A lot of funny things go on in the brain when music is played, sung, heard, or thought of.  Some people see colors; others recover long forgotten memories.  And what about those brain worms—bits of music that play over and over in one’s head, sometimes to distraction.  Some people have symphonic brain worms—yeah the whole damned orchestra blasting away under the skull. Most of the book is the “man who mistook his wife for a trombone” variety—disturbing musical maladies traced to misfiring in one or another part of the brain.  I find that stuff scary.  But the section on music and dementia offered some hopeful insights on the amnesic elderly.  Apparently, they may forget their own names, but not their favorite tune. [3/09]