The brain is more than an assemblage of autonomous modules, each crucial for a specific mental function. Every one of these functionally specialized areas must interact with dozens or hundreds of others, their total integration creating something like a vastly complicated orchestra with thousands of instruments, an orchestra that conducts itself, with an ever-changing score and repertoire.

Music has a bonding power, it's primal social cement

Waking consciousness is dreaming – but dreaming constrained by external reality

There is only one cardinal rule: One must always listen to the patient.

In terms of brain development, musical performance is every bit as important educationally as reading or writing.

Fascinating, Doidge's book is a remarkable and hopeful portrait of the endless adaptability of the human brain.

Music can lift us out of depression or move us to tears - it is a remedy, a tonic, orange juice for the ear.