THE MUSICAL BRAIN

Why are certain songs so important to us? Can music make us smarter? Why do we feel like dancing when we hear a beat? Inspired by Daniel Levitin’s book This is Your Brain on Music, this intriguing documentary interweaves extended interviews with Sting and other well-known musicians like Feist, Wyclef Jean, and Michael Buble with research on how Alzheimer’s patients, babies, and average listeners respond to music. Deftly illustrating the tension between science and creativity, the program explores how music, movement, and emotion influence each other, and whether brain scans can actually reveal the presence of music within the brain.