I read Music, The Brain, & Ecstasy by Robert Jourdain last month and I really enjoyed it. If you’re interested in both “thinking about thinking” and “thinking about music” like I am then I think you’ll enjoy this book as well. It is recommended.

What follows is clear evidence that I’m an even worse reviewer of books than I am of music. I’m going to just list some random thoughts about the book and put numbers besides them, as if that makes any kind of sense.

01. There is some interesting stuff in this book concerning the similarities and differences in the musical structures of different cultures.

02. There are some fascinating anecdotes in the book about great composers and musicians of the past (for example Franz Liszt had “color hearing” aka synesthesia.)

03. The book dispels the myth that rhythm is more “basic” than melody. There’s nothing “primal” about rhythm. The reason people feel that way sometimes is because of the way that rhythm is felt in the body.

04. There’s some really interesting stuff in this book about the development of music. It’s difficult to understand from a modern perspective, but in the distant past music was just a melody (no harmony) and when music was first “notated” there was no way of notating rhythm or even notes the way we think of them today (there were just “rises” and “falls” which is also how children initially hear melodies until they come to learn the intervals involved.)

05. I’m reading Musicophilia now (I’m at around page 260 at the moment) and while I do recommend it as well, I think I prefer Music, The Brain, & Ecstasy.

06. There’s some really interesting stuff in this book about how humans evolved to hear the way that we do (and there are comparisons to how other animals hear that are quite interesting as well.)

07. I would say the book is more about the brain (“thinking about thinking”) than music really but there are some references to basic music theory concepts.

08. The “Ecstasy” in the title does not refer to drugs but rather the feeling one gets when they are immersed deeply in really listening to great music.

09. The book is focused mostly on western music. And the author is clearly most interested in classical music. He doesn’t seem to think much of popular music.

10. This book is not available for the Kindle but it is only $10 for a paperback.