Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, Revised and Expanded Edition

Musicophilia, Tales of Music and the Brain tries to explain the impact that music has and how it affects the minds of individuals. Believe it or not but music has the capabilities to alter the way of life of an individual. The author, Oliver Sack has denoted human beings as a musical species.

In one of his statements he said that music is a form of therapy that adjusts individuals feelings, due to some sort of neurological changes. Since then a lot of research and investigation has been done in this area, assessing various patients physical, physiological and psychological abilities.

In many schools now, children are taught through music. While practicing his work he has made the point that he lets his clients or patients speak and open up with their problems. This is to let them free from pain or any kind of other problems or fear.

He does not restrict to just the powers of music impacting their neurological pattern, but he goes on to say that there are other facts associated with it and these may contribute equally for changes in behavior.

He assesses 29 different topics in this book and the chapters are always supported with case studies, so its not just made up baloney.

However I felt that the book lacked images of the brain including its parts and functioning, so that a better understanding of which parts respond to a particular situation could be studied because not everyone has a neurology background.

Musicophilia is a very short, concise study that delves into the relationships between music and the way our psyche responds to music, the beautiful words and phrases that he uses has resulted in a very insightful and intriguing new understanding of this topic.