This Is Your Brain on Music

The power of art is that it can connect us to one another, and to larger truths about what it means to be alive and what it means to be human.

Musical instruments are among the oldest human-made artifacts we have found. ...Music predates agriculture in the history of our species.

The emerging picture from... studies is that ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of master associated with being a world-class expert—in anything.

When a musical piece is too simple we tend not to like it, finding it trivial. When it is too complex, we tend not to like it, finding it unpredictable—we don't perceive it to be grounded in anything familiar. Music, or any art form... has to strike the right balance between simplicity and complexity...

On average, successful people have had many more failures that unsuccessful people.

As a tool for the activation of specific thoughts, music is as good as language. The combination of the two—as best exemplified in the love song—is the best courtship of all.