Musicophilia

But for virtually all of us, music has great power, whether or not we seek it out or think of ourselves as particularly “musical.”

Half of us are plugged into iPods, immersed in daylong concerts of our own choosing, virtually oblivious to the environment—and for those who are not plugged in, there is nonstop music, unavoidable and often of deafening intensity, in restaurants, bars, shops, and gyms. This barrage of music puts a certain strain on our exquisitely sensitive audito

“Every memory of my childhood has a soundtrack to it,” one correspondent wrote to me; and she speaks for many of us here.

I tend to fall in love with a certain composer or artist and to play their music over and over, almost exclusively, for weeks or months, until it is replaced with something else.

What they do share is the fact that I have bombarded my ears and brain with them, and the musical “circuits” or networks in my brain have been supersaturated, overcharged, with them. In such a supersaturated state, the brain seems ready to replay the music with no apparent external stimulus. Such replayings, curiously, seem to be almost as satisfyi

“It alleviates boredom, makes…movements more rhythmical, and reduces fatigue.” It buoys the spirits,

We are on much richer, much more mysterious terrain when we consider tunes or musical fragments we have perhaps not heard or thought of in decades, that suddenly play in the mind for no apparent reason.

William James referred to our “susceptibility to music,” and while music can affect all of us—calm us, animate us, comfort us, thrill us, or serve to organize and synchronize us at work or play—it

Music drawn from memory, he writes, “has many of the same effects as real music coming from the external world.”