Music and the Brain
A recent report entitled "Study of Music and the Mind Hits a
High Note in Montreal"(Science (v315,p758, 2007) describes
work at the Unversity of Montreal's International
Laboratory for Brain, Music, and Sound Research. Some of the
findings there may be of interest to
anyone who makes music, whether as a beginner or
a professional, or simply enjoys listening to it.
Where Is the Music Processor?
For a long time it was thought that the areas the brain uses for
processing music mostly overlap with the language processing
centers. Isabelle Peretz, Co-director of the laboratory, suggested
that was wrong, based on a study she did of people with amusia
(a form of tone-deafness),
which can be present from birth (congenital) or result from
injury (acquired). Many of these subjects had normal language
functions, which would not be possible if the music and language
centers had much overlap. (One does wonder if native Chinese speakers
with acquired amusia would retain normal language function, since
the Chinese language does depend on pitch far more than other languages.)
Further study by the laboratory's director, Robert Zatorre, showed
that the areas for pitch-recognition and music memory are located
in the right side of the brain, while language functions are in
the left.
Music & Emotion
Another finding by Zatorre is
that when people listening to music have a pleasurable "spine-tingling"
experience, the parts of the brain that get activated - the amygdala
and the orbito-frontal cortex - are the same ones activated by food
and sex! Thus religious authorities, from the ancient Egyptians down to
the present, have often been highly suspicious of music and musicians
(for good reason, as it turns out!) In the 1500s Zwingli, the Zurich
protestant reformer, banned all music from the worship service.
Interestingly, he himself was an experienced musician. My own
grandfather and his brother were country musicians, playing the
fiddle and banjo, respectively, in the early 1900s in rural
middle Tennessee. When they "got religion", they stopped playing abruptly,
and Uncle "Waddy" (Walter) hung his banjo on the wall and never
touched it again. My grandfather did demonstrate his fiddle playing
to his grandchildren occasionally, but never played in public again.
Music & Memory
One of the most interesting findings has to do with musical memory -
for example, the ability of pianists to remember long and complicated
scores. It had long been thought that the brain would store the
score in some way, and the fingers would simply follow. As it turns
out, however, that's only part of the story. The fingers are activated
by motor neurons, and in the brain these have a separate place for
memory that is not accessible to conscious thought; that is, the only
way content can be put into that memory is by actually moving the
fingers. That place is, not surprisingly, well-connected to and coordinated
with the part of the brain where the score is stored. The practical
meaning for pianists and other musicians is that when you practice a
passage over and over again, you are strengthening the motor memory
as well as the score memory, and not just making your fingers
stronger. Merely memorizing the music by visual and/or auditory
study is an incomplete process as best. And when you play a fast
passage it may be impossible to think about each note. Also, if
you have a disturbance in the conscious part of your brain, such as
might be caused by performance anxiety, your fingers' memory may
well save the day, but only if you have actually practiced enough! I
suspect most experienced pianists (and other musicians) have already
learned this. There is a further related process that is
fairly well-known, although not discussed in the Science report. It
takes a night of sleep for the results of an extended practice session
to be most effective. Organists take heed - if possible, practice on
Saturday rather than on Sunday morning!
- Glenn A. Gentry