We have just submitted the current version of the first chapter to the Institute of Cultural Research (ICR). It will be published as a stand-alone pamphlet; for the rest of the book I will have to find another publisher.  The ICR had originally asked me to provide a six thousand word pamphlet on the "Music, pleasure, and the brain" lecture that I presented to them in 2005. In that series of lectures I explain the science, and particularly the physiology, of music and how it works - but I do so while being accompanied by two professional classical musicians: clarinettist Karl Dürr-Sørensen and French horn player Dominic Nunns. These lectures are almighty crowd-pleasers because there is always something new and engaging for the audience, who get to flip-flop between listening to music and to academic science and then back again. Originally the outline for this pamphlet was meant to be a detailed look at all the topics covered in the lecture, but it soon became apparent as I was writing it up that the outline I had written would result in a book of least fifty thousand words in length. Having written the first chapter on nothing except the question, “Why do we listen to music?” the good people at the ICR, particularly Nicholas Fry and David Wade, were open-minded about accepting a change in the brief.  Having submitted what I now like to call “the first chapter” to them in lieu of the pamphlet, they made some suggestions to tighten it up so that some of the digressions were made shorter and those digressions that had nothing to do with music were eliminated.


Professional writers always advise that the young author must never fall in love with any of his text, and those exceptions where the author does fall in love with the text are the parts of the manuscript that must be eliminated. The original first chapter started with a full page on the extraordinary loves and history of the composer Hector Berlioz, in which he plans and nearly executes a triple murder and suicide - for which he actually bought the guns.

Of course, the first suggestion of the ICR was that the Berlioz section should be drastically cut by two thirds, including removing the amazing story of Berlioz’s revenge plot. Even though it had less drama, this shorter version of the Berlioz story was a great improvement to the overall text. The new Berlioz narrative matches up very well with the quote that opens up the entire book:

"As neither the enjoyment nor the capacity for producing musical notes are faculties of the least use to man in reference to his daily habits of life, they must be ranked among the most mysterious with which he is endowed."

Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871)