TRANSPORTED

How music meshes with storytelling.

The head of the Music Cognition Lab at Princeton University and author of The Psychology of Music (2018) here examines the nuances of an experience nearly everyone shares, that of letting one’s mind wander into memories or visions of the future or even unrelated fictional stories while listening to music. As a classically trained pianist, Margulis grew up thinking that daydreaming while hearing music was taboo, but while studying it, grew to recognize it as both a communal and a creative act, and full of surprising revelations. One of the most unusual aspects of this experience, she notes, is that “during a musical daydream, your attention is suspended between the outer and the inner worlds,” so that what you are imagining is steered by what you are hearing, and suggests that “there’s perhaps no ordinary experience that is more psychedelic than the mere act of listening to music.” Her research indicates that the content of these daydreams is strikingly similar among members of a culture—but not across cultures—and that it has much more to do with the music itself than with lyrics. Using experiences from her life as well as those from participants in various studies, Margulis writes in an easy, conversational style, never solemnly scholarly, and raises as many enticing questions as she answers. Moving deftly between the subjective experience of those listening to music and the brain activity of those same subjects, she considers how the mind makes metaphors and how various senses influence each other. While she questions the efficacy of music therapy as it is currently practiced, she does see potential in music being used to treat conditions like dementia, depression, Parkinson’s disease, and PTSD, among others. The book is sure to make readers ponder their own encounters with music.

A refreshingly original look at an ordinary phenomenon.