Why You Love Music: From Mozart to Metallica--The Emotional Power of Beautiful Sounds

by John Powell

Overview

A delightful journey through the psychology and science of music, Why You Love Music is the perfect book for anyone who loves a tune.

Music plays a hugely important role in our emotional, intellectual, and even physical lives. It impacts the ways we work, relax, behave, and feel. It can make us smile or cry, it helps us bond with the people around us, and it even has the power to alleviate a range of medical conditions. The songs you love (and hate, and even the ones you feel pretty neutral about) don't just make up the soundtrack to your life — they actually help to shape it.

In Why You Love Music, scientist and musician John Powell dives deep into decades of psychological and sociological studies in order to answer the question "Why does music affect us so profoundly?" With his relaxed, conversational style, Powell explores all aspects of music psychology, from how music helps babies bond with their mothers to the ways in which music can change the taste of wine or persuade you to spend more in restaurants. Why You Love Music will open your eyes (and ears) to the astounding variety of ways that music impacts the human experience.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316260671
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	05/02/2017
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	635,364
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Scientist and musician John Powell holds a PhD in physics from Imperial College (London University) and a Master's degree in music from the university of Sheffield (UK). He is the author of How Music Works.

Table of Contents

1 What Is Your Taste in Music? 3

2 Lyrics, and Meaning in Music 18

3 Music and Your Emotions 31

4 Repetition, Surprises, and Goose Bumps 59

5 Music as Medicine 74

6 Does Music Make You More Intelligent? 85

7 From Psycho to Star Wars: The Power of Movie Music 97

8 Are You Musically Talented? 113

9 A Few Notes about Notes 123

10 What's in a Tune? 135

11 Untangling the Tune from the Accompaniment 157

12 Don't Believe Everything You Hear 165

13 Dissonance 185

14 How Musicians Push Our Emotional Buttons 192

15 Why You Love Music 214

Fiddly Details

A Timbre 233

B Post-Skip Reversal 243

C Harmonizing a Tune 246

D How Many Tunes Are Hidden in the Harmony? 258

E Scales and Keys 262

Acknowledgments 273

Suggestions for Listening and Viewing 275

References and Further Reading

A Main Textbook References and Suggestions for Further Reading 279

B References 283

Index 299

Editorial Reviews

"In this book, Powell does for music what Masters and Johnson did for sex."
—Bernie Krause, PhD, author of The Great Animal Orchestra

"A buffet of insights and oddities."
—Kirkus Reviews

"Powell draws on decades of other people's research, filtered through his own charming sense of humor, to help readers hear music with fresh ears....He delivers a solid case for why, indeed, people love (and need) music."—Publishers Weekly

"WHY YOU LOVE MUSIC is highly amusing and informative, and makes for casual reading of a superior kind."—-Philip Marchand, National Post (Canada)

From the Publisher

04/01/2016
British physicist and musician Powell continues his popular examination of music begun in How Music Works. Written in a breezy and engaging style, this book discusses the emotional power of music and presents current thinking on why music matters. Most of the author's conclusions are validated by research quoted within the text and fully cited in the notes. He examines a smorgasbord of issues: basic elements of emotion (fast, slow, happy, sad), repetition and surprise, music as therapy, as booster of intelligence, film music, tuning (Western music is slightly out of tune by design), and talent (shown mostly to be the result of diligence, not giftedness). The section "Fiddly Details" explains traditional concepts such as timbre, scales, and harmony. Many accounts have addressed the emotional influence of music: Anthony Storr's Music and the Mind; Oliver Sacks's Musicophilia; and textbooks such as the Handbook of Music and Emotion. The virtue of Powell's work is its research-based, accessible style. VERDICT Recommended for general music lovers seeking a popular presentation of the affecting power of music.—Bruce R. Schueneman, Texas A&M Univ. Lib., Kingsville

Library Journal

2016-04-06
A buffet of insights and oddities regarding "the psychology of music."A professor of physics with a master's degree in music composition, Powell (How Music Works: The Science and Psychology of Beautiful Sounds, from Beethoven to the Beatles and Beyond, 2010) writes with a breezy style that belies his education. Much of this book involves the translation of scientific and academic research into the popular vernacular, with a wry, dry humor, proceeding from the account of how "early researchers" divided musical taste into two camps: "the posh and the rabble"—i.e., high and low culture, or classical and popular. Some of what the author offers about music's subconscious effect on the brain is fascinating—e.g., how certain types of music can not only make wine taste better, but will also affect how much you're willing to pay for that wine. Much of the rest, however, provides researched support for what has long been anecdotally obvious—that music can make us feel happy, that it has therapeutic powers to offset depression, that we respond best to music that is familiar and repetitious, that music is an important factor in developing and asserting our identities, and that we have less penchant for musical exploration after we've passed the identity-forging stage of adolescence and young adulthood. There's sort of a grab-bag feel to the book's organization, even before the appendices ("Fiddly Details"). The last proper chapter has the same title as the book, and its conclusion offers the answer to the question posed by that title: "Music has the power to alleviate depression, reduce perceived pain, help you cope with various illnesses and disorders, reduce boredom, aid relaxation, help you focus on a physical task, help you bond with others, reduce stress, improve your mood, and fill your life with emotions from nostalgia to joy. No wonder you love it." A succinct summation of all that has come before, much of which readers will already know before beginning the book.

Kirkus Reviews