Friday, March 19, 2010

Musicophilia

This is the book I started reading the other day: Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks. You may remember him as the author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, which I wrote about sometime earlier and just spent a few minutes trying unsuccessfully to locate. (Aside: maybe after I get the "Pages" thing done I'll install that widget that allows you to search the entire blog.)

When I first discovered Oliver Sacks, I thought he had died long ago because the "Hat" book was published in 1985. It turns out, according to his Wikipedia link, he is only 76 right now and a practicing neurologist and psychiatrist at Columbia University. This just goes to show how my mind works: books more than twenty years old = ancient history. My ex-boss Mickey used to call this "discounting the past." If something is not the most current thing on the block, we discount it and keep repeating the same studies or whatever and go for the latest, whether or not it is the best.

Sacks is on the top of his game in this book. Although I have just started reading it, it's hard to put it down. I'm so fascinated by the things I'm learning. One really interesting story is about a man who was a successful orthopedic surgeon and was struck by lightning at the age of 42. He had an out-of-body experience afterwards, and then was slammed back into his body. With some rather minor (for what he experienced, anyway) aftereffects, he returned to normal in a few weeks.

But one other thing happened: he developed an insatiable desire to listen to piano music and started to hear original melodies in his head. In the space of a dozen years or so, he had learned to play the piano and made his debut as a musician, all the while keeping his medical practice going. From the book (p. 12):
He prepared two pieces for his concert: his first love, Chopin's B-flat Minor Scherzo; and his own first composition, which he called Rhapsody, Opus 1. His playing, and his story, electrified everyone at the retreat (many expressed the fantasy that they, too, might be struck by lightning). He played with "great passion, great brio" -- and if not with supernatural genius, at least with creditable skill, an astounding feat for someone with virtually no musical background who had taught himself to play at forty-two.
What Sacks does best in this book is compel me to ponder the nature of the brain and the nature of my love (or lack of love) for music. It's a tantalizing thought that maybe our mental processes are subject to major changes because of a shift in perception, caused by a trauma (as in this case) or for some other unknown reason.

The book is full of stories that cause me to speculate as to the nature of my own brain, and what can be changed through meditation and will, and what might be different tomorrow when I wake up, for no apparent reason? (There are lots of these examples, too.) I hope those of you who are interested in following up will read the book and let me know what you think.
:-)

14 comments:

  1. That is fascinating material. I couldn't begin to speculate on the nature of my own brain. LOL - Too many recesses, nooks, and crannies up there and I don't even want to know what possibly lies hidden in them. I was amused by your comment about discounting the past. I am just the opposite. I forget how much time really has elapsed. 20 years back doesn't seem all that long ago to me. Still seems like yesterday.

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  2. I believe I have this book on one of my "wish lists". Now maybe I'll have to check it out. As a musician (who now rarely plays) and a music lover, I am fascinated about what draws us to music and why different people are drawn to different types of music. Thanks for the heads up. Maybe you can do a complete review when you finish.
    Lee

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  3. Well...you know I'll be all onto this book! Thanks for turning me onto to this one. Next stop..my library web page.
    Thanks DJan!

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  4. It does sound interesting. I'm going to write it down. I may actually get through the stack of books waiting for me and need something new!

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  5. It does sound like an interesting book. I find the story you mentioned fascinating and would like to know more, I'll put it on my list.

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  6. I will definitely put it on my list. I think my husband might enjoy this book as well. I've studied the brain for years and it is such an amazing and elastic part of who we are.

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  7. Fascinating. I've often wondered what draws us to music, what causes one person to be a music lover and the next to not have any interest. I have wondered how much genetics plays a part and how much might be attributed to learned behavior. You so often see that entire families are musical. Mine, in fact, is like this. Those of us who have no musical talent are voracious lovers of music in nearly all its forms. I've never considered what part trauma may play, however. I'll have to check this out.

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  8. D-Jan,this is fantastic stuff,I'll see if I can get a copy here.It's been a long time since I last came by.....Will read your other posts too later on both blogs.I guess it's all in the mind as they say.
    I love your new background too.Enjoy your weekend.

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  9. Didn't know he was still alive. I loved his AWAKENINGS and THE MAN WHO MISTOOK HIS WIFE FOR A HAT.

    I looked at MUSICOPHILIA on Amazon and might buy it.

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  10. I haven't read anything he has written, but maybe when I have more time? I try to not think about my brain. It's far too jumbled up and complicated already and there are dark hallways up there that I don't want to walk down. It's always good to read a book that makes us think and improve though...

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  11. awakenings is a fantastic book. and movie.

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  12. The New Yorker did an article about the man who was struck by lightning, and Oliver Sacks book.

    I read "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" and I read some of Oliver Sacks books about OCD, and I discovered from reading his books that I have it -- well, a mild form of it. I have a very "organized" brain, and this enables me to understand computers and to work well with them.

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  13. This book sounds so interesting! I will check it out!!

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  14. Oliver Sacks' books certainly helped me understand what was and is going on in my rearranged brain. His were the first books I read when first diagnosed with brain tumors but not the last. What I learned from Sacks still helps me in identifying each increase in my mental functioning - and decrease when I recently fell resulting in a concussion. I've not yet read his latest.....

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