[LISTENED TO: May 13, 2013] Musicophilia
My sister-in-law Karen got me this audio book for Christmas. I had never read any Oliver Sacks before although I have always been amused/intrigued by his stuff (The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is such a great title). So this book, as one might guess, is all about how music impacts our lives. Music is more than just an enjoyable set of melodies, it is a more primordial form of communication. The key thing for any fan of music to know about this book is that about 97% of the music he talks about is classical. Which is fine, but you’re not going to get any kind of insight into rock. The reason for this is twofold. One–he likes classical (and doesn’t seem to like rock–although he did take one of his patients to a Grateful Dead show) and two–he wants to talk more about music and not so much about lyrics (although again, that’s not entirely true).
I have to admit that while I enjoyed the stories in the book and will certainly talk about it a lot, I found the book a little overwhelming–it was exhaustive and exhausting. Sacks really tries to cover ever aspect of music (and many I never would have guessed) and so I found the nine hours of story a bit tiring by the end.
Part of that may also have been John Lee, the reader, who spoke very clearly and a little slowly and gave the book something of a lecture-feel. Which was fine for much of the book, although again, it was a little exhausting sometimes.
The thing that is most exhausting about the book is that virtually every person he talks to or about has had some kind of trauma which makes their appreciation of music different from the norm. If you are in any way a hypochondriac, this book will make you go insane I’m not, but even I found myself worrying about having a stroke at any second or experiencing some kind of weird brain thing where I no longer like music or god forbid get some kind of long term amnesia. Jesus, I was getting a little spooked by the end.
Some of the topic he covers include: sudden musicophilia–a man who was struck by lightning and suddenly became a gifted composer–but who left his wife and family because he was so very different. There’s also musical seizures–people who have seizures brought on by music. Perhaps the most interesting of this category was musical hallucinations. In this category people hear full scores of music in their head. They believe it is the radio because it so clear and full–in many cases clearer than the radio–and they cannot turn it off. He cites examples of people who have a jukebox in their head, sometimes they can change the song but they can never turn it off. The worst was when it was just a phrase or a few notes from a piece repeating (sometime loudly) over and over for weeks at a time. Egads.
He also talks about people who were once musical and then eventually lose all talent for or interest in it–for some people music is just grating noise, no matter what it is that is playing.
On the more technical front he talks about Absolute Pitch–people who can tell a note with no question asked. They just hear a C sharp. This is a very rare condition, but he wonders why–it seems like perhaps it is something we were all born with and which we lost later on. It made me wonder if more people have it but since they have no training in music, they don’t really learn it. Everyone knows what blue is. If we heard an F chord over and over wouldn’t we be able to recognize it? Interestingly, after talking about Absolute Pitch for a while he talks about some of the disadvantages of it–hearing a song not in the key you are used t o can actually be maddening because it is wrong, and when you lose it (as some people do) it can be very hard to reconcile.
I also loved the section on synesthesia, like those who see music in certain colors–which sounds pretty cool. I’ve often wondered two things–do all synesthesiacs see the same notes as the same color–no, it is individual And is the color overwhelming? No, if a person is looking at something yellow and hears music that is green, it doesn’t change the color from yellow–it’s just a sort of feeling of greenness. Wild. I immediately asked my kids if they had any sensations like this because most people with synesthesia don’t think its unusual and so don’t talk about it. Neither of my kids do.
The second half of the book talks at length about amnesia. This was the most exhausting part. He talks about a man who has had amnesia for over twenty years and in that time virtually any time he blinks, it’s like he has reset his world. He doesn’t remember anything that was just happening. What a nightmare! Amazingly, his wife has stayed with him all this time. The only thing that he seems to retain is singing and playing music. When he gets absorbed in a song, he can be with it to the end. His wife was thrilled to finally have something they could connect with for more than a few seconds. This was a very sad section of the book.
Music as therapy is a pretty prevalent idea in the end of the book. People with all kinds of diseases respond in various ways to music. People with Parkinson’s can control it while playing piano, people depression or melancholia or even dementia can respond if a song strikes them the right way. Even physical ailments like Tourette’s seem to be controllable with rhythm.
The final section talked a lot about Williams Syndrome, which I had never heard of. It is almost like the opposite of autism. The people who have it are extremely friendly and very musical although their IQs hover around 60. There was the story of a woman who knew thousands of o operas in dozens of languages but who could not count to ten. Williams sufferers are incredibly musical and someone has creates a place where they can all go and sing and play together welcoming everyone and showing off their amazing musical ability. Sacks has some brain scans that try to explain why their minds work the way they do.
Sacks is an incredibly sympathetic person. And his love of music makes this investigation a labor of love for him as well. I’m not really sure how Sacks is able to keep such a positive outlook when he hears and meets so many people with so many different dysfunctions–from the physical inability to do something (pianists whose fingers have curled up and are now useless, musicians who hear notes sharper or flatter than they are) to the mental troubles that I have outlined.
I feel that as I get older and more thoughtful about my health and my family that I couldn’t listen to or read anymore of these books. I’ll always be fascinated by the quirks of humanity but I think I’ve become too sensitive to them now.
This is the second non-fiction audio book that I’ve listened to. I wondered if and how they would deal with bibliographical information. And the answer is–they don’t. While I agree that no one in their right mind would listen to someone reading a bibliography (and no one would want to read it for the audio book), I feel like we miss out on any further reading (and spelling of course).
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