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Is it really possible that listening to Mozart will make us and our children smarter? Why is there always some classical music in background, in high class restaurants?

Is it true that cows like opera and sharks like Barry White?

Darwin thought our ancestors used music to court, and this would have lead to words later. Others reckon music has the same evolutionary role as a delicious cheesecake: just none. But one thing is certainly true: with various effects on our mood, all of us do listen to music.
Then, which are the exact mechanisms by which music gives us pleasure? Science hasn’t answered yet, but there is much going on in laboratories.
From Neanderthal to Metallica, from Pythagoras to neuroscience, this book tells the state of the art in research about our relationship with music, and ends up depicting the birth of a new science.
A huge feedback from readers showed that this book was most loved by musicians, who finally found a complement to their professional or amateurish studies on music. The difference between this and other recent popular science titles about music (Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks, This is your brain on music by Daniel Levitin, both focussing on neuroscience of music) is that it tries to embrace the biology of music in all its complexity, still without being hard to read.

Part I: First steps – Waves and hearing – Studying the musical brain
Part II: Musical animals – The birth of language? – Music for children
Part III: Emotions – Music and handicap – Healing with music – Mozart effect

Silvia Bencivelli is a medic and a free lance science writer. She currently works for the national channel Radio3 and is the co-author of several text books. She is also the author of The Sex Quiz Book (Alpha Test, 2008, translated in French).