Autobiography oliver sacks musicophilia

2007 non-fiction book by Oliver Sacks

Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain is a 2007 book by Oliver Sacks. It explores a range of psychological and physiological ailments and their connections to music. It is divided into four parts, each with a distinctive theme: Haunted by Music examines mysterious onsets of musicality and musicophilia (and musicophobia); A Range of Musicality looks at musical oddities musical synesthesia; parts three and four are entitled Memory, Movement, and Music and Emotion, Identity, and Music. Each part has between six and eight chapters, each of which is in turn dedicated to a particular case study (or several related case studies) that fit the overarching theme of the section. Four case studies from the book are featured in the NOVA program Musical Minds aired on June 30, 2009.

Purpose

According to Sacks, Musicophilia was written in an attempt to widen the general populace's understanding of music and its effects on the brain. As Sacks states at the outset of the book's preface, music is omnipresent, influencing human's everyday lives in how we think and act. However, unlike other animal species (such as birds) whose musical prowess is easier to understand in relation on a biological/evolutionary level, humanity's draw towards music and song is less clear-cut. There is no "music center" of the brain, yet the vast majority of humans have an innate ability to distinguish, "music, perceive tones, timbre, pitch intervals, melodic contours, harmony, and (perhaps most elementally) rhythm." With that in mind, Sacks examines human's musical inclination through the lens of musical therapy and treatment, as a fair number of neurological injuries and diseases have been documented to be successfully treated with music. This understanding (along with a medical case Sacks witnessed in 1966 wherein a Parkinson's patient was able to be successfully treated via music therapy) is w

OVERALL RATING Excellent

STRENGTHS Well written; erudite; short chapters; easy to read

WEAKNESSES Footnotes interrupt narrative flow; some case histories are repeated from his earlier book, An Anthropologist on Mars

AUDIENCE Musicians, music lovers, and medical practitioners with an interest in the correlation between music and neuroanatomy

In Musicophilia, the eminent neurologist Dr Oliver Sacks explores the important role that music plays in our lives and in the lives of our patients. He does this by sharing his own personal history, followed by a series of clinical vignettes. He writes about the experience of feeling emotionally numb after his mother died. One day he was walking down the street and heard a radio playing Schubert through an open basement window. The music triggered many happy childhood memories, and he started to feel alive again. He writes about common everyday phenomena (eg, “earworms,” in which a catchy tune keeps going through one’s mind). He discusses the neuropathology of various medical conditions related to music, such as musician’s focal dystonia. He presents fascinating case histories; for example, the case of the orthopedic surgeon who was struck by lightning and subsequently became obsessed with music, to the point where he was constantly listening, playing, and even composing music (so-called musicophilia). He writes about the emergence of musical talent in patients with frontotemporal dementia, and the musical talents of children and adults with Williams syndrome. He makes a plea for the use of music therapy for patients with dementia, aphasia, parkinsonism, and stroke. He illustrates the neuroanatomic substrate of various musical symptoms, such as musical auras, musical hallucinations, and amusia. With frequent references to classical literature and historical figures, Dr Sacks provides a compendium of interesting facts and figures. There is an extensive bibliography for anyone interested i

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“Years ago when I read a biography of Maurice Ravel, I learned that at the end of his life he was afflicted with a condition that allowed him to hear music but not be able to write any of his musical thoughts on paper. To say that he was frustrated by his condition would be a gross understatement. Today there is a name for his condition: “a form of frontotemporal dementia… [with] semantic aphasia.”
Ravel’s doctor had no idea what caused the condition, but I have no doubt that if Ravel were alive today, his doctor would quickly make an appointment for him to see Oliver Sacks, the eminent neurologist (and accomplished pianist). Dr. Sacks’ new book, Musicophilia, is full of amazing stories about men and women with rare neurological conditions, some of which manifested themselves by sudden outbursts of music. Other conditions were relieved only if the afflicted person performed or listened to music.
Given that Dr. Sacks is a neurologist, the reader is not at all surprised to find terms like “frontotemporal dementia,” but he always translates such jargon into plain English so that the reader doesn’t feel like he/she is reading a medical textbook.
The first story is riveting, about an orthopedic surgeon, Tony Cicoria, who was struck by lightning and subsequently developed an insatiable desire for piano music. Not just listening to it, but performing it and writing it. No one knows why the bolt of lightning triggered the outpouring of music, and even though Dr. Sacks is a scientist and wants to explain what happened in scientific terms, he also recognizes the serendipity of the experience, and doesn’t try to explain it away. I find that refreshing.
Dr. Sacks himself is one of the cases in the book. When he tore a tendon during a hiking trip, he “musicked” himself off the mountain – the rhythm of a piece of music (sometimes the Volga Boatmen’s Song) gave him the means to keep moving t