How Music Can Make You Better

Description

Why do we love music? How do certain songs comfort us after a break-up, boost our energy during a workout, or unite 50,000 diverse fans? And why are some pieces considered "great music" while others are labeled guilty pleasures? In this slim and accessible field guide, neuroscientist and opera singer Indre Viskontas investigates how our brains extract meaning from sound and the many ways in which music changes us for the better-from deep in our neurons to across our entire society. This compelling follow-up to the popular How Art Can Make You Happy offers fascinating insights and new perspectives to music lovers of all stripes.

Indre Viskontas is a professor of Sciences and Humanities at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she is pioneering the application of neuroscience to musical training. She is also an adjunct professor of Psychology at the University of San Francisco. She is the creative director of Pasadena Opera, director of the chamber music group Vocallective, and host of two podcasts: Cadence, on music and the mind, and Inquiring Minds, on where science and society collide. She holds a master of music degree in vocal performance from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and a PhD in cognitive neuroscience from the University of California, Los Angeles. She lives in San Francisco.

"Music is perhaps the strangest and most powerful of all human creations. It communicates directly what cannot be expressed in words--our complex emotions and the richness of our experience. Finally, Indre Viskontas, combining her deep knowledge of neuroscience and music, has lifted the veil on the mysterious effects of music to move us, showing us not only how the human brain creates the magical patterns of music but also why music has the power to affect us like no other form of communication. An extremely important and inspiring book." --Robert Greene, best-selling author of The 48 Laws of Power "This brilliant little book is clear, lucid, and easy to read. It is packed with fascinating information that I didn't know, and I suspect most people don't know either. I shall give it to lots of friends." --Jonathan Lynn, director of My Cousin Vinny, co-writer of Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister, comedy legend