Bad Singer - by Tim Falconer (Hardcover)

About the Book

"In the tradition of Daniel Levitin's This Is Your Brain on Music and Oliver Sacks' Musicophilia, Bad Singer follows the delightful journey of Tim Falconer as he tries to overcome tone deafness--and along the way discovers what we're really hearing when we listen to music. A work of scientific discovery, musicology, and personal odyssey, Bad Singer is a fascinating, insightful, and highly entertaining account from an award-winning journalist and author."--

Book Synopsis

In the tradition of Daniel Levitin's This Is Your Brain on Music and Oliver Sacks' Musicophilia, Bad Singer follows the delightful journey of Tim Falconer as he tries to overcome tone deafness -- and along the way discovers what we're really hearing when we listen to music.

Tim Falconer, a self-confessed "bad singer," always wanted to make music, but soon after he starts singing lessons, he discovers that he's part of only 2.5 percent of the population afflicted with amusia -- in other words, he is scientifically tone-deaf.

Bad Singer chronicles his quest to understand human evolution and music, the brain science behind tone-deafness, his search for ways to retrain the adult brain, and his investigation into what we really hear when we listen to music. In an effort to learn more about his brain disorder, he goes to a series of labs where the scientists who test him are as fascinated with him as he is with them. He also sets out to understand why we love music and deconstructs what we really hear when we listen to it. And he unlocks the secret that helps explain why music has such emotional power over us.

Review Quotes

"A remarkable story of dogged determination to prove his own body wrong and, as such, is one of the more illuminating cultural studies of modern times." -- Globe and Mail

"A spirited, even adventurous look at the mysteries of how the human brain perceives and processes sound -- and even, on occasion, manages to make beautiful music." -- Kirkus Reviews

"An engaging tale." -- Winnipeg Free Press

"An engaging, step-by-step look into how scientists study tone deafness . . . an essential tale about how human beings, even those of us with tin ears, can't help but be drawn to music . . . Over the last decade there have been a number of books published about the science of music -- such as Daniel Levitan's This Is Your Brain on Music, Oliver Sacks's Musicophilia, and David Byrne's How Music Works -- and Bad Singer is a doubly successful effort because it doesn't retread the same ground of these books, with Falconer couching his subject in a personal journey that's enjoyable to follow." -- National Post

"Bad Singer deftly combines a memoir of Falconer's personal musical history with a scientific look into how humans hear music." -- Maclean's

"Falconer is old school in his traditional approach to journalism. He conducts lengthy interviews and fluidly articulates complex scientific concepts. He's the protagonist yet he doesn't digress into self-indulgence. The result is fresh, intelligent prose. While he may be a bad singer, he's a thorough researcher and gifted raconteur. What Falconer lacks in pitch he makes up for in curiosity and passion." -- Toronto Star

"Falconer's self-deprecating humour keeps Bad Singer's tone lighthearted and as entertaining as the photos of him hamming it up as a singer on the book cover. Lines like 'I'm a bad singer. And deep down, it matters' produce an undercurrent of sorrow, but far more pronounced are his curiosity, vulnerability, and perseverance. It's a deeply human book, and his most personal." -- Quill & Quire

About the Author

Tim Falconer is an award-winning journalist and author of three books of nonfiction, including Drive: A Road Trip through Our Complicated Affair with the Automobile and That Good Night: Ethicists, Euthanasia, and End-of-Life Care. In 2010, he won a Canadian Institutes of Health Research journalism award to write about music and health, allowing him to produce a well-received 5,500-word piece about amusia that appeared in the Spring 2012 issue of Maisonneuve. That piece won a National Magazine Award and was followed by a radio documentary on the same subject on CBC Radio's Ideas. He teaches magazine journalism at Ryerson University in Toronto and Creative Nonfiction at the University of King's College in Halifax. He lives in Toronto.