Supporting Texts

The Music Instinct: How Music Works and Why We Can't Do Without It

By Philip Ball

Why have all human cultures - today and throughout history - made music? Why does music excite such rich emotion? How do we make sense of musical sound?

These are questions that have, until recently, remained mysterious. Now The Music Instinct explores how the latest research in music psychology and brain science is piecing together the puzzle of how our minds understand and respond to music. Ranging from Bach fugues to nursery rhymes to heavy rock, Philip Ball interweaves philosophy, mathematics, history and neurology to reveal why music moves us in so many ways.