Rating: 
Summary: Music, The Brain, and Ecstasy: Experience Required
Review: "Music, the Brain, and Ecstasy requires no prior musical or scientific knowledge." Or so claims Robert Jourdain with the last paragraph of his introduction. He is trying to convey the message that the book is full of enough information to be enjoyed by people who do not study music or any type of science. This is not always the case in his book though. A person with some history of playing a musical instrument, or some other musical knowlege, would understand this book easier. A person with very little knowledge on music could not use this book as a source of understanding how music effects the mind. To fully enjoy Jourdain's Music, the Brain, and Ecstasy the reader must have previous history wiht music, contrary to the introduction's claim of the opposite. To continue Jourdain's last paragraph of his introduction, he says that all of the necessary information will be spoon fed to the reader. He also includes a glossary in the back of the book, so we do not have to look in a dictionary. This is played out throughout the book. There is plenty of factual information in the early stages of the book. He also shos many scales and musical pieces, mainly The Pink Panther. Jourdain does use analogies in the introduction, usually some interesting story to keep the audiences attention. This is not enough though. He has constraints on this subject and should never have made the claim at the begining of the book that he could explain it well enough. Playing an instrument is a big bonus for understanding parts of the book, especially the tone, or melody sections of the book. A person who has never had this kind of experience will not be able to understand this as well as a person with years of practice. Another constraint would be the inability to read music. He is trying to explain the sound, but it is hard to read sounds especially with little experience. Perhaps the inclusion of a soundtrack with the book could have been beneficial. With a sountrack a person without the proper music background would be able to hear the sounds instead of struggling to read sounds. Jourdain is wrong in saying that there is no intended audience for the book. Knowledge may be spoon fed to the reader, but it may not be understood or even needed in the book. This book could have been much more enjoyable had it been aimed at a particular audience instead of everyone.
Rating: 
Summary: Absolutely fascinating...and applicable.
Review: Although the authors obvious bias against any genre of music besides "classical" permeates this book to an almost embarrassing degree, Jourdain provides a thoroughly captivating, in depth, and surprisingly accessible coverage of a very esoteric subject. Combining synopses of developments in the field of neuropsychology's understanding of brain functions, with anecdotal and documentary insights into the personalities and work of the great composers, Jourdain builds a strong basis for not only understanding how we perceive sound and music, but how different tonal and rhythmic systems exploit, respectively, natural harmonic relationships and the kinsthetic "hard-wiring" of our brains. In addition, he explains where we localize different aspects of muscial experience, and why our individual experiences of rhythm, meter, melody and harmony differ. He wraps it all up against the backdrop of the lives and works of many prolific composers and suggests plausible answers the why the evolution of western music seems to have stalled where it is and what we may hope the future to hold. In examining my own compositions with regard to Jourdains assertions about the neurological basis for musical experience, it becomes obvious why subtle differences in structure and style result in profound differences in the levels of audience appreciation, and for different audiences. Jourdain's book has not only helped me become a better composer, but has helped realize and re-commit myself to developing the vast intellectual and creative potential that lies in this organ each of us has between our ears.
Rating:
Summary: Great insights about music and brain, amazingly well written
Review: Are you a composer, trying to figure out how to make a good melody? or a music student wondering how we arrived at the 12 tones?
or a recording engineer trying to figure how
the brain creates the sense of sorround sound;
this is a MUST read!
Robert Jourdain goes deep into every aspect of music- from raw sound to tone to melody to harmony to rhythm - and every aspect of music making - composition, performance and listening - and its impact - of emotion and ecstasy.
With each aspect, he starts with practical observations and poses questions that you want to find answers to.
He then digs into science research and
outlines the answers that have been proposed.
Very few books combine insights from so many fields, still few integrate them so well and in such a lovely language!
A Master Piece, Robert Jourdaine!
Rating:
Summary: Great insights about music and brain, amazingly well written
Review: Are you a composer, trying to figure out how to make a good melody? or a music student wondering how we arrived at the 12 tones?or a recording engineer trying to figure howthe brain creates the sense of sorround sound;this is a MUST read!Robert Jourdain goes deep into every aspect of music- from raw sound to tone to melody to harmony to rhythm - and every aspect of music making - composition, performance and listening - and its impact - of emotion and ecstasy.With each aspect, he starts with practical observations and poses questions that you want to find answers to.He then digs into science research andoutlines the answers that have been proposed.Very few books combine insights from so many fields, still few integrate them so well and in such a lovely language!A Master Piece, Robert Jourdaine!
Rating:
Summary: Enlightening from start to finish
Review: As an advanced amateur musician, this book was a refreshing reminder of some points to note in my own interpretation and performance of music. Topics range from objective neurology involved in hearing and cognitive processing to subjective personal preferences (see other reviews for detail). Music terminology is explaned for non-musicians but not condescending or overly simplistic for those with a musical bent. The author's use of analogy to convey ideas is excellent, and the prose is flowing. Despite the broad topic, I felt at the end of the book that there had been a point to the discussion and progress made. The author does expresses his own opinions strongly and the coverage of musical types is specifically limited. As for opinions, this isn't a textbook. And despite a CD collection that is 90% alternative rock, I have no inclination to argue that any of that is representative of "complex harmonic development," which is part of the focus of the real topic. Western classical music is used as the example for ideas almost always. That music type was used for detailed description by example however, not asserted as the only basis for argument. More readers may have been appeased if the overly broad title of the book had been narrowed, but then, the scope of the topic did deserve a sweeping heading. Negatives: the author used the phrase "deep relations" about 2.17 times per page. I would recommend he become familiar with synonyms for use in future writing. He also asserts some points in his scientific arguments as undisputable facts, whereas resolution of some of these questions is indeed still at large. I found this book wholly entertaining and informative, one of the the top 10 non-fiction books of those I've read in the last few years.
Rating: 
Summary: Sadly Lacking an Open Brain
Review: First off, this book is great for anyone who wants to learn more about music, especially Western Music from the great Classical composers, Bach, Mozart, Handel, Beethoven and so on. That in itself is not a crime. Unfortunately, what is so distasteful about Jourdain's book is that he tries to use science and psychology, and flimsy research into Ethnomusicology, as means of lauding Western music of the harmonic, hierarchical tradition while dismissing other musics that do not fit this paradigm. This smacks of closed mindedness and cultural elitism of the highest and worst order. His analyses and insights come across as so measured and objective, but are indeed biased and parochial. Again, Jourdain's book is well-written, easy to read, at times fascinating and impassioned. But his annoying harping on what so many other people--most people in the rest of the world and who have ever lived--obviously and purely see as beautiful and wonderful in their own right, is absolutely criminal in this day and age. For example, he dismisses percussive rhythm by hiding behind the term "meter" (an abstraction of the beat, in which rhythm is even, equadistant, and blandly, metrical) and never once discusses the sound and tones and textures of percussives themselves! How can this be?! Well, quite simply, the answer is that Western music theory to this day still lacks a sufficient and true understanding of rhythm, rhythm as the voiced expression and modeling of time as dynamic in the mental fabric of consciousness and the imagination. Jourdain feigns and deigns by lauding the polyrhythms of tribal Africa, but again only discusses meter. On top of that, he elevates Western harmony over this polymeter because he hypothesizes that somehow Western composers were aware of these complex ployrhythms and percussive interplays, and that they decided in their great wisdom that the far more interesting world of Western tonality and harmony would not work with complex rhythms. Does he truly expect me to believe that Beethoven ever experienced the life and brilliance of a tribal drum ritual in deepest Africa, or any near counterpart in Europe? What is most horrible about this, but more subtle, is his ridiculous dismissal of African musics' own complex systems of harmony and melody. Not to mention Jourdain's elevation of Western tonal scales, which the Chinese invented first and indeed left for more interesting harmonic pastures hundreds of years ago. So, Bach and the West rediscovered these scales and expounded upon them beautifully, bravo! But does Jourdain really need to extend this debacle any further. Indeed he feels a need to. He elsewhere dismisses Jazz music with again subtle rancour, and later shows his complete ineptitude in the musical appreciation of electronic music and sounds. He does, however, reason that electronic music technologies may hold the key to future innovations in music and musical beauty, but seems only content or will only be content if these supposedly "yet-to-be-created" musics fall in line with his Euro-centric Classical perspective. It is so outrageous! But sadly, Jourdain is not alone. It would be unfair to accuse him of being somehow deviant or manipulative. He is just one of so many intellectual Western muso's who has thought himself into a box. He's a prisoner of his own stylings. This is counter to the spirit of art itself I believe. Thousands of years from now, when human beings look back on Western music theory they will be appalled by the ignorance and narrowness of its methodology and perspective. It may be seen as a pocket in the unfolding of music history and music study, a excessive side-step, bloomed in the middle of the second millennium and slowly closed thereafter in Western academic circles. It's truly sad. But it's also understandable and indeed forgivable. But this book would have been great if it achieved more in part of what its title pretends to entail. It's funny, but as another reviewer wrote, Jourdain's insights are useful for what they don't say or misunderstand. I wrote a thesis on the impact of electronic/digital technology on the arts and culture. Much of my work concentrated on the hybridization of European music, African-American music and new technology--what today many people term "techno" or "electronica." Ironically, Jourdain's book was very useful, but mostly as an illustration of how and why the Western mind is still largely ignorant of this new music, and quite simply, music in general. More than anything this book was overall a dissapointment although it had a lot of love and thought put into it. For that I am sorry about my tirade. Jourdain in the end simply believes in his own tastes. More power to him. But this book will fill many who love music with a loneliness and a feeling of unwanting from the Western music establishment. But it will also be a strong affirmation, though by default, that music is subjective, and that many different musics are capable of powerful intellectual and emotional creations, that beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder.
Rating: 
Summary: Fun, authoritative, but narrow
Review: I agree with other reviewers that this is a wonderful book--lots of fun and very valuable--but I must also agree that it's pretty narrow. Jourdain constantly uses "we" ("the music we hear," tunes "we" like, etc.) and it's interesting to decode who "we" are. My wife asked if he had a mouse in his pocket. But, no, his "we" is people whose idea of music is Western classical music from Bach (or even Mozart) on, plus the more genteel sorts of pop (Duke Ellington and Eric Clapton but not Robert Johnson or Louis Armstrong). "We" find New Guinea music pretty weird stuff. So this is a great intro to the more familiar music of the west, and does have some material on musics of India and Java, but the folk traditions of the west are neglected--let alone such obscure places as China and Japan. Medieval music is among those that sound strange to "us." Usually, this is sort of irrelevant, even when he concludes that the modern western scale is somehow better. But sometimes it traps him in real errors, as when he traces the early evolution of European music as if it happened without input from the Near East. You won't learn here that "lute" is from Arabic "al 'ud"--and that this significant derivation of the word reflects a similar and much more important derivation of the music. One is also amused by "There's a good deal of polyrhythm in jazz, but not much elsewhere in the West (p. 129)." Actually, African influences have guaranteed an abundance of polyrhythm in blues, Latin American music in general, and plenty of other good solid Western musics. And so it goes. However, I don't want to overemphasize this. The book is fascinating and even a bit of a revelation. Just read it with appropriate sense of the author and his mouse.
Rating:
Summary: Music Fever!
Review: I find this book to be amazing because it spans the science of sound with the art of music expression. Normally, I read books extremely fast; however, this one, I want to savor the images of how it discusses the concepts of music revealing them from the micro to the macro. If you are curious about understanding what makes music tick, then you will love this book
Rating:
Summary: Music Fever!
Review: I find this book to be amazing because it spans the science of sound with the art of music expression. Normally, I read books extremely fast; however, this one, I want to savor the images of how it discusses the concepts of music revealing them from the micro to the macro. If you are curious about understanding what makes music tick, then you will love this book
Rating:
Summary: A superb book that explains more than I knew to question
Review: I haven't been this excited about a book in years. Jourdain explains how the brain functions to hear sounds, tones, melodies, rhythms, and entire works. He constantly moves back and forth between the experience of music and how the brain is responding to the musical inputs, covering composition and performance as well as listening to music. And as to how music has the ability to work on our emotions, Jourdain comes up with the first truly compelling explanation. This book is well written and easy to read while still being thought-provoking and memorable. It's been several weeks since I read it, and now I find myself experiencing music in a different and richer way. Definitely read this book!
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