The questioner had an idea: How about we all sing a song? Levitin gamely agreed, and after a quick discussion, the standing-room-only crowd gave a rousing chorus of "If I Had a Hammer." There was clapping and even some sweet harmonizing as they sang the words that are an enduring balm for troubled times: "I'd hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters all over this land."
It was a surprising moment, and a goosebump-inducing one. That was appropriate, because earlier Levitin had said that as director of McGill University's Laboratory for Music Perception, Cognition, and Expertise, he and a team of researchers are dedicated to the task of, yes, figuring out why music induces goosebumps.
Indeed, he noted that the inspiration for his career came when, years ago, he worked as a record producer and got goosebumps as he recorded Carlos Santana. "I couldn't stop thinking about where they come from," said Levitin, who also wrote 2006's acclaimed This Is Your Brain On Music.
With The World in Six Songs, he said, he tried to answer a profound question: Why do we have music? After all, he noted, we apparently have been making music since we first became a species. The answer, he said, is that evolution selected music to help us adapt, and that our ancestors used different kinds of songs for various purposes: to comfort and to create bonds, for example, and to convey knowledge.
In speaking of knowledge songs, he noted that before writing was invented, people used songs to pass on information necessary to survival -- what plants are poisonous, how to dress a wound. And we still use knowledge songs, he said, citing "Sesame Street" tunes and one his young college students introduced him to, an "Animaniacs" ditty that lists the parts of the brain to the tune of "Camptown Ladies." He belted out a little of that, a preview of more singing to come.
At the end of his prepared remarks Levitin implored, wryly, "I hope you'll consider buying my book, because I worked really hard on it for a long time." That got a laugh. He concluded: "It won't destroy your appreciation of music, if that's what's worrying you."
