Whenever a person engages with music—when a piano student practices a scale, a jazz saxophonist riffs on a melody, a teenager sobs to a sad song, or a wedding guest gets down on the dance floor—countless neurons are firing. Playing an instrument requires all of the resources of the nervous system, including cognitive, sensory, and motor functions. Composition and improvisation are remarkable demonstrations of the brain’s capacity for creativity. Something as seemingly simple as listening to a tune involves mental faculties most of us don’t even realize we have.

Larry S. Sherman, a neuroscientist and lifelong musician, and Dennis Plies, a professional musician and teacher, collaborate to show how our brains and music work in harmony. They consider music in all the ways we encounter it—teaching, learning, practicing, listening, composing, improvising, and performing—in terms of neuroscience as well as music pedagogy, showing how the brain functions and even changes in the process. Every Brain Needs Music draws on leading behavioral, cellular, and molecular neuroscience research as well as surveys of more than a hundred musical people. It provides new perspectives on learning to play, teaching, how to practice and perform, the ways we react to music, and why the brain benefits from musical experiences.

Written for both musical and nonmusical people, including newcomers to brain science, this book is a lively and easy-to-read exploration of the neuroscience of music and its significance in our lives.

"Puts academic analysis in conversation with feedback from dozens of composers and musicians." - Scientific American

"Witty and informative, Every Brain Needs Music evokes the love of music in more ways than one." - The Hindu

"A work of scientific popularization drawing on brain-mapping studies, insights culled from composers and performers, and the authors’ own experience with music making. Illustrators often go unheralded, but Susi B. Davis makes following the anatomical connections much easier; all due props, then." - Inside Higher Ed

"Packed with research-cited content but written in a conversational and easy-to-understand way, Every Brain Needs Music is an ideal choice for adult music students, teachers, and really anyone interested in learning about how the human brain learns and changes from engagement with music." - Piano Magazine

"Every chapter became my favourite and this is one of my favourite books! It’s a five out of five on the enJOYment scale, highly recommended, and I hope I get to read these authors again." - Moonglo Texas

"Every Brain Needs Music provides an interesting foray into music and the effect it has on the brain." - Choice Reviews

"Presents a thorough synopsis of current musical neuroscience research." - Technical Communication