As a cognitive neuroscientist specializing in music perception and cognition, he is credited for fundamentally changing the way that scientists think about auditory memory, showing through the Levitin Effect, that long-term memory preserves many of the details of musical experience that previous theorists regarded as lost during the encoding process.[20][21][22][23] He is also known for drawing attention to the role of cerebellum in music listening, including tracking the beat and distinguishing familiar from unfamiliar music.[21]
Outside of his academic pursuits Levitin has worked on and off as a stand-up comedian and joke writer, performing at the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco with Robin Williams in 1984, and at comedy clubs in California;[24] he placed second in the National Lampoon stand-up comedy competition regionals in San Francisco in 1989, and has contributed jokes for Jay Leno and Arsenio Hall, as well as the nationally syndicated comic strip Bizarro.[25] Some comics were included in the 2006 compilation Bizarro and Other Strange Manifestations of the Art of Dan Piraro (Andrews McMeel).[26][27]
Music
Levitin began playing piano at age 4. He took up clarinet at age 8, and bass clarinet and saxophone at age 12.[28] He played saxophone (tenor and baritone) in high school; at age 17 he performed on baritone with the big band backing up Mel Tormé at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.[29] He began playing guitar at age 20 and has been a member of bands including The Alsea River Band (lead guitar), The Mortals (bass), Judy Garland [band] (bass), The Shingles (lead guitar), Slings & Arrows (bass), JD Buhl (bass and guitar). He also played on recording sessions for Blue Öyster Cult, True West, and the soundtrack to Repo Man.
He began writing songs at age 17. His songwriting has been praised by a number of top songwriters including Diane Warren, and Joni Mitchell, who said, "Dan is really good at what he does, and creates rich images with his words and music."[32]
He released his first album of original songs, Turnaround, in January 2020 with a performance with his own band at the Rockwood Music Hall in New York City, followed by seven shows with Victor Wooten's Bass Extremes band in Los Angeles, Oakland, and Phoenix, and a performance of one of the album's songs "Just A Memory" with Renée Fleming, Victor Wooten and Hardy Hemphill sponsored by John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.[33]
In the late 1970s, Levitin consulted for M&K Sound as an expert listener assisting in the design of the first commercial satellite and subwoofer loudspeaker systems, an early version of which was used by Steely Dan for mixing their album Pretzel Logic (1974). After that he worked at A Broun Sound in San Rafael, California, re-coning speakers for The Grateful Dead for whom he later worked as a consulting record producer. Levitin was one of the golden ears used in the first Dolby AC audio compression tests, a precursor to MP3 audio compression.[16] From 1984 to 1988, he worked as the director, then vice president of A&R for 415 Records in San Francisco, becoming the president of the label in 1989 before the label was sold to Sony Music.[34][35] Notable achievements during that time included producing the punk classic Here Come the Cops by The Afflicted (named among the Top 10 records of 1985 by GQ magazine); engineering records by Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers, Santana, and the Grateful Dead; and producing tracks for Blue Öyster Cult, the soundtrack to Repo Man (1984), and others.[36] Two highlights of his tenure in A&R were discovering the band The Big Race (which later became the well-known soundtrack band Pray for Rain), and he had the opportunity to sign M.C. Hammer but passed.[37]
After 415 was sold, he formed his own production and business consulting company, with a list of clients including AT&T, several venture capital firms, and every major record label.[38] As a consultant for Warner Bros. Records he planned the marketing campaigns for such albums as Eric Clapton's Unplugged (1992) and k.d. lang's Ingénue (1992). He was a music consultant on feature films such as Good Will Hunting (1997) and The Crow: City of Angels (1996), and served as a compilation consultant to Stevie Wonder's Song Review: A Greatest Hits Collection (1996), and to As Time Goes By (2003) and Interpretations: A 25th Anniversary Celebration (1995; updated and released as a DVD in 2003) by The Carpenters. Levitin returned to the studio in 2002, producing three albums for Quebec blues musician Dale Boyle: String Slinger Blues (2002), A Dog Day for the Purists (2004), and In My Rearview Mirror: A Story From A Small Gaspé Town (2005), the latter two of which won the annual Lys Blues Award for best Blues album.[39] He helped Joni Mitchell with the production of her three most recent albums, Shine, Love Has Many Faces: A Quartet, A Ballet, Waiting to Be Danced, and Starbucks' Artist's Choice: Joni Mitchell.
In 1998, Levitin helped to found MoodLogic.com (and its sister companies, Emotioneering.com and jaboom.com), the first Internet music recommendation company, sold in 2006 to Allmusic group. He has also consulted for the United States Navy on underwater sound source separation, for Philips Electronics, and AT&T.[40] He was an occasional script consultant to The Mentalist from 2007 to 2009.
Levitin is the author of This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession, (Dutton/Penguin 2006; Plume/Penguin 2007) which spent more than 12 months on the New York Times[43] and the Globe and Mail bestseller lists. In that book, he shares observations related to all sorts of music listeners, telling for instance that, today, teenagers listen to more music in one month than their peers living during the 1700s during their entire existence. The book was nominated for two awards (The Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Outstanding Science & Technology Writing and the Quill Award for the Best Debut Author of 2006), named one of the top books of the year by Canada's The Globe and Mail and by The Independent and The Guardian,[44] and has been translated into 20 languages. The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature (Dutton/Penguin 2008) debuted on the Canadian and the New York Times bestseller lists,[45] and was named by the Boston Herald and by Seed Magazine as one of the best books of 2008. It was also nominated for the World Technology Awards.
The Organized Mind was published by Dutton/Penguin Random House in 2014,[46] debuting at #2 on the New York Times Bestseller List[47] and reaching #1 on the Canadian best-seller lists.[48]A Field Guide to Lies was published by Dutton/Penguin Random House in 2016, and released in paperback in March 2017 under the revised title Weaponized Lies. It appeared on numerous best-seller lists in the U.S., Canada and the U.K.,[49][50] and is the most acclaimed of Levitin's four books, receiving the National Business Book Award,[51] the Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction, the Axiom Business Book Award, and was a finalist for the Donner Prize.
Successful Aging: A Neuroscientist Explores the Power and Potential of Our Lives was published by Dutton/Penguin Random House in January 2020 and debuted at #10 on the New York Times bestseller list[52] in its first week of release, and at #2 on the Canadian bestseller list, and stayed on the Canadian bestseller lists for more than six months. It was named an Apple Books book-of-the-month and Next Big Idea Club selection. It was published by Penguin Life in the U.K. as The Changing Mind: A Neuroscientist's Guide to Ageing Well; it debuted at #5 on the Sunday Times Bestseller List.[53] It was named by the Sunday Times as one of the best books of 2020[54]
In popular culture
In The Listener TV series, actor Colm Feore says his performance of the character Ray is based on Daniel Levitin.[55]
From September 2006 to April 2007 Levitin served as a weekly commentator on the CBC Radio One show Freestyle. Two documentary films were based on This Is Your Brain on Music: The Music Instinct (2009, PBS), which he co-hosted with Bobby McFerrin, and The Musical Brain (2009, CTV/National Geographic Television) which he co-hosted with Sting. Levitin appeared in Artifact, a 2012 documentary directed by Jared Leto. His television and film appearances have reached more than 50 million viewers worldwide.[58]
Levitin had a cameo appearance in The Big Bang Theory at the invitation of the producers, in Season 8, Episode 5, "The Focus Attenuation". He appeared in the opening scene, sitting at a table in the Caltech cafeteria over Sheldon's right shoulder. In January 2015 he was a guest on BBC Radio 4's Start the Week program alongside cognitive scientist Margaret Boden.[59]
In 2019–2020 he was a script consultant and on-air guest for Season 8 of National Geographic's Brain Games. In 2020, he appeared in Stewart Copeland's Adventures in Music series on BBC 4,[60] discussing the evolutionary basis of music and the neuroscience of music.
Cine Special Jury Prize for Arts & Culture, The Music Instinct (Daniel Levitin, co-host, co-writer and chief scientific consultant), 2010, Washington, D.C.
Banff World Television Festival, Rockie Award Nominee, The Music Instinct (Daniel Levitin, co-host, co-writer and chief scientific consultant), 2010.
First place, Pariscience Film Festival, The Music Instinct (Daniel Levitin, co-host, co-writer and chief scientific consultant), 2009.
Winner, Gemini Award, Best Sound in an Information/Documentary Program or Series, The Musical Brain (Daniel Levitin, host and scientific consultant), 2009.
Hugo Television Award, Science/Nature Documentary, 45th Chicago International Film Festival, The Musical Brain (Daniel Levitin, host and scientific consultant), 2009.
European Acoustics Association (EAA) Award for Outstanding Scientific Results Published in Acta Acustica United With Acustica (with co-recipients C. Guastavino, J-D Pollack, D. Dubois and B. Katz), 2008.
Gold Medal, Venice Film Festival, 1985, Film Soundtrack Production, for Architects of Victory
Lys Award, Best Blues Album, 2005, Dale Boyle: In My Rearview Mirror: A Story From A Small Gaspé Town
Lys Award, Best Blues Album 2004, Dale Boyle and the Barburners: A Dog Day for Purists
"Top 100 Papers in Cognitive Science" by the Millennium Project for "Absolute Memory for Musical Pitch," Perception and Psychophysics, 1994.
Selected publications
Books
The Billboard Encyclopedia of Record Producers (1999). New York: Watson-Guptill Publications, E. Olsen, C. Wolff, P. Verna, Editors; D. J. Levitin, associate editor.
Foundations of Cognitive Psychology: Core Readings, Second Edition (2010), Boston: Allyn & Bacon/Pearson Publishing
This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession, (2006), New York: Dutton/Penguin. (released in the U.K. and Commonwealth territories by Atlantic, 2007). (appeared on the New York Times Bestseller List both in hardcover and paperback)
Diane Nalini, Songs of Sweet Fire. 2006. (Mixing Engineer, Production Consultant).
Dale Boyle, In My Rearview Mirror: A Story From A Small Gaspé Town. 2005. (Production Consultant)
Dale Boyle and the Barburners, A Dog Day for the Purists. 2004. (Producer).
Dale Boyle and the Barburners, String Slinger Blues. 2002. (Producer).
The Carpenters. As Time Goes By. A&M Records/Universal, 2000. (Consultant on song selection, liner notes writer.)
Various Artists. Original motion picture soundtrack, Good Will Hunting. Hollywood/Miramax Records, 1998. (A&R Consultant. )
Stevie Wonder discographyStevie Wonder. Stevie Wonder Song Review: A Greatest Hits Collection. Motown, 1996. (Consultant on song selection. Liner notes writer.)
Steely Dan, Gold, Decade, Gaucho, Aja, The Royal Scam, Katy Lied, Pretzel Logic, Countdown to Ecstasy, Can't Buy A Thrill, MCA, 1992. (Consultant on CD Remastering.) [source?]
kd lang, Ingénue, Reprise, 1992. (Consultant.)
Eric Clapton, Unplugged, Reprise, 1992. (Consultant.)
Chris Isaak, Heart Shaped World, Warner Brothers, 1989. (Engineering (Asst), Sound Design (Soundscape)).
Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers, Rockin' and Romance, Twin/Tone (U.S), Sire (U.K.), 1986. (Engineer).
The Furies, Fun Around The World, Infrasonic, 1986
International P.E.A.C.E. Benefit Compilation, R Radical Records, 1984 (Producer of tracks by The Afflicted and MDC), reissued 1997 New Red Archives/Lumberjack Mordam Music Group
^Parncutt, R.; Levitin, D.J. (2001). "Absolute Pitch". In S. Sadie (ed.). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. New York: St. Martins Press. pp. 37–39.
^Gayle MacDonald (June 3, 2008). "Listening for the Listener". Globe and Mail.
^Robert Levine (June 9, 2016). "Inside the 'Stairway to Heaven' Lawsuit: Everything You Need to Know". Billboard.
^M. Skidmore v. James Patrick Page, et al, United States Reports 16-56287 (United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit March 12, 2018) (""The panel found that…the two songs were not substantially similar under the extrinsic test.").
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