1. What Is Music?
From Pitch to Timbre

2. Foot Tapping
Discerning Rhythm, Loudness, and Harmony

3. Behind the Curtain
Music and the Mind Machine

4. Anticipation
What We Expect from Liszt (and Ludacris)

5. You Know My Name, Look Up the Number
How We Categorize Music

6. After Dessert, Crick Was Still Four Seats Away from Me
Music, Emotion, and the Reptilian Brain

7. What Makes a Musician?
Expertise Dissected

8. My Favorite Things
Why Do We Like the Music We Like?

9. The Music Instinct
Evolution's #1 Hit

Appendices
Bibliographic Notes
Acknowledgments
Index
Levitin is a deft and patient explainer of the basics for the non-scientist as well as the non-musician. . . . By tracing music’s deep ties to memory, Levitin helps quantify some of music’s magic without breaking its spell. (Los Angeles Times Book Review)

Endlessly stimulating, a marvelous overview, and one which only a deeply musical neuroscientist could give. . . . An important book. (Oliver Sacks, M.D.)

Levitin’s snappy prose and relaxed style quickly win one over and will leave readers thinking about the contents of their iPods in an entirely new way. (Publishers Weekly, starred review)

Why human beings make and enjoy music is, in Levitin’s telling, a delicious story. (Salon.com)