How does music work?

Why another book about music and the brain? is the first question Eckart Altenmüller asks himself. It differs from others, he answers, because it also asks questions about where, how and why. He covers a wide range of topics, with insights into research into the prehistory of music-making, the question of whether animals also make music, emotion research and music therapy. He does all this in a pleasantly unpretentious, clear and well-founded style. The explanations in the continuous text are supplemented by musical examples that can be called up with the help of QR codes.

Altenmüller is a neurologist and, as a flautist, a student of Aurèle Nicolet, i.e. extremely talented both as a musician and as a scientist. He is rightly regarded worldwide as one of the most important representatives of neuromusicology. The fact that reading the book is a great pleasure is also due to the fact that he remains present as a person. He illustrates his theses and theories primarily from his personal experience as a flautist. He has also played numerous examples on his instrument himself. His roots in the Western European, educated middle-class medical tradition are also very noticeable. Inserts to break up the scientific explanations quote personalities such as Grimmelshausen, Proust, Ingeborg Bachmann, Ovid and so on.

The strongest passages in the book are the explanations of the physiological aspects of music-making. Altenmüller not only knows how to explain the latest findings on brain physiology and the sensory aspects of music-making. He also deals with practicing techniques and musicians' illnesses, especially the "musician's cramp", in an enlightening way. He is a little more on the slippery side when it comes to the more humanistic areas of emotional theories and music therapy. A great deal of space is devoted to the more physiological research on goosebumps in music. As Altenmüller himself admits, these are produced more reliably by rather banal things such as scratching on a blackboard. One can therefore wonder how great her knowledge potential for emotion research in music really is.

However, important current models of emotion research in music remain unmentioned or are only touched on in passing. For example, references to David Huron's ethological model or Klaus R. Scherer's component process model and Nico Frijda's emotion theories, which are the starting point for the most important newer models, are likely to be missed. Altenmüller also reflects on music therapy primarily as a physiologist. Some examples of current music therapy research seem unrepresentative or outdated.

Eckart Altenmüller: From Neandertal to the Philharmonie - Why humans cannot live without music, 511 p., € 24.99, Springer, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-8274-1681-0