Daniel Levitin

Daniel Joseph Levitin, FRSC (born December 27, 1957) is an American-Canadian cognitive psychologist, neuroscientist, writer, musician, and record producer.

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, reconing 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.

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; 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

He returned to school in his thirties, studying cognitive psychology/cognitive science first at Stanford University where he received a BA degree in 1992 (with honors and highest university distinction) and then to the University of Oregon where he received an MSc degree in 1993 and a PhD degree in 1996.

He completed post-doctoral fellowships at Paul Allen's Silicon Valley think-tank Interval Research, at the Stanford University Medical School, and at the University of California, Berkeley.

His early influences include Susan Carey, Merrill Garrett, and Molly Potter and his scientific mentors include Roger Shepard, Karl H. Pribram, Michael Posner, Douglas Hintzman, John R. Pierce, and Stephen Palmer.

He has been a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University, Dartmouth College, and Oregon Health Sciences University.

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.

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.

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.

He is the author of four New York Times best-selling books, including This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession, (Dutton/Penguin 2006; Plume/Penguin 2007) which has sold more than 1 million copies.

Levitin is a James McGill Professor Emeritus of psychology, behavioral neuroscience and music at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada; a Founding Dean of Arts & Humanities at Minerva University; and a Distinguished Faculty Fellow at the Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley.

He is the Director of the Laboratory for Music Perception, Cognition, and Expertise at McGill.

He is a former member of the Board of Governors of the Grammys, a consultant to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, a fellow of the Psychonomic Society, and a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (FRSC).

He has appeared frequently as a guest commentator on NPR and CBC.

He has published scientific articles on absolute pitch, music cognition, neuroanatomy, and directional statistics.

His five books have all been international bestsellers, and collectively have sold more 3 million copies worldwide: This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession (2006), The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature (2008), The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload (2014), A Field Guide to Lies: Critical Thinking in the Information Age (2016) and Successful Aging (2020).

Levitin also worked as a music consultant, producer and sound designer on albums by Blue Öyster Cult, Chris Isaak, and Joe Satriani among others; produced punk bands including MDC and The Afflicted; and served as a consultant on albums by artists including Steely Dan, Stevie Wonder, and Michael Brook; and as a recording engineer for Santana, Jonathan Richman, O.J. Ekemode and the Nigerian Allstars, and The Grateful Dead.

Records and CDs to which he has contributed have sold more than 30 million copies.

Born in San Francisco, the son of Lloyd Levitin, a businessman and professor, and Sonia Levitin, a novelist.

Daniel Levitin was raised in Daly City, Moraga, and Palos Verdes, all in California.

He graduated after his junior year at Palos Verdes High School and attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he studied applied mathematics; he enrolled at the Berklee College of Music before dropping out of college to join a succession of bands, work as a record producer, and help found a record label, 415 Records.

Some comics were included in the 2006 compilation Bizarro and Other Strange Manifestations of the Art of Dan Piraro (Andrews McMeel).

Levitin began playing piano at age 4.

He took up clarinet at age 8, and bass clarinet and saxophone at age 12.

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.

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 continues to perform regularly and has played saxophone with Sting, Ben Sidran, and Bobby McFerrin, played guitar with Rosanne Cash, Blue Öyster Cult, Rodney Crowell, Michael Brook, Gary Lucas, Victor Wooten, Steve Bailey, Peter Case, Peter Himmelman, Lenny Kaye, Jessie Farrell, and David Byrne; and appeared on vocals with Renée Fleming, Neil Young and Rosanne Cash.

In the fall of 2017 he toured the West Coast with singer-songwriter Tom Brosseau.

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."

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.