A Peek Behind the Curtain: A Guest Post by Daniel J. Levitin

Feeling blue? Feeling dreamy? Feeling full of love or broken-hearted? There’s a piece of music for every mood. Wondering how something as deeply emotional and intimate as music connects head and heart to heal what ails us? This elegant study from an acclaimed neurosurgeon is the place to start. Read on for an exclusive essay from Daniel J. Levitin on writing I Heard There Was a Secret Chord.

The idea for this book came the same way as did the ideas for my other books. I had an itch in my brain, a curiosity about something that kept pestering me: the benefits of music on our health. Questions followed me around and intruded in the most public places (subway trains, walking downtown, jammed into tight seats at a stadium music show). They overran private thoughts (while taking a shower in the morning, cultivating the hydrangeas in my garden, or sitting at the piano playing Beethoven or Bill Evans).

There was so little research on the subject that I decided to write from my personal experiences as a performing musician about the healing power of music. At least for the duration of a concert, audience members can forget their troubles, their aches and pains, their stresses, and sometimes these effects linger for days after. I’ve seen this up close, sharing stages with Bobby McFerrin, Renée Fleming, Neil Young, Victor Wooten, Rosanne Cash. I also had the privilege to work on records by Joni Mitchell, The Grateful Dead, and Steely Dan. We’ve all experienced the ways that music can lift people, including ourselves.

But because I also direct a neuroscience laboratory, I felt compelled to report on observations that were backed up by solid science. Twenty years ago, there were only a few rigorous, controlled studies of music being used to treat injury, disease, malaise, depression, mental or physical illness. But in the last ten years, our field has amassed a great body of knowledge. I read 4,000 research articles during the four years it took to write Secret Chord and did my best to synthesize and report on only the best studies. As I went, I consulted with colleagues, went to conferences, and cajoled a group of friends to read drafts of the book and make suggestions (playing Tom Sawyer to their Huck Finns!).

Science is not meant to cure us of mystery, but to reinvent and reinvigorate it (to quote Robert Sapolsky). Knowing how music works in the brain and body doesn’t demystify it, but only increases and enhances our appreciation for the great gift that it is. More practically, I hope that several readers will find the inspiration and a road map to bring music therapies into their own lives. And professionally I hope that hospitals, clinics, and health insurance companies will tap into this powerful, now scientifically-based body of work that has the potential to benefit all of us.

Daniel J. Levitin brings his work as neuroscientist, musician, and producer to his writing, as the author of six consecutive best-selling books (including 4 New York Times bestsellers) and over 100 newspaper and magazine articles.  I Heard There Was A Secret Chord is out in paperback now, and was selected a Smithsonian Book of the Year and is a finalist for the Royal Society (London) Trivedi Science Book Prize 2025.