Anyone who has taken a presentation skills course, or any good presenter, will know that varying how your speak - changing tempo, tone, pitch - and using movement - expressions, hand gestures, walking - are good strategies for improving the listener's experience. Ever wonder why? In this video, Daniel Levitin talks about the early origins of music - alterations in pitch and time - for communication that pre-dates language, the primitive parts of the brain affected by music, and the links between language and movement. So, increase the appeal of your presentations, and even your conversations, by incorporating some foundation elements of music. Daniel Levitin is a James McGill Professor of Psychology, Behavioural Neuroscience, and Music at McGill University (Montreal, Quebec), and author of "This Is Your Brain On Music: The Science of a Human Obsession" and "The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature." and has some serious music production "creds" with some noteworthy bands.

Principles for Good Presentations

I just stumbled across a SlideShare presentation titled Brain Rules for Presenters based on John Medina's book Brain Rules. It's very well done visually, and does a good job highlighting key points from the book. Bravo to Garr Reynolds who developed the presentation.

The author's web site is also a good source of background about the book and contents.