Books like The Music Lesson

Hailed by educators throughout the world, Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences has been applied to hundreds of classrooms and schools. It shatters the theory that being smart is only measured by math and English skills. Through scientific and unquestionable documented historical research. Goodbye to SATs. Now we can acknowledge that geniuses can also be measured by linguistics, music, mathematical, spatial, body, and personal intelligence. A politician, athlete, architect, dancer, or musician can be brilliant in what they do but may not be able to write, speak, or do mathematics. We have known this to be our experience but now Gardner’s research makes it a fact. Now it’s time to change those old, outdated, and irrelevant SAT exams!

The Listening Book is about rediscovering the power of listening as an instrument of self-discovery and personal transformation. By exploring our capacity for listening to sounds of music, nature, and one’s own breathing, we can awaken and release our full creative powers. Mathieu guides the reader to hearing the connections between all sounds of music and everyday life. It is insightful and surprising to notice what is around us at any moment of the day and apply this heightened awareness to understanding and connecting with music listening or performance. This awareness can be neglected but applicable to connecting our inner soul with the outside world and to life. Brilliant illuminations from a genius composer, musician and teacher W.A. Mathieu. 

This amazing book draws on nearly one hundred interviews with creative people in every field and thirty years of research on the subject of creativity. There are multiple stories from musicians and composers while Csikszentmihalyi abstracts the common characteristics of the creative process that transcends the arts, science, architecture, and technology. He studies personalities, family backgrounds, and the environments that inspire the creative process. We learn to accept that many uniquely creative people have channeled their contributions by focusing their energy through unique structures that include conflicts, disease, handicap, stress, poverty, and emotional instability. The 426 pages of research and interviews are captivating, informative, and insightful and can inspire creative expression from new sources of understanding. 

A Soprano on Her Head was inspired by W. Timothy Galley’s Inner Game of Tennis book, applying these principles to musical performance and creativity. It is a wonderful anecdotal collection of delightful experiences in playing any instrument, dancing, or singing with the inner freedom that all artists long for. The book is as much about learning from your own experience, the creative process, and harnessing these tools as they could apply to music performance, teaching, and learning. She explores nervous energy and stress through insight and common sense. Her stories make an effortless and delightful read filled with applicable knowledge and skills for daily living. 

I am deeply engaged in the lifelong work of neuroscientist Nina Kraus in the area of sound and music. My background as a sound designer and neuroscientist resonates with Dr. Kraus’ curiosity to unravel the mysteries of how we hear and make sense of the sonic world.

I really was blown away when she demonstrated how a famous rock melody created an electric signal in the brain of the listener, which was then transformed back into an audio signal that sounded exactly like the original melody. This book is full of hardcore explanations about the wondrous experience of the human brain’s interpretation of our world of sound, which I use for self-exploration and professional application in sound design.

Sacks is a supreme storyteller of remarkable human experiences in the world of music. The people of these extraordinary tales who are on the neurological edge of sonic perception (e.g., struck by lightning and immediately becoming an inspired pianist) give me such awe of what is possible, even miraculous.

Related from the perspective of a curious scientist, the mysteries are explained in a manner that resembles well-told science fiction… except they are real and relate to our own untapped capacities. Sacks’ extensive body of writing about the marvels of being human stands tall in my library.

This book is one of the biggest influences in my life as a sound designer, musician, neuroscientist, and super curious researcher/creator. Dan’s personal life trajectory mirrors my own love of music and science, and his writing style is so accessible and engaging.

He and I have met personally, signed each other’s books, and are literally and figuratively on the same page. I also love his book, The World in Six Songs, a deep dive into how and why music affects us emotionally, culturally, and socially, which is very pertinent to sound design storytelling and portraying human nature from prehistoric to current pop culture.

Written in 1997, this was the first of many books (including the others on my list here) that united my experience in sound design, music, and neuroscience.

In an elegant and entertaining style, Jourdain embraces the theme from Pink Panther by Henry Mancini and illustrates the continuum of musical experience in tone, melody, harmony, rhythm, composition, listening, and understanding while revealing the hows and whys our brains perceive, integrate and elicit emotion. 

I keep referring to this seminal work, which helped me write my own book, and I feel grateful for Jourdain’s groundbreaking entry into this field.

I remember reading this book over the summer when I was on the road with a recording company. It is filled with anecdotes about the metaphysical, transcendental, spiritual, and mystic properties of music. The thing I find so fascinating about these stories is not if they are true or not, but the belief systems of these ancient people, and the power and faith they put into music.

Is music as universally positive and life-affirming as we think?

This book made me think twice about that idea. Yes, music lubricates our identities and can generate fellow feeling and a sense of well-being, but it can just as easily drive us apart. Think about pop’s repertoire of overtly sexist and racist songs, the booing of national anthems at sports events, and music reserved for the status acquisition practices of the elite, like opera.

What I like about David Hesmondhalgh’s exploration of why music matters is that it takes a balanced view of these questions. I use it a lot in teaching as an antidote to the somewhat lazy idea that music is *always* a force for social good. I also admire David’s ability to move from the somewhat abstract realms of moral philosophy to dancing bodies without losing sight of basic but important questions like social inequality.