REVIEWS
Sound and visionary thinking
As a successful music producer (Prince, David Byrne) turned cognitive neurologist, Susan Rogers is unusually well qualified to investigate the mysterious, drug-like impact music has on the physical body and the emotional mind. But it is a bold soul who promises to “explain why you fall in love with music”, as she does in her new book, This is What it Sounds Like.
There is a long history of songwriters/philosophers/scientists/mathematicians trying and failing to explain how a simple key change or set of harmonies can summon, like a wizard’s spell, an instant rush of euphoria or a gut-punch of grief. As the great 19th-century novelist Victor Hugo asserted, “music expresses that which cannot be said”. The American musician/actor Martin Mull put it nicely in his famous scoff that writing about music is akin to “dancing about architecture”. So while I applauded Rogers’ audacity, my initial thoughts were that she was either a delusional dreamer or a shifty spin doctor.
Well, hold the phone. might not provide.
