Neuroscientist and New York Times bestselling author of This Is Your Brain on Music Daniel J. Levitin reveals how the deep connections between music and the human brain can be harnessed for healing.

Music is perhaps one of humanity’s oldest medicines as well as its most universal: from China to the Ottoman Empire, Europe to Africa and pre-colonial South America, cultures have developed rich traditions for using sound and rhythm to ease suffering, spur healing, and calm the mind. Despite this history, musical therapy has long been considered the remit of ancient practice and alternative medicine, if not outright quackery and pseudoscience. In the last decade, however, an overwhelming body of scientific evidence has emerged that persuasively argues music can offer profoundly effective treatment for a whole host of ailments, from Alzheimer’s to PTSD, depression, pain, and cognitive injury. It is, in short, one of the most potent and remarkably promising new therapies available today.

A work of dazzling ideas, cutting-edge research, and joyful celebration of the human mind, I Heard There Was a Secret Chord explores the critical role music has played in human evolution, illuminating how the story of the human brain is inseparable from the creative enterprise of music that has bound cultures together throughout history. Music insinuates itself into our earliest memories; it is intimately connected to our emotional regulation and cognition; its shared rhythms and sounds are essential to our social behaviors. As neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin demonstrates in this mind-expanding follow-up to This Is Your Brain on Music—which revolutionized our understanding of the neuroscience of song—medical researchers are now finding that these same deep connections can be harnessed to create profound benefits for those both young and old.

Daniel J. Levitin is Founding Dean of Arts and Humanities at the Minerva Schools at Keck Graduate Institute and James McGill Professor Emeritus of Neuroscience and Music at McGill University. He is the author of four bestselling books, including This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession.

Daniel J. Levitin's profile page

One of CBC’s “54 works of Canadian nonfiction to check out this fall”

“For many years I have wondered why a bunch of frequencies organized into a piece of music has the ability, even without words, to make the listener cry and become emotional. Although I know this happens to me and many people, I have often wondered how this can be. Dr. Levitin, in this latest book, I Heard There Was a Secret Chord: Music as Medicine, has some fascinating insights into this great phenomenon.”
—Paul McCartney

“Part memoir and part medical primer, Daniel J. Levitin wields expertise in all genres of music as well experimental neuroscience. He also knows everyone, from Bobby McFerrin to Joni Mitchell, revealing that no one else in the universe could have written this book.”
—Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist

“Daniel J. Levitin is a visionary neuroscientist, an extraordinary musician, a brilliant writer—and this is his best book yet. I Heard There Was a Secret Chord is inspiring and illuminating, as deep as it is delightful. I couldn’t put it down. So full of great ideas and delicious stories, it made me want to rewind my entire life and spend more of it making music.”
—Daniel Gilbert, New York Times best-selling author of Stumbling on Happiness

“For many of us, This is Your Brain on Music was an illuminating introduction to the neuroscience of music. Dan Levitin follows up with the comprehensive I Heard There Was a Secret Chord, expertly highlighting the latest trends and discoveries in arts and health, written in his always erudite yet concise and accessible style. We are so fortunate to have his keen mind leading this growing field and unlocking its mysteries for readers.”
—Renée Fleming, world-renowned soprano and arts and health advocate

“Lookin’ back at my life, it’s pretty easy to see how music has profoundly benefited my wellbeing, all while drawing me further & further into its mysteries—and there appears to be no end to this path. Dan’s take on this mirrors mine—and he can both explain it and tease the possibilities presented...”
—Bob Weir, The Grateful Dead

“Working as a cross-culture detective, Daniel J. Levitin unravels the mysteries of how music heals us and fires our emotions, inspirations, and desires. Levitin cracks the case wide open while synthesizing his research and experience in a book that is an important addition to our understanding of the human experience.”
—Michael Connelly, New York Times best-selling author of the Harry Bosch and Lincoln Lawyer series

“In the same way that we musicians study music theory, we also need to study everything in this book. How and why music affects us, and what it does to our minds and bodies, is just as critical to know. And Daniel Levitin pulls this all together beautifully.”
—Victor L. Wooten, bass player, educator, five-time Grammy Award-winner

“Enriching lucidly explained neuroscience with ebullient musical appreciation. . . . Levitin makes a persuasive case for music’s therapeutic potential that gives due to its medical promise without undercutting its mysteries. The result is a fascinating take on the tuneful raptures of the mind.”
—Publisher’s Weekly

“[I Heard There Was A Secret Chord] tells memorable stories. . . . [and] examines the many and varied neurological benefits of listening to and performing music. . . . [and] provides ample evidence to justify Levitin’s claim that ‘music offers a dynamic interplay of sound, structure, and meaning,’ continually prompts our brains to adjust and reinterpret and stimulates ‘neuroplasticity, growth of whole new brain pathways and healing or rerouting of damaged ones.’”
—Psychology Today

“Informative and enjoyable, this book is for anyone interested in how the practice of medicine is expanding, and it’s a must-read for fans of the author’s previous books on music and the brain. [I Heard There Was A Secret Chord] is a fascinating piece of work, written with authority, empathy, and . . . humour.”
―Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“[B]rilliantly creative yet solidly evidence-based. . . . This fascinating and valuable title gives readers insight into the many neurological benefits of music. . . . Most readers can easily identify what kind of music calms them, provokes creative sparks, or helps get them through strenuous exercises but until they read this, they may not know why music has that power or that it can be great medicine too.”
―Library Journal (starred review)

“With clear prose and illustrations, his own experiences and storytelling prowess, [Daniel J. Levitin] demonstrates the healing power of music. With a detective bent, he starts with the Paleolithic Era to today’s newest research on music’s ability to help relieve symptoms of neurological diseases and mental health issues. . . . He answers the puzzle to how our brain is able to elicit joy, sadness and even fear when we listen to a piece of music and its power to be great medicine for our souls. . . . As Leonard Cohen heard a secret chord in his song ‘Hallelujah,’ may this book inspire its readers to hear their own secret chords.”
—New York Journal of Books

“This is without a doubt an exemplary book of its kind, laden with scientific explanation of a subject just about everyone knows and loves on some level. . . . The impulse to demystify art is common enough. To do so on such a specialized (and complicated) level is a different order of business. I Heard There Was a Secret Chord is a brainy work. To the author’s credit, it is also more often than not very human.”
—The Boston Globe

“[Levitin] mixes…scientific explanations with lively anecdotes from his own music career and the careers of the many performers he has met and worked with . . . essential to our understanding. [A] theme that resounds loudest throughout Mr. Levitin’s book, is to never underestimate music’s sheer power to engage us in the myriad, mysterious chords that make up our existence. To which we all might respond, as in the Leonard Cohen anthem that gives Mr. Levitin’s book its title, Hallelujah.”
—The Wall Street Journal

“[Levitin's] vital new book… [is] worth a hallelujah!”
—The Globe and Mail

“[Daniel J. Levitin] reads brain MRIs and music charts as easily as the rest of us scan the back of cereal boxes. . . . He is as liable to quote Confucius as he is Ludacris; neuropsychologists and Joni Mitchell are in his circles. . . . [He] has a soulful touch and a way with anecdotes often involving well-known musicians. . . . The chapter on memory loss, dementia, Alzheimer’s disease and stroke is important. . . . There is more research to be done on music as medicine, but Levitin’s I Heard There Was a Secret Chord is a significant study of the subject.”
—The Globe and Mail

"A fascinating read filled with wondrous examples of how music makes us feel and think (and why that is)."
—Forbes

“[An] enthralling read.”
—Harlan Coben, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“[E]ye-opening.”
—Rolling Stone