Learning to play the Brain: The effect of Musical Training on the brain#

By Troy Smith

Introduction#

Scientists and philosophers have long pondered whether there is a region in the human brain dedicated to music. Is musicality innate within us? There are many instances of people who suffered traumatic brain injuries (TBI) resulting in lost memory. Other vital functions in their life may also be impaired, yet music seems to stay with them like nothing happened to them in the first place. Music & Memory has looked into treating older patients with music and is known for the Alive Inside documentary. Dr. Oliver Sacks, M.D., neurologist and author, has taken note of a patient named Henry suddenly “coming alive” while hearing music he loved back when he was much younger, appearing animated and moving his arms (Music & Memory, 2011). Music & Memory focuses on patients with dementia, notably Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Music therapy is the treatment of patients with music, requiring certifications like other professions. Gunnar Hayman, who studies music therapy, referenced a quote in his TED Talk from Music & Memory, which is “In Medicine, we focus on numbers. We are too focused on treating the disease rather than the person,” highlighting that humanity side of health is not properly addressed (TEDx Talks, 2017). On the debate of music being innate, it’s easy to point to absolute pitch (colloquially known as “perfect” pitch). Absolute pitch is the ability to identify and sing any pitch without a reference. Most people have relative pitch, which is where they can discern certain pitches once they are given a reference. Those who have better relative pitch (some call it a “better ear”) will identify pitches quicker, but it is learned. While absolute pitch is relatively rare, people tend to distort how rare it truly is. Supposedly, 1 in 10,000 people have it, but closer to 4% of the population might have it (Witynski, 2023). Absolute pitch can be learned, but this is generally done before the age of 10, hence many ‘early-trained’ musicians (this will be talked more in-depth later in the chapter) have it, and many late-trained musicians do not. It is almost impossible to achieve absolute pitch later, which suggests some sort of critical period. There are tonal languages, such as Mandarin Chinese, where absolute pitch was once believed to be a hinderance to because it was seen as disadvantageous for differentiating speech syllables and words that were associated with those pitches. However, this is actually not the case. To keep things clear, absolute pitch is merely a faculty; it is not a tool. People don’t “use it.” An equivalent for the common population would be color perception. Identifying blue is instant with no thought to it. While having absolute pitch is discrete (either you have it, or you don’t), there are varying degrees of absolute pitch, such as hearing many clusters of notes at once. On the opposite hand, there is congenital amusia, commonly referred to as tone-deafness, which is the inability to differentiate between any set of pitches; everything sounds the same. It is likely rarer than absolute pitch, with supposedly only 1.5% percent of the world population truly having it. It’s typically genetic, but French composer Ravel suffered it from a car accident in the last few years of his life (Szyfter & Wigowska-Sowinska, 2021). Many people that claim to have it are using it as a figure of speech with no diagnosis, and that irks me. Like absolute pitch, there are also varying degrees of it. This can be a problem when it comes to understanding tone and voice mannerisms in dialogue, enjoying music, and of course, musical training.

Playing a musical instrument involves complex, high-order cognitive, sensory, and motor processes. Musical training is concerned with those who practice any musical instrument or singing on a regular basis, which is typically about at least a few hours per week. In research, those who have picked up an instrument before the age of 7 are considered ‘early-trained’ musicians, and those who started after that are ‘late-trained’ (which I fall into). Based on the research out there, early-trained musicians exhibit increased area and volume of any part of the cortex, enlargement in the midsagittal corpus callosum (Schlaug et al., 2009), strengthened synaptic plasticity and structural changes, and cognitive benefits.

Fundamentals of Music#

Before getting into more of the musical neurology of the chapter, it is important to identify the four components of music. The first one, as briefly mentioned before, is frequency, or pitch. Pitches (also called notes) that sound ‘higher’ have a higher frequency, and those that sound ‘lower’ have a lower frequency. Different parts of the ear do best at picking up the wide range of frequencies that humans can hear. Anything above what we can hear is referred to as ultrasound, and the opposite is infrasound. The next component is duration, or rhythm. Rhythm is undoubtedly the most important element to music, because music almost never works without it. Most pieces of music have a main rhythmic value (called a ‘macrobeat’ in music education), and anything smaller than it would be referred to as a subdivision. Since most music is written in the time signature of 4/4, the quarter note is the main rhythmic value. Eighth and sixteenth notes are the most common subdivisions. Any spaces of silence for any or everyone in an ensemble, is called a rest, which can also have any of the possible values listed before. Next, we have amplitude, or volume. “Louder” music has a higher amplitude and the opposite when it is “softer.” Varying the volume of different impact points in music is what keeps us engaged to listen to the end. We have timbre or texture, which doesn’t get talked about quite as much as it should. Timbre (pronounced tam-ber) is the tone quality of certain instruments. Common instruments such as piano, guitar, or violin are very easy to distinguish because a lot of popular or recognizable music uses these instruments. Every instrument has a unique timbre, although some will sound similar to others, whether it is by nature, or the skill of the person playing that particular instrument. The Fourier spectrum is a way to measure the overtones of different instruments. Overtones are pitches sounding higher than a fundamental pitch (the note that the instrument produces), and those that are specifically multiples of that pitch (such as the octave, eight notes above the fundamental, vibrating twice as fast) are called harmonics. Different overtones for each instruments explains their unique tone quality. Some timbres annoy certain people; tone quality is very subjective and hard to define.

Note

Other Components of Music In the chapter, we talked about frequency, rhythm, amplitude, and timbre. There are some other layers to music that were not covered. The other elements are melody, harmony, timbral complexity, and form.

When it comes to pieces of music and songs, melody is typically the most important thing (but still subordinate to rhythm). A melody is a moving line in a song that conveys the message of the song, and it has a distinct contour (usually a low and high point) with a singable fashion that people can recall. They will not sing the guitar part or any other accompaniment unless it is iconic. These are somewhat uncommon exceptions. It is extremely difficult to find a memorable song that does not contain any melody, especially on the Billboard charts of any decade.

The next component is harmony, which is often the accompaniment to a melody. Every part in an ensemble has to be harmonic agreement, whether they are melodically independent, rhythmically dependent, or interdependent in some fashion. If one part is not playing the correct pitches, then the chord is jeopardized. Most popular music today is harmonically simple, hence the saying of “four chords and the truth,” which may even get cited in a satirical manner. At its core, the tried-and-true method of harmony uses the I, IV, and V (tonic, subdominant, and dominant) of any given tonal center, or key. Harmony should be thought of horizontally, not vertically.

Timbral complexity is a component that is often neglected, but was a big point made by the American composer (dubbed the “Dean of American Composers”) Aaron Copland. In a symphony orchestra, jazz ensemble, or concert [wind] band, there is a wider variety of instruments involved than a rock band or a string orchestra. For arranging, the best composers love to pass the melody to different instruments in the ensemble. Also, they will introduce different combinations of instruments for not only melodies, but countermelodies and other layers, augmenting timbral complexity. The Australian-born composer Percy Grainger had a penchant for using the oboe and soprano saxophone in his music. It is not uncommon for clarinets and trumpets to share parts at some points in music, because they are both transposed instruments in the same key (B-flat), with similar range. However, it is a rare to have a piccolo flute playing the same part as a tuba or euphonium (a.k.a. baritone).

Form is the structure of any piece of music. Today’s music often employs verse-chorus form. In ‘classical’ music (the entire paradigm, not just music from the Classical period), there are many forms, such as binary, ternary, symphony, nocturne, and sonata, to name a few. It is typically up to the melody or some other melodic or rhythmic theme to dictate the form and how it goes, up to the discretion of the composer or songwriter. Early popular music (i.e. jazz and Broadway) used the 12-bar blues, and “song form” (AABA).

Many experiments involving music may or may not be aware of the multiple facets that music brings to the table, so any of these could be extraneous variables when it comes to assessing cognitive or creative tasks, and sometimes motor ones. Interpreting data with music as a manipulated variable will bring these elements into question when testing distraction or other abstract variables.

Cognitive Implications and Methodology#

Since music is typically associated with hearing, I will dive into auditory processing first. Auditory processing is important to music in order to make the desired sounds that any given piece or song calls for. On top of that, we also process sound for language. While I do not believe in the saying of music being a “universal language,” there is a special, often nonverbal, kind of communication among musicians. Since it is harder to find substantial results in short-term studies, so when it comes to the test design, the longitudinal design is often preferable for finding answers to a number of these questions. But this design often introduces maturation, carryover, and testing effects. Using this design, Nina Kraus, PhD., has studied the bridge between language, auditory processing, and musical training at Northwestern University. In a study she conducted in 2014, it was hypothesized that musical training enhances the neural differentiation of speech. 44 students were separated into two random groups, where one started a musical enrichment program where they learnt a variety of instruments (i.e. strings, woodwinds, and brass.) The second group did not start their training until a year later, so they could test different cohorts at different training levels. Two speech syllables, “ba” and “ga,” were given to assess the response timing of differentiating between the two, in a cross-phaseogram procedure. Structural MRI scans showed that the group with two years of musical training showed better differentiation between the two syllables, suggesting gains in neurophysiological function, and an enhancement in community musical training (Kraus, 2014). Neural timings were also found to be faster. The positive effect of musical training has been found in this study, although they mentioned that future steps were to include a larger sample size (which is fair, because they only had 19 subjects), and a better sex distribution, since 12 of those subjects were female.

Magnetoencelography (MEG) is a variation of electroencephalography (EEG), involving a magnetic field. Because congenital amusia is believed to be a disconnection syndrome, MEG was used to study the disconnection in two groups of participants listening to music. Decreased connectivity was found between both cerebral hemispheres but with increased lateral connectivity in the auditory cortices, with decreased right frontotemporal backward connectivity in amusics compared to controls (Szyfter & Wigowska-Sowinska, 2021). Since the genes contributing to this are poorly understood, it is difficult to tell where specifically the disconnection is happening, as a result of poor localization from the MEG technique (Herholz & Zatorre, 2012).

Possible Mechanisms and Theories#

It is now understood that musical training has some positive effects on auditory processing, but what does this look like at the molecular/biological level? Dr. Eckart Altenmüller (accomplished in neurology and flute performance) and Dr. Gottfried Schlaug study brain plasticity and structural changes, in specific situations that involve stroke recovery, in those who have done extensive vocal training. Aphasia is the impaired ability to either process or produce speech that often comes after a stroke, and there are two types. Fluent aphasia is often found in lesions to the Wernicke’s area, in the posterior superior temporal lobe. Patients with fluent aphasia can articulate speech with similar proficiency to before stroke, but it is often inconceivable to the listener. They speak loads of jargon or make errors in sentence structure including syntax and grammar. Nonfluent aphasia usually comes from a lesion in the left frontal lobe and Broca’s area, in the left posterior inferior frontal region. These patients have minimal problems with comprehension but more issues with articulation and speech production. There are two conventional ways to language recovery (Altenmüller & Schlaug, 2013). Small lesions to the left hemisphere involve recruitment from both that and some homologous regions of the right hemisphere. Unfortunately, for those with larger lesions, the only remedy seems to be homologous speech and language in motor regions in the right hemisphere (Altenmüller & Schlaug, 2013). Patients with severe nonfluent aphasia were observed to have better singing ability than speaking, which introduced an intonation-based therapy known as melodic intonation therapy (MIT). MIT utilizes slow, pitched vocalization paired with speech combined with rhythmic tapping of the left hand. Loui, Wan, and Schlaug conducted a study in 2008 examining the benefits of MIT on transferring language skills to untrained scenarios. They predicted that the arcuate fasciculus was a key component in pitch perception and production, given that it is the pathway connecting the Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas. On that note, they also defined tone-deafness as the inability to sing (Loui, Wan, & Schlaug, 2008). With 75 daily sessions each lasting 90 minutes, the patient undergoing MIT showed greater enhancement than the one under control therapy. In addition, they found an increase of activation in the premotor, inferior frontal, and temporal lobes, with the arcuate fasciculus showing a larger number of fibers and increased volume, all in a network located in the right hemisphere. While playing a musical instrument has been shown to have enhanced neural networks, they interpreted that singing affects a network that is even more robust.

MIT has also been used for gait-training on patients with dementia. In conjunction with MIT, rhythmic auditory stimulation (RAS) has also been used on these patients to engage movement centers in the brain. MedRhythms, a neuro-rehab company looking to restore lives from brain injury, has looked at a patient named George who suffered a stroke. His walking was impaired and he went under traditional physical therapy for 3 weeks. Then, they used RAS and MIT, and results have showed George being able to move faster in time with music they administered (MedRhythms, 2015). Additionally, there was carryover when music was taken out, so there is a promising merit to both MIT and RAS.

A theory that has been perpetuated for far too long is the Mozart effect, in which listening to classical music (especially W. A. Mozart’s) helped improve test scores. Some also claimed it improved general intelligence. While many studies have shown this to be apocryphal, our understanding of these claims has grown from one in particular. He et al. (2017) has brought forward that arousal, the emotional effect, from music acts as a mediator on cognitive functioning and creativity, hence the mixed results from other studies (He et al., 2017).

Cons and Risks#

While this chapter is focused on the benefits of musical training, there are also risks to be aware of. To start, tinnitus is a form of maladaptive plasticity that typically follows as a result of hearing loss to any extent, with unclear cause (Pantev et al., 2012). The key characteristic is the phantom sensation of ringing in either or both ears, from a nonexistent source, which can be acute or chronic (over 3 years). Chris Martin (Coldplay), Ozzy Osbourne (Black Sabbath, solo artist), and Neil Young suffer from tinnitus and partial deafness. Beethoven famously suffered hearing loss and went completely deaf very soon before his death. While deafness makes musical training difficult, creating music with technology is on the rise and appears to be a good alternative. Focal dystonia is another risk to look out for, which is a movement disorder characterized by sustained, involuntary muscular contractions, in the antagonistic muscles of the forearm (Aranguiz, 2011). Classical and jazz musicians are believed to be the most vulnerable because it is most common in them. Gary Graffman (classical pianist and teacher) and Alex Webster (bassist for Cannibal Corpse and Blotted Science) suffer from focal dystonia.

Challenges and Future Directions#

As far as research goes, one challenge is the fact that to see most changes associated with musical training, substantial results take a considerable amount of time to gather. Short-term results with music is usually a lot to ask for, so many studies will experiment with participants for at least a year or two, if not more. The longitudinal design suits this more than the more typical designs seen in many other scientific studies, especially for investigating rare conditions such as focal dystonia, tinnitus, and even musical anhedonia, the absence of receiving pleasure from music (supposedly linked to the habenula), which may even call for case studies.

For future directions, there should first be more studies should look more into popular music within the last 100 years. From a scientific standpoint, it’s harder to generalize studies with only classical music. Is it really representative of the population if most people aren’t listening to it in their leisure? Second, investigating how to integrate musical training to those who are hard of hearing would be worthwhile. The capability of producing music is still there, and we have ways to restore hearing.

The penultimate challenge is that the value of music is declining, especially for those who reside in the United States of America. Music is not an activity for just listening these days; people tend to do it while doing other things, which are usually studying, dancing, or gaming. Music education in schools across the nation is waning, and there is also a shortage of teachers. The current enrollment of students in any music class or program is somewhere below 16%. Almost all music programs have high emphasis on European classical music from past centuries, which is palpably a large culprit. Most people today don’t listen to it and only recognize the most famous works. People that start music lessons as toddlers tend to quit around adolescence. Opening music schools more focused around on how music functions today would be beneficial but keeping classical music as a learning option rather than a necessity. Additionally, there could be additional enrichment programs involving music for those who may be neurodivergent, or learn differently than expected. There is a promising benefit for programs in gang-reduction zones, like Nina Kraus’ study.

Conclusion#

To end the chapter, there are many complex processes involved in music that involve many different regions of the brain. With so many disorders and diseases out there, as well as the hunt to improve overall brain health, musical training should continue to be brought to attention. Music tends to be an afterthought and many questions about it affecting our everyday lives have been tackled, and should continue to be, moving forward. There are facts about how exercise is beneficial, and there are overlaps with those found in music as well. We know that the enhancements of blood flow, brain activity, physique, and even mental health come from regular physical activity and exercise. Learning that somebody can play an instrument should not be a big surprise these days, considering the stigma that musicians tend to perform better academically. We cannot live without music, and we should integrate it better in schools and other learning environments.

Chapter Quiz#

  1. Which of the following is not one of the building components of music?

    • A. Amplitude

    • B. Duration

    • C. Cadence

    • D. Timbre

  2. What separates relative from absolute pitch?

    • A. Identifying a pitch without a reference point

    • B. The ability to play or a sing a pitch perfectly “in tune”

    • C. Making music with notes that fit within a given key

    • D. None of the above

  3. Which of the following does music seldom work without?

    • A. Timbre

    • B. Rhythm

    • C. Harmony

    • D. Volume

  4. What were the speech syllables used in Dr. Kraus’ study?

    • A. “ba” and “ga”

    • B. “ba” and “pa”

    • C. “pa” and “ga”

    • D. “ga” and “pa”

  5. Why was absolute pitch originally believed to be a problem for those who spoke tonal languages?

  6. What region of the brain is lesioned to result in fluent aphasia?

    • A. Inferior temporal gyrus

    • B. Wernicke’s area

    • C. Broca’s area

    • D. Parahippocampal place area

  7. What therapy was used to treat patients with nonfluent aphasia?

    • A. Cognitive behavioral therapy

    • B. Speech-language therapy

    • C. Auditory verbal therapy

    • D. Melodic intonation therapy

  8. Why is it difficult to study musical effects in research?

    • A. More time is usually needed for substantial results

    • B. Many people are simply not knowledgeable enough

    • C. Available techniques inadequately collect data

    • D. Because music doesn’t matter

Answers#

tbd

References#

Altenmüller, E., Schlaug, G. 2013. The beneficial effects of music making on neurorehabilitation. The Acoustical Society of Japan. Acoust. Sci. & Tech. 34(1).

Aranguiz, R. et al. 2011. Focal dystonia in musicians. Neurologia. 26(1):45-52.

He, W. et al. 2017. Emotional Reactions Mediate the Effect of Music Listening on Creative Thinking: Perspective of the Arousal-and-Mood Hypothesis. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 1860.

Herholz, S., Zatorre, R. 2012. Musical Training as a Framework for Brain Plasticity: Behavior, Function, and Structure. Neuron, 76. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2012.10.011

Kraus, N. et al. 2014. Music Enrichment Programs Improve the Neural Encoding of Speech in At-Risk Children. The Journal of Neuroscience, 34(36), 11913-11918.

Loui, P., Wan, C., Schlaug, G. 2010. Neurological bases of musical disorders and their implications for stroke recovery. Acoust Today. 2010 July 1; 6(3): 28–36. doi:10.1121/1.3488666.

MedRhythms. 2015. Neurologic Music Therapy – Rhythmic Auditory Stimulation – Gait Training. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbDKHGg9upQ

Music & Memory. 2011. (original) Man In Nursing Home Reacts To Hearing Music From His Era. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyZQf0p73QM

Pantev, C., Okamoto, H., Teismann, H. 2012. Music-induced cortical plasticity and lateral inhibition in the human auditory cortex as foundations for tonal tinnitus treatment. Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, 6(1), 50. doi: 10.3389/fnsys.2012.00050.

Schlaug, G. et al. 2009. Training-induced Neuroplasticity in Young Children. The Neurosciences and Music III: Disorders and Plasticity: Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 1169: 205–208. doi: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04842.x

Szyfter, K., & Wigowska-Sowinska, J. 2021. Congenital amusia—pathology of musical disorder. Journal of Applied Genetics 63:127-131. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13353-021-00662-z

TEDx Talks. 2017. Music and Memory | Gunnar Hayman | TEDxCardinalNewmanHS. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6UsDebR_2g

Witynski, M. 2023. What Is Perfect Pitch? UChicago News, The University of Chicago Office of Communications. https://news.uchicago.edu/explainer/what-is-perfect-pitch