When we listen to music, we enter a world that is completely abstract—in it there are no words, no color, no taste. Yet at the same time, we experience real feelings: our mood changes, we sink into memories, we feel pleasure or sadness. Science still cannot explain exactly how melodies and harmonies take hold of our emotions, but today we know that music practice affects the brain and cognitive functions—and this beneficial influence extends to everyone, regardless of age.
To understand how music affects the brain, we need to understand the laws of musical space. Marina Korsakova, PhD in cognitive science and neurobiology, explains what music is from the perspective of a neuropsychologist-music therapist and what impact it has on the human brain. The book will be interesting to a wide range of readers—from specialists in neuropsychology to young students of a music school.
Marina Korsakova’s book, “The Brain and Music. How Feelings Reveal Themselves in Music—and Why Understanding It Is Accessible to Everyone,” is devoted to how melodies encode our lives, influence our mood, shape consciousness, and it presents the newest research on the effects of music on the human brain. What is the difference between the brains of musicians and non-musicians? Why does a major melody seem cheerful to us? How does harmony of sounds evoke emotions and change mood? Marina Korsakova answers these and many other questions related to music on the pages of her book.