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The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature
Dividing the sum total of human musical achievement, from Beethoven to The Beatles, Busta Rhymes to Bach, into just six fundamental forms, Levitin illuminates, through songs of friendship, joy, comfort, knowledge, religion and love, how music has been instrumental in the evolution of language, thought and culture. And how, far from being a bit of a song and dance, music is at the core of what it means to be human.
A one-time record producer, now a leading neuroscientist, Levitin has composed a catchy and startlingly ambitious narrative that weaves together Darwin and Dionne Warwick, memoir and biology, anthropology and a jukebox of anecdote to create nothing less than the ' soundtrack of civilisation' .
368 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2008
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5447 people want to read
About the author
Daniel J. Levitin
19 books1,045 followersDaniel J. Levitin runs the Laboratory for Musical Perception, Cognition and Expertise at McGill University, where he holds the Bell Chair in the Psychology of Electronic Communication. Before becoming a neuroscientist, he worked as a session musician, sound engineer and record producer. He has written extensively both in scientific journals and music trade magazines such as Grammy and Billboard.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 225 reviews
July 12, 2011
confession: I have had a profound interest in neurobiology, syntax, anthropology and languages; additionally, I am a passionate and knowledgeable musician and student of music.
So, I should have loved this book. Sorry to relate, I didn't even like it.
The premise is that music, or, in particular, songs, can be divided into six broad categories. The author then attempts, through anecdote, personal reflection, a (very) little data, and public rumination to show that it is true because it is true. At each turn, statement, observation, and "conclusion," I find myself saying (and, ultimately, yelling) that he has proven nothing. That is, of course, not to say that there was nothing of interest; indeed, some commentary was interesting, even original and creative.
But, in my mind, I wasn't sure of his point, and, therefore, wasn't sure if he made it. His books and articles are numbingly redundant.
So, I should have loved this book. Sorry to relate, I didn't even like it.
The premise is that music, or, in particular, songs, can be divided into six broad categories. The author then attempts, through anecdote, personal reflection, a (very) little data, and public rumination to show that it is true because it is true. At each turn, statement, observation, and "conclusion," I find myself saying (and, ultimately, yelling) that he has proven nothing. That is, of course, not to say that there was nothing of interest; indeed, some commentary was interesting, even original and creative.
But, in my mind, I wasn't sure of his point, and, therefore, wasn't sure if he made it. His books and articles are numbingly redundant.
March 9, 2009
I have to say I'm a bit disappointed at my second encounter with Daniel Levitin's musical exploration.
While from a psychological standpoint I wholly agree that music has played an undeniable role in human evolution, I for some reason find the overall concept of this book to be, almost, silly. Sure, there are obviously some discernible categories of songs but to narrow it down to just six is, well, quite a feat.
Levitin does do a good job of supporting why he chose these categories but I find that the overall argument (if there is one) ends up being lost in a myriad of references to popular music lyrics, psych journal articles and random claims about animal cognition.
The basic postulate of 'The World in Six Songs' is one worth exploring yet this just seemed like such a roundabout way of doing so.
One of my biggest 'concerns' is the sheer lack of a conclusion. Sure the last six or so pages of the final chapter veer away from 'love' and sort of wrap up the authors feelings, but not much is said about the initial purpose of the book. As a student, and now teacher, I have always considered a strong conclusion to be a selling point for any argument, whether spoken, written or, hey, even performed. To simply fade off with a bunch of personal gibberish at the tail end of the final chapter seems unprofessional and unpolished. But hey, how many books have I written?!
While from a psychological standpoint I wholly agree that music has played an undeniable role in human evolution, I for some reason find the overall concept of this book to be, almost, silly. Sure, there are obviously some discernible categories of songs but to narrow it down to just six is, well, quite a feat.
Levitin does do a good job of supporting why he chose these categories but I find that the overall argument (if there is one) ends up being lost in a myriad of references to popular music lyrics, psych journal articles and random claims about animal cognition.
The basic postulate of 'The World in Six Songs' is one worth exploring yet this just seemed like such a roundabout way of doing so.
One of my biggest 'concerns' is the sheer lack of a conclusion. Sure the last six or so pages of the final chapter veer away from 'love' and sort of wrap up the authors feelings, but not much is said about the initial purpose of the book. As a student, and now teacher, I have always considered a strong conclusion to be a selling point for any argument, whether spoken, written or, hey, even performed. To simply fade off with a bunch of personal gibberish at the tail end of the final chapter seems unprofessional and unpolished. But hey, how many books have I written?!
December 6, 2016
Overtime, i find myself listen to more and more diverse range of music types. Each type of music creates or enhances a different mood,some fit better for a particular mental/real place, some bring back memories of certain people. Then i wonder is classical music somehow better than teenager's rock, over-sexualized pop songs? (No, its not - Thats my conclusion from reading this book).
By the time of writing this, i have went through 1/5 of previous "This is your brain on music" of the same author. That makes me appreciate The World in Six Songs even more, because it is a better suit for 1st time reader about music (less interesting technical details which one layperson will hardly remember). In fact, i really love the author's writing style, it combines scientific facts with a touch of personal experience and literary expression. (Just browse through Daniel's brief biography, he is qualified to be listened to).
When it concerns music, dance, art in general, science of emotion, sociology will certainly appear in discussion. Music creates bonds, all kind of bond: Friendship, Joy, Comfort, Knowledge, Religion, Love. Even sad songs help us feel better because of the empathetic connection which it brings.
My favorite quote from this read (modified)
Good music knows no boundaries of class, education, upbringing. It can leap over barriers of religion, language, politics.
By the time of writing this, i have went through 1/5 of previous "This is your brain on music" of the same author. That makes me appreciate The World in Six Songs even more, because it is a better suit for 1st time reader about music (less interesting technical details which one layperson will hardly remember). In fact, i really love the author's writing style, it combines scientific facts with a touch of personal experience and literary expression. (Just browse through Daniel's brief biography, he is qualified to be listened to).
When it concerns music, dance, art in general, science of emotion, sociology will certainly appear in discussion. Music creates bonds, all kind of bond: Friendship, Joy, Comfort, Knowledge, Religion, Love. Even sad songs help us feel better because of the empathetic connection which it brings.
My favorite quote from this read (modified)
Good music knows no boundaries of class, education, upbringing. It can leap over barriers of religion, language, politics.
July 14, 2009
The alleged thesis of the book is undertaken in anecdote, speculation, and a kind of general knowledge about science, psychology, and the lyrics of popular songs. The most interesting aspect seems to be the author's reminiscences about his childhood in the 1960s and his reminiscences about his reminiscences, as for example when he finds himself at the hotel room where John and Yoko had their "bed-in" for peace and goes into raptures imagining all about how this is the very place where "Give Peace a Chance" was recorded. But of course this has really very little to do with "how the musical brain created human nature" or the author's notion that there are fundamentally only six categories of songs. It turns out that the whole book is more chat and name-dropping than investigative thinking.
August 23, 2011
In most of my non fiction reads in the last times I have found a distressing trend: most of the male American non fiction writers have a tendency to find a real interesting topic, and then go on and wreck the book by making everything go around themselves. "The World in Six Songs" is a perfect example of this trend. You find:
1~ 25% of: When I was a child my grandma used to play piano...., or once I went to a conference in Finland....
2~ 25% of: I talked with my friend Sting (and he agrees with me, of course), or I was chatting with this really famous music producer (and, again, he agrees with me, of course).
3~ 5% of titles of songs (and every single band in history that has played those songs).
4~ 10% of song Lyrics (not always relevant to the subject in question, or obviously misinterpreted).
5~ 10% of "Imagine that you're in the prehistoric era and you see a lion..."
6~ 5% of irrelevant data that the reader already knows if he/she finished grade school.
7~ 20% of actually interesting data that is completely drowned by all the other stuff.
And this guy has a doctorate? Really?
1~ 25% of: When I was a child my grandma used to play piano...., or once I went to a conference in Finland....
2~ 25% of: I talked with my friend Sting (and he agrees with me, of course), or I was chatting with this really famous music producer (and, again, he agrees with me, of course).
3~ 5% of titles of songs (and every single band in history that has played those songs).
4~ 10% of song Lyrics (not always relevant to the subject in question, or obviously misinterpreted).
5~ 10% of "Imagine that you're in the prehistoric era and you see a lion..."
6~ 5% of irrelevant data that the reader already knows if he/she finished grade school.
7~ 20% of actually interesting data that is completely drowned by all the other stuff.
And this guy has a doctorate? Really?
March 21, 2016
Neuroscience has a lot to answer for. Who the hell let this research infiltrate popular cultural studies?
I cannot believe how bad this book is. The sonic media literature, the popular cultural literature and the popular music literature is outside of this book. Instead - wow - some absolutely bonkers 'research' and commentary are offered.
To provide one example - and only one because I can feel my intelligence draining through my nostrils as I write this review: “Creative brains became more attractive during centuries of sexual selection because they could solve a wider range of unanticipatable problems.”
Creative brains? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone? Sexual selection? Really? Really? Really.
And - is 'unanticipatable' a word? If it is - should it really be used in polite company?
The only strength of the book that may provide some foundation for scholarship on popular music is the division of songs into six types: Friendship, Joy, Comfort, Knowledge, Religion and Love songs. OK. I can work with that. The rest of it - PASS.
I cannot believe how bad this book is. The sonic media literature, the popular cultural literature and the popular music literature is outside of this book. Instead - wow - some absolutely bonkers 'research' and commentary are offered.
To provide one example - and only one because I can feel my intelligence draining through my nostrils as I write this review: “Creative brains became more attractive during centuries of sexual selection because they could solve a wider range of unanticipatable problems.”
Creative brains? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone? Sexual selection? Really? Really? Really.
And - is 'unanticipatable' a word? If it is - should it really be used in polite company?
The only strength of the book that may provide some foundation for scholarship on popular music is the division of songs into six types: Friendship, Joy, Comfort, Knowledge, Religion and Love songs. OK. I can work with that. The rest of it - PASS.
May 24, 2016
The interesting facts and theories feel bogged down in a dense forest of other interesting tidbits and tangents. I read the whole book but it felt like a first draft in need of a focus driven editor to help shape the narrative of each chapter. All the info contained is good but the order and flow made this a tough read.
April 4, 2021
Ever found yourself sitting at home, saying "I wish I could find a book with superficial retellings of science like Malcolm Gladwell combined with the ego of Jordan Peterson?" Well now, friends, you can!
In "The World in Six Songs," Levitin claims to provide an argument that music throughout history can largely be reduced to six types of songs: friendship, joy, comfort, knowledge, religion, and love. As one might expect with such grandiose claims, this taxonomy seems to do very little to help us understand these types of music, primarily because the categories bleed into each other so much as to be effectively useless as an analytical framework. This isn't to say that these categories don't represent some of the motives behind songwriting (which they do), but they don't end up working very well as mutually exclusive nodes for understanding genres of music.
That's all fine and dandy, though, because Levitin's book - despite his apparent thesis and his use of them to organize the chapters - isn't actually about those categories at all. Rather, it's a wading through equal parts of alternating personal memories, "I'm friends with Sting!" (or insert other famous musician, but Sting sure does get a lot of airtime as friend), questionable evolutionary psychology, and some useful neuroscience perspectives on music.
As a result, the best review of this book is to simply read some of the wide literature critiquing evolutionary biology. This isn't about denying evolution, at all! Rather, evolutionary biology is a particular approach to storytelling about 'how creatures have gotten X or Y traits' that puts evolution at the front and centre. Think, for instance, of classic examples about why humans have the stress reaction they do: our heart rates accelerate, our breathing speeds up, our digestion slows, all to get ready for evading that lion hidden behind the nearby bush.
The problem, in short, with evolutionary biology is that it becomes remarkably easy to tell whatever 'just so' story that you want. Indeed, this book is basically one 'just so' story after another, in which Levitin explains a multitude of reasons of why a musical brain would have conferred survivability (and, therefore, evolutionary advantage) upon its holders.
Again, this isn't to dispute evolution. Humans absolutely did evolve through processes of natural selection. But, the problem with this kind of retrospective storytelling is that it becomes very easy to justify /any/ current perspective on "what humans are" by creating a story about how that particular attribute conferred some advantage in passing on genes. At its core, it's basically unfalsifiable: there's simply no way to prove or disprove any of these stories; they can just be told ad nauseam for any factor you want to explain. (As an exercise, try this at home: come up with an evolutionary story for why good singers exist, then another for why bad singers exist. Magically, through the power of storytelling, these stories are equally persuasive and unfalsifiable.)
Levitin, of course, shouldn't be held responsible, singlehandedly, for the sins of evolutionary biology. But, there's just something so trite about this book; about the writing style that channels Gladwell and Peterson as 'magical white dude who can explain everything about humans.' There are certainly some nuggets of interesting neuroscience in here, but I can't imagine how a reader would know enough to be able to separate wheat from chaff without finding the book boring (by virtue of already knowing the real stuff).
I also do just have to give a bonus gold start to Levitin, his editor, or whoever decided it was a good idea to write a book with end notes, but include NO NUMBERING to the endnotes in text. There are a whole ton of citations and marginalia included in the notes afterwards, but you, as reader, have zero idea when to go looking for it, as there's simply no indication in text for when these points exist. What a remarkably useless format, likely justified by some harebrained idea that the book 'would be intimidating if it featured superscript numbers in text.'
In "The World in Six Songs," Levitin claims to provide an argument that music throughout history can largely be reduced to six types of songs: friendship, joy, comfort, knowledge, religion, and love. As one might expect with such grandiose claims, this taxonomy seems to do very little to help us understand these types of music, primarily because the categories bleed into each other so much as to be effectively useless as an analytical framework. This isn't to say that these categories don't represent some of the motives behind songwriting (which they do), but they don't end up working very well as mutually exclusive nodes for understanding genres of music.
That's all fine and dandy, though, because Levitin's book - despite his apparent thesis and his use of them to organize the chapters - isn't actually about those categories at all. Rather, it's a wading through equal parts of alternating personal memories, "I'm friends with Sting!" (or insert other famous musician, but Sting sure does get a lot of airtime as friend), questionable evolutionary psychology, and some useful neuroscience perspectives on music.
As a result, the best review of this book is to simply read some of the wide literature critiquing evolutionary biology. This isn't about denying evolution, at all! Rather, evolutionary biology is a particular approach to storytelling about 'how creatures have gotten X or Y traits' that puts evolution at the front and centre. Think, for instance, of classic examples about why humans have the stress reaction they do: our heart rates accelerate, our breathing speeds up, our digestion slows, all to get ready for evading that lion hidden behind the nearby bush.
The problem, in short, with evolutionary biology is that it becomes remarkably easy to tell whatever 'just so' story that you want. Indeed, this book is basically one 'just so' story after another, in which Levitin explains a multitude of reasons of why a musical brain would have conferred survivability (and, therefore, evolutionary advantage) upon its holders.
Again, this isn't to dispute evolution. Humans absolutely did evolve through processes of natural selection. But, the problem with this kind of retrospective storytelling is that it becomes very easy to justify /any/ current perspective on "what humans are" by creating a story about how that particular attribute conferred some advantage in passing on genes. At its core, it's basically unfalsifiable: there's simply no way to prove or disprove any of these stories; they can just be told ad nauseam for any factor you want to explain. (As an exercise, try this at home: come up with an evolutionary story for why good singers exist, then another for why bad singers exist. Magically, through the power of storytelling, these stories are equally persuasive and unfalsifiable.)
Levitin, of course, shouldn't be held responsible, singlehandedly, for the sins of evolutionary biology. But, there's just something so trite about this book; about the writing style that channels Gladwell and Peterson as 'magical white dude who can explain everything about humans.' There are certainly some nuggets of interesting neuroscience in here, but I can't imagine how a reader would know enough to be able to separate wheat from chaff without finding the book boring (by virtue of already knowing the real stuff).
I also do just have to give a bonus gold start to Levitin, his editor, or whoever decided it was a good idea to write a book with end notes, but include NO NUMBERING to the endnotes in text. There are a whole ton of citations and marginalia included in the notes afterwards, but you, as reader, have zero idea when to go looking for it, as there's simply no indication in text for when these points exist. What a remarkably useless format, likely justified by some harebrained idea that the book 'would be intimidating if it featured superscript numbers in text.'
February 14, 2009
This book I half liked. The part about the songs we love as human beings, the types that run through all sorts of cultures and times. That was great as the author has a wonderfully diverse sense of music and really went to great lengths to insure he was well rounded in talking about songs the world over. There were some great comparisons and some new thoughts. You have to love a book that references the Bible and Lord of the Rings in the same paragraph.
But then the section the subtitle refers to just irritated me. Perhaps I shouldn't have been reading this book with a massive headache, but the evolution sections were annoying. Its not that I have anything against evolution, but using it to explain social phenomena always seems hit or miss to me. Sometimes the examples and assumptions are unlikely to the point of being silly. The one that comes to mind is the thought that groups who buried their dead found an evolutionary benefit because it was more hygienic-so they were a tiny bit healthier than other groups. But weren't these ancient groups nomadic? So there would be just as much hygienic value in leaving the bodies at the old campsite. Or just dragging them off where you couldn't smell them any more. Or what of cannibalistic groups? They wouldn't have to spend the energy digging a great big hole and they would get extra protein. I could come up with questions about this particular theory all day. It was mentioned in the book by the way, in the section on religious songs. I think that is another reason I didn't like the evolutionary posts, the author seemed to be bringing in a lot of behaviour evolution to support his thesis, whether it was relevant or not.
But then the section the subtitle refers to just irritated me. Perhaps I shouldn't have been reading this book with a massive headache, but the evolution sections were annoying. Its not that I have anything against evolution, but using it to explain social phenomena always seems hit or miss to me. Sometimes the examples and assumptions are unlikely to the point of being silly. The one that comes to mind is the thought that groups who buried their dead found an evolutionary benefit because it was more hygienic-so they were a tiny bit healthier than other groups. But weren't these ancient groups nomadic? So there would be just as much hygienic value in leaving the bodies at the old campsite. Or just dragging them off where you couldn't smell them any more. Or what of cannibalistic groups? They wouldn't have to spend the energy digging a great big hole and they would get extra protein. I could come up with questions about this particular theory all day. It was mentioned in the book by the way, in the section on religious songs. I think that is another reason I didn't like the evolutionary posts, the author seemed to be bringing in a lot of behaviour evolution to support his thesis, whether it was relevant or not.
February 22, 2009
Readable analysis by a neuroscientist/musician/music-cognition-researcher classifying the world's music by song type (friendship, joy, comfort, knowledge, religion, love) and speculating on how our enjoyment of each could reflect evolutionary processes.
Read skeptically, there is a lot of "just-so" story-telling without much evidence base (...and perhaps songs with this type of rhythmn facilitated social bonding, which would make those who could sing them rise in the status hierarchy and be better able to compete for mates, and........) and little to no consideration of alternative views (what if you think there are 8 or 4 categories of song? etc.).
If you suspend skepticism and just soak it up, though, it's an interesting and unusual [to me:] angle on thinking about music. I heard a radio interview of this guy maybe two years ago and remembered it when I saw the book in the library, so I'll credit him with the memory staying power of one of those earworm songs you can't forget.
Read skeptically, there is a lot of "just-so" story-telling without much evidence base (...and perhaps songs with this type of rhythmn facilitated social bonding, which would make those who could sing them rise in the status hierarchy and be better able to compete for mates, and........) and little to no consideration of alternative views (what if you think there are 8 or 4 categories of song? etc.).
If you suspend skepticism and just soak it up, though, it's an interesting and unusual [to me:] angle on thinking about music. I heard a radio interview of this guy maybe two years ago and remembered it when I saw the book in the library, so I'll credit him with the memory staying power of one of those earworm songs you can't forget.
April 13, 2017
I think Levitan is a better musician and neuroscientist than he is a writer or anthropologist. There were times I felt he jumped to a conclusion without substantiating it, thus creating a shaky foundation for the concepts he built upon. Plus some of his assertions about non-human animals were wrong and contradictory. Still, it met the requirement for my nonfiction item on the 2017 reading challenge, and that's one less unread book on my shelf.
September 29, 2015
First off, this book should to be retitled. Instead of "The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature" it ought to be called "Evolution and Music: How the Great and Powerful Evolution Gifted Us with Music." The six songs aspect of the book, in spite of the title and layout of the chapters, was more of an afterthought than the main point of this book, and the way that Levitin speaks of evolution is like he's speaking about a being, rather than a force of nature. Which brings up another complaint. I follow the Church's teaching on evolution laid out here, and as such, I would have been okay with discussions on evolution if Levitin had been willing to discuss evolution as the theory that it is, instead of trying to make it look like it is as much of a law as the law of gravity. It bothered me and I do think that there has been at least some evolution, if someone who believed purely in creationism was reading the book, then the constant discussion of evolution in this way would have meant that the said creationist would almost certainly have shut down and not considered the few interesting things that Levitin had to say, because of the way that discussions on evolution were carried out.
I was skeptical of the "six songs" view, and unfortunately, Levitin's meager discussions on the subject that gave the book its title, were not enough to win me over to his view. His six song types are friendship, joy, comfort, religion, knowledge and love.
In his discussion of friendship, he attempted to claim that work, propaganda, protest, war, and peace songs were all friendship songs. I'm sorry even if you can argue work songs into the friendship category because they help people to coordinate their movement, and you can argue that war and propaganda could be the same, or that propaganda and protest are the same, you can't put all of those together under friendship. In the chapter on friendship Levitin also tried to sell me drugs. Seriously, there were whole paragraphs on the effects of drugs, and why we should try them. He named some of his favorite artists who had used drugs 'responsibly,' but quite a bit of the discussion was just talking about what different drugs do to the brain, without even mentioning the effect they have on a person's enjoyment of music. It was in this dreadful chapter, also that Levitin decided that a) he could misrepresent history, and b) he could decide who deserves to be saved from genocide, and who doesn't.
Levitin said "I understood World War II--my grandfather had fought in that, and although the war was terrible, the reason for it was clear. A tyrant was trying to kill all the Jews; we were Jewish, and some countries came to our aid." While I do agree that the genocide of the Jews would have justified WWII, even if it weren't already justified, that isn't why any of the countries that fought Hitler fought him. Most of the countries of Europe were still anti-Semitic themselves, and it was the Holocaust that helped to wake them up to the horrors that this way of thinking could produce, and none of them were fighting to save the Jews. They were fighting to save themselves and/or their allies.
Levitin then claims, multiple times, that the war in Vietnam was not justifiable. I still don't know where I stand on the subject of the Vietnam war, the justifications for the Vietnam War are certainly less black and white than WWII, but it can still be justified. I have Vietnamese friends who would probably never have been able to escape the Viet Kong if the US hadn't gone to fight. The treatment of Cardinal Nguyễn Văn Thuận and other political prisoners of the North Vietnamese alone is enough to make one reevaluate one's position on the war. Add to that the fact that the Cambodian genocide occurred, in part, because the US pulled out (right when they could have won) and you may really be filled with doubt. I didn't live during the Vietnam War, so like I said, I really don't know where I stand on its justification, but what I got from Levitin's approach on the subject (that really didn't need to be in this book in the first place) was that the genocide of the Jews was evil and unacceptable (which is true) but the genocide of people in small Asian countries was fine (which is not true.)
The discussion of joyful songs was much more convincing than the discussion of friendship songs. For one thing, Levitin actually managed to (mostly) stay on topic, and not list a slew of different song types that he believes to be part of joy.
The chapter on comfort was also (mostly) on subject, but Levitin started it by telling half of a story, then explaining about his theories on why we find comforting songs comforting, and what songs we find comforting, before going back to finish the story. By that time I'd put the first half of the story out of my mind and mostly forgotten about it. It didn't seem very important, so the return of the narrative forced me to go back to the beginning of the chapter and remind myself of what the heck was going on in the story.
He used the same broken up storytelling/facts/storytelling in the knowledge chapter, to the same unfortunate mistake. He also seemed like he was doing a lot of name dropping throughout the book, but it was particularly bad in this chapter. Levitin did manage to make me want to travel to Yugoslavia and Gola of West Africa to hear the ballads and song/storytelling there.
I went into the religion chapter apprehensively. I am Catholic, and, in spite of his statement that he was Jewish, the vibes I was getting from Levitin was that he was either a liberal atheist or a liberal agnostic. He wasn't horrible, but he wasn't great either. At one point he said one of the most significant events of all times was the 'invention' of monotheism. -_- Even if he isn't Jewish now, having once been, you'd think he'd at least consider the possibility that monotheism has been around since before polytheism. He also made a statement that 'none of us have ancestors who died in infancy.' This depends on who you consider your ancestors, I mean, would a great-aunt or uncle who died in infancy not be an ancestor? Obviously no one from the straight line of your family has died in infancy, but the siblings of your great-great-great-grandparents could arguably be your ancestors. I also don't remember the verse of 'God Told Noah' that Levitin quotes, and frankly, it doesn't feel like it fits correctly into the verse rhythm. And his claim that we do 'jazz hands' on the word glory... Phfft. No we wave our hands back and forth above our head, we don't jiggle them next to our faces.
And then there was the love chapter. Levitin first acknowledged that what current society deems as 'love' isn't truly love, then goes on to talk about society's 'love' songs, as well as outright lust songs, but pretty much ignore the actual love songs, as well as actual love. Every chapter went on some kind of a tangent about how, when and why 'mother evolution' provided us with each kind of song, but the love chapter was the crowning glory of evolutionary tangents. Levitin talked about everything from why we are less likely to jump at the noise after seeing a pin pop a balloon a couple of times, to how our 'ear hairs' are similar to an insect's leg hairs. This chapter was just plain painful to read. It felt like Levitin was trying to draw it out as long as he possibly could. The last few pages were devoted to hero-worship of a couple of a couple of pop-musicians, none of whom I'd ever heard of.
That was another major problem with the work. Levitin mostly uses pop artists from between the 1960s and the 1980s, mostly from the US, Canada, and the UK. This may have made the examples recognizable for many people I'm sure, but I'm pop-musically challenged, and recognized very few of the artists and songs he talked about. Whenever he wasn't using pop-artists, he usually used hypothetical music that he believes the early humans would have used (often presenting his belief that they would have used these kinds of songs as fact, rather than a possibility.)
Because Levitin spent a relatively small portion of the book actually developing his hypothesis that there are only six kinds of songs in the world, he didn't even come close to convincing me to take this position. In addition to war, peace, propaganda, protest and lust, I feel that Levitin missed sad songs. He briefly mentioned this in the chapters on comfort and religion, and I do agree that songs of sadness and heartbreak will sometimes fall dually in those areas, but I also feel that they deserve their own category. Another type I felt that was skipped over was songs of determination. Determination songs could fall under protest songs, but while I was thinking of this I was thinking of Beethoven's fifth symphony, which was written right about the time Beethoven lost his hearing. Beethoven was depressed and seriously considered suicide, but chose not to because he thought that the music he hadn't written yet deserved to be heard. This quote; "I shall seize Fate by the throat; it shall certainly not bend and crush me completely," has been associated with the fifth symphony, and while the symphony is too complex to be called a 'song' if there is a more simplified vocal song encapsulating these feelings, then it would be a determination song without being easily placed in any of the other categories. And "Sweet Liberty" from the Jane Eyre musical is full of longing without being either a comfort song or a love song.
Then there are songs of vengeance. Where are they in Levitin's book? Or songs about making plans? Like In the Dark of the Night or Be Prepared. Even if we used the excuse that these songs aren't songs of vengeance or planning because they're in movies and only meant for entertainment, there would still be entertainment songs left without a category. Given the fact that Friends on the Other Side doesn't strictly fit into either making plans or vengeance, but simply acting on evil desires, where does that song go?
There really are an infinite number of categories and sub-categories that Levitin chose to ignore.
When I read the first chapter (that was really more like an introduction) I was thinking, okay, this book isn't great but it wasn't as bad as I'd heard it was, I can probably give it three stars. By the time I was done with the second chapter, I knew it wasn't going to be much fun, but was prepared to give it two stars. By the time I finally finished it, I could only give it one star. Sorry.
Hopefully this review wasn't as painfully long and rambling as Levitin's book. Anyhow, I'm off to reorganize it, remove all personal pronouns and (probably) shorten it so that I can turn it in as a book report.
I was skeptical of the "six songs" view, and unfortunately, Levitin's meager discussions on the subject that gave the book its title, were not enough to win me over to his view. His six song types are friendship, joy, comfort, religion, knowledge and love.
In his discussion of friendship, he attempted to claim that work, propaganda, protest, war, and peace songs were all friendship songs. I'm sorry even if you can argue work songs into the friendship category because they help people to coordinate their movement, and you can argue that war and propaganda could be the same, or that propaganda and protest are the same, you can't put all of those together under friendship. In the chapter on friendship Levitin also tried to sell me drugs. Seriously, there were whole paragraphs on the effects of drugs, and why we should try them. He named some of his favorite artists who had used drugs 'responsibly,' but quite a bit of the discussion was just talking about what different drugs do to the brain, without even mentioning the effect they have on a person's enjoyment of music. It was in this dreadful chapter, also that Levitin decided that a) he could misrepresent history, and b) he could decide who deserves to be saved from genocide, and who doesn't.
Levitin said "I understood World War II--my grandfather had fought in that, and although the war was terrible, the reason for it was clear. A tyrant was trying to kill all the Jews; we were Jewish, and some countries came to our aid." While I do agree that the genocide of the Jews would have justified WWII, even if it weren't already justified, that isn't why any of the countries that fought Hitler fought him. Most of the countries of Europe were still anti-Semitic themselves, and it was the Holocaust that helped to wake them up to the horrors that this way of thinking could produce, and none of them were fighting to save the Jews. They were fighting to save themselves and/or their allies.
Levitin then claims, multiple times, that the war in Vietnam was not justifiable. I still don't know where I stand on the subject of the Vietnam war, the justifications for the Vietnam War are certainly less black and white than WWII, but it can still be justified. I have Vietnamese friends who would probably never have been able to escape the Viet Kong if the US hadn't gone to fight. The treatment of Cardinal Nguyễn Văn Thuận and other political prisoners of the North Vietnamese alone is enough to make one reevaluate one's position on the war. Add to that the fact that the Cambodian genocide occurred, in part, because the US pulled out (right when they could have won) and you may really be filled with doubt. I didn't live during the Vietnam War, so like I said, I really don't know where I stand on its justification, but what I got from Levitin's approach on the subject (that really didn't need to be in this book in the first place) was that the genocide of the Jews was evil and unacceptable (which is true) but the genocide of people in small Asian countries was fine (which is not true.)
The discussion of joyful songs was much more convincing than the discussion of friendship songs. For one thing, Levitin actually managed to (mostly) stay on topic, and not list a slew of different song types that he believes to be part of joy.
The chapter on comfort was also (mostly) on subject, but Levitin started it by telling half of a story, then explaining about his theories on why we find comforting songs comforting, and what songs we find comforting, before going back to finish the story. By that time I'd put the first half of the story out of my mind and mostly forgotten about it. It didn't seem very important, so the return of the narrative forced me to go back to the beginning of the chapter and remind myself of what the heck was going on in the story.
He used the same broken up storytelling/facts/storytelling in the knowledge chapter, to the same unfortunate mistake. He also seemed like he was doing a lot of name dropping throughout the book, but it was particularly bad in this chapter. Levitin did manage to make me want to travel to Yugoslavia and Gola of West Africa to hear the ballads and song/storytelling there.
I went into the religion chapter apprehensively. I am Catholic, and, in spite of his statement that he was Jewish, the vibes I was getting from Levitin was that he was either a liberal atheist or a liberal agnostic. He wasn't horrible, but he wasn't great either. At one point he said one of the most significant events of all times was the 'invention' of monotheism. -_- Even if he isn't Jewish now, having once been, you'd think he'd at least consider the possibility that monotheism has been around since before polytheism. He also made a statement that 'none of us have ancestors who died in infancy.' This depends on who you consider your ancestors, I mean, would a great-aunt or uncle who died in infancy not be an ancestor? Obviously no one from the straight line of your family has died in infancy, but the siblings of your great-great-great-grandparents could arguably be your ancestors. I also don't remember the verse of 'God Told Noah' that Levitin quotes, and frankly, it doesn't feel like it fits correctly into the verse rhythm. And his claim that we do 'jazz hands' on the word glory... Phfft. No we wave our hands back and forth above our head, we don't jiggle them next to our faces.
And then there was the love chapter. Levitin first acknowledged that what current society deems as 'love' isn't truly love, then goes on to talk about society's 'love' songs, as well as outright lust songs, but pretty much ignore the actual love songs, as well as actual love. Every chapter went on some kind of a tangent about how, when and why 'mother evolution' provided us with each kind of song, but the love chapter was the crowning glory of evolutionary tangents. Levitin talked about everything from why we are less likely to jump at the noise after seeing a pin pop a balloon a couple of times, to how our 'ear hairs' are similar to an insect's leg hairs. This chapter was just plain painful to read. It felt like Levitin was trying to draw it out as long as he possibly could. The last few pages were devoted to hero-worship of a couple of a couple of pop-musicians, none of whom I'd ever heard of.
That was another major problem with the work. Levitin mostly uses pop artists from between the 1960s and the 1980s, mostly from the US, Canada, and the UK. This may have made the examples recognizable for many people I'm sure, but I'm pop-musically challenged, and recognized very few of the artists and songs he talked about. Whenever he wasn't using pop-artists, he usually used hypothetical music that he believes the early humans would have used (often presenting his belief that they would have used these kinds of songs as fact, rather than a possibility.)
Because Levitin spent a relatively small portion of the book actually developing his hypothesis that there are only six kinds of songs in the world, he didn't even come close to convincing me to take this position. In addition to war, peace, propaganda, protest and lust, I feel that Levitin missed sad songs. He briefly mentioned this in the chapters on comfort and religion, and I do agree that songs of sadness and heartbreak will sometimes fall dually in those areas, but I also feel that they deserve their own category. Another type I felt that was skipped over was songs of determination. Determination songs could fall under protest songs, but while I was thinking of this I was thinking of Beethoven's fifth symphony, which was written right about the time Beethoven lost his hearing. Beethoven was depressed and seriously considered suicide, but chose not to because he thought that the music he hadn't written yet deserved to be heard. This quote; "I shall seize Fate by the throat; it shall certainly not bend and crush me completely," has been associated with the fifth symphony, and while the symphony is too complex to be called a 'song' if there is a more simplified vocal song encapsulating these feelings, then it would be a determination song without being easily placed in any of the other categories. And "Sweet Liberty" from the Jane Eyre musical is full of longing without being either a comfort song or a love song.
Then there are songs of vengeance. Where are they in Levitin's book? Or songs about making plans? Like In the Dark of the Night or Be Prepared. Even if we used the excuse that these songs aren't songs of vengeance or planning because they're in movies and only meant for entertainment, there would still be entertainment songs left without a category. Given the fact that Friends on the Other Side doesn't strictly fit into either making plans or vengeance, but simply acting on evil desires, where does that song go?
There really are an infinite number of categories and sub-categories that Levitin chose to ignore.
When I read the first chapter (that was really more like an introduction) I was thinking, okay, this book isn't great but it wasn't as bad as I'd heard it was, I can probably give it three stars. By the time I was done with the second chapter, I knew it wasn't going to be much fun, but was prepared to give it two stars. By the time I finally finished it, I could only give it one star. Sorry.
Hopefully this review wasn't as painfully long and rambling as Levitin's book. Anyhow, I'm off to reorganize it, remove all personal pronouns and (probably) shorten it so that I can turn it in as a book report.
August 27, 2017
Summary: Proposes that all the world's songs can be grouped into six categories, and explores the evolutionary, cultural, and musical reasons for each category.
According to Daniel J. Levitin, I could reorganize the music in my collection into six categories--at least the music meant to be sung.
They are songs of:
Friendship: These are the songs that emphasize the bonds within a group, from the classic "Smokin' in the Boys Room" to protest songs like "For What It's Worth" that promoted solidarity around a cause.
Joy: Songs that express delight, the thrill of a wonderful experience, or of just being alive. These include everything from ad jingles like "Sometimes I feel like a nut" to "You are My Sunshine" and often have a TRIP structure (Tension, Reaction, Imagination and Prediction). Singing these songs often releases endorphins and oxytocin, hormones often release during peak physical experiences including sex.
Comfort: These are the cathartic songs that lift our spirits in times of crisis, from "God Bless America" (during the aftermath of 9/11) to many country and blues songs, that comfort through the release of prolactin, a hormone associated with crying replacing sorrow with a kind of peacefulness and hopefulness for the future.
Knowledge: Many of these are songs that convey information that help us learn everything from the alphabet (A-B-C-D-E-F-G) to counting songs like "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" to "Thirty Days Hath September." He explores why sung words are so readily remembered (as I found out the Karaoke night when I got called out to sing "American Pie" and discovered I knew most of it from memory!).
Religion: He includes here all the songs we use for the important rituals of our lives such as "Pomp and Circumstance" and "The Wedding March" and why they are not appropriate outside certain settings. He proposes evolutionary origins behind why music may be so powerfully connected to the rituals that express ultimate human concerns.
Love: He explores the paradoxical quality of the romantic songs we sing and how they often express some ideal version of real human relationships. Yet there are others that express more realistically the choices in love, such as Johnny Cash's "I Walk the Line," the line being one between marital faithfulness and philandering.
The author is a researcher in Music Perception, Cognition and Expertise at McGill University, but has also worked as a professional musician and music producer. What is surprising is that this is not a research-based book. There is no research by Levitin or others cited to justify his six categories. It seems, rather that this is simply his own conceptual schema, which he fills out in this book. Chapters are made up of a mix of musical examples, musical anecdotes including interviews with musicians ranging from Joni Mitchell and Paul Simon to David Byrne and Sting. He also incorporates speculative theory on evolutionary origins of particular aspects and effects of music, and draws on cognitive research on the neurophysiology of music, a field where he has made his own contributions, as may be found on his website.
I found this an interesting but rather "rambling" book. The particular song type of each chapter seems just a starting point for a wide-ranging mix of research, song lyrics and anecdote, that doesn't always seem well connected, but certainly reflects his wide experiences playing with bands like Blue Oyster Cult, visiting the hotel suite where John Lennon, Yoko Ono, staged their "bed-in" and recorded "Give Peace a Chance," as well as his explorations of evolutionary biology and cognitive research.
I came across a small factual error where he refers to the four "student protesters" (p. 69) who were killed at Kent State. In actual fact, only two of the four were protesters, the other two were students in the vicinity walking between classes who were not part of the protests. This factual inaccuracy (easily checked online) led me to wonder about the author's method and how much he relied on recollection as opposed to carefully documented and cross-checked research. I would probably place the highest confidence in those areas most directly related to his own field of cognition.
One of the most moving sections was in his chapter on "Religion." He writes of attending his Jewish grandmother's funeral and the powerful effect of singing a version of Psalm 131. He writes:
"It was not the memorial speeches that brought us to tears, not the lowering of her casket into the ground, but the haunting strains of that hymn that broke through our stoic veneer and tapped those trapped feelings, pushed down deep beneath the surface of our daily lives; by the end of the song, there wasn't a dry cheek among our group. It was this event that helped all of us accept the death of my grandmother, to mourn appropriately, and ultimately, to replace rumination with resolution. Without music as a catalyst, as the Trojan horse that allowed access to our most private thoughts--and perhaps fears of our own mortality--the morning would have been incomplete, the feelings would have stayed locked inside us, where they might have fermented and built up tension, finally exploding out of us at some distant time in the future and for no apparent reason. Grandma was gone; we had shared the realization and etched it in our minds, sealed with a song" (p. 228).
While Levitin's ideas sometimes get lost in his rambling narratives, his categories and discussion do help us understand the different ways that music powerfully works in our lives, and what might be going on in our brains as it does so.
According to Daniel J. Levitin, I could reorganize the music in my collection into six categories--at least the music meant to be sung.
They are songs of:
Friendship: These are the songs that emphasize the bonds within a group, from the classic "Smokin' in the Boys Room" to protest songs like "For What It's Worth" that promoted solidarity around a cause.
Joy: Songs that express delight, the thrill of a wonderful experience, or of just being alive. These include everything from ad jingles like "Sometimes I feel like a nut" to "You are My Sunshine" and often have a TRIP structure (Tension, Reaction, Imagination and Prediction). Singing these songs often releases endorphins and oxytocin, hormones often release during peak physical experiences including sex.
Comfort: These are the cathartic songs that lift our spirits in times of crisis, from "God Bless America" (during the aftermath of 9/11) to many country and blues songs, that comfort through the release of prolactin, a hormone associated with crying replacing sorrow with a kind of peacefulness and hopefulness for the future.
Knowledge: Many of these are songs that convey information that help us learn everything from the alphabet (A-B-C-D-E-F-G) to counting songs like "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" to "Thirty Days Hath September." He explores why sung words are so readily remembered (as I found out the Karaoke night when I got called out to sing "American Pie" and discovered I knew most of it from memory!).
Religion: He includes here all the songs we use for the important rituals of our lives such as "Pomp and Circumstance" and "The Wedding March" and why they are not appropriate outside certain settings. He proposes evolutionary origins behind why music may be so powerfully connected to the rituals that express ultimate human concerns.
Love: He explores the paradoxical quality of the romantic songs we sing and how they often express some ideal version of real human relationships. Yet there are others that express more realistically the choices in love, such as Johnny Cash's "I Walk the Line," the line being one between marital faithfulness and philandering.
The author is a researcher in Music Perception, Cognition and Expertise at McGill University, but has also worked as a professional musician and music producer. What is surprising is that this is not a research-based book. There is no research by Levitin or others cited to justify his six categories. It seems, rather that this is simply his own conceptual schema, which he fills out in this book. Chapters are made up of a mix of musical examples, musical anecdotes including interviews with musicians ranging from Joni Mitchell and Paul Simon to David Byrne and Sting. He also incorporates speculative theory on evolutionary origins of particular aspects and effects of music, and draws on cognitive research on the neurophysiology of music, a field where he has made his own contributions, as may be found on his website.
I found this an interesting but rather "rambling" book. The particular song type of each chapter seems just a starting point for a wide-ranging mix of research, song lyrics and anecdote, that doesn't always seem well connected, but certainly reflects his wide experiences playing with bands like Blue Oyster Cult, visiting the hotel suite where John Lennon, Yoko Ono, staged their "bed-in" and recorded "Give Peace a Chance," as well as his explorations of evolutionary biology and cognitive research.
I came across a small factual error where he refers to the four "student protesters" (p. 69) who were killed at Kent State. In actual fact, only two of the four were protesters, the other two were students in the vicinity walking between classes who were not part of the protests. This factual inaccuracy (easily checked online) led me to wonder about the author's method and how much he relied on recollection as opposed to carefully documented and cross-checked research. I would probably place the highest confidence in those areas most directly related to his own field of cognition.
One of the most moving sections was in his chapter on "Religion." He writes of attending his Jewish grandmother's funeral and the powerful effect of singing a version of Psalm 131. He writes:
"It was not the memorial speeches that brought us to tears, not the lowering of her casket into the ground, but the haunting strains of that hymn that broke through our stoic veneer and tapped those trapped feelings, pushed down deep beneath the surface of our daily lives; by the end of the song, there wasn't a dry cheek among our group. It was this event that helped all of us accept the death of my grandmother, to mourn appropriately, and ultimately, to replace rumination with resolution. Without music as a catalyst, as the Trojan horse that allowed access to our most private thoughts--and perhaps fears of our own mortality--the morning would have been incomplete, the feelings would have stayed locked inside us, where they might have fermented and built up tension, finally exploding out of us at some distant time in the future and for no apparent reason. Grandma was gone; we had shared the realization and etched it in our minds, sealed with a song" (p. 228).
While Levitin's ideas sometimes get lost in his rambling narratives, his categories and discussion do help us understand the different ways that music powerfully works in our lives, and what might be going on in our brains as it does so.
March 10, 2024
Closer to 3.5 stars. I came away with a lot more knowledge about the connections between human evolution and music despite feeling the material was a little disjointed at times. It vacillated from a scientific presentation of material to a more pedestrian approach that took some getting used to. I will definitely listen to specific songs mentioned in the book with a more educated ear.
July 15, 2010
This book fed my love of music, science, human nature - quite a feat for just one text! As I'm not a huge scientifico (yes I made that one up), I was a little concerned that I would be needing to look a lot of terms / theories up while reading this book. However, the terms were very easy to understand and the theories were well explained...a little too well explained. Levitin rehashes (on seemingly EVERY PAGE) the theory of spontaneous mutation. I'm sure the author was trying to ensure that we all understood the fact that the mutation doesn't happen as a result of the environment, but rather spontaneously occurs and then happens to be favourable to the environment. (Hey, I sound like I know what I'm talking about! Thank you "Intro to Genetics" in undergrad!) Moving along, aside from my irritation with Levitin's repetition, I really enjoyed this book. Music is inherent in us all - just look at what babies do when they hear a good beat; and this book gives us the science to back it up. *If you want to learn more before you buy the book, check out this website.
The book gives each of the six songs a chapter, my favourite of which was Joy, where Levitin explains that the natural / biochemical reaction to joy is to sing, dance, jump or shout. The author mixes scientific fact (i.e. the act of singing produces endorphins - which make us feel good ) with his, often hilarious, musical experiences (i.e. Sting and Levitin decide that probably the first "song" sung was a caveman making sounds and other cavemen joined in because it felt good). We sing for many reasons and we are many things because of song.
The book gives each of the six songs a chapter, my favourite of which was Joy, where Levitin explains that the natural / biochemical reaction to joy is to sing, dance, jump or shout. The author mixes scientific fact (i.e. the act of singing produces endorphins - which make us feel good ) with his, often hilarious, musical experiences (i.e. Sting and Levitin decide that probably the first "song" sung was a caveman making sounds and other cavemen joined in because it felt good). We sing for many reasons and we are many things because of song.
"Music...is not simply a distraction or a pastime, but a core element of our identity as a species, an activity that paved the way for more complex behaviors such as language, large-scale cooperative undertakings, and the passing down of important information from one generation to the next." p.3
March 18, 2020
This was an interesting book, but the formatting was terrible.
Author Daniel Levitin seems to be very informed about evolutionary biology, and makes many references to it; talking about how it relates to music, religion, and behaviour. Great stuff! The book contains many excellent quotes.
This is the "good" of "The World In Six Songs".
The "bad": He ruins what would otherwise be an excellent book with seemingly random talk about his previous life experience working at a greasy-spoon, and other unrelated topics that were certainly "fillers".
A shame, as there is certainly much more to be written, and expanded upon in these pages.
This book was a mixed bag.
I would, however, still recommend it. It has a lot of good reading that seems to be under-appreciated, judging by the reviews I've read on here.
4 stars.
Author Daniel Levitin seems to be very informed about evolutionary biology, and makes many references to it; talking about how it relates to music, religion, and behaviour. Great stuff! The book contains many excellent quotes.
This is the "good" of "The World In Six Songs".
The "bad": He ruins what would otherwise be an excellent book with seemingly random talk about his previous life experience working at a greasy-spoon, and other unrelated topics that were certainly "fillers".
A shame, as there is certainly much more to be written, and expanded upon in these pages.
This book was a mixed bag.
I would, however, still recommend it. It has a lot of good reading that seems to be under-appreciated, judging by the reviews I've read on here.
4 stars.
February 16, 2009
Levitin begins with an extremely promising premise: Why did the musical brain evolve and how did its evolution mold our humanity? However, the execution of his premise lacks coherence and cogency. Much of his scientific evidence seemed far to anecdotal and far too simplified for a lay reader. Without this evidence, his claims seemed far too speculative and sweeping.
I believe he has definitely struck some gold in his thesis, but he won't convince anyone in this conflicted mess of a work. Conflicted? This book is actually two: one that wants to seriously grapple with scientific content, and the other that wants to be a casual, colloquial, anecdotal musical memoir. Mess? Each chapter reads like one long tangent.
His idea deserves a re-write.
I believe he has definitely struck some gold in his thesis, but he won't convince anyone in this conflicted mess of a work. Conflicted? This book is actually two: one that wants to seriously grapple with scientific content, and the other that wants to be a casual, colloquial, anecdotal musical memoir. Mess? Each chapter reads like one long tangent.
His idea deserves a re-write.
August 30, 2016
Unfortunately not a good read. The troubles are foreshadowed in the title: the brain certainly didn't create nature, human or otherwise; I would wager it was the other way around, no?
The lack of consideration revealed in the title was reflected in myriad ways in the first 40 pages of the book, which was all I could manage to read in three concerted efforts. The writing was poor (even containing a number of grammatical errors) and the thoughts failed to flow. It seemed to me to be a very badly organized collection of pleasant little reminiscences about pop songs that the reader might or might not know. In any case, I am sorry to say that I gained little from my brief experience with this book and was not able to finish it.
The lack of consideration revealed in the title was reflected in myriad ways in the first 40 pages of the book, which was all I could manage to read in three concerted efforts. The writing was poor (even containing a number of grammatical errors) and the thoughts failed to flow. It seemed to me to be a very badly organized collection of pleasant little reminiscences about pop songs that the reader might or might not know. In any case, I am sorry to say that I gained little from my brief experience with this book and was not able to finish it.
March 31, 2018
Maybe 1/3 of this book dealt with really interesting subject matter: how musical ability correlates to the mental skills that separated us from other species throughout the course of our evolution.
The rest of it was an off-topic homage to the pop music of his specific generation. The book itself says that this was intentional, "for us to have some common ground", but having grown up in the same culture, only one generation later, I found most of it irrelevant. Illustrating his over-reliance on one specific cultural niche: he seemed to quote Sting more often than actual academic research.
Overall, an interesting read, but lacked focus.
The rest of it was an off-topic homage to the pop music of his specific generation. The book itself says that this was intentional, "for us to have some common ground", but having grown up in the same culture, only one generation later, I found most of it irrelevant. Illustrating his over-reliance on one specific cultural niche: he seemed to quote Sting more often than actual academic research.
Overall, an interesting read, but lacked focus.
October 15, 2017
I liked the part about Comfort the most. He wrote a lot that made sense to me. We really do need to listen to sad songs when we are sad and down.
The part about Friendship focused too much on warfare (I know there's a camaraderie in that but I wouldn't define those songs as songs of friendship), and the part on Knowledge focused too much on Religion (which had its own chapter directly after the knowledge one).
The part about Friendship focused too much on warfare (I know there's a camaraderie in that but I wouldn't define those songs as songs of friendship), and the part on Knowledge focused too much on Religion (which had its own chapter directly after the knowledge one).
October 14, 2009
This book was awful to get through. Levitin rambled on and on trying to make his point but not coming close. He casually injected pseudo-science to back up what he said. His liberal rants were more than I could handle.
November 28, 2009
I've read some books whose authors claim there is no evolutionary reason why musical ability evolved in humans. This book takes the opposite approach. The author gives plenty of reasons why musical ability evolved. Absolutely fascinating!
February 3, 2016
Interesting, but not totally persuasive.
November 13, 2020
I was hoping for non-fiction. It read more like a memoire. Full of personal anecdotes, music lyrics and other sappy prose. a hard pass for me. Too sorry, I was so hyped.
June 20, 2022
Cero estrellas.
El contenido del libro no tiene nada que ver con el título. Se ocupa del cerebro musical en unas páginas del último capítulo (el dedicado al amor, no se sabe muy bien por qué precisamente ahí). Hay un apéndice sobre por qué los monos no tienen música, y cuando crees que viene lo bueno resulta que se lo ventila en 3 páginas (incluyendo dibujos). El resto consiste en una biografía del autor contando sus canciones favoritas y todos los amigos que tiene en la industria discográfica.
Que sí, Daniel, que ya sabemos que eres amigo de Sting y no le importa a nadie.
La premisa es simple: todas las canciones se pueden dividir en seis categorías. A continuación, menciona canciones, en un 99% en inglés y de un selecto grupo de artistas norteamericanos de cuando el autor era adolescente. Analiza las letras como un alumno de primaria tratando de convencernos de que son poesías y de que I walk the line de Johnny Cash es filosofía más o menos al nivel de Kant. Las referencias más modernas (Foo Fighters y Magnetic Fields) no compensan que, según el autor, ahora los chavales escuchan a Coolio (en serio, lo dice).
No hay menciones a estilos que a este señor no le gustan (heavy metal, EDM, reguetón), pero ya os digo que en sus seis categorías que lo abarcan todo no caben Slipknot, Wormed ni Juan del Encina, por poner extremos. Tampoco la música instrumental, aunque eso por lo menos la avisa al principio, lo que deja fuera gran parte de géneros tan dispares como la música clásica, bandas sonoras, jazz, post-rock y dark ambient, entre otros.
Sales de esta lectura sabiendo cómo fue el entierro de la abuela del autor, qué religión profesa y lo bien que se lleva (una vez más) con Sting. De música, puedes aprovechar 10 ó 12 páginas y algo de bibliografía (que es bastante pobre en cuanto a cantidad)
Este libro va más allá de "esta lectura no es para mí" o "no me ha gustado". Dan ganas de abofetear al autor con un rape crudo.
El contenido del libro no tiene nada que ver con el título. Se ocupa del cerebro musical en unas páginas del último capítulo (el dedicado al amor, no se sabe muy bien por qué precisamente ahí). Hay un apéndice sobre por qué los monos no tienen música, y cuando crees que viene lo bueno resulta que se lo ventila en 3 páginas (incluyendo dibujos). El resto consiste en una biografía del autor contando sus canciones favoritas y todos los amigos que tiene en la industria discográfica.
Que sí, Daniel, que ya sabemos que eres amigo de Sting y no le importa a nadie.
La premisa es simple: todas las canciones se pueden dividir en seis categorías. A continuación, menciona canciones, en un 99% en inglés y de un selecto grupo de artistas norteamericanos de cuando el autor era adolescente. Analiza las letras como un alumno de primaria tratando de convencernos de que son poesías y de que I walk the line de Johnny Cash es filosofía más o menos al nivel de Kant. Las referencias más modernas (Foo Fighters y Magnetic Fields) no compensan que, según el autor, ahora los chavales escuchan a Coolio (en serio, lo dice).
No hay menciones a estilos que a este señor no le gustan (heavy metal, EDM, reguetón), pero ya os digo que en sus seis categorías que lo abarcan todo no caben Slipknot, Wormed ni Juan del Encina, por poner extremos. Tampoco la música instrumental, aunque eso por lo menos la avisa al principio, lo que deja fuera gran parte de géneros tan dispares como la música clásica, bandas sonoras, jazz, post-rock y dark ambient, entre otros.
Sales de esta lectura sabiendo cómo fue el entierro de la abuela del autor, qué religión profesa y lo bien que se lleva (una vez más) con Sting. De música, puedes aprovechar 10 ó 12 páginas y algo de bibliografía (que es bastante pobre en cuanto a cantidad)
Este libro va más allá de "esta lectura no es para mí" o "no me ha gustado". Dan ganas de abofetear al autor con un rape crudo.
January 24, 2024
Interesting take on the World of Song.
I liked Levitin’s analysis of some of the various roles Music has played in the Evolution of Human Society. It may not be comprehensive but it’s interesting nonetheless.
For a subject as incredibly wide-ranging as Song it has to be difficult for a writer to hone in on the point and stay with it till he exhausts it completely. That is the problem with this book. After making his point in the first few paragraphs of each chapter, Levitin wanders all over the lot forcing every possible interpretation of the role into his text, sometimes with relevance, often not.
His result is chapters filled with “food for thought” meditations that get the Reader thinking about Lyrics, Musicians, Anthropology, Psychology or Neuroscience. That can often be satisfying, at other times distracting.
Still a fun read. I’ll give it Four Stars. ****
I liked Levitin’s analysis of some of the various roles Music has played in the Evolution of Human Society. It may not be comprehensive but it’s interesting nonetheless.
For a subject as incredibly wide-ranging as Song it has to be difficult for a writer to hone in on the point and stay with it till he exhausts it completely. That is the problem with this book. After making his point in the first few paragraphs of each chapter, Levitin wanders all over the lot forcing every possible interpretation of the role into his text, sometimes with relevance, often not.
His result is chapters filled with “food for thought” meditations that get the Reader thinking about Lyrics, Musicians, Anthropology, Psychology or Neuroscience. That can often be satisfying, at other times distracting.
Still a fun read. I’ll give it Four Stars. ****
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January 11, 2026I always enjoy Levitin's work. He's both scientific enough and approachable enough to sustain the attention. I'm also always amused when I remember that I've got his name in the credits of a Blue Oyster Cult album as well. I enjoy the way he uses pop culture to examine music and the brain. Of course Beethoven, Bach, and Mozart matter, but he gives equally good examples from the Beatles, Joni Mitchell, XTC and Johnny Cash.
July 27, 2013
Qu'est Que C'est?
When I first started reading this a long time ago I couldn't get into it. This time though I got past my initial difficulties and finished it with no trouble. I think that I started it with the wrong idea of what it would be like and found the analysis of music in this way too dry and tedious. Music is after all a subjective phenomenon and deals more in feeling than in fact. But once I got with the program of what Daniel J. Levitin was trying to say in The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature I found it to be fascinating and endlessly engrossing.
Though there were lists of six songs throughout the book, the six songs referred to in the title were six types of songs. William Blake had Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience but Daniel J. Levitin has songs of Friendship, Joy, Comfort, Knowledge, Religion, and Love. The book took each of these examples of songs and traced the history of how music shaped our brains and culture. It also explored animals who do similar things, like the songs of birds, for instance, but argued that Man is the only animal that can conceive of music.
As well as the opinions of Levitin and other scientists there are also interviews with musicians such as Rodney Crowell, David Byrne, and Sting. Levitin is both a scientific researcher and a musician. The quotes from David Byrne reminded me of the time that I got to sing "Psycho Killer" for David Byrne and Brian Eno.
I was a volunteer at a public radio station in Berkeley and Byrne and Eno were doing an interview there. I went down there with my friend Cathy D. to see if I could catch a glimpse of them. The receptionist was trying to make conversation with them, but it was obvious that he didn't really know anything about their music. I felt sorry for him and for Eno and Byrne for having to put up with the awkward small talk. It was embarrassing. I didn't want to contribute to the awkwardness, though I'm sure I could have come up with something a little more enlightened to say.
Though I didn't say anything to either of them, I was still very much excited to have seen them in the flesh. As Cathy and I walked to the parking lot, I burst into "Psycho Killer" because it had that irresistible combination of gobbledegook, French, and the killer hook: "Psycho Killer / Qu'est Que C'est / Fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa far better / Run run run run run run run away..." and just as I was really belting out the hookiest part of the hook, who should drive by in a rental ford Cortina but David Byrne, the composer and singer of "Psycho Killer" and Brian Eno, formerly of Roxie Music and collaborator with David Bowie, Robert Fripp, and sundry others. I would have been much too shy to sing it had I known they would witness my crime, but they smiled and David gave the horn of their little Cortina a beep of acknowledgement as they drove on their merry way.
So, with that in mind, I'd like to honk the horn of my Ford Cortina for Daniel J. Levitin, for a book well done: "Ba-beep!"
When I first started reading this a long time ago I couldn't get into it. This time though I got past my initial difficulties and finished it with no trouble. I think that I started it with the wrong idea of what it would be like and found the analysis of music in this way too dry and tedious. Music is after all a subjective phenomenon and deals more in feeling than in fact. But once I got with the program of what Daniel J. Levitin was trying to say in The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature I found it to be fascinating and endlessly engrossing.
Though there were lists of six songs throughout the book, the six songs referred to in the title were six types of songs. William Blake had Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience but Daniel J. Levitin has songs of Friendship, Joy, Comfort, Knowledge, Religion, and Love. The book took each of these examples of songs and traced the history of how music shaped our brains and culture. It also explored animals who do similar things, like the songs of birds, for instance, but argued that Man is the only animal that can conceive of music.
As well as the opinions of Levitin and other scientists there are also interviews with musicians such as Rodney Crowell, David Byrne, and Sting. Levitin is both a scientific researcher and a musician. The quotes from David Byrne reminded me of the time that I got to sing "Psycho Killer" for David Byrne and Brian Eno.
I was a volunteer at a public radio station in Berkeley and Byrne and Eno were doing an interview there. I went down there with my friend Cathy D. to see if I could catch a glimpse of them. The receptionist was trying to make conversation with them, but it was obvious that he didn't really know anything about their music. I felt sorry for him and for Eno and Byrne for having to put up with the awkward small talk. It was embarrassing. I didn't want to contribute to the awkwardness, though I'm sure I could have come up with something a little more enlightened to say.
Though I didn't say anything to either of them, I was still very much excited to have seen them in the flesh. As Cathy and I walked to the parking lot, I burst into "Psycho Killer" because it had that irresistible combination of gobbledegook, French, and the killer hook: "Psycho Killer / Qu'est Que C'est / Fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa far better / Run run run run run run run away..." and just as I was really belting out the hookiest part of the hook, who should drive by in a rental ford Cortina but David Byrne, the composer and singer of "Psycho Killer" and Brian Eno, formerly of Roxie Music and collaborator with David Bowie, Robert Fripp, and sundry others. I would have been much too shy to sing it had I known they would witness my crime, but they smiled and David gave the horn of their little Cortina a beep of acknowledgement as they drove on their merry way.
So, with that in mind, I'd like to honk the horn of my Ford Cortina for Daniel J. Levitin, for a book well done: "Ba-beep!"
June 14, 2011
A toss up between 2 and 3 stars. I gave it 3 because it has some bits of very interesting good information. However, those parts are few and far between. I liked the good bits enough, though, to have made it through the whole book. The majority of the book should only have 2 stars. Mr. Levitin explains his ideas of evolution too much and in an unbelievable over the top way. I disagree with his main premise that music created humans as they are now rather than the other way around.
My favorite two chapters are the "joy" and the "comfort" chapters. I especially recommend pages 98-109 and 133-134 for anyone who would like to just glance at the book. These pages explain how many different hormones are released when hearing/playing/singing different types of music. I'll quote two of the interesting examples:
1. "In one study, people were simply given singing lessons and their blood chemistry was measured immediately afterward. Serum concentrations of oxytocin increased significantly." (p.98)
2. "Prolactin, a tranquilizing hormone, is released when we're sad. Sorrow does have an evolutionary purpose, which is to help us conserve energy and reorient our priorities for the future after a traumatic event. ------- a chemical analysis of tears reveals that prolactin is not always present in tears - it is not released in tears of lubrication of the eye, or when the eye is irritated, or in tears of joy; it is only released in tears of sorrow. David Huron suggests that sad music allows us to "trick" our brain into releasing prolactin in response to the safe or imaginary sorrow induced by the music, and the prolactin then turns around our mood." (p.133)
My favorite two chapters are the "joy" and the "comfort" chapters. I especially recommend pages 98-109 and 133-134 for anyone who would like to just glance at the book. These pages explain how many different hormones are released when hearing/playing/singing different types of music. I'll quote two of the interesting examples:
1. "In one study, people were simply given singing lessons and their blood chemistry was measured immediately afterward. Serum concentrations of oxytocin increased significantly." (p.98)
2. "Prolactin, a tranquilizing hormone, is released when we're sad. Sorrow does have an evolutionary purpose, which is to help us conserve energy and reorient our priorities for the future after a traumatic event. ------- a chemical analysis of tears reveals that prolactin is not always present in tears - it is not released in tears of lubrication of the eye, or when the eye is irritated, or in tears of joy; it is only released in tears of sorrow. David Huron suggests that sad music allows us to "trick" our brain into releasing prolactin in response to the safe or imaginary sorrow induced by the music, and the prolactin then turns around our mood." (p.133)
July 1, 2016
The sweeping statement that every song in the world fits into one of six categories is bold and intriguing. But Levitin seems uninterested in developing this further, and instead uses this thesis as a way to distribute blends of speculation about primitive man, biology research, and personal anecdotes. There is very little way in the way of actual musicology or music history in this book.
There are only cursory references to music of other cultures and very little acknowledgement of music from other eras. Levitin devotes almost all of his discussion of songs to those produced by a narrow band of 1970's singer-songwriters--a curious choice, given the sweeping scope of the title.
As for music's role in creating human nature, the author hints at the fascinating proposition that the social interaction that music-making requires granted an evolutionary edge and continues to shape our behavior now. Here is where the lack of any sense of music history or musicology becomes apparent: Levitin does not draw any examples from -- or even acknowledge -- the long LONG tradition of community-made orally-transmitted folk music (that is almost as old as humanity itself). Instead, he speculates on the social situations of primitive man and then leaps forward through time to make tenuous connections to the mass-produced soft-rock that is promoted and sold by record companies as a product.
If you enjoy music and Malcom Gladwell-style overviews of research, you may enjoy this book. If you are hoping for insights into commonalities of the musical experience across cultures and time, you will be disappointed.
There are only cursory references to music of other cultures and very little acknowledgement of music from other eras. Levitin devotes almost all of his discussion of songs to those produced by a narrow band of 1970's singer-songwriters--a curious choice, given the sweeping scope of the title.
As for music's role in creating human nature, the author hints at the fascinating proposition that the social interaction that music-making requires granted an evolutionary edge and continues to shape our behavior now. Here is where the lack of any sense of music history or musicology becomes apparent: Levitin does not draw any examples from -- or even acknowledge -- the long LONG tradition of community-made orally-transmitted folk music (that is almost as old as humanity itself). Instead, he speculates on the social situations of primitive man and then leaps forward through time to make tenuous connections to the mass-produced soft-rock that is promoted and sold by record companies as a product.
If you enjoy music and Malcom Gladwell-style overviews of research, you may enjoy this book. If you are hoping for insights into commonalities of the musical experience across cultures and time, you will be disappointed.
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