to a sad song, or a wedding guest getting down on the dance floor, countless neurons are firing. Playing an instrument requires the full resources of the nervous system, encompassing cognitive, sensory, and motor functions. Composition and improvisation are remarkable demonstrations of the brain's capacity for creativity. Something as seemingly simple as listening to a tune involves mental faculties most of us don't even realize we have.

Larry S. Sherman, a neuroscientist and lifelong musician, and Dennis Plies, a professional musician and teacher, collaborate to showcase how our brains and music work in harmony. They consider music in all the ways we encounter it, from teaching and learning to practicing and performing, in terms of neuroscience as well as music pedagogy, showing how the brain functions and even changes in the process.

Every Brain Needs Music draws on leading behavioral, cellular, and molecular neuroscience research as well as surveys of more than a hundred musical people. It provides new perspectives on learning to play, teaching, how to practice and perform, the ways we react to music, and why the brain benefits from musical experiences. Written for both musical and nonmusical people, including newcomers to brain science, this book is a lively and easy-to-read exploration of the neuroscience of music and its significance in our lives.

Dimension: 216 x 140 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780231209106