The Musical Brain And Other Stories

A delirious collection of short stories from the Latin American master of micro-fiction. A delirious collection of short stories from the Latin American master of microfiction, César Aira–the author of at least eighty novels, most of them barely one hundred pages long–The Musical Brain & Other Stories comprises twenty tales about oddballs, freaks, and loonies. Aira, with his fuga hacia adelante or "flight forward" into the unknown, gives us imponderables to ponder and bizarre and seemingly out-of-context plot lines, as well as thoughtful and passionate takes on everyday reality. The title story, first published in the New Yorker, is the creme de la creme of this exhilarating collection.

Using musical examples from Bach to the Beatles, Levitin reveals the role of music in human evolution, shows how our musical preferences begin to form even before we are born and explains why music can offer such an emotional experience. Music is an obsession at the heart of human nature, even more fundamental to our species than language. In This Is Your Brain On Music Levitin offers nothing less than a new way to understand it, and its role in human life

What goes on in human beings when they make or listen to music? What is it about music, what gives it such peculiar power over us, power delectable and beneficent for the most part, but also capable of uncontrollable and sometimes destructive force? Music has no concepts, it lacks images; it has no power of representation, it has no relation to the world. And yet it is evident in all of us–we tap our feet, we keep time, hum, sing, conduct music, mirror the melodic contours and feelings of what we hear in our movements and expressions. In this book, Oliver Sacks explores the power music wields over us–a power that sometimes we control and at other times don’t. He explores, in his inimitable fashion, how it can provide access to otherwise unreachable emotional states, how it can revivify neurological avenues that have been frozen, evoke memories of earlier, lost events or states or bring those with neurological disorders back to a time when the world was much richer. This is a book that explores, like no other, the myriad dimensions of our experience of and with music.

At the evolution of music and introduces surprising new concepts of memory and perception, knowledge and attention, motion and emotion, all at work as music takes hold of us. Along the way, a fascinating cast of characters brings Jourdain's narrative to vivid life: "idiots savants" who absorb whole pieces on a single hearing, composers who hallucinate entire compositions, a psychic who claimed to take dictation from long-dead composers, and victims of brain damage who.

Un genio de la botella de leche mágica que te ofrece elegir entre ser Picasso o tener un Picasso; un perro furioso que le ladra a un colectivo en marcha y un pasajero que recuerda algo que había creído olvidado; una inmutable tradición del universo que reúne a Dios y a sus únicos invitados, los monos, a tomar el té una vez al año; un grupo de veinteañeros entusiastas que se entregan a la búsqueda de la simetría... El cerebro musical recoge, en esta nueva edición de su Relatos reunidos, una selección de relatos escritos por Aira entre 1996 y 2011, y a los que se añaden tres cuentos autobiográficos inéditos: «Duchamp en México», «Taxol» y «La broma». Estos veinte textos, a medio camino entre el cuento y la crónica imaginada, ponen de manifiesto el genio inclasificable de César Aira,uno de los autores más valorados del panorama literario en lengua castellana.«Me fascina su capacidad para contar sus propias historias, ya sean fábulas políticas o elaboradas bromas inventadas, cargadas de la más pura filosofía» Patti Smith«Uno de los tres o cuatro mejores escritores que escriben en español» Roberto Bolaño«César Aira es uno de los novelistas más provocativos e idiosincrásicos de la literatura en castellano. No hay que perdérselo» Natasha Wimmer, The New York Times«No se sabe si realmente lo es o si, de verdad, se hace. César Aira, el escritor argentino más prolífico (y quizás uno de los dos o tres autores más interesantes de los últimos años), a veces puede parecer un genio, y a veces también» Diego Gándara, Qué leer«Leer a César Aira es siempre una experiencia sorprendente, aunque debe advertirse que su ficción despliega un mundo tan reconocible como original» Arturo García Ramos, ABC«Leerlo es esperarse cualquier cosa, como si fuera un relato del Sombrerero Loco o una película de Hayao Miyazaki» Álvaro Cortina ENGLISH DESCRIPTIONA delirious collection of short stories from the Latin American master of micro-fiction.A delirious collection of short stories from the Latin American master of microfiction, César Aira–the author of at least eighty novels, most of them barely one hundred pages long–The Musical Brain & Other Stories comprises twenty tales about oddballs, freaks, and loonies. Aira, with his fuga hacia adelante or "flight forward" into the unknown, gives us imponderables to ponder and bizarre and seemingly out-of-context plot lines, as well as thoughtful and passionate takes on everyday reality. The title story, first published in the New Yorker, is the creme de la creme of this exhilarating collection.

Suggests techniques for overcoming self-consciousness and improving musical performances, shares a variety of exercises, and includes advice on improving one's listening skills.

Why does music have such a powerful effect on our minds and bodies? It is the most mysterious and most tangible of all forms of art. Yet, Anthony Storr believes, music today is a deeply significant experience for a greater number of people than ever before. In this book, he explores why this should be so. Drawing on a wide variety of opinions, Storr argues that the patterns of music make sense of our inner experience, giving both structure and coherence to our feelings and emotions. It is because music possesses this capacity to restore our sense of personal wholeness in a culture which requires us to separate rational thought from feelings that many people find it so life-enhancing that it justifies existence.