VERSED: The ASCAP Podcast / Ep. 43 - Daniel Levitin on Music as Medicine
July 17, 2025
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VERSED is a monthly podcast illuminating the heart and soul of music. Featuring in-depth interviews with songwriters and composers, plus tips and insights to help you navigate your music career. Brought to you by ASCAP, home of the world's greatest music creators.
Daniel Levitin is an award-winning neuroscientist, musician, ASCAP songwriter and the New York Times best-selling author of several books, including This Is Your Brain on Music, The World in Six Songs, The Organized Mind and Successful Aging. His latest book, titled I Heard There Was a Secret Chord: Music as Medicine, explores the healing powers of music and shows how and why it is one of the most potent therapies today. He brings together the results of numerous studies on music and the brain and demonstrates how music can contribute to the treatment of ailments such as neurodegenerative diseases, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s to cognitive injury, depression and pain.
But Dan brings so much more to his work than an incredible scientific background. As a songwriter and musician who has worked closely with music icons such as Joni Mitchell, Steely Dan, Stevie Wonder, Rodney Crowell and many more, he speaks eloquently about these topics from a music creator’s perspective. In this fascinating conversation, he also touches on human vs. AI created music, how some of the most legendary songwriters tapped into their unconscious mind to create indelible lyrics and his work in getting music therapy as a covered treatment.
+ Watch Dan perform “Just a Memory” with Renée Fleming, Victor Wooten and Hardy Hemphill
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EP. 43 FEATURED INTERVIEWEE: DANIEL LEVITIN
Daniel J. Levitin is an award-winning neuroscientist, musician and best-selling author. His research encompasses music, the brain, health, productivity and creativity.
Levitin has published more than 300 articles, in journals including Science, Nature, PNAS, The New Yorker, The Atlantic and The Wall Street Journal. His research has been featured over 2,200 times in the popular press, including 17 articles in The New York Times and in The London Times, Scientific American and Rolling Stone. He is a frequent guest on NPR and CBC Radio and has appeared on Good Morning America, The Today Show, CBS This Morning and CNN. His TED talk is among the most popular of all time.
He is the author of four New York Times bestselling books: This Is Your Brain on Music, The World in Six Songs, The Organized Mind and Successful Aging, as well as the international bestsellers A Field Guide to Lies and I Heard There Was a Secret Chord. A popular public speaker, he has given presentations on the floor of Parliament in London, to the US Congress, Microsoft, Google and Amazon. He has consulted for a number of companies including Apple, Booz-Allen, Microsoft, the United States Navy, Sonos, Philips, Sony, Fender and AT&T.
Dr. Levitin earned his BA from Stanford in Cognitive Science, his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology with a Ph.D. minor in Music Technology from the University of Oregon, and completed post-doctoral training at Stanford University Medical School and UC Berkeley in Neuroimaging and Perception.
As a musician (tenor saxophone, guitar, vocals and bass), he has performed with Mel Tormé, David Byrne, Rosanne Cash, Sting, Bobby McFerrin, Victor Wooten and Tom Scott. Levitin has produced and consulted on albums by artists including Stevie Wonder, Steely Dan, Joni Mitchell and on the films Good Will Hunting and Pulp Fiction, and has been awarded 17 gold and platinum records.
Levitin taught at Stanford in the Departments of Computer Science, Psychology, History of Science and Music, and has been a Visiting Professor at Dartmouth and UC Berkeley. He is currently the Founding Dean of Arts & Humanities at the Minerva University, San Francisco, California, and James McGill Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Neuroscience and Music at McGill University.