Whale Music Book

Very nice book, which I suspect any scientist attracted to Glenn Gould's music will enjoy. The book goes in depth on Gould's philosophy about music, or life/being at large. I'm not quite into the sound of piano in general. But once I listened to Gould's Bach, there's no going back. I never knew why until I read this book. To him, music is the "backbone" structure and a subjective state of ecstasy rather than physical events. Why would it be good for scientists? That has to do with how I found the book. I've been going through a stressful year of, inter alia, dissertation writing. To pull myself through this, I had to listen to one of his album on repeat: "A State of Wonder: The Complete Goldberg Variations 1955 & 1981". I didn't understand why it's called "a state of wonder" before I came across a quote of Gould from this book "The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenalin but is, rather, the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity." I immediately felt that perhaps a scientist (a budding one like myself) needed this even more than an artist (if we have to make a dichotomy). What would be a deeper drive for a scientist other than a state of wonder about the world, self, and existence? I ended up quoting it in my dissertation and adapted it for my defense, which reads "The purpose of *science* is not the release of a momentary ejection of *technical sophistication* but is, rather, the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity." Only after my defense, I got the time to read the whole book and found that Gould would actually agree with my adaptation:
on page 121, he said "Stravinsky claimed that the business of art is technique; I do not agree. Nor do I believe that the business of technology is the rule of science [...]". Listening to Gould reminds me of why a scientific career worth pursuing at all.