A Language of Emotion: What Music Does and How It Works

These lively, informative essays, all related to music, are as accessible as a chatty bedside reader. A central theme is listener response, and the techniques and structures that mold it.

The story starts with sound waves, the ear, and the brain. Did song come before speech? Was it a factor in evolution? Some think singing helps complete the wiring of that organic work-in-progress, the infant brain.

Check out the frequency doubling that built our familiar scale. Learn where the word organiz...