
The Power of Music
Pioneering Discoveries in the New Science of Song
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed

Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $19.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Amy Rubinate
-
By:
-
Elena Mannes
About this listen
The award-winning creator of the acclaimed documentary The Music Instinct: Science & Song, explores the power of music and its connection to the body, the brain, and the world of nature. Only recently has science sought in earnest to understand and explain this impact. One remarkable recent study, analyzing the cries of newborns, shows that infants' cries contain common musical intervals, and children tease each other in specific, singsong ways no matter where in the world they live. Physics experiments show that sound waves can physically change the structure of a material; musician and world-famous conductor Daniel Barenboim believes musical sound vibrations physically penetrate our bodies, shifting molecules as they do. The Power of Music follows visionary researchers and accomplished musicians to the crossroads of science and culture, to discover: how much of our musicality is learned and how much is innate? Can examining the biological foundations of music help scientists unravel the intricate web of human cognition and brain function? Why is music virtually universal across cultures and time-does it provide some evolutionary advantage? Can music make people healthier? Might music contain organizing principles of harmonic vibration that underlie the cosmos itself?
©2011 Elena Mannes, Foreword copyright C by Aniruddh D. Patel, Ph.D. (P)2013 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
-
This Is Your Brain on Music
- The Science of a Human Obsession
- By: Daniel J. Levitin
- Narrated by: Daniel J. Levitin
- Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Whether you load your iPod with Bach or Bono, music has a significant role in your life - even if you never realized it. Why does music evoke such powerful moods? The answers are at last becoming clear, thanks to revolutionary neuroscience and the emerging field of evolutionary psychology. Both a cutting-edge study and a tribute to the beauty of music itself, This Is Your Brain on Music unravels a host of mysteries that affect everything from pop culture to our understanding of human nature.
-
-
Really boring.
- By alex velasquez on 11-24-20
-
Why You Love Music
- From Mozart to Metallica - the Emotional Power of Beautiful Sounds
- By: John Powell
- Narrated by: Phil Fox
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Music plays a hugely important role in our emotional, intellectual, and even physical lives. It impacts the ways we work, relax, behave, and feel. It can make us smile or cry, it helps us bond with the people around us, and it even has the power to alleviate a range of medical conditions. The songs you love (and hate, and even the ones you feel pretty neutral about) don't just make up the soundtrack to your life - they actually help to shape it.
-
-
Does not answer why we love music
- By Martin Scharff on 01-27-18
By: John Powell
-
The Music Lesson
- A Spiritual Search for Growth Through Music
- By: Victor L. Wooten
- Narrated by: Victor L. Wooten, Michael Kott, Chuck Rainey, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"'Boy, do I have a lot to learn!'" Anyone who's ever picked up a musical instrument of any kind - from the first caveman banging rocks to that little kid at the guitar shop - has thought that. I know I did. I'd been trying for years to break in to the music scene, to show everyone my chops, to make my mark. And I was good. But I wasn't great. I knew that there was something wrong. Then the teacher showed up...."
-
-
Surprise like no other!
- By Tomas on 11-23-10
By: Victor L. Wooten
-
The Dead Sea Scrolls
- By: Gary A. Rendsburg, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Gary A. Rendsburg
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Whether complete or only fragmentary, the 930 extant Dead Sea Scrolls irrevocably altered how we look at and understand the foundations of faith and religious practice. Now you can get a comprehensive introduction to this unique series of archaeological documents, and to scholars' evolving understanding of their authorship and significance, with these 24 lectures. Learn what the scrolls are, what they contain, and how the insights they offered into religious and ancient history came into focus.
-
-
A comprehensive overview of the Qumran Scrolls
- By Jacobus on 09-25-13
By: Gary A. Rendsburg, and others
-
The Spirit of Music
- The Lesson Continues
- By: Victor L. Wooten
- Narrated by: Victor L. Wooten, full cast
- Length: 11 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We may not realize it as we listen to the soundtrack of our lives through tiny earbuds, but music and all that it encompasses is disappearing all around us. In this fable-like story, three musicians from around the world are mysteriously summoned to Nashville, the Music City, to join together with Victor to do battle against the "Phasers", whose blinking "music-cancelling" headphones silence and destroy all musical sound. Only by coming together, connecting, and making the joyful sounds of immediate, "live" music can the world be restored to the power and spirit of music.
-
-
A rich exploration of our relationship to music
- By Dave on 02-24-21
By: Victor L. Wooten
-
The Brain That Changes Itself
- Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science
- By: Norman Doidge M.D.
- Narrated by: Jim Bond
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An astonishing new science called neuroplasticity is overthrowing the centuries-old notion that the human brain is immutable. Psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Norman Doidge, MD, traveled the country to meet both the brilliant scientists championing neuroplasticity and the people whose lives they've transformed - people whose mental limitations or brain damage were seen as unalterable.
-
-
***MIND BLOWN***
- By Laura Elsasser on 04-04-21
-
This Is Your Brain on Music
- The Science of a Human Obsession
- By: Daniel J. Levitin
- Narrated by: Daniel J. Levitin
- Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Whether you load your iPod with Bach or Bono, music has a significant role in your life - even if you never realized it. Why does music evoke such powerful moods? The answers are at last becoming clear, thanks to revolutionary neuroscience and the emerging field of evolutionary psychology. Both a cutting-edge study and a tribute to the beauty of music itself, This Is Your Brain on Music unravels a host of mysteries that affect everything from pop culture to our understanding of human nature.
-
-
Really boring.
- By alex velasquez on 11-24-20
-
Why You Love Music
- From Mozart to Metallica - the Emotional Power of Beautiful Sounds
- By: John Powell
- Narrated by: Phil Fox
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Music plays a hugely important role in our emotional, intellectual, and even physical lives. It impacts the ways we work, relax, behave, and feel. It can make us smile or cry, it helps us bond with the people around us, and it even has the power to alleviate a range of medical conditions. The songs you love (and hate, and even the ones you feel pretty neutral about) don't just make up the soundtrack to your life - they actually help to shape it.
-
-
Does not answer why we love music
- By Martin Scharff on 01-27-18
By: John Powell
-
The Music Lesson
- A Spiritual Search for Growth Through Music
- By: Victor L. Wooten
- Narrated by: Victor L. Wooten, Michael Kott, Chuck Rainey, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"'Boy, do I have a lot to learn!'" Anyone who's ever picked up a musical instrument of any kind - from the first caveman banging rocks to that little kid at the guitar shop - has thought that. I know I did. I'd been trying for years to break in to the music scene, to show everyone my chops, to make my mark. And I was good. But I wasn't great. I knew that there was something wrong. Then the teacher showed up...."
-
-
Surprise like no other!
- By Tomas on 11-23-10
By: Victor L. Wooten
-
The Dead Sea Scrolls
- By: Gary A. Rendsburg, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Gary A. Rendsburg
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Whether complete or only fragmentary, the 930 extant Dead Sea Scrolls irrevocably altered how we look at and understand the foundations of faith and religious practice. Now you can get a comprehensive introduction to this unique series of archaeological documents, and to scholars' evolving understanding of their authorship and significance, with these 24 lectures. Learn what the scrolls are, what they contain, and how the insights they offered into religious and ancient history came into focus.
-
-
A comprehensive overview of the Qumran Scrolls
- By Jacobus on 09-25-13
By: Gary A. Rendsburg, and others
-
The Spirit of Music
- The Lesson Continues
- By: Victor L. Wooten
- Narrated by: Victor L. Wooten, full cast
- Length: 11 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We may not realize it as we listen to the soundtrack of our lives through tiny earbuds, but music and all that it encompasses is disappearing all around us. In this fable-like story, three musicians from around the world are mysteriously summoned to Nashville, the Music City, to join together with Victor to do battle against the "Phasers", whose blinking "music-cancelling" headphones silence and destroy all musical sound. Only by coming together, connecting, and making the joyful sounds of immediate, "live" music can the world be restored to the power and spirit of music.
-
-
A rich exploration of our relationship to music
- By Dave on 02-24-21
By: Victor L. Wooten
-
The Brain That Changes Itself
- Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science
- By: Norman Doidge M.D.
- Narrated by: Jim Bond
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An astonishing new science called neuroplasticity is overthrowing the centuries-old notion that the human brain is immutable. Psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Norman Doidge, MD, traveled the country to meet both the brilliant scientists championing neuroplasticity and the people whose lives they've transformed - people whose mental limitations or brain damage were seen as unalterable.
-
-
***MIND BLOWN***
- By Laura Elsasser on 04-04-21
-
How Emotions Are Made
- The Secret Life of the Brain
- By: Lisa Feldman Barrett
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 14 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The science of emotion is in the midst of a revolution on par with the discovery of relativity in physics and natural selection in biology. Leading the charge is psychologist and neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett, whose research overturns the long-standing belief that emotions are automatic, universal, and hardwired in different brain regions. Instead, Barrett shows, we construct each instance of emotion through a unique interplay of brain, body, and culture.
-
-
Emotions are not things!!!!!!
- By Gary on 03-14-17
-
On Intelligence
- By: Jeff Hawkins, Sandra Blakeslee
- Narrated by: Jeff Hawkins, Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jeff Hawkins, the man who created the PalmPilot, Treo smart phone, and other handheld devices, has reshaped our relationship to computers. Now he stands ready to revolutionize both neuroscience and computing in one stroke, with a new understanding of intelligence itself.
-
-
Epiphany
- By James on 03-14-05
By: Jeff Hawkins, and others
-
The Brain's Way of Healing
- Remarkable Discoveries and Recoveries from the Frontiers of Neuroplasticity
- By: Norman Doidge M.D.
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 15 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Brain That Changes Itself, Norman Doidge described the most important breakthrough in our understanding of the brain in 400 years: the discovery that the brain can change its own structure and function in response to mental experience - what we call neuroplasticity. His revolutionary new book shows, for the first time, how the amazing process of neuroplastic healing really works. It describes natural, noninvasive avenues into the brain provided by the forms of energy around us.
-
-
Extremely helpful understanding my TBI.
- By Robert Deramo on 02-12-15
-
Musicophilia
- Tales of Music and the Brain
- By: Oliver Sacks
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Music can move us to the heights or depths of emotion. It can persuade us to buy something, or remind us of our first date. It can lift us out of depression when nothing else can. It can get us dancing to its beat. But the power of music goes much, much further. Indeed, music occupies more areas of our brain than language does - humans are a musical species.
-
-
The Best Of Sacks...
- By Douglas on 11-23-12
By: Oliver Sacks
-
Brain Rules (Updated and Expanded)
- 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School
- By: John Medina
- Narrated by: John Medina
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the New York Times bestseller Brain Rules, Dr. John Medina, a molecular biologist, shares his lifelong interest in how the brain sciences might influence the way we teach our children and the way we work. In each chapter, he describes a brain rule - what scientists know for sure about how our brains work - and then offers transformative ideas for our daily lives. Medina’s fascinating stories and infectious sense of humor breathe life into brain science.
-
-
Dear Publishers . . .
- By Bekah on 04-06-17
By: John Medina
-
Mind to Matter
- The Astonishing Science of How Your Brain Creates Material Reality
- By: Dawson Church
- Narrated by: Dawson Church
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The idea that “thoughts become things” has become a meme in popular culture. It’s held as a firm proposition in metaphysics, and some spiritual teachers ascribe infinite powers to the mind. But are these claims scientifically accurate? What does the scientific evidence tell us about the scope of the human mind to transform thoughts into reality?
-
-
Outstanding info... delivery less so.
- By Bruce Eichelberger on 07-01-18
By: Dawson Church
-
Consciousness and the Brain
- Deciphering How the Brain Codes Our Thoughts
- By: Stanislas Dehaene
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How does the brain generate a conscious thought? And why does so much of our knowledge remain unconscious? Thanks to clever psychological and brain-imaging experiments, scientists are closer to cracking this mystery than ever before. In this lively book, Stanislas Dehaene describes the pioneering work his lab and the labs of other cognitive neuroscientists worldwide have accomplished in defining, testing, and explaining the brain events behind a conscious state.
-
-
I had no idea we knew this much.
- By Tristan on 01-18-16
-
The Perfect You
- A Blueprint for Identity
- By: Dr. Caroline Leaf, Avery Jackson, Peter Amua-Quarshi, and others
- Narrated by: Margaret Winston
- Length: 7 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There are a lot of personality tests out there designed to label you and put you in a particular box. But Dr. Caroline Leaf says there's much more to you than a personality profile can capture. In fact, you cannot be categorized! In this fascinating book, she takes listeners through seven steps to rediscover and unlock their unique "you quotient".
-
-
Hands down, the most helpful book I've listened to
- By Rose O'Connor on 07-31-17
By: Dr. Caroline Leaf, and others
-
The Intention Experiment
- Using Your Thoughts to Change Your Life and the World
- By: Lynne McTaggart
- Narrated by: Eliza Foss
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Award-winning science journalist and author Lynne McTaggart invites listeners to take part in the world's largest mind-over-matter experiment in The Intention Experiment. By thinking positively about life and consciousness, people can, in fact, change their lives.
-
-
Middle of the road
- By Thomas on 08-12-08
By: Lynne McTaggart
-
Who's in Charge?
- Free Will and the Science of the Brain
- By: Michael S. Gazzaniga
- Narrated by: Pete Larkin
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The father of cognitive neuroscience and author of Human offers a provocative argument against the common belief that our lives are wholly determined by physical processes and we are therefore not responsible for our actions.
-
-
Use Your Credit On "Who's In Charge"
- By Dan on 04-03-12
-
The Mind and the Brain
- Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force
- By: Jeffrey M. Schwartz, Sharon Begley
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 14 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Conventional science has long held the position that 'the mind' is merely an illusion, a side effect of electrochemical activity in the physical brain. Now in paperback, Dr Jeffrey Schwartz and Sharon Begley's groundbreaking work, The Mind and the Brain, argues exactly the opposite: that the mind has a life of its own. Dr Schwartz, a leading researcher in brain dysfunctions, and Wall Street Journal science columnist Sharon Begley demonstrate that the human mind is an independent entity that can shape and control the functioning of the physical brain.
-
-
Good Science plus a little religious magic
- By Michael on 05-13-13
By: Jeffrey M. Schwartz, and others
-
Of Sound Mind
- How Our Brain Constructs a Meaningful Sonic World
- By: Nina Kraus
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Wiley
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Making sense of sound is one of the hardest jobs we ask our brains to do. In Of Sound Mind, Nina Kraus examines the partnership of sound and brain, showing for the first time that the processing of sound drives many of the brain's core functions. Our hearing is always on - we can't close our ears the way we close our eyes - and yet we can ignore sounds that are unimportant. We don't just hear; we engage with sounds. Kraus explores what goes on in our brains when we hear a word - or a chord, or a meow, or a screech.
-
-
Just read the book. Wasn't meant to be narrated
- By Martin DeBourge on 10-22-21
By: Nina Kraus