Daniel J. Levitin's path to neuroscience ran through the recording studio. Before entering academia, he worked as a session musician, sound engineer, and record producer — accumulating a working knowledge of music-making from the inside. That professional grounding, rare among researchers, shaped the questions he would later bring to the laboratory: not merely how music is structured, but what happens in the brain of someone who plays, records, and listens. The dual vantage point — industry and institution — became the foundation of his research.
His book This Is Your Brain on Music brought those questions to a wide audience. The work examines music — its composition, its performance, the mechanics of listening, and the reasons we enjoy it — through the lens of neuroscience. Drawing on both laboratory research and his years working in the recording industry, Levitin addressed how the brain processes sound and constructs the experience we call music. The book reframed the subject not as a purely cultural matter, but as something rooted in the biology of perception.
At McGill University, Levitin holds the Bell Chair in the Psychology of Electronic Communication and runs the Laboratory for Musical Perception, Cognition and Expertise. He has written for scientific journals and music trade publications including Grammy and Billboard, remaining active in both fields. His work continues at the intersection of cognitive science and music, and the laboratory he established at McGill stands as one of the field's dedicated centres for understanding what music does to the human mind.
This Is Your Brain on Music
A neuroscientist and former record producer explains what music does to us — and why.