Excellent post Duga. The book spends a lot of time explaining the precise balance of expectation, realization, and surprise that goes into our brain's enjoyment of music, the regions in which this takes place, and which aspects of music deliver it.
What I found interesting is when the book pointed out patterns to me in music I was not accustomed to. Culturally I was brought up on the standard AABA song formation, so classical and jazz (for instance) music all seems very unfocussed to me. I was very surprised to learn that these genres have structure as well; I just haven't heard enough of the paradigm to learn it. Teaching some of the basic structures of genres yields greater enjoyment of the pieces.
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