Reflections on the Musical Mind

Jay Schulkin is Research Professor in the Department of Neuroscience and member at the Center for the Brain Basis of Cognition, both at Georgetown University. He is the author of numerous books, including Roots of Social Sensibility and Neural Function, Bodily Sensibility: Intelligent Action, Cognitive Adaptation: A Pragmatist Perspective, and Adaptation and Well-Being: Social Allostasis.

"Complex though the subject is, Schulkin writes with the general reader in mind, balancing and contextualizing scientific particularities with cross-disciplinary discussions of musicology, wider aesthetics and philosophy in an accessible, highly readable style. At 178 pages, it is a compact book, but a wise and welcome one too, on every page a fresh line of enquiry and a reaching towards an understanding of the importance of the brain to our appreciation of music and of music to our sense of ourselves."--Michael Quinn, Classical Music "For neuroscientist Jay Schulkin, music provides an enjoyable but at times testing workout for the brain, much as sport does for the body. Indeed, for him, listening to music is a microcosm of living one's life. In Reflections on the Musical Mind, he reminds us that we live in a world of uncertainty, always needing to predict the future with imprecise, or absent, information. So evolution has honed us to make judgments based on aesthetics, and to find slight deviations from the familiar--especially in music--both interesting and attractive."--New Scientist "This book presents an enormous amount of information about music and biology in a concise, well ordered, and readable manner... [H]e has produced a detailed picture of what functions enable music to have the powerful role it has in our lives both individually and socially. His love of music and the science behind it jumps from the pages and should be read by anyone interested in where the field currently stands."--Jeff Gottlieb, Quarterly Review of Biology

• Foreword vii Preface xi Introduction 1 Chapter 1 Music and the Brain An Evolutionary Context 18 Chapter 2 Bird Brains, Social Contact, and Song 37 Chapter 3 Human Song Dopamine, Syntax, and Morphology 62 Chapter 4 Musical Expectations, Probability, and Aesthetics 87 Chapter 5 Musical Expression, Memory, and the Brain 119 Chapter 6 Development, Music, and Social Contact 140 Chapter 7 Music and Dance 156 Conclusion Music and Well-Being 172 Notes 179 References 201 Index 249