![]() ![]() Sacks used Twain’s experience to bridge the centuries: “When Mark Twain was writing in the 1870s, there was plenty of music to be had, but it was not ubiquitous. ![]() All through breakfast they went waltzing through my brain.” In the book, he quoted a Mark Twain story from 1876 about what Twain described as “jiggling rhymes” that “took instant and entire possession of me. Sacks connected ideas from past to present, understood the profound changes in listening that arrived with the invention of recorded sound. Another explores Sacks’ own experiences with having “music on the mind.” Why, he wondered, did a song he hadn’t heard in decades pop back into his head seemingly unbidden? What prompted grim music to recur as his brother was sick? ![]() One chapter is devoted to research into what separates the memory capacities of professional musicians from civilians. Wrote Sacks: “The music was there, deep inside him – or somewhere – and all he had to do was let it come to him. Even when he wanted to play Chopin, recounted Sacks, “his own music ‘would come and take me over. Soon his head was filled with new original compositions. ![]() The man started buying sheet music and taught himself how to play Chopin, but it didn’t stop there. The doctor described a patient who, after being struck by lightning, became focused on classical music after a life of ambivalence. The neurologist’s curiosity on the foundation of music appreciation might answer questions about your husband’s baffling obsession with Dave Matthews. ![]()
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