A Review of an Oliver Sachs Book, Musicophilia: "We humans are a musical species no less than a linguistic one"

Editor's Note: Around the time of the publishing of this book, we asked Dr. Sachs to autograph copies. His personal assistant, Kate Edgar, graciously handled the arrangements and our daughters each has a copy of this book, reviewed by the late Julia Sneden. Dr. Sachs' death from cancer was announced by Ms. Edgar.

MUSICOPHILIA

Published by Vintage Books/Random House

This is Dr. Sacks' tenth book, and anyone who has read his earlier writings will recognize his erudite-but-easy-going style. He is a famous neuroscientist and a careful researcher, but there is nothing dull or intimidating in his writings, because he writes simply and expressively, from the heart. His passion for his studies of the brain is infused with an obvious respect for both his patients and his readers. He is a writer who honors the human spirit.

In his preface, Sacks defines musicophilia: "...This propensity to music... shows itself in infancy, is manifest and central in every culture, and probably goes back to the very beginnings of our species...it lies so deep in human nature that one is tempted to think of it as innate."

He goes on to say: "... music remains fundamental and central in every culture. We humans are a musical species no less than a linguistic one."

This is a four-part book, each part divided into chapters addressing specific examples of a broad subject. Part One is titled: "Haunted by Music," and includes stories about sudden events of seizures that include musical hallucinations. The seizures are often caused by or tumors or epilepsy, but can also be the result of trauma to the head. One man, a surgeon, was even hit by lightning, and a short time later was consumed by a desire to hear piano music, followed by the need to learn how to play the piano, followed by a strong drive to compose.

A chapter in this first part will be of special interest to anyone who has ever been stuck with the incessant repetition of something like that fool Song That Has No End, echoing through the brain. The name for such catastrophes is 'earworms,' and they are hideously common, especially if they contain music picked up from television shows or advertisements. We whose brains have subjected us to such torture know that earworms depart only when they are good and ready, but in most cases they do (thank God) depart eventually.

Part Two, titled "A Range of Musicality," discusses things like music lovers and would-be performers whose strengths are mismatched, i.e., someone whose technical facility is fine but whose performance lacks fire and passion, or someone who plays with great emotion, but whose choice of music lacks both judgment and taste. In both cases, the intentions and desires don’t match the players' abilities.

This section also leads us to a technical description of a musician’s brain. Sacks refers to

"Gottfried Schlaug and his colleagues at Harvard , who made careful comparisons of the sizes of various brain structures. ...They (showed) that the corpus callosum ... that connects the two hemispheres of the brain, is enlarged in professional musicians and that a part of the auditory cortex, the planum temporale, has an asymmetric enlargement in musicians with absolute pitch ... (They) went on to show increased volumes of gray matter in motor, auditory and visuospatial areas of the cortex, as well as in the cerebellum. Anatomists today would be hard put to identify the brain of a visual artist, a writer, or a mathematician — but they could recognize the brain of a professional musician without a moment's hesitation."

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A Review of an Oliver Sachs Book, Musicophilia: "We humans are a musical species no less than a linguistic one"

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