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So much of the research on musical expertise has looked for accomplishment in the wrong place, in the facility of the fingers rather than the expressiveness of emotion.

— Daniel Levitin This is Your Brain on Music (2006)

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Music

More quotes by Daniel Levitin

Music changed more between 1963 and 1969 than it has in the 37 years since, with the Beatles among the architects of that change.

Anyone who wants to understand human nature, the interaction between brain and culture, between evolution and society, has to take a close look at the role that music has held in the lives of humans.

The World in Six Songs (2008)

And it has only been in the last hundred years or so that the ties between musical sound and human movement have been minimized.

This is Your Brain on Music (2006)

An organized mind leads effortlessly to good decision-making.

The Organized Mind (2014)

Music moves us because it serves as a metaphor for emotional life. It has peaks and valleys of tension and release. It mimics the dynamics of our emotional life.

All Daniel Levitin quotes →

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The emphasis of study upon a particular aspect of music is in itself ideological because it contains implications about the music's value.

Lucy Green

Music is well said to be the speech of angels.

Thomas Carlyle Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1827)

Music has no subject beyond the combinations of notes we hear, for music speaks not only by means of sounds, it speaks nothing but sound.

Eduard Hanslick

Above the pitch, out of tune, and off the hinges.

François Rabelais Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Daniel Levitin (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.