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Narrated by Matthew Edison
Tim FalconerUnabridged — 7 hours, 24 minutes
Narrated by Matthew Edison
Tim FalconerUnabridged — 7 hours, 24 minutes
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In the tradition of Daniel Levitin's This Is Your Brain on Music and Oliver Sacks' Musicophilia, Bad Singer follows the delightful journey of Tim Falconer as he tries to overcome tone deafness - and along the way discovers what we're really hearing when we listen to music.
Tim Falconer, a self-confessed “bad singer,” always wanted to make music, but soon after he starts singing lessons, he discovers that he's part of only 2.5 percent of the population afflicted with amusia - in other words, he is scientifically tone-deaf.
Bad Singer chronicles his quest to understand human evolution and music, the brain science behind tone-deafness, his search for ways to retrain the adult brain, and his investigation into what we really hear when we listen to music. In an effort to learn more about his brain disorder, he goes to a series of labs where the scientists who test him are as fascinated with him as he is with them. He also sets out to understand why we love music and deconstructs what we really hear when we listen to it. And he unlocks the secret that helps explain why music has such emotional power over us.
Falconer is old school in his traditional approach to journalism. He conducts lengthy interviews and fluidly articulates complex scientific concepts. He’s the protagonist yet he doesn’t digress into self-indulgence. The result is fresh, intelligent prose. While he may be a bad singer, he’s a thorough researcher and gifted raconteur. What Falconer lacks in pitch he makes up for in curiosity and passion.
An engaging, step-by-step look into how scientists study tone deafness . . . an essential tale about how human beings, even those of us with tin ears, can’t help but be drawn to music . . . Over the last decade there have been a number of books published about the science of music — such as Daniel Levitan’s This Is Your Brain on Music, Oliver Sacks’s Musicophilia, and David Byrne’s How Music Works — and Bad Singer is a doubly successful effort because it doesn’t retread the same ground of these books, with Falconer couching his subject in a personal journey that’s enjoyable to follow.
Bad Singer deftly combines a memoir of Falconer’s personal musical history with a scientific look into how humans hear music.
An engaging tale.
A remarkable story of dogged determination to prove his own body wrong and, as such, is one of the more illuminating cultural studies of modern times.
Falconer’s self-deprecating humour keeps Bad Singer’s tone lighthearted and as entertaining as the photos of him hamming it up as a singer on the book cover. Lines like ‘I’m a bad singer. And deep down, it matters’ produce an undercurrent of sorrow, but far more pronounced are his curiosity, vulnerability, and perseverance. It’s a deeply human book, and his most personal.
"In his journey to understand why, exactly, he can't hold a tune – while having the ears and taste to appreciate great singing and songwriting – Tim Falconer takes us on a deeply absorbing journey into the worlds of brain science, singing coaches, music psychologists, ethnomusicologists, and into his own keening, music-loving heart. Bad Singer is a fun, fascinating, beautifully written, and strangely moving tale of a melodically-challenged man who yearned to sing. And it has much to say about the mystery of how music moves all of us, good and bad singers alike." – John Colapinto, author of Undone
"Bad Singer deftly combines a memoir of Falconer's personal musical history with a scientific look into how humans hear music." – Maclean's
"an engaging, step-by-step look into how scientists study tone deafness... an essential tale about how human beings, even those of us with tin ears, can't help but be drawn to music...Over the last decade there have been a number of books published about the science of music - such as Daniel Levitan's This Is Your Brain on Music, Oliver Sacks's Musicophilia, and David Byrne's How Music Works - and Bad Singer is a doubly successful effort because it doesn't retread the same ground of these books, with Falconer couching his subject in a personal journey that's enjoyable to follow" – National Post
Bad Singer deftly combines a memoir of Falconer's personal musical history with a scientific look into how humans hear music
Falconer is old school in his traditional approach to journalism. He conducts lengthy interviews and fluidly articulates complex scientific concepts. He’s the protagonist yet he doesn’t digress into self-indulgence. The result is fresh, intelligent prose. …While he may be a bad singer, he’s a thorough researcher and gifted raconteur. What Falconer lacks in pitch he makes up for in curiosity and passion.
As a reader you can’t help but empathize with Falconer as he struggles through his singing lessons, learning to control his voice even though he can’t always hit the pitches. And you cheer him on when, at the end of his quest, not exactly cured of amusia, he finally faces his audience-and the music.
...a fascinating read that combines personal narrative with scientific and cultural research...
In his journey to understand why, exactly, he can't hold a tune — while having the ears and taste to appreciate great singing and songwriting — Tim Falconer takes us on a deeply absorbing journey into the worlds of brain science, singing coaches, music psychologists, ethnomusicologists, and into his own keening, music-loving heart. Bad Singer is a fun, fascinating, beautifully written, and strangely moving tale of a melodically-challenged man who yearned to sing. And it has much to say about the mystery of how music moves all of us, good and bad singers alike.
an engaging, step-by-step look into how scientists study tone deafness… an essential tale about how human beings, even those of us with tin ears, can’t help but be drawn to music…Over the last decade there have been a number of books published about the science of music – such as Daniel Levitan’s This Is Your Brain on Music, Oliver Sacks’s Musicophilia, and David Byrne’s How Music Works – and Bad Singer is a doubly successful effort because it doesn’t retread the same ground of these books, with Falconer couching his subject in a personal journey that’s enjoyable to follow
2016-12-06
"I'm a bad singer. And deep down, it matters." Falling down a rabbit hole in B-minor, Canadian science writer Falconer (Magazine Journalism/Ryerson Univ.; That Good Night: Ethicists, Euthanasia and the End-of-Life Care, 2009, etc.) explores all that bad singing entails. The author grew up in the golden age of pop music, but he lacked the ability to carry a tune. As he writes, his siblings were similarly unable to distinguish notes and pitches, to the point where one sister could not even tune a guitar well enough to take the lessons that might have given her a fighting chance. Once grown up, Falconer marched into practice rooms and laboratories to figure out what's taking place between the ears—and, to boot, what's happening at the intersections of music and technology. We don't really need to sing in order to enjoy a song, he writes, "any more than we need to paint to enjoy Vermeer or Monet or Basquiat." But that equation doesn't quite hold up, since we don't gather around to group-paint but do, as Falconer notes, come together in song—or at least once did, since group songs are harder to come by, given the fragmentation of the market. Back on topic and in quest of the dulcet tone, the author examines the neurological and physical tricks that go into our ability to match pitch to voice control—to sing on key, that is, a talent not everyone has. At the far fringes of his amiable researches are amusiacs, those who for whatever reason cannot process music but few of whom admit as much lest "other people will consider them inhuman." At the nearer edge are such wonders as software that allows even the most tone-deaf among us hit the notes, tortured though they may be in real life. So look out, Kayne…. A spirited, even adventurous look at the mysteries of how the human brain perceives and processes sound—and even, on occasion, manages to make beautiful music.
| BN ID: | 2940175127851 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | House of Anansi Press Inc |
| Publication date: | 09/27/2018 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
