29 Facts About Daniel Levitin

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

Daniel Levitin 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.

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

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

Daniel Levitin worked as a music consultant, producer and sound designer on albums by Blue Oyster 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, OJ.

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

Daniel Levitin graduated after his junior year at Palos Verdes High School to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he studied applied mathematics; he later 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.

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

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

Daniel Levitin is known for drawing attention to the role of cerebellum in music listening, including tracking the beat and distinguishing familiar from unfamiliar music.

Outside of his academic pursuits Daniel 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.

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

Daniel Levitin played saxophone in high school; at age 17 he performed on baritone with the big band backing up Mel Torme at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.

Daniel Levitin played on recording sessions for Blue Oyster Cult, True West, and the soundtrack to Repo Man.

Daniel Levitin continues to perform regularly and has played saxophone with Sting, Ben Sidran, and Bobby McFerrin, played guitar with Rosanne Cash, Blue Oyster 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 Renee Fleming, Neil Young and Rosanne Cash.

Daniel Levitin 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 Renee Fleming, Victor Wooten and Hardy Hemphill sponsored by John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Daniel Levitin was one of the golden ears used in the first Dolby AC audio compression tests, a precursor to MP3 audio compression.

Daniel Levitin was a music consultant on feature films such as Good Will Hunting and The Crow: City of Angels, and served as a compilation consultant to Stevie Wonder's Song Review: A Greatest Hits Collection, and to As Time Goes By and Interpretations: A 25th Anniversary Celebration by The Carpenters.

Daniel Levitin returned to the studio in 2002, producing three albums for Quebec blues musician Dale Boyle: String Slinger Blues, A Dog Day for the Purists, and In My Rearview Mirror: A Story From A Small Gaspe Town, the latter two of which won the annual Lys Blues Award for best Blues album.

Daniel Levitin helped Joni Mitchell with the production of her three most recent albums, Shine, Love Has Many Faces: A Quartet, A Ballet, Waiting to Be Danced, and Starbucks' Artist's Choice: Joni Mitchell.

Daniel Levitin was an occasional script consultant to The Mentalist from 2007 to 2009.

Daniel Levitin began writing articles in 1988 for music industry magazines Billboard, Grammy, EQ, Mix, Music Connection, and Electronic Musician, and was named contributing writer to Billboards Reviews section from 1992 to 1997.

Daniel Levitin has contributed to The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic.

Daniel Levitin is the author of This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession, which spent more than 12 months on the New York Times and the Globe and Mail bestseller lists.

Daniel Levitin consulted on the legal strategy used by Jimmy Page and Led Zeppelin to defend copyright infringement claim against his song Stairway To Heaven.

From September 2006 to April 2007 Daniel Levitin served as a weekly commentator on the CBC Radio One show Freestyle.

Daniel Levitin appeared in Artifact, a 2012 documentary directed by Jared Leto.

Daniel Levitin had a cameo appearance in The Big Bang Theory at the invitation of the producers, in Season 8, Episode 5, "The Focus Attenuation".

Daniel Levitin appeared in the opening scene, sitting at a table in the Caltech cafeteria over Sheldon's right shoulder.