musicBrainerBlogger

Music and Brain: Imagery and Imagination

2011-12-13T13:29:00.001-08:00

Chapter 4-

Music on the Brain: Imagery and Imagination

Sacks, Oliver. 2007. “Music on the Brain: Imagery and Imagination.” In Musicophilia, Tales of Music and The Brain. Vintage Canada, Toronto: ON.

Summary:

In this chapter of Sacks’ book Musicophilia, he discusses the concept of musical imagery, as it exists for individuals. Recalling the vivid internal musical symphonies that could be evoked in his father’s own mind, yet not for his mother, Sacks concluded that not everyone possesses an equal capacity for such mental imagery. Professional musicians, however, are remarkably skilled at this trait.

Sacks contemplates composers of past and present and the creative musical stimulus that occupies their minds. While some composers rely on an instrument during their creative process, many are able to conceptualize and hear the music entirely in their head. In addition, he examines Beethoven’s deafness and its effect on him as a composer; contrary to a musical demise that some may have predicted, following his sudden loss of hearing, it would seem as though the music grew more intellectually complex. Could it be, perhaps, that through the loss of an input source of hearing that his internal musical imagery was intensified as his auditory cortex became increasingly sensitive. Since Beethoven could no longer perceive external music, he was forced to rely upon more abstract, imaginative powers of thought as he composed. Through these measures, his music was an undeniable success.

His own personal history with music has also influenced Sacks mental musical imagery. Although not heightened to the acuteness of his father’s, Sacks noted his ability to glance at a piece of music which he had learned several years prior, and instantly begin to feel as though he was playing that music: he could “see” his hands on the keyboard, and “hear” the music in his head. This mental rehearsal to which he refers is an extremely important tool for performers before and while they are learning new repertoire, and before performances. Research has provided proof to the effectiveness of imagined practice.

Through their study of music’s effect on the mind, Robert Zatorre and colleagues have discovered that imagining the sound of music stimulates the auditory cortex to almost the same degree as actually hearing the music. Imagining the act of playing has an equally stimulating effect on the motor cortex, which in turn, continues to stimulate the auditory cortex. This evidence is encouragement for performers to visualize and imagine playing new music before attempting it; this process initiates neural circuitry that will be formed during the actual learning, thus, making the physical attempt much more fluent, as if the musician had already learned the music. The pathways have already been created; half the work has been done.

He continues to describe the mind’s tendency to predict music that is familiar to us. Studies of individuals’ brain activity during familiar listening experiences, wherein audible music is removed, demonstrate how the mind will attempt to fill in the missing segments of music; according to MRI brain scans, although music may have been removed, the auditory control centers displayed greater activation these times than with non-familiar musical examples.

Research has also allowed investigators to learn of frontal cortex stimulation that occurs during deliberate, conscious and voluntary mental imagery, such as frequently relied upon by professional musicians. Those who do not depend on such musical imagery for their vocation, may find most of their imagery is the result of unconscious thought. Even when one is not aware of why a musical association is occurring, it is a continual occurrence. Some experiences of musical imagery can be predicated by repeated listening; a favourite song, for example, can become embedded into one’s subconscious and revisited unconsciously, for unexplained reasoning. Verbal associations may also initiate musical imagery: lyrics from a song, similarities of a situation, a key word may all cause an involuntary lapse of music in one’s mind. Finally, repressed emotions may be another factor in musical imagery that seems to be cultivated out of the blue. Sacks draws upon personal experiences through which he can relate to each unexplained onset of musical imagery. Clearly music is always on his mind.

Reflection:

Having spent a great volume of my time as of late researching biofeedback and EEG neurofeedback training as it applies to attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Sacks’ chapter speaks volumes to me. I am flooded with inquiry questions and ideas for future research into the discipline of brain therapy, and reading his insights with regards to musical imagery, I am curious as to the overlap that I see.

Studies and therapeutic applications involving neurofeedback are based upon the notion that one is able to consciously retrain the brain. Through monitoring EEG patterns in an individual and applying biofeedback therapy which functions through operant conditioning principles, the subject can change the produced brainwaves. Thus, successful biofeedback or retraining of brain activity.

Sacks describes the cognitive processes of visual imagery used by musicians before learning new music, and even when they are away from their instrument. According to brainwave MRI scans, activity occurs in the auditory and motor cortex during these sessions of imagining hearing and playing music. As well, if an individual deliberately, voluntarily imagines music, the frontal cortex is also involved. This knowledge could prove to be effective in the treatment of ADHD, which is shown to affect the frontal and motor cortex within individuals. Whether through consciously invoked musical imagery of playing or simply hearing a melody that is familiar, benefits may be sought in the for patients. As well, evidence of auditory stimulation during familiar listening exercises could also prove to be beneficial to ADHD sufferers if implemented into therapeutic practices; if could offer individuals‘ increased spans of attention and focus, and help to engage concentration.

This chapter has left me with further areas of interest to explore and contemplate, in the field of music and brain research, and has given me new insight into the power of both music and the human mind.

Your Brain on Improv

2011-12-11T21:22:00.001-08:00

TED Talks

Charles Limb: Your brain on improv

TEDxMidAtlantic, Filmed November 2010; Posted January 2011

Charles Limb: Your brain on improv | Video on TED.com

Summary:

Charles Limb, a surgeon who has made many contributions to scholarship on creativity, examines how the brain functions during improvisatory music experiences. Fascinated with sound and music, Limb became a surgeon, which enabled him to combine his two passions, and continue to study the science of sound and how it is processed by the brain.

His discussion begins with a videoclip of Keith Jarrett, an iconic jazz improv pianist, known for his completely improvised concert performances. Jarrett creates the music as he goes to avoid giving repeat performances that sound alike. His playing is seamless.

After observing Jarrett’s performance, Limb posits a thesis that “artistic creativity is in fact a neurologic product,” and thus, it is a process which can be studied, just as any other complex cognitive process. He also poses two questions in his inquiry, the first of which he also problematizes from a scientific perspective. Limb wonders: Is it possible to study creativity scientifically, without creating a dense study wherein one can no longer hear the music? These “unmusical” studies “miss the whole point of the music.”

The second question which Limb presents is: why should scientists study creativity? Limb concludes that because of the science of innovation, we are able to learn and understand more about how the brain is able to be creative. According to Limb, the plethora of questions that neuroscientists have regarding creativity in the brain far exceed the answers that exist, thus far.

Limb relies on functional MRI to study the active brain, using a process called BOLD imaging, or blood oxygen level imaging. This measures the rate of blood flow which causes an increase in the deoxyhemoglobin concentration in areas of the brain which are active during various creative processes. In the case of Limb’s studies, he uses fMRI to measures brain activity of subjects as they play both memorized and spontaneously generated melodies on a digital MIDI keyboard. Volunteers performed these passages using carefully positioned mirrors to see the piano keyboard, which rested on their legs, while they were inside the scanner. The main goal was for the participants to be playing “real music”, in the most natural type of environment as possible, due to the confinements of the fMRI scanner. An observation of the results from these experiments shows a clear distinction in regions of brain activity involved in practiced versus improvised musical excerpts.

Through the fMRI images produced in both the improvised and memorized musical sessions, Limb was able to target those areas of the brain which are most active during creativity. In addition to areas in the frontal lobe responsible for consciousness, other “multifunctional areas” within the brain, which are responsible for personality features such as introspection, self-reflection, and working memory are also highly active during creativity. It allows one to have fewer inhibitions and more impulsive, thus enabling improvisation and spontaneous generation to occur.

In further studies conducted by Limb, involving musicians’ trading musical melodies back and forth, such as a jazz musician might do, in a communicative, musical process. Results of this musical communication showed brain activity in regions which correlate to those responsible for expressive communication and language. Thus, Limb’s results display neurological evidence pointing towards the notion that music is a type of language through which human interaction occurs.

Finally, Limb concludes his study of creativity by collecting neurological images of rappers, using the same cycle of memorized material followed by spontaneous creation of freestyle verse. Correspondingly, regions in the brain which are responsible for motor coordination and visual areas are much more active during subjects’ creative output. All of these results indicate an increase in brain function during improvisatory processes. Despite a volume of questions that still remain unanswered for Limb in his search for “creative genius, neurologically,” he is hopeful that with current technologies and innovations, “we’re getting close to being there.”

Reflection:

Limb’s research into neurological processes that occur during creativity has many implications for therapeutic applications of music. Furthering our understanding of how the brain processes both instructional and improvisational music can be helpful through multidisciplinary ways. For instance, pinpointing areas of the brain involved in memorized, learned material versus that which is spontaneously generated provides therapeutic possibilities for individuals who have suffered stroke or other brain injuries. Knowing what we do about the brain’s ability to be retrained and its plasticity, in combination with evidence that engagement in creative acts cause increased brain activity, presents the potential to relearn functionalities that may be lost due to injury or illness. Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s Patients may be able to teach other regions of their brain through (assisted) improvised musical processes; stroke sufferers may regain the cognitive and/or motor functions; and, individuals diagnosed with mood spectrum disorders such as autism, ADHD, ADD, etc. may be able to normalize brain activities by speeding up or slowing down EEG waves through improvised musical performances. Further research is still necessary, but through these preliminary findings, Limb’s contribution to the extant knowledge about how the brain works has successfully mapped direction for further exploration on this topic.

Wired for Sound (Summary)

2011-12-11T20:21:00.000-08:00

Reference: December 2008 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine

Read more: http://www.oprah.com/health/Oliver-Sacks-Finds-the-Bond-Between-Music-and-Our-Brains

Written by: Oliver Sacks, MD, FRCP

Oliver Sacks, MD, the noted neurologist and author, describes the profound bond between music and our brains and how the simple act of singing can be good medicine

Dr. Oliver Sacks states that music has cultural and community relevance for human beings, it brings people together. However, he notes that music not only fundamentally creates a social bond, it literally also shapes the brain. Perhaps musical activity involves many parts of the brain (emotional, motor and cognitive areas), even more than what is used for language, suggest Sacks.

When music has been applied in Dr. Sacks practice in neurology, he states that he has seen patients with Parkinson’s disease who were initially non-responsive, become alert when music is applied in treatment. People with aphasia, which is a loss of the use of language most commonly caused by stroke, retrieve words, in song, they could not otherwise utter. He has viewed people with Tourette's syndrome, who may be distracted by physical and sometimes verbal tics, able to find means of managing or by-passing their tics through music, and people with extreme forms of amnesia, unable to remember what happened to them a few minutes ago, able to sing or play long, complicated pieces of music, or even to conduct an orchestra or choir. He also notes that in Alzheimer's disease and other types of dementia sufferers are able to respond to music when no other treatment is able to reach them.

In closing, Dr.Sacks says that the profound bond between music and our brains and the simple act of singing can be good medicine at any age.

Reflection:

As a music therapist interested in the various means of evoking memories and responses through music, I found the article quiet intriguing. The examples that Dr. Sacks provided as to the various responses of patients with diverse diagnoses responding to music treatment is astonishing. Furthermore, this article written by Dr. Sacks, a practicing neurologist, provides more credibility to the value of music as treatment. The value for me comes from the cross-disciplinary practice; practitioners, aside from music therapist, who also see the value in music as treatment.

Moreover, I believe that at this time, in the field of music therapy, further cross-disciplinary research must continue, in order to bring the value of music therapy to the mainstream.

Building The Musical Muscle

2011-12-11T16:44:00.001-08:00

Source:
http://www.ted.com/talks/charles_limb_building_the_musical_muscle.html

Charles Limb performs cochlear implantation, a surgery that treats hearing loss and can restore the ability to hear speech. But as a musician too, Limb thinks about what the implants lack: They don't let you fully experience music yet. (There's a hair-raising example.) At TEDMED, Limb reviews the state of the art and the way forward.

Charles Limb has two titles on his official website: Associate Professor, Otolaryngology, Head & Neck Surgery, and Faculty, Peabody Conservatory of Music. He combines his two passions to study the way the brain creates and perceives music. He's a hearing specialist and surgeon at Johns Hopkins who performs cochlear implantations on patients who have lost their hearing.And he plays sax, piano and bass.

Reflection:

Charles Limb states, "Now if you look at the brain of an individual who has a cochlear implant and you have them listen to speech, have them listen to rhythm and have them listen to melody, what you find is that the auditory cortex is the most active during speech. You would think that because these implants are optimized for speech, they were designed for speech. But actually if you look at melody, what you find is that there's very little cortical activity in implant users compared with normal hearing controls. So for whatever reason, this implant is not successfully stimulating auditory cortices during melody perception."

He goes further to state, "Now the question comes to mind: Is there any hope?And yes, there is hope. Now I don't know if anybody knows who this is. This is ... does somebody know?This is Beethoven. Now why would we know what Beethoven's skull looks like? Because his grave was exhumed. And it turns out that his temporal bones were harvested when he died to try to look at the cause of his death, which is why he has molding clay and his skull is bulging out on the side there. But Beethoven composed music long after he lost his hearing. What that suggests is that, even in the case of hearing loss, the capacity for music remains. The brains remain hardwired for music."

To conclude, he offers next steps when he says, "When it comes to restoration of hearing, we have certainly come a long way, a remarkably long way.And we have a much longer way to go when it comes to the idea of restoring perfect hearing. And let me tell you right now, it's fine that we would all be very happy with speech. But I tell you, if we lost our hearing, if anyone here suddenly lost your hearing, you would want perfect hearing back. You wouldn't want decent hearing, you would want perfect hearing. Restoration of basic sensory function is critical. And I don't mean to understate how important it is to restore basic function.But it's really restoration of the ability to perceive beauty where we can get inspiring. And I don't think that we should give up on beauty."

Recently, at the Colloquy on Music in Health and Medicine at the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto, we heard from Lorna MacDonald, the Lois Marshall Chair of Voice Studies who reported on a Cochlear-Implant Singing Study at the Hospital for Sick Children. In collaboration with Talar Hopyan, Dr. Blake Papsin, and Karen Gordon, Lorna MacDonald has been focusing on enhanced speech inflection through singing lessons for teenage CI-users implanted in early childhood. It is inspiring to know that so many in the fields of medicine and music are working toward the improvement for others.

Can Neuroscience Help Us Do a Better Job of Teaching Music?

2011-12-07T23:54:00.000-08:00

Hodges, D. (2010). Can Neuroscience Help Us Do a Better Job of Teaching Music? General Music Today, 23(2), 2-12.

This article looks at how music education can move beyond the beginning stages of applying neuroscientific findings. Hodges illustrates a 3-stage basic model of the neuroscience learning cycle: Sense, Integrate, and Act which incorporates concepts such as active learning, activation of reward centers, pattern-detecting brain, plasticity, neural pruning, multisensory learning, and memory.

When engaged in a musical activity, ‘Sense’, a component of the proposed learning cycle model, involves “raw auditory, visual, and tactile sensory information” (Hodges, 2010) where we cannot yet make any sense of it. The “Integrate” component then brings meaning to the information while the “Action” component responds to this information that has been transformed into a meaningful musical experience. Sometimes, however, “Action” comes first through initiated learning, where students discover concepts through their own actions.

A closer look at some of the elements in the learning cycle:

Active Rather Than Passive Learning: During this process, audiomotor networks and motor networks are active. Brain imaging studies show that even in the absence of overt behaviours, these motor systems are active.

Learning Activates Reward Centers: Learning activates areas in the reward system pathways which release hormones (serotonin and dopamine) while also monitoring autonomic and cognitive processes.

Neural Pruning: This "primary mechanism of plasticity" comes into play when learning music from a different culture. On one hand, if the synapses are not utilized they are “pruned away;”on the other hand, active engagement, repetition, and reinforcement can equally strengthen these neural connections. So, just as children may grow up learning two languages at home, the same needs to happen in the music classroom where students are developing sensitivities to different styles so that the 'pruning" effect is less of an issue.

Learning is Multi-sensory: Though each sensory organ has its own main zone (e.g., vision –occipital region), convergence zones also exist where information from the different senses are integrated.

A Structure for Learning:

Hodges illustrates how Bloom’s framework for learning developed years ago is integrated with the learning cycle presented at the beginning of the article: Concrete experience (sensory cortex-->parietal lobes), Reflective observation (Back integrative cortex-->temporal lobes), Abstract hypothesis (front integrative cortex-->frontal lobes), and Active testing (Motor cortex).What is important to note is the multisensory learning that takes place in the brain indicated by the arrows. In addition, all the components discussed about plasticity, neural pruning, active learning, etc., should be integrated in this cycle. To keep all these components in mind may seem complex, but as Hodges explains, it is necessary to "have a more thorough understanding of how the brain works" so that educators are not only looking at effective strategies and best practices, but at the neuroscientific research that explains 'how' and 'why'.

Reflection:

I agree there needs to be a greater connection between the neuroscience and the music education world. If more educators increase their knowledge and awareness on effective strategies and best practices by looking at what is really happening inside the brain, the teaching and learning process will be that much more rich. The findings about brain plasticity, musical training and memory,or neural pruning for example are all elements that directly affect the children in the classroom. It seems, particularly from the Colloquy sessions at U of T that there is a steady movement in integration and collaboration of new ideas, research, in music and health/neuroscience. I hope the same can happen for teachers in the classroom, including music educators.

Training-induced Neuroplasticity in Young Children

2011-12-07T22:53:00.000-08:00

Schlaug, G., Forgeard, M., Zhu, L., Norton, A., Norton, A. and Winner, E. (2009), Training-induced Neuroplasticity in Young Children. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1169: 205–208.

Retrieved from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3005566/

Summary:

Because studies have shown that professional musicians who start music training before age 7 have a larger anterior corpus callosum than non-musicians, suggestions have been made that due to such music training, plasticity in the CC may occur in early childhood. To test this theory, researchers examine the impact of what 29 months of instruments music training would have on the sub areas of the corpus callosum.

The study divides 31 children (5-7yrs old) into three groups: high-practicing, low-practicing, and controls. 18 of the children attended half-hour private or semi-private instrumental lessons, while 13 children represented the control group where no instrumental training was received. At the beginning and end of the study, the children underwent high-resolution T1-weighted MR brain scans, and also completed a 4-finger fine motor-skill sequencing task.

After approximately 29 months of observation, the results show that, for the high-practicing group, there was a difference in the anterior mid-body of the corpus callosum, including an improvement in their motor-skill sequencing task. By contrast, children in the low-practice and control groups did not show any difference in the CC. These results provide evidence that rather than preexisting differences, early, intensive, and prolonged music training affects the size of the larger anterior CC area.

Response:

This study reinforces what we have discussed in class about brain plasticity and the importance of the midline crossing. The fact that early music training affects the size in the corpus callosum, mainly because of the midline crossing, has great meaning for music educators in terms of pedagogy. Would similar results occur if we compared children who participate in multi-sensory approach learning in the music classroom, with a music specialist, versus children who do not have a separate music class, but still learn music through their homeroom teacher? Would there be a significant difference in the size of the subarea in the corpus callosum if we examine the results of those who had music training outside of school and those who only participated in a multi-sensory approach music classroom?

Additionally, the fact that brain plasticity occurs across the lifespan, opens the door for more exciting research on music and rehabilitation. As we have seen in the colloquy, the need for collaboration between musicians, educators, and all those in the medical/rehabilitation field is so important. I would also be interested to see more studies of adults and seniors who learn to play an instrument later on in life. Taking what we know about brain plasticity and the power of music, I would hope that the result is a positive one.

Music Therapy Interventions for People Who Stutter

2011-12-06T21:32:00.000-08:00

Source:

Music Therapy Interventions for Improving Fluency Among People Who Stutter

by Erika Shira

http://www.mnsu.edu/comdis/isad11/papers/shira11.html

Summary:

This article by Erika Shira, is a music therapist’s overview of why music can be effective in treating people who stutter.

Shira purports that music therapy in general is an effective means of evoking neurological changes because of the way that participating in interactive music stimulates multiple areas of the brain simultaneously. The brain functions most optimally when multiple areas are working together, as areas that work particularly well can compensate for areas that work less efficiently, all the while "teaching" the less developed areas how to rework themselves to function better. When a person participates in live music, the brain must process sound, vibrations, movement, emotional states, and sequential patterns that are processed by the brain in the same way as language.

It is widely recognized that dysfluency is a multi-facetted disorder, which can include psychological, motor and auditory processing issues to name a few. A music therapist must first determine if an individual’s stutter is primarily anxiety related or if there is motor difficulty. This can be difficult as most individuals who struggle with dysfluency will likely manifest anxiety during speech.

The benefit of music therapy is that through musical expression both the primary aspects of dysfluency (anxiety and motor difficulty) can be addressed. For anxiety, musical expression can be a confidence builder. Most individuals who stutter are able to sing without dysfluency and if given a composition exercise where a story is conveyed in the first person, one gets the experience of fluent self-expression through song. For motor related difficulty, Shira compares stuttering therapies to gate therapies. In it’s simplest form, gate therapy is the rehabilitation of walking through the use of a metric beat – an even pulse that the patient would aim to walk to to rehabilitate their gate to even, regulated intervals. Music therapy takes that one step further and will play live music to the gate, accompanying the patient and matching their gate – even or not. While the individual is walking to a familiar song, Shira explains that “the rhythm of the song is processed in the temporal lobe, the order of the melody is processed in the frontal lobe and language areas, the lyrics are processed in the language areas, the personal meaning of the song is processed in the emotional areas, and so forth. With these areas all working together, the individual is very aware of when he or she is walking unevenly, as this causes the song to be played with pauses and hesitation. The brain wishes to correct the song, and the other areas of the brain work together with the motor cortex to better coordinate the person's movements.”

Treatments for stuttering work in a very similar manor, with initial sessions devoted to the singing of familiar songs to solidify that through song, fluency is possible. Songs might be sung alone or with vocal support (and family can easily be included in treatment), and eventually advance to the composition of first person story-telling and even sung, improvised dialogue. The goal is to eventually move to a more spoken style of singing, and then to remove the accompaniment and pitches resulting in normal speech based on the sung approach.

Reflection:

In my experience as a vocalist, I have encountered several individuals with debilitating stutters who are miraculously free from dysfluency in song. Though I understood this was a fairly broad phenomenon I have wondered if and how it might be applied through music therapy and if those therapies can lead to greater fluency in speech. Knowing that music and language both elicit complex neurological activity and also share a lot overlap in the active centres of the brain has left me suspecting that music therapies are full of potential to mitigate dysfluencies. This article does not address the research that indicates stuttering is strongly linked to auditory processing issues but I have to wonder if this too could be addressed through music therapy. Currently the auditory-based interventions for stuttering such as delayed auditory feedback don’t cure the stutter, but merely manipulate auditory feedback so the individual no longer hears themselves in real time. I have to wonder if it might be possible to train the ear using music therapy to resolve some of these processing issues. I know Tomatis considered this possibility and I will continue to look for research that looks at auditory processing therapies (not just interventions) and their effect on fluency.

Your Brain on Improv by Dr. Charles Limb

2011-12-06T20:12:00.000-08:00

Your Brain on Improv by Dr. Charles Limb

http://www.ted.com/talks/charles_limb_your_brain_on_improv.html

In this video, Dr. Charles Limb explains that it is possible to scientifically explain how brain activity relates to music-making. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), it is possible to obtain blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) imaging of active areas of the brain. When an area of the brain is active, blood flow increases in that area; that blood flow causes change in the concentration of deoxyhemoglobin. This change in deoxyhemoglobin content can be detected by BOLD-fMRI, and thus it is possible to determine which parts of the brain are more or less active depending on the amount of blood flowing through them. Dr. Limb summarizes his findings by showing three experiments, in which the subjects were asked to either improvise or perform a memorized melody or a text.

First experiment. During the fMRI, subjects (all jazz performers) were required to either play a memorized melody or improvise a new one on a MIDI keyboard connected to a computer. Both memorized and improvised melodies were played over the same harmonic progressions. The resulting BOLD-fMRI contrast maps showed that some areas of the brain are activated and others de-activated when the subjects are improvising versus when they are playing memorized melodies. The study results showed that when improvising, the area of self-monitoring turned off while the autobiographical or self-expressive area turned on. A hypothesis made by Dr. Limb is that being creative implies that one area of the frontal lobe goes up in activity, and another down.
In the second experiment, the subjects were asked to improvise. The results showed that the activity in Broca's area (usually associated with language) increased. Dr. Limb suggested that there might be a neurologic basis for the notion of music as a language.
In the third experiment, the subjects were asked to either memorize or improvise a rap over some cue words. In both cases, improvisation and language areas were activated. When free-styling with closed eyes, visual areas and major cerebellar-motor coordination activity was activated.

Comments

The video offers an overview of some important issues related to brain activity in music-making and music creativity. I was particularly interested in the concept highlighted by Dr. Limb that musical creativity might entail the simultaneous activation of certain areas of the brain and de-activation of others, as a mechanism to prevent the interference of inhibitions during the creative process. This seems to suggest that, in solo piano jazz improvisation (we did not see any other types of instrumental interaction or ensemble situation in the experiments), the brain recognizes and classifies rhythmic and melodic patterns as either known or new, and reacts accordingly by activating or shutting down certain areas. However, improvisers do not “invent” music; they have the ability to combine, in a strikingly short time span, a multitude of melodic and rhythmic patterns, and harmonic progressions that are already known to them. I wonder whether, by using the word creativity, Dr. Limb intends to describe this fast combination of memorized patterns, or a more inclusive activity that includes factors not highlighted in the experiment. This point remains slightly unclear to me.

In the third experiment, I found it interesting that free-styling with closed eyes activates both visual and coordination areas of the brain, on top of language areas. As for most performers, for free-styling rappers too visualizing one’s own body seems an important element. I wonder whether the activation of these areas during free-styling is related to the practice of improvisation or whether it has more to do with the lack of sight. As a performer, I find it useful to visualize my body perform at the keyboard, as this helps me to acquire precision and to have a more secure approach to the instrument.

Science & Music: Lost in music

2011-12-06T13:47:00.000-08:00

Reference:
Huron, David. "Science & Music: Lost in music." Nature (22 May 2008), 453, pg. 456-457. Web. 6 December 2011.
Review:
"Linguists know how fast languages disappear. Musical cultures may be an order of magnitude more fragile. It will be many centuries before the whole world speaks Mandarin. Meanwhile Western music has swept the globe faster than aspirin...We have perhaps just a decade or so before everyone on the planet has been brought up with Western music or its derivatives."

Homogenization of music across the world makes the task of a cognitive neuroscientist studying music more difficult. Do we perceive certain intervals as dissonant because of how our ears have been trained by environmental (cultural) stimuli, or are the intervals inherently dissonant to our ears because of our biological make-up? Is major naturally perceived as “happy” and minor naturally perceived as “sad?” If everyone in the world is exposed to the same styles of music, we won’t have any way to compare different musical languages to find ways to answer these sorts of questions. We won’t be able to discern whether “a behaviour [is] an innate cognitive disposition, or just an artefact of westernization.”

Other rich musical cultures are alive and well throughout the world, but people in countries such as China and India are constantly exposed to Western music, which infiltrates the music of those cultures. If we can study the music of those cultures in their non-Westernized forms now, we will probably gain more insight into the question of nature vs. nurture in the cognitive neuroscience of music.

Response:
In the same way some conscientious growers choose to plant heirloom seeds instead of the homogenized varieties more easily available, we should do what we can to encourage musicians across the world to maintain their musical cultures, and not only for the benefit of cognitive neuroscientists. Just as I often learn more through collaboration with a colleague with a different perspective from my own, the world benefits from the diversity of its cultures. Variety is the spice of life, as the old adage goes, and I’d rather not live in a bland world.

Babies and Ravel

2011-12-05T19:45:00.000-08:00

Source:

Beatriz Ilari, and Linda Polka. “Music cognition in early infancy: infants’ preferences and long-term memory for Ravel”. International Journal of Music Education 24. 1 (2006).

Summary:

In this study, Ilari and Polka challenge the belief that infants are passive listeners with limited perceptual and cognitive skills for music. This assumption can be seen in the types of music found on musical recordings for babies, toys and videos such as Baby Einstein. The music is typically simple, with clear distinctions between melody and accompaniment, basic I-V-I harmonies and predictable forms. The music on infant-directed CDs is mostly limited to short and simple pieces from the Baroque and Classical periods (such as Bach Minuets) and are highly repetitive. These resources influence parents, who continue to play simplistic music to their young children.

Previous research used the Headturn Preference Procedure (HPP) to determine that infants prefer high-pitched singing over low-pitched singing. Similarly, two studies have found that babies generally prefer the piano over other timbres which was shown in heart deceleration levels when listening to piano music.

Based on what was already known about infants’ listening preferences and abilities, Ilari and Polka studied infants under the age of 8 months and their responses to and long-term memory for two pieces from Maurice Ravel’s Tombeau de Couperin. The pieces chosen for the study were the Prelude and the Forlane. Subjects were played both pieces, with half of the babies listening to the solo piano version while the other half listened to the orchestral version. This part of the study used HPP to determine the babies’ preference for either the Prelude or the Forlane. They found that infants listening to the orchestral version preferred the Prelude over the Forlane, while the infants in the piano group did not present a reliable preference.

Part 2 of the study was designed to test infant memory for complex music. Infants were again split into two groups; one group listened to the piano version of the Prelude for ten consecutive days while the other group listened to the piano version of the Forlane. Following a 14-day period where the infants did not listen to any Ravel, the researchers brought the babies back into the lab where they played both pieces to see if the babies showed recognition for their designated piece. The results were clear and conclusive: babies listened significantly longer to the familiar piece than the unfamiliar piece.

This study challenges the current practice of exposing infants to overly simplistic music such as lullabies, folk melodies and repetitive music from the Baroque and Classical periods. It also raises further question of what aspect of music is being stored by infant brains. What part of a particular piece of music serves as a trigger for later recognition?

Reflection:

I found this study incredibly illuminating. I, too, am guilty of underestimating the cognitive abilities of babies in terms of music listening. I volunteer in the nursery at my church, where we have a collection of “baby CDs”. I find them difficult to listen to because they often feature Mozart sonatas or symphonies played on synthesized instruments such as xylophones and celestas. After reading this study, I will now bring music that is stimulating to babies as well as enjoyable for me.

The findings of this study also challenged the way I think about the important first lessons with a new beginner. In beginning piano, we also focus on teaching folk melodies because they are likely to be familiar to children. While the physical abilities of children limits teachers to teaching these simple songs, I now believe that we should supplement lessons with “music acculturation” CDs. That is, collections of more complex music, perhaps in simple timbres such as the piano, that stimulate children’s listening by challenging them to hear beyond basic four-bar phrases and simple harmonies.

My hope is that the findings of this and other related research will begin to change the music listening options that are currently available to parents of newborns. While it would also be more enjoyable listening for the parents, I wonder if early exposure to complex music will affect the music learning styles and abilities of children at a later age.

Stuttering: The Potential of Music as Therapy

2011-12-05T19:35:00.000-08:00

Source:

The Journal of Stuttering Therapy, Advocacy & Research Vol. 3, Iss. 1: “Stuttering: A

Look at the Problem.” by: George G. Helliesen

http://www.journalofstuttering.com/ListofArticles.html

Summary:

This article, which introduces a series on understanding stuttering, provides an

overview of what science and speech therapy practitioners know about the cause and

treatment of stuttering. Published in 2006, it provides an overview of the latest research in the field of speech disorders among other valuable information.

The overview includes recent studies conducted by Dr. Christine Weber-Fox and Dr. Anne Smith of Purdue University (2004), Dr. Ann Foundas (2005) of Tulane University, and Dr. Dennis Drayna (2004) at the National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, though these are just a few of the studies in the literature on stuttering. Though many studies have begun to focus on organicity as the primary cause of stuttering, all of these studies agree that stuttering emerges from complex interactions among factors including genetics, language processing, emotional/social aspects and speech motor control. These factors can vary in significance from patient to patient or even in a single patient over time. Dr. Foundas (2005) in particular “believes that developmental stuttering is a complex motor speech disorder with a strong genetic link and that different therapies may benefit different biologically specific types of stuttering.”

Within this overview of studies it is clear that dysfluencies observed in individuals who stutter may be reduced under a number of conditions including choral reading (where a group reads aloud in unison) and altered auditory feedback (AAF). Therapy using delayed auditory feedback (DAF) is a vital part of Van Riperian therapy and enhances the client’s oral proprioceptive feedback, which is used in teaching a stutterer to monitor the movement of their speech articulators. This decreases dependency on auditory feedback, thus helping to maintain appropriate fluency. This greatly helps a stutterer change focus from listening to their speech production to feeling the movement of their articulators as they are speaking. This is one of the primary therapy techniques used to help a stutterer maintain control over their stuttering and decrease dysfluencies. According to Van Riper (1973), “In terms of servo theory, since speech seems to be

automatically controlled by feedback and there seems to be some real evidence that some failure in the auditory processing system produces the basic disruptions, we train the stutterer to monitor this speech by emphasizing proprioception thus bypassing to some degree that auditory feedback system.”

Helliesen concludes the article by pointing out that timing of therapy is also crucial. A candidate must be “ready” for therapy and have support to stick with their program. Programs related to stutter correction often elicit a rediscovery of self, are difficult and teach “controlled speech” which will have to be used continually to maintain any degree of control, and it may not be pleasant at times. The benefits however, are measurable, but only evident over time.

Review:

I found this article very helpful in my search for understanding stuttering and the music therapies related to its treatment. Though I have been aware that music is often a tool in the approach to easing dysfluency, I didn’t know why until now. As a singer much of this makes perfect sense. The idea that DAF is simply a way of decreasing dependency on auditory feedback clarifies several points for me. Though research is still ongoing, evidence leans to confirming that stuttering is, at least in part, a disorder of the auditory processing system, and research of treatments further corroborates that addressing the ear leads to successful revision of dysfluency. I am also interested in the concept that DAF is just one method of reducing dependence on auditory feedback. This explains why playing music to obscure ones voice (a la The King’s Speech) is also effective.

In the study of singing, one learns early on that there are many pitfalls to listening too intently to oneself. In fact, many voice pedagogies advocate blocking or delaying auditory feedback so a singer is not dependant on their ears to assess their sound but rather puts the emphasis on sensation. This seems to parallel the therapeutic strategies for stuttering, which might explain why some stutterers find freedom from their dysfluency in song. Could it be that they have learned to because less dependent on auditory feedback while singing?

In some respect I have more questions after reading this article then I did before, however I feel confident that this overview of stuttering has set me on a clearer path to understanding the possible benefits music therapies have in its treatment.

The Mind of an Artist

2011-12-04T21:37:00.000-08:00

Source: The Mind of an Artist

Retrieved: December 2, 2011, from Podcast from the Library of Congress with Michael Kubovy and Judith Shatin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwzUPQKesVI&feature=relmfu

Summary:

This video from the Library of Congress features cognitive psychologist Michael Kubovy and composer Judith Shatin speaking about the mind of the artist, and how composers incorporate extra-musical elements in their compositions. Both Michael Kubovy and Judith Shatin are from the University of Virginia.

Professor Kubovy spoke first, and his focus was on meaning in music. According to Kubovy, this topic has a long history, and a tarnished one at that, since music with extra-musical connotations are often considered less than pure. Kubovy proposed just the opposite - that musical works without extra-musical connotations are extremely unlikely to work.

Language priming experiments show that there is an associative network between meanings in our brain. If concept A has a close association with concept B, our brain’s processing response from A to B is faster. For example, when one hears the word ‘cat’ followed by the word ‘meow’, our brain processes ‘meow’ quickly because ‘cat’ and ‘meow’ have a close association. In a sense, by saying ‘cat’ the brain has been primed to hear the word ‘meow’. If the brain heard the word ‘cat’ followed by the word ‘refrigerator’, the processing of ‘refrigerator’ would be slower because there is not a clear association between ‘cat’ and ‘refrigerator’.

Kubovy went on to speak about event-related potentials, or ERPs. The n400 is a component of ERPs that is elicited by unexpected stimuli, and indicates the amount of processing the brain had to do given the previous context. Kubovy explained that in a language priming experiment, an ERP of n400 or more means the brain did more processing on a word because it was not expecting that word, as in the ‘cat’ example above. An ERP of n400 or less means the brain did less processing because it was expecting the word, as in the cat meow example.

Scientists in Germany did a priming experiment with music. They took a word and primed it with two types of music. The word in question was ‘wideness’, and the first piece of music to precede it was a piece by Strauss. The second piece of music to precede it was an accordion piece. The n400 was less for the Strauss priming than with the accordion music, meaning that there was some association in the minds of the subjects between ‘wideness’ and the music of Strauss.

Experiments like the one above suggest that music and language are more closely related than one might think, which makes sense considering that brain areas activated by language and music overlap quite a bit. Composer Judith Shatin followed this discussion by speaking about her own compositions and how these issues relate to her work. Her feeling is that whenever one is listening to music, shapes and ideas come to mind. Sometimes sounds can imitate things in the natural world. For example, in Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, a flute is used to represent that character of the bird. Why is this, and why does this association seem natural to listeners? Is it due to the register of the flute being similar to the register of many bird songs? There is much to consider here. She continued by playing selections from her own works that in her mind exemplify associations between language and music. The audience listening seemed to agree on the extra-musical associations of her pieces, making it clear that the music language connection is a tangible and important one to consider from a compositional perspective.

Reflection:

As a performer, these ideas ring very true to me, since many extra-musical ideas are brought to my mind every time I play. These ideas can range from associations with tangible things, such as a bird or the wind, to more abstract concepts, such as rates of acceleration or rhetoric devices. Finding the meaning in the music you are performing and communicating that meaning to audiences is, in my opinion, one of the most important tasks of a professional performer.

Yet it is inevitable that at some point musicians will disagree on the meaning of a particular passage, and whenever this occurs I find it very curious. It leads me to believe that many, perhaps most associations are built more from life experiences than from quantitative properties of the music. I often wonder about the most basic musical associations, and whether or not they are natural associations or the result of repeated hearings. A perfect example would be the concept that major music is happy and minor music is sad. Is this really a natural association? If you could somehow find a person who had never heard music, would they react with happy emotions to major chords/keys? Is it even possible to study such a thing? For example, infants may be blank musical slates but they do not possess the language and cognitive skills necessary to communicate the idea of happiness. When I consider the major/minor question, it makes me wonder if I am finding meaning in music or projecting my own meaning onto music.

Music and Emotions in the Brain: Familiarity Matters

2011-12-03T21:23:00.000-08:00

Reference:

Pereira, Carlos Silva,João Teixeira,Patrícia Figueiredo,João Xavier, São Luís Castro, and Elvira Brattico. "Music and Emotions in the Brain: Familiarity Matters." PLoS One 2011; 6(11): e27241.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3217963/?tool=pubmed

Summary:

The goal of this study was to understand which regions of the brain are involved in music appreciation. Using a listening test and a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment, the researchers wanted to know how familiarity in the brain correlates with music appreciation. The subjects that were chosen for this study had no formal musical education, but described themselves as ‘music lovers’, listening to music on a daily basis. First, the subjects participated in a listening test, in which they listened to pop/rock song extracts and decided if each song was familiar or unfamiliar and if they liked it or not. Based on this test, a unique set of stimuli was selected for each participant, containing music in four different conditions: familiar liked, familiar disliked, unfamiliar liked and unfamiliar disliked, and was presented during an fMRI session.

Brain activation data revealed that broad emotion-related limbic and paralimbic regions as well as the reward circuitry were significantly more active for familiar music compared to unfamiliar music. Smaller regions in the cingulate cortex and frontal lobe, including the motor cortex and Broca's area, were found to be more active in response to liked music when compared to disliked one. The study concluded that familiarity is a crucial factor in making the listeners emotionally engaged with music, as revealed by fMRI data.

Reflexion:

Music is omnipresent in our society, and it represents a multi billion industry. One of the reasons behind this success is the ability of music to convey emotions. This study is very interesting because it proves how familiarity of a piece of music increases the emotional response in our brain. The more you hear a song, the more it increases the blood oxygen level in emotion related regions of the brain. This conclusion correlates the findings of a previous study by Blood and Zatorre that reported a correlation between increased intensity of felt chills when listening to favourite pieces of music.

In my personal experience, I have found that I have the deepest emotional response to songs that I know. One could think that by knowing a song very well, it becomes predictable, and consequently there is nothing new and exciting to hear anymore. On the contrary, I think that by knowing every part of a song, the brain does not have to focus on analysing new data, but it can focus on the enjoyment of the piece, which can sometimes lead to a more powerful emotional response that appears in the form of chills or goose bumps. Some studies have also shown that patients with severe brain conditions such as dementia or Alzheimer’s have strong brain activation responses when hearing familiar music.

Encounter with the Conscious Being of People in Persistent Vegetative State

2011-12-02T13:07:00.001-08:00

Aldridge, D. (ed),Herkenrath, A. (2005). Music Therapy andNeurological Rehabilitation. Chapter 6, London: Jessica Kingsley

In Aldridge’s book on Music Therapy and NeurologicalRehabilitation, Ansgar Herkenrath, a German music therapist, contributes achapter based on qualitative research she has conducted of music therapy withpatients suffering from coma vigile or (persistent) vegetative state (PVS). Inmedical terms, this population is seen as unable to perceive and communicatewith their environment.

The research was based on her work with PVS patients at along-term nursing institution for adult residents with severe neurologicalhandicaps in Haus Königsborn, in Unna Germany. Participants in her study werebetween 20 and 50 years of age and had been in the PVS state for between 18months and seven years. The book chapter expands the themes and issues relatedto her study.

Summary

PVS is mostly caused by brain damage due to severecraniocerebral injury trauma, cerebral haemorrhage or hypoxia. All descriptionsof the state assume a functional failure of the cerebral cortex and completeloss of cognitive potentials while brainstem functions are maintained.
Herkenrath is candid about her experiences in working withPVS patients and knows that they are in direct contrast to the consensus amongphysicians that PVS patients are unable to perceive and react. Further, sheacknowledges the provocative nature of her chapter title, and is forthright inher assumption about consciousness of a patient in PVS and the possibility ofan encounter with this consciousness. The medium of encounter she describes isthrough a therapeutic relationship using music.

Therapeutic relationship
In PVS, there are pathological movements that are reflexive,and the external appearance alone does not indicate the quality of thesemovements. Rather, assessment of these reflexes requires situative and temporalcontext. In Herkenrath’s music therapypractice, she accesses situations that show changes in parameters ofrespiration, shifts in head and eyes towards the source of sounds and/or avariety of movements. She describes these situations as reactions, not reflexes. She defines reaction as a response toaction that has been perceived and that leads to an emotional experience. Furthermore, a reaction must reveal asituative and a temporal reference in order to be distinguishable from reflex.

According toHerkenrath, music provides both situative and temporal references for PVSpatients. An orientation of the head and eyes towards the source of a sound whichmay change implies a situative connection. Temporal structure is inherent inmusical perception including beat and melodic structure i.e. phrase, cadence.

Herkenrath uses the Nordoff Robbins approach whichpresupposes joint musical improvisation and participation between the therapistand the client. A key element of her work uses rhythmic improvisation withrespiration or eyeblinks. She observes reactions in these movements based on appropriateand intentional action in response.

Consciousness

In thischapter, Herkenrath spends time dealing with the subject of brain and mind,perception and consciousness from a number of perspectives. In medicine, thegeneral opinion is that brain functionality is essential for consciousness.Brain researchers call consciousness “the last big secret”. Neuroscientistsbelieve that consciousness cannot be associated with any definite brain region.Philisophically and theologically from an historical perspective, consciousnesshas been an integral part of the mind and soul. Ethically, thedefinition of consciousness determines the direction of right to lifediscussions.

Herkenrath discussesthe concept of human existence and from her point of view, persons in PVS areunique human beings with individual needs and potentials. Human life, for her,is defined by more than neuronal processes in the brain.

Implications

Admittedly,Herkenrath acknowledges the gaps in PVS prognoses. She calls for more researchboth immediately following a PVS diagnosis and most importantly during thelonger term phase of PVS.

Shechallenges our society to address the legal and ethical implications around therights of PVS patients. The implications around her findings around reactionsto music in PVS patients may have significant implications. Reaction frommusic-making, as it is described in this chapter, implies recognition- thatthere is someone else making music, and the fact that there is reaction,illustrates the ability to differentiate between self and the other, aself-consciousness.

Reflection
I am moved by the work of Ansgar Herkenrath. The integrityof her world view, that every form oflife in its specific way is valuable, even PVS patients, is commendable.She has taken the time to grapple with the most basic of questions, namely, what ishuman existence? Her understanding is thoughtfully informed and comes frompersonal practice and experience.

The science Herkenrath suggests at the end of her chapter ishappening here in Ontario. Dr. Adrian Owen is at the forefront of PVS andconsciousness research and is the Canada Research in Excellence Chair ofNeuroscience and Imaging at the University of Western Ontario. He hasdiscovered through fMRI that brain centers concerned with mental imagining areactivated when PVS patients are asked questions which may very well be thescience to prove Herkenrath’s provocative 2005 suppositions. Here are somevideos of Dr. Owen talking about his recent discoveries:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz133pdwbOA&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AlI7RX2QoY&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn9HHZz2GKE&feature=relmfu

What I would love to see in the future is an fMRI picture ofbrain activity during a music therapy session with Dr. Herkenrath and one ofher PVS clients.

Good Vibrations: The Science of Sound

2011-11-27T12:26:00.000-08:00

Source
http://worldsciencefestival.com/videos/good_vibrations_the_science_of_sound

World Science Festival – Good Vibrations: The Science of Sound

“We look around us—constantly. But how often do we listen around us? Sound is critically important to our bodies and brains, and to the wider natural world. In the womb, we hear before we see. John Schaefer, Jamshed Bharucha, Christopher Shera, the Danish sound artist Jacob Kirkegaard, and multi-instrumentalists Polygraph Lounge embark on a fascinating journey through the nature of sound. How we perceive it, how it acts upon us, and how it profoundly affects our well-being—including a demonstration of sounds produced by sources as varied as the human inner ear and the creation of the universe itself.”

Summary

The sound is the key to communication. Even before we can write, we communicated by sound. Sound is the glue that keeps everything together. The video explored various aspects of sound including the mechanics of our inner ears transmitting sound waves to our brains, the sound of the universe, as well as what kinds of sounds are perceived as music.

Each guest had his own expertise on the topic of “sound”:
Jamshed Bharucha – Cognitive Neuroscientist
Jacob Kirkegaard – Sound Artist
Christopher Shera – Auditory Physiologist
Mark Whittle – Astronomer
Polygraph Lounge – Musician / Performer

Sound and Physics
The basic fundamentals of sound are: pitch, loudness and quality. Pitch is the frequency in which the sound waves hit our ear drums. The higher number of wave, the higher the frequency, the higher the sound. Loudness refers to the amplitude of the waves (height measured from the highest and lowest points). The higher the amplitude means louder sound. A billionth difference in height equates to 15 decibels in sound, which is about a quiet conversation between two people side by side. The quality (timbre) of the sound depends on its fundamental and harmonics combined. Different instruments produce various configurations of harmonics, which is why two instruments playing the same note can sound different in quality. The second harmonic (2^nd note after the fundamental) is made when the sound wave is directly cut in two halves, resulting twice the speed of vibration. This process makes an octave – which is an interval used in music of all cultures due to its natural quality. And because of the mathematical calculations of the harmonics, some ratios were used to tune instruments. This was also used to explain why consonances that follow those favourable integer ratios sound “nicer” than dissonances.

Sound and Speech
In a study where pitches were coded, the emotion of “sadness” had a descending minor 3^rd speech pattern while “anger” had an ascending minor 2^nd or an augmented 4^th. On the other hand, the positive emotions such as “happiness” and “excitement” did not have any pitch codes at all. This was theorized that pitches in speeches were vital evolutionarily because negative emotions had to be communicated accurately. There were consequences for “anger” and “sadness”, and specific pitch patterns were formed to emphasize the specific emotions. This was seen in other languages as well. The auditory neurologist explained that when people are said to have accents, it is really just different musical patterns in their speech.

Sound and the Universe
The sound of the Universe are studied and made into music that we can understand today. Sound waves can be captured and analyzed, and mapped out according to the frequencies. The deeper and lower frequencies reflected denser atoms in the galaxy, and as time went on and on (and as the Universe expanded), the sound waves of the stars were stretched wider and wider. Hence the recording of the “history of the Universe” started with a high-pitched wail and slower descended into the lower registers. When all the frequencies were matched to that of a piano, the “chord” that represented the Universe was said to have a major/minor 3^rd quality.

What makes it Music?
Some sounds we call music, and others we ignore as noise. We find some intervals favourable – such as the octave, as mentioned above – due to the nature of how they are made. We often say that music is a universal language, and the neurologist argued otherwise. A lot of what we prefer as “good music” are culturally learned and influenced. Wolves howl in packs as a form of social cohesion. They vary in pitch and duration, and could very well be music. There are sounds of nature all around us and it is how we perceive those surroundings that make them music.

Reflection

This is a video that I really enjoyed. It explored a lot of different ideas of sound, music and science. Things such as the sound of the Universe and the division of music versus noise are fascinating. The physics behind the fundamentals and harmonics gave insights to why certain instruments are tuned the way they are. Since music and math are so closely related, it is easy to see how things that fit in the math equation (such as the octave being the 2^nd harmonic) sound more natural in music.

The findings regarding pitch patterns in speech was the most interesting. It’s remarkable how intervals of certain qualities (tritone – augmented 4^th) are associated with certain emotions in speech. The research was done in different languages, so there must be an innate relationship between speech and music, and how our brains use these “sounds” to express language.

The sound of the Universe has never crossed my mind. It’s always easy to forget that music is just sound, and sound can be analyzed by each wavelength. It is then modified and made into music that we can understand today. Polygraph Lounge did a wonderful job and illustrating how anything can be made into music. Sometimes we are so caught up with music performance, teaching and learning that we forget that we are constantly surrounded by it. As the sound artist said, even our own ears make music. I think it’s important for music teachers – especially private instrumental ones – to explore the creative side of music-making. We can play on our instruments and learn about Beethoven and Opera, but we should also submerge ourselves into the sounds that surround us.

The Effects of Musical Training on Structural Brain Development - A Longitudinal Study Krista L. Hyde, Jason Lerch,Andrea Norton, Marie Forgeard,

2011-11-26T17:27:00.000-08:00

Summary

This study examined the structural brain and behavioural changes in the developing brain in response to long-term music training and to specifically address the question of whether structural brain differences seen in adults are a product of “nature” or “nurture”. As part of an on going study, the researchers investigated the structural brain changes in relation to behavioural changes in young children who received 15 months of instrumental music (keyboard) training relative to a group of children who did not. The children who did not participate in keyboard lessons were still involved in singing and percussion lessons at their own schools.

The subjects performed a 4-finger motor sequencing test for the left and right hands assessing fine finger motor skills, music listening skills, and discrimination skills. 5 additional non-music tests were also administered as well as behavioural tests. MRI scans were also used to determine brain differences.

There were no behavourial or brain differences between the Instrumental and Control children at base line prior to any music training. Therefore the brain differences of adults who have musical training are more likely to be the product of intensive musical training rather than biological predispositions. The children who had instrumental music lessons showed greater behaviour improvement on the finger motor tasks but not the non-musical tasks. They did show an improvement in the right primary motor area, corpus callosum, and the right auditory processing areas. While these were somewhat expected, there were additional developments in various frontal areas and occipital regions.

These findings indicate that plasticity can occur in brain regions that control primary functions important for playing a musical instrument and also in brain regions that might be responsible for the kind of multimodal sensorimotor integration likely to underlie instrumental learning.

Reflection

I found it interesting that the control non-instrumental group was still participating in singing and drumming in regular mainstream school. The sensory motor areas were only activated when the students learned keyboarding, so we as educators need to look at what these students do in their private piano studios that is different from what we do with the whole class when singing and drumming. For one thing, students are required to use both hands when playing keyboard while reading two different staves of music. So this lead me to wonder about using body percussion in class, where students read two different lines of rhythms and play them simultenously on their own body. Or if singing and playing a rhythm would have the same benefits of keyboarding.

We know that brain plasticity in children occurs in regions related to playing a musical instrument. This study shows us that developing the brain through musical long-term experience leads to adult brain differences and promotes higher motor-skill functions. Music educators should therefore incorporate activities that promote this development in their own classrooms, and this is why we should advocate music education in the classroom all through elementary school, even if there is no direct correlation between performance on music tests and performance on other behavioural tests.

A Summary- Language and speech: Distinguishing between aphasia, apraxia, and dysarthria in music therapy research and practice

2011-11-24T21:07:00.000-08:00

King, B. (2007). Language and speech: Distinguishing between aphasia, apraxia, and dysarthria in music therapy research and practice. Music Therapy Perspectives, 25(1), 13-18. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.qa.proquest.com/docview/199553722?accountid=14771

Summary

Betsey King, o f Nazareth College, writes of the effectiveness of music therapy in the treatment of communication disorders in her 2007 publication, Language and speech: Distinguishing between aphasia, apraxia, and dysarthria in music therapy research and practice.

King states that music therapists can be effective in the treatment of communication disorders, however; it is critical that the distinction between language and speech is understood in order to evaluate the effectiveness of music therapy. The following example has been used to better clarify the aforementioned statement, “Clients who demonstrate increased intelligibility through singing may not have an understanding of the words they are producing, while other clients may have ideas they are unable to express” (King, 2007). King suggests that the problem exists with the definitions used for speech and language disorders; the literature in speech-language pathology is not consistent in terminology. She adds that for music therapists, the lack of a comprehensive model which integrates current knowledge of the neuroscience of speech and language, and an understanding the process of communication, with the music therapy strategies can have an impact on these areas.

Principles of Verbal Communication
The American Speech-Language Association has defined speech and language as a “language code made up of rules that include what words mean, how to make words, how to put them together, and what word combinations are best for what situations. Speech is an oral form of language” (ASHA, 2004).

King reports that the act of communication is a complicated process, from the conceptualization of an idea and the production and articulation of speech sounds by one person to the reception of those sounds and comprehension of their meaning by another. King quotes, Dronkers and Ogar (2004), “Thought must be translated into linguistic representations (itself not a trivial feat), which are sent to speech mechanisms that can coordinate, initiate, modify and execute the articulation of an utterance”.

King notes in this publication, how researchers and writers have described the process of verbal communication in both neurological and conceptual terms.

Neuroanatomy of Speech and Language
Multiple parts of the brain are involved in this process of speech and language. King reinforces the writings of various researchers who emphasize the need to acknowledge the numerous brain areas involved in speech production. Music therapists understand the evolution of how music is processed in the brain, therefore; “it may be argued that the perception, encoding, and reproduction of musical sounds requires neural mechanisms that are at least as complex as those for speech” (Zatorre, 2001). King recommends music therapists who are interested in this subject, not only familiarize themselves with the neurological structures and connections involved in verbal communication, but also with the areas of the brain related to communication. Not only will this help in understanding any articles or texts with the aim of discussing speech and language, says King, but it will also help music therapists facilitate cooperation and learning between themselves and speech-language pathologists (King, 2007).

Aphasia, Apraxia, and Dysarthria
“Aphasia is a language disorder. Apraxia is a disruption in motor planning. Dysarthria is a neuromuscular impairment that causes weakness or rigidity of movement” (King, 2007). It is critical that the distinctions between these disorders be comprehended in speech-language therapy but also importantly, be understood in music therapy. The following example was given in regards to speech disorder: “One client may be able to sing without understanding the significance of the lyrics; another may recognize the song but may not have the motor planning to produce the words of the song; and another may sing with clearly understanding the meaning of the words but not possessing clear articulation” (King, 2007).

King also refers to the three components of language: cognition, linguistics, and pragmatics. These are separate from the motor and muscle issues that can affect speech. Cognition refers to our interpretation and understanding of the world and how we store and access that information (King, 2007). This area of linguistics includes the meaning and form of language; terms used in linguistics include semantics and syntax. Pragmatics refers to how we use language in social settings. Music therapy can greatly impact these three areas by supporting memory and retrieval of information (Foster and Valentine, 2001), by reinforcing the sequencing of words and concepts through repetition, writes King (Kumin, 2003), and by utilizing various musical forms, as an example, call-response, to promote social interaction (Clair, Bernstein, and Johnson, 1995).

Aphasia is a disorder of language that results in “convoluted syntax and meaning” (King, 2007; LaPointe, 1997, p.22) and affects cognition, linguistics, and pragmatics. King lists several types of adult-onset aphasia, some which result in impaired speech output (nonfluent) and some which do not (fluent). Broca’s aphasia is characterized by “nonfluent, halting verbal output” with shortened phrases, incomplete sentences, and disturbances in prosody, the rhythm, and intonation of speech (Kearns, 1997).

Apraxia of speech (AOS) is a neurologic deficit that impairs motor planning and, thus one’s ability to “program, position, and sequentially move muscles for the volitional production of speech” (King, 2007; Hedge, 1997; Wertz, LaPointe, Rosenbek, 1984). Adult-onset apraxia often occurs in conjunction with Broca’s aphasia but is a distinct disorder that requires different interventions than those for aphasia (Kerns, 1997).

Dysarthria is characterized by weakness, in-coordination, or paralysis of the muscles necessary for speech (Hedge, 1997). While apraxia is a disorder of motor planning, dysarthria is a disorder of motor activation.

Another way of looking at speech and language dysfunctions is to examine the difference between propositional and automatic communication. Propositional speech is created and produced for a specific situation. In contrast, automatic utterances consist of well-rehearsed sequences and emotional speech such as profanity.

King recommends that music therapist be aware of these types of speech as they could easily be viewed as signs of speech recovery during singing; more than likely, the client is exhibiting automatic speech, rather than volitionally producing words to communicate specific information.

Music Therapy and Language
The research base in music therapy is not very substantive in providing clinicians with the effective treatments for communication disorders.

When examining the majority of the songs familiar to music therapy clients revealed that the lyrics seldom represented a concrete, functional concept; instead, metaphor and imagery were dominate factors which the clients related (Bortons and Koger, 2000). This means, according to King, that a client who has developed aphasia cannot use songs to recover the meaning of words.

A more recent development in the treatment of speech disorders through music is Rhythmic Speech Cuing, a technique developed at Colorado State University and based in neurological response to rhythm (Thaut, McIntosh, & Hoemberg, 2001; Cohen, 1998). This research demonstrates the ability of rhythm to significantly impact on motor skills, including those involved in speech.

Michael Thaut (Unkefer & Thaut, 2002), suggests 5 steps for music therapist to evaluate, how effective music is on stimulus: 1) reviewing theory, 2) surveying knowledge about neurological processing of music, 3) determining the relevance of particular responses to music therapy goals 4) creating a model of stimulus processing and clinical applications, and 5) illustrating the model through clinical examples.

Music therapists, as suggested by King in her closing statement, “should increase their knowledge and awareness of the distinctions between language and speech and modify [their evaluation] interventions accordingly” (King, 2007).

Reflection
As a music therapist who fully supports the on-going research of music therapy in neurological settings to enhance practice, I found the contents of this article applicable to my own professional life in the field of music and health.

“Examining the majority of songs familiar to music therapy clients reveals that the lyrics seldom represent concrete, functional concepts; instead, metaphor and imagery predominate. This means that a client who has developed aphasia cannot use songs to recover the meaning of words. For example, a client with aphasia may be able to sing, “ If I Had a Hammer” or “Yes, I Have No Bananas, “ but may not make any connection between those words and the tool or the fruit. Further, neither of those songs, nor most others that are well known to our older clients, contain references to the concepts those clients might need to express, such as rest, the presence of pain, or the need to use the bathroom.

The previous quote exemplifies, in my opinion, the practice of numerous music therapists who lack familiarity and knowledge of substantive treatments in the field of neurological music therapy. As stated above, many activities utilized in music therapy have not been designed to be diagnosis specific, meaning they have low therapeutic value, as the content of the treatment has not been thoroughly assessed for the benefits.

Furthermore, I believe that an injustice is rendered to the practice of music therapy, when the practitioners themselves fail to present a comprehensive knowledge of the current research in the field. Without sound research in the area, neurological music therapy fails to gain validity among contemporaries.

Functional neuroanatomical networks associated with expertise in motor imagery

2011-11-24T12:57:00.000-08:00

Source:
Guillot, A., Collet, C., Nguyen, V.A., Malouin, F., Richards, C., & Doyon, J. (2008). Functional neuroanatomical networks associated with expertise in motor imagery ability. NeuroImage, 41, 1471-1783. Retrieved October 31, 2011, from Scholars Portal Journals <http://simplelink.library.utoronto.ca/url.cfm/198818>

Summary:
Guillot et al. defined motor imagery (MI) as “a dynamic state during which a subject simulates an action mentally without any body movement”. They noted that MI and motor performance share the same neural networks and that MI has even been found to produce the same neuroplastic changes as physical practice, pointing to the potential benefits of MI. However, they believed that these benefits are dependent on imagery ability, which varies among individuals. Therefore, in a study that was claimed to be the first of its kind, Guillot et al. attempted to find the functional neuroanatomical networks associated with MI expertise.

First, they had to conduct a series of pre-selection tests on 50 participants to distinguish those who could reach a high level of MI performance (“good imagers”) from those who were having trouble with MI (“poor imagers”). The participants were required to perform and imagine three motor actions, during which their autonomic nervous system (ANS) responses (as measured by skin resistance) and timings were recorded. Then, they had to rate their own imagery vividness and complete the revised Movement Imagery Questionnaire (MIQ-R) as well. By combining all these measures, a global imagery score was calculated for each participant.

Based on the global imagery score, the researchers selected 28 out of the 50 participants to take part in the fMRI experiment. The 28 participants were made up of 13 good imagers and 15 poor imagers (as determined by the global imagery score). The selected participants were asked to learn a finger sequence task and they were scanned during: 1. The physical execution of this task on a four-key keyboard that recorded their accuracy and timing, 2. The imagining of the task without any movement (MI), and 3. Perceptual control condition (simply remaining motionless).

Guillot et al. found that poor imagers generally showed more widely-distributed activations than good imagers during both MI and physical execution of the task. The good imagers showed increased bilateral activations in the superior parietal lobule and the lateral premotor cortex, as well as in the left cingulated cortex, the right inferior parietal lobule and the right inferior prefrontal region. Poor imagers showed exclusive activation of the posterior cingulated and orbito-frontal cortices, as well as both the anterior and posterior cerebellar hemispheres.

Thus, the researchers pointed out that, compared to skilled imagers, poor imagers not only needed to recruit the cortico-striatal system, but also to compensate with the cortico-cerebellar system during MI of sequential movements. Since much evidence points to the fact that the cerebellum is no longer necessary when a movement sequence is well-learned, the researchers speculated that good imagers may have a more efficient recruitment of movement engrams.

Reflection:
Even though this study does not directly concern music, I still think that it is highly relevant for musicians, as MI has been noted to be the “main component of mental rehearsal” (Bangert, 2006, p. 175).

If MI can produce the same neuroplastic changes as physical practice, then mental rehearsal seems to hold great promise for performers. And if the benefits of MI simply depend on MI ability, then the logical step toward maximizing these benefits would be to try to improve one’s MI ability. The implication for performers is therefore clear: effective mental rehearsal depends on the development of good imagery ability, and especially MI ability.

But it still amazes me that MI ability could actually be measured at all. Furthermore, I marvel at the complexity of this study – at the combined use of objective neurophysiological techniques and more subjective questionnaire-based testing to differentiate good imagers from poor imagers before conducting the fMRI experiment to determine the neural networks associated with MI expertise.

And now that the result reveals that good and poor imagers indeed show different patterns of brain activations, the more important question that arises is: Would it be possible for poor imagers to receive feedback through real-time fMRI and learn to change their pattern of activations to more closely resemble that of good imagers?

More fundamentally, however, I am curious about why imagery ability should vary among individuals. Given the functional equivalence between imagery and real perception and action, could it be that good imagers are also more “perceptive” and kinesthetically aware in their everyday life and, consequently, can create more vivid and accurate mental representations? This makes sense, considering the finding that poor imagers show more widely-distributed activations than good imagers during the physical execution of the finger sequence task as well as during MI.

Or maybe there is also a genetic component to imagery ability?

It is important to note that none of the participants in the fMRI experiment were musicians or professional typists, as the researchers wanted to “eliminate subjects with pre-existing skills requiring highly coordinated finger dexterities”. So I suppose that, in the future, it would be interesting to study precisely this group of people in order to see how the MI ability of such highly skilled individuals compares with the designated good and poor imagers.

Reference:
Bangert, M. (2006). Brain activation during piano playing. In E. Altenmüller, M. Wiesendanger, & J. Kesselring (Eds.), Music, motor control and the brain. (pp. 173-184). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Music Training Causes Changes in the Brain – Catherine Applefeld Olson, Teaching Music, April 2010

2011-11-20T06:26:00.000-08:00

Summary

In a recent study, researchers in Massachusetts found that changers are more pronounced in children who practice music more frequently. These changes did not correlate with improved performance in mathematics, spatial skills, or phonological ability. The study consisted of comparing two groups of six and seven year olds; one with musical training and one without. After three months the children who received musical instruction showed improvements in the following areas: the motor area, the corpus callosum, and the right primary auditory region.

Additionally, the changes became more pronounced over time and the musically trained students also performed better on motor sequencing tests involving patterning. The study did not detect any difference in performance in select academic areas between the two groups. The author makes a point that although the correlation between arts and other subjects is important, it does not justify music education. The arts are crucial in themselves, not because there may be a positive relationship between them and success in mathematical patterning.

Reflection

What I liked most about this article was the author’s stance on arts education advocacy. Too often we see music educators advocating for their program because musical training may benefit other subject areas (hence the “music makes you smarter” theory). But we need to support arts education as it’s own entity and promote the benefits on its own.

I think we should promote aesthetic education and the social connections inherent in music making while supporting these claims with scientific evidence. If we are going to make the claim that there is a positive correlation between playing music and success in math, then we must ensure that music stands out on its own instead of being dependent on another subject area.

2011-11-16T09:12:00.001-08:00

David Huron. The science of sad sound. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pwqBAS9x3U

In this video, David Huron, professor at the School of Music and Center for Cognitive Science at Ohio State University, discusses the results of a series of experiments about sad music. Their basic question was: since sadness is an emotion that people normally do not want to feel, why would anyone listen to sad music? One of the results of the experiments is that experience of sad music depends on personality. For example, a person who scores high on openness in a personality inventory is more likely to listen to sad music. Also neurotic people tend to listen to sad music. Another striking effect is the following. When a sad event occurs, the body releases prolactin, a hormone with consoling and warming effect. Huron and his colleagues found that the body releases prolactin also when people listen to sad music, though in those cases no sad event actually happenes.

A few questions and thoughts…

I am intrigued by this short video, as it makes me wonder whether hormone release is related only to sad music, or whether, and to what extent, it relates to other kinds of music as well. Moreover, do we need a minimum level of sadness to activate prolactin? In other words, is there a level under which the brain does not engage with sadness, and maybe with other emotional states as well? Another question. Assuming that the hormonal triggering is related to more than one kind of music, what happens when we listen to music that is not related to a clearly identifiable emotion? For example, if we listen to a waltz, can we generally say that we are happy? Or sad? Or? In that case, how would hormonal triggering work? On another note, I wonder whether it is possible to activate hormones by using specific music-related parameters such as frequencies, to obtain effects similar to the ones described above, for therapeutic purposes. It seems to me that the use of specific frequencies constitutes a clear and reliable way to trigger specific mechanisms. I hope that Prof. Huron and his collaborators will continue sharing with us their fascinating and enlightening work online!

Effect of different frequencies of music on blood pressure regulation in spontaneously hypertensive rats

2011-11-15T21:23:00.000-08:00

Reference: Akiyama, Kayo and Den'etsu Sutoo. "Effect of different frequencies of music on blood pressure regulation in spontaneously hypertensive rats." Neuroscience Letters (January 2011), 487 (1), pg. 58-60. Web. 15 Nov 2011.

Review:
Mozart's music might not make you smarter, but perhaps it can lower your blood pressure. A study undertaken at the University of Tsukuba indicated that rats who were exposed to Mozart's Adagio from Divertimento No. 7 (K. 205) experienced a lowering of blood pressure for 1-8 hours.

All of the rats used in this study were twelve weeks old, male, and purchased from the same source. Before the study began, the rats were kept in a well-regulated environment for a week (room temperature, twelve hours light/twelve hours dark, plenty of food and water). At the start of the study, all of the rats who were to be exposed to music were exposed to an unfiltered recording of K. 205 which was repeated for ten hours. At the end of the ten hours, the blood pressure of the rats was observed to have been lowered.

Next, the rats were separated into three groups and exposed to music filtered by iTunes to play low frequencies (32-125 Hz), middle frequencies (250-2k Hz), and high frequencies (4k-16k Hz). Blood pressure levels stayed basically the same in the rats exposed to low frequencies, but dropped in the rats exposed to high frequencies (the same as in the unfiltered music) and middle frequencies (less than unfiltered and high frequency music). Akiyama and Sutoo believe that it may be the high frequency sounds prevalent in Mozart's music that have an effect on brain function in terms of blood pressure changes as well as alleviating symptoms of depression, epilepsy, and senile dementia.

Reflections:
There are two things one should keep in mind in interpreting the results of this study: first of all, music is only noise to animals; second, this study was funded in part by the Yamaha Music Foundation in Japan. This study is an interesting way to begin one's own exploration of the idea that blood pressure can be managed by listening to music.

As much as I appreciate what pharmaceutical drugs can do for us, I prefer not to use medication whenever possible. Many of us know people who take drugs to lower their blood pressure, and probably most of those people take other medications for other health issues as well. Some might need to add another type of pill to the cocktail to counteract the side effects of one or more of the drugs their doctors prescribe. This gets expensive and can be dangerous.

Could we treat high blood pressure with music instead of pills? I'm all for hearing a doctor say, "take two sonatas and call me in the morning."

Fascinating Rhythm

2011-11-15T15:50:00.000-08:00

Source: Sacks, Oliver. (2008). Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain (Revised and Expanded). Toronto: Vintage Canada.

Summary:

Chapter 19 - Keeping Time: Rhythm and Movement

Musicophilia is a compilation of stories that deal with various topics relating to music and the brain. It was put together by Oliver Sacks, a practicing physician and professor of neurology and psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Centre. The stories are told with a balance of intellect and emotion, and the book is as entertaining to read as it is interesting.

Chapter 19 is entitled Keeping Time: Rhythm and Movement. The chapter begins with Mr. Sacks recounting a climbing accident he had on a mountain in Norway, in which he injured his leg so badly that he could not use it to make his way back down the mountain. He decided to ‘row’ himself down to safety, similar to the way paraplegics use a wheelchair. At first he found the motion difficult and exhausting, but eventually he got into a rhythm that he mentally accompanied with a song. Each rowing motion he made synchronized with the beat of the music in his mind. He felt this musical mental aid made it much easier for him to row down the mountain. Mr. Sacks also used music to help him rehabilitate his leg in the hospital afterwards, and soon after his recovery he began using music to help another patient rehabilitate her paralyzed left leg, with much success.

Several researchers have studied the relationship between the auditory and motor systems of the human brain, and there seems to be a strong link between the two systems. This suggests that music and rhythm can be used to help people coordinate body and brain functions. Examples include helping people regain motor control lost through injury or disease, helping people carry out complex chains of actions made difficult by brain damage or disease (like getting dressed), and assisting in the mental processing and storage of information. Athletes have often used music and rhythm to regulate and refine their movements and help them push their bodies to new heights of athletic achievement. For example, swimmers often coordinate their leg kicks in groups of three, in a pattern similar to a waltz rhythm (strong kick on one, weaker kicks on two and three).

It seems that humans also have a tendency to impose rhythmic groupings onto sounds (musical or otherwise) that are identical and occur at constant intervals. Mr. Sacks gives the example of a clock making the sound ‘tick-tick-tick-tick’. Humans might group these ticks into pairs, and the rhythm of the clock will then sound like ‘tick-tock-tick-tock’ to a human, when in actuality the ticking sounds are all equal. Interestingly, the way we group sounds varies greatly from culture to culture, which suggests that there may be a connection between musical rhythm and speech. There is a definite link between the two, with speech having its own sort of irregular rhythmic pattern. Researchers have often questioned which came first – music or speech? The question has been hotly debated and no one conclusion has been widely agreed upon.

The chapter closes with a discussion of the binding power of music and rhythm. For centuries, and across all cultures, music has functioned to bring people together, and rhythm plays a huge part in this process. One needs only to go to a rock concert and witness a crowd jumping (pulsating) up and down in time with the music to see how music can bind people together and form community. It may be that when a group of people hear a rhythm, each person internalizes it identically, creating a sort of shared experience and encouraging mimicry. In the brain, different perceptions are bound together and unified by the synchronized firing of nerve cells in different parts of the brain. Perhaps this is analogous to the use of music and rhythm to bind together communities of people.

Reflection:

One of the reasons that rhythmic cognition is very fascinating to me is because rhythm is present in so many musics of the world, and yet in some ways it differs so much from culture to culture. It seems that each culture’s music has its own distinct rhythmic flavour. As a classical musician, my coaches spent a lot of time teaching me about Viennese ‘schwung’, a type of rhythmic momentum that is characteristic of composers like Alban Berg and Arnold Schoenberg. In the Second Viennese school of composition, it is not enough to simply play a ¾ meter in time, the pulse must have schwung. (if you asked me to put into words what this schwung is, I couldn’t do it!) I learned this type of rhythmic quality simply by listening to my mentors demonstrate it. It was only when I could imitate this particular momentum in my playing that people began to tell me I was playing in a true Second Viennese style.

I also studied a piece by Astor Piazzolla, an Argentinean composer famous for developing a style called neuvo tango. It was a short quartet, around seven minutes long, and seemed relatively straightforward. However when my group tried to play it, it just didn't sound right. We couldn't put our finger on what was wrong, but we knew that something was off. We eventually came to the conclusion that it was our rhythm. Although we all have multiple degrees in music performance and have spent the majority of our lives working on our instruments, the highly stylized rhythms of nuevo tango were simply a foreign language to us. We could play in time and play all the correct rhythms perfectly well, but it was as if we had a musical 'accent' similar to a language accent. Our rhythmic style just didn't sound authentic. I wonder if this has to do with the possible connection between the different languages of cultures and the qualities of their musical rhythm. All the practice on Viennese schwung did me no good when I tried to feel the groove of a good Argentinean tango.

Effects of Music and White Noise on Working Memory Performance in Monkeys

2011-11-15T11:32:00.000-08:00

Source:

Effects of Music and White Noise on Working Memory Performance in Monkeys

Synnove Carlson, Pia Rama, Denis Artchakov and Ilkka Linnankoski

NeuroReport 8, 2853-2856 (1997)

Summary:

The study was done to evaluate the effects of Mozart's music, white noise, simple rhythm and silence on the delayed responses of monkeys. Mozart's music has been suggested to benefit cognitive functions, and it was later proved to only "improve spatial IQ". The working memory is processed in the prefrontal cortext, and a delayed response (DR) experiment will test the subject's ability to remember information for a short period of time. The monkeys used in the experiment were all trained to perform DR tasks, and the results of the experiment will further the researches on acoustic treatments on working memory performance. Two food bowls were shown at equal distance behind a transparent screen. A raisin is then put into one of the two bowls, and an opaque lid was then used to cover the bowls. The monkey's task was to choose the bowl with raisin in it over various delay lengths. Different monkeys had different treatments: 1) 15 minutes of the four choices (Mozart's music, white noise, simple rhythm or silence) OR 2) one choice played throughout the duration of the experiment.

The results showed a significant improvement in the white noise group. Whereas other groups of monkeys had more mistakes as the delay time increased, the white noise group did not show dramatic difference between the time-mistakes ratio. Mozart's music, on the other hand, increased the number of mistakes over all other delays except the shortest delay.

Reflection:

Many studies were done to prove or disprove the "Mozart Effect" and this experiment on monkeys really opened up the ambiguity of previous findings. Mozart's music was said to improve spatial IQ, however, this was not seen in the monkeys' experiment. One explanation would be that monkeys do not have the same auditory knowledge as the humans. People may not know Mozart, but they can follow the tune of a melody, notice patterns in a passage, and "feel" the emotions music express. The monkeys may hear Mozart's music as a complex auditory stimulus that disrupts attention. The white noise, on the other hand, acts like an auditory mask that blocks out distractions.

This is an interesting finding because the effects of music were supposedly "universal", but the results of human experiments were much more different than those of monkeys. Would this due to the fact that humans have a language system and music is also a language? Would that contribute to the effectiveness of music toward performance enhancement? White noises were also proven to improve sleep. It would be interesting to see if white noise can act as a "healing"property, like what people say about music therapy. One future project is to redo the experiment (maybe more complex) with human participants and see if similar results are found.

Tinnitus Sound Therapy Using Customized Sound / Music (A Web-Based Neuro...

2011-11-14T19:49:00.000-08:00

In life, there are very few health problems that one can resolve on-line!

If you want to avoid the flu, then you make an appointment with your

GP and have a flu shot. Need stitches? Can't do that on-line. Have an

infection? Can't receive antibiotics thru your computer's finger pad. It

almost seems silly to contemplate a resolution of any medical condition

via the Internet.

However, through music therapy, some help may be a click away!

"Tinnitus" a condition suffered by millions throughout the world may be

addressed while sitting at home in front of your computer. "Beyondtinnitus"

is a website designed to help those who suffer the "endless ringing in the ears"

or the constant "cacophony of chirping birds."

From Beyondtinnitus.com, we read the following;

In the last 2 years, new discoveries have been made in tinnitus therapy. Researchers and physicians at University of California Irvine have discovered that certain unique sounds can make the ear ringing sound (tinnitus) to give significant relief for some periods of time. These sounds can be used to reduce tinnitus even when listened to for a short time. The problem that has been found is that finding these sounds was found to require significant time consuming sessions in physician or audiology testing. In addition, when listened to on their own, these sounds may not be very pleasant listening.

Enter the innovation of the physicians and researchers at beyondtinnitus.com. Our physician researchers have developed a patent-pending technology, our clinical researchers found that customized tinnitus therapy can be delivered to any patient around the world. The technology allows the research-based harmonic masking therapy to be delivered to the patient using innovative sound mixing technologies and the power of the web. The patients can mix the therapy sound with their own music on their own computer. This is downloaded onto an MP3 player for a customized tinnitus therapy. This way you can listen to your own music while getting relief from your tinnitus. This is unlike the Neuromonics approach of using the same 4 musical pieces every single day! This revolutionary technology is available to anybody at less than 1/10th the cost of Neuromonics!

Reflection!

When I was about 6 years of age, I can remember the first time I went outside to enjoy our new backyard. In the distance, about a kilometre away, Highway 401 thundered along. It was almost unbearable! However, to my surprise, and about a week later, my brain removed that dominant sound from my consciousness, and for the rest of my days living in that area, I never really noticed the highway sounds again. In a way, my brain, while hearing a specific sound from my environment, somehow had turned it off. I no longer perceived the sound as real!

"Tinnitus is the perception of sound in the absence of sound." Like the Phantom of the opera, it seems more appropriate to describe it as "a figment of the imagination." For years, tinnitus was thought to be the result of ear damage, specifically located in the cochlea region. Instead, research now suggests that it "affects the areas directly around the damaged zones in the brain. Is it possible to turn off certain frequencies, sounds that appear to be of the imagination? Beyondtinnitus.com suggests that, through music therapy, it is possible and consultation in the privacy of your own home is a reality. This is the new wave of tinnitus treatment, however, results are only now beginning to prove its effectiveness!

Music, The Brain and Education – Warren Duffer James, Montessori Life 17 no3 Summ 2005

2011-11-14T14:14:00.000-08:00

Summary

Music is no longer bound by the limits of it source. The increase in recording technology has increased the amount of music a person can hear but has de-emphasized the needs for people to actively make music together. Making music together was an important activity in the past because your only option for listening was to play yourself or go to a concert, which was not always available. By making music as an activity, the line between performer and audience is blurred.

When performers play together, their brains process the same information at the same time. So essentially they are functioning as one brain while they are working together. Playing music by oneself is also beneficial as it activates different parts of the brain at the same time. Performing causes the brain to coordinate analysis of patterns with physical movement.

Fewer people are participating in acoustical performances but with the increased portability of electronic music players they are actually listening more. Because our society has changed the value of music from performance to electronic, should we re-evaluate how we teach music in schools?

First we need to identify music as organize sound. Then we need to accept that no one type of music is intrinsically better than another. Music is influenced on a cultural level and based on familiarity within a given style. Children however, are not predisposed to be able to understand one style of music over another. They can distinguish between many variances within our Western 12-tone scale, but it is only through exposure are that they are entrained to listen within our parameters. This repetition is of sounds is how the child’s brain learns to process music.

Music is brought into the classroom for a number of reasons. The more traditional reason is to train young people to become proficient performers, which is usually done by a specialist teacher in the music classroom. Another reason is the use of music to assist the brain in acquiring new information. In this case music is piped into the non-music classes in the hopes of increasing brain development. Finally, music can be brought into the classroom as a diversion or for entertainment factor.

Music engages the brain on multiple levels, especially training the brain to process information spatially. In order to support the statement that music can “make you smarter” we need to acknowledge that for any type of brain development it needs to be the “right” music for the “right” person. So what causes one child’s brain to light up will have no effect on another. We traditionally reference Mozart in affecting intelligence but in reality that is the implementation of our Western cannon.

When using music in the classroom there needs to be an emphasis on listening over hearing in context. Music played in the background just becomes noise that the brain will eventually filter out. However music illicits movement so active listening could also include a movement component. It is important to encourage movement and singing outside of the music class to create an active listening experience in which all can participate.

Active music making must be a part of our daily lives if it is to have any long-term effects. It needs to be inclusive of all students, genres, and other subjects. Students should be exposed to live performances as often as possible and encouraged to participate in music regardless of ability or performance anxiety. Music as background noise is not as effective as when students engage in singing and moving with the music. Teachers do not need to be leaders of music making, as the children should be interacting with the music on their own. Music in schools is not meant for a select group of people nor is it meant to “make children smarter”. It is meant to be enjoyed as a social activity and promote cohesion in the classroom.

Reflection

I see the influence of electronic music in my own classroom. When I ask my students how they listen to music their top answers are through personal music players and headphones. There is a disconnect from the social aspect of music making and as a result music becomes something which is only personal. When they get the opportunity to play as a group in an ensemble, a lot of them enjoy the group aspect of music making over the actual music they are playing. In this case we are not training elite musicians, rather we are creating a space where musical experience can occur.

I think an engaging teacher changes their learning goals based on the students readiness for the lesson. Sometimes I push my students to become proficient performers, but other times our goal is to have fun while playing an instrument. I do not think it is as segmented as the article makes it out to be. I do agree however, that students must be actively engaged in music and that we need to model this behaviour for them. If their brains are used to music being a constant background noise, we need to re-train them in a sense to actively listen and analyze music in the classroom.

I like how the article made the connection between music making and movement for brain development. I’ve noticed with my own students that when we clap, sing, and dance to the beat, they have a greater understanding of more complex rhythms. When they “feel” the groove we become better players collectively. I find the connection between movement, music, and brain activity interesting, and am going to try and incorporate it on a more social level in my classroom.

Seeing Music?

2011-11-13T18:47:00.000-08:00

Source: Schutz, Michael and Scott Lipscomb. "Hearing gestures, seeing music: Vision influences perceived tone duration." Perception 36 (2007): 888-897.

Summary

Michael Schutz and Scott Lipscomb created this study to settle the debate among percussionists: does the length of the striking gesture have any direct impact on the length of the resulting tone? They found that the stroke height used in playing a note on the marimba had no effect on the acoustic length of the note. However, gesture and visual information played a large role in the perceived length of notes, even when the acoustic properties between so-called "long" and "short" notes were indistinguishable. They concluded that "music is only music within the mind of the listener" and observed that effective musical performances must rely on both auditory and visual information. Performances heard in contexts such as recorded radio broadcasts and blind auditions rob "both the performer and audience of a significant dimension of musical communication."

Reflection

I was frequently reminded of this topic after hearing Michael Schutz speak at the Colloquy for Music Psychology and Neuroscience. As performers of any instrument, we need to consider every aspect of the musical performance from the audience perspective. While many pianists will protest at the notion that the piano is a percussion instrument, it is undeniable that the basic operation mechanisms of the the instrument are similar to those of some percussion instruments. Many issues of performance are based on the fact that piano tones decay immediately. For example, in passages where composers write a crescendo under a long held note, my students often have trouble imagining that the note is growing louder.

The solution to this is partly further development of the inner ear, but this type of phrasing could also be understood through the use of a physical gesture. I can remember the first time I encountered this problem as a student. My teacher asked me to sing the phrase, noticing how my physical gestures mirrored the character of the long note. This demonstration was very helpful when I returned to the piano; the way I used my breath and arms to conduct the note made it much easier to shape the long note at the piano.

Beyond the basic level of duration of notes, gesture can also enhance other musical events. While preparing for a concerto competition in which I performed the same concerto as three other pianists, I was advised to use physical gestures to set myself apart from the others. Rather than simply playing a quick passage note-perfectly, she guided me in using an arm motion that would assist in communicating the effect of soaring, both musically and visually. Of course, my performance had to be technically sound and expressive in order for these visual "extras" to have any effect.

There are those who would dismiss this approach as purely virtuosic and lacking in artistic depth. Indeed, without a solid performance, visual displays merely distract the audience. Yet the findings of this study clearly show that visual cues act as an aid to audiences, influencing the way in which we respond to auditory information. Perhaps what is needed is a fine balance of both audio and visual cues. "Virtuosos are masters at shaping the musical experience, which in this case means using visual information to accomplish that which is impossible 'in reality'."

The structural neuroanatomy of music emotion recognition: Evidence from frontotemporal lobar degeneration

2011-11-12T13:41:00.000-08:00

Reference:

Rohani, Omar,Susie M.D. Henley, Jonathan W. Bartlett, Julia C. Hailstone,Elizabeth Gordon, Disa A. Sauter, Chris Frost, Sophie K. Scott, and Jason D. Warren. "The structural neuroanatomy of music emotion recognition: Evidence from frontotemporal lobar degeneration." Neuroimage 2011, June 1; 56(3): 1814-1821.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3092986/?tool=pmcentrez

Summary:

Despite growing interest in the neurobiology of music, the brain mechanisms that are critical for processing emotion in music remain incompletely understood. Music is universal and highly valued for the powerful emotional responses it engenders: indeed, music activates brain circuitry associated with pleasure and reward and musical emotion judgments and brain responses are consistent amongst members of a musical culture. Certain music can specifically induce an intense arousal response in normal listeners, and this response is mediated by brain structures such as the amygdala and insula that have been implicated in other kinds of salient emotional stimuli. Deficits of musical emotion comprehension have been reported following focal damage of these same structures, located in the medial prefrontal and anterior temporal lobe.

Frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) is the name for a group of clinically, pathologically and genetically heterogeneous disorders associated with atrophy in the frontal lobe and temporal lobe of the brain. In the over 65 age group, FTLD is probably the fourth most common cause of dementia after Alzheimer’s disease, dementia with Lewy bodies and vascular dementia. Patients with FTLD frequently exhibit derangements of complex social and emotional behaviour. From a clinical perspective, investigation of musical emotion processing and its cerebral associations in FTLD has the potential to improve the understanding of the disease’s phenomenology, and the intrinsic network connectivity in the working brain.

A human brain showing frontotemporal lobar degeneration.

The idea behind this research was to investigate critical neuroanatomical associations of emotion recognition from music using FTLD as a disease model of brain network breakdown. The research included 26 patients with FTLD and 21 healthy control subjects with no history of neurological, or psychiatric illness. Recognition of four emotions (happiness, sadness, anger, and fear) from music, facial expressions and nonverbal vocal sounds was assessed using a procedure in which subjects were required to match each target stimulus with the most appropriate verbal emotion label in a four-alternative-forced-choice model. The music stimuli were short (approx. 11 s) non-vocal (orchestral and chamber) excerpts drawn from the Western classical canon and film scores. MR brain images were acquired in all FTLD patients at the time of behavioural testing, as well as voxel-based morphometry, a neuroimaging analysis technique that allows investigation of focal differences in brain anatomy.

On neuropsychological evaluation, patients with FTLD showed deficient recognition of canonical emotions (happiness, sadness, anger and fear) from music as well as emotional signals conveyed by facial and vocal expressions compared with healthy control subjects. Impaired recognition of emotions from music was specifically associated with grey matter loss in a distributed cerebral network including insula, orbitofrontal cortex, anterior cingulate and medial prefrontal cortex, anterior temporal and more posterior temporal and parietal cortices, amygdala and the subcortical mesolimbic system. This network of the brain is essential for recognition of musical emotion that overlaps with brain regions previously implicated in coding emotional value, behavioural context, conceptual knowledge and theory of mind. The study also found that amygdala damage was associated with impaired emotion recognition only from music, as opposed to emotion recognition of facial and verbal expressions.

Reflexion:

The ability that music has to affect and manipulate emotions and the brain is undeniable, and yet largely inexplicable. This research identified regions of the brain associated with music emotion recognition, including insula, orbitofrontal cortex, anterior cingulate and medial prefrontal cortex, anterior temporal and more posterior temporal and parietal cortices, amygdala, and striatum. Identifying the neural mechanisms of musical emotion helps us understand how the brain codes emotional value, and how emotional signals acquire meaning.

Following a similar idea, Petr Janata, associate professor of psychology at UC Davis' Center for Mind and Brain, mapped the brain activity of a group of subjects while they listened to music, and found that the region of the brain where memories of our past are supported and retrieved also serves as a hub that links familiar music, memories and emotion. His research may help to explain why music can elicit strong responses from people with Alzheimer's disease. The hub is located in the medial prefrontal cortex region — right behind the forehead — and one of the last areas of the brain to atrophy over the course of the disease.

In Rohani & al.’s study, subjects with frontotemporal lobar degeneration did not respond well to recognition of emotion in music, unlike Alzheimer’s patients in Janata’s study. This was caused by grey matter loss, including the medial prefrontal cortex region, which is linked to memories and emotion. Does memory affect music emotion recognition, or is it just contained in the same medial prefrontal cortex region as is emotion? How does music succeed in prompting emotions within us? And why are these emotions often so powerful?

Images of Sonic Objects

2011-11-10T15:12:00.000-08:00

Source:
Godøy, R. I. (2010, April). Images of sonic objects. Organised Sound, 15(1), 54-62. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved October 10, 2011, from Scholars Portal Journals
http://resolver.scholarsportal.info.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/resolve/13557718/v15i0001/54_ioso

Summary:
Largely based on the theories of Pierre Schaeffer in his Traité des objets musicaux (1966), but also drawing on more recent evidence from the study of musical imagery and support from the theory of embodied cognition, Rolf Inge Godøy, Professor at the Department of Musicology, University of Oslo, argues that the “sonic object” is the most significant timescale of music with regard to human’s ability to form stable memory images of music (sonic images) from continuous sound.

First, Godøy gives some useful background information on musical imagery, which is defined as the “mental capacity for imagining musical sound in the absence of a directly audible sound source”. Placing musical imagery in the broader context of mental imagery, he explains that there is generally a “functional equivalence” between real-world perception and action and imagined perception and action. (For example, recalling the last verse of a song would take longer than the first verse because people usually scan through the song from the beginning.) Furthermore, neuroscientific research shows that mental imagery and real perception and action share much of the same neural substrate. Of particular interest in musical imagery is that auditory and motor imagery seem to be bidirectionally linked. (For example, when professional pianists listen to piano music, the motor areas of the brain are also activated. Vice versa, when the pianists see silent piano performance actions, they also mentally hear the music associated with those actions.) Then, putting musical imagery in the perspective of embodied cognition, which sees perception and cognition as intimately linked with sensations of movement, Godøy argues that body movements are integral to music and that sound-events should be “understood as included in some kind of gesture trajectory”.

All of the above background information helps to prepare the reader for Godøy’s ideas about the nature of sonic objects, which he defines as “holistically perceived fragments of sound, typically with durations in the 0.5 to 5 seconds range”. He justifies this timescale by citing research that shows that listeners can generally recognize salient musical features, such as style, rhythm, texture/timbre, modal/tonal features, and expressivity, within this 0.5 to 5 seconds range. He then points out that theories of memory support the idea of sonic objects as coherent chunks of sound that are perceived and imagined in the present moment (in a series of “now-points”). In this way, an entire piece of music is basically a chain of sonic objects perceived and imagined chunk-by-chunk, moment-by-moment. Godøy describes three types of sonic objects: 1) Impulsive, meaning abrupt attack followed by decay, 2) Sustained, and 3) Iterative, meaning a quick series of fluctuations (e.g. tremolo). Given the integral sound-gesture link in the embodied perspective, he remarks that the three types of sonic objects correlate well with impulsive, sustained, and iterative body gestures. And given the bidirectionality between motor and auditory imagery, Godøy believes the “kinematics and dynamics of sound-related actions can create images of sonic objects”, which carries the implication that action imagery can actually enhance musical imagery and, therefore, can potentially be applied in various contexts, such as musical practice, research, and education.

Reflection:
Though slightly difficult for me to digest, I still found this journal article quite fascinating. Having read a chapter titled “Imagined action, excitation, and resonance” by Godøy (2001) in a book called Musical imagery, which argues that “images of sound-producing actions… can enhance [the] capacity for imagining sonorous qualities” (p. 237), I was curious to find out if Godøy has written anything else on this subject more recently. As it turned out, he indeed has, and I chose this article because it offers more up-to-date information on musical imagery, a topic that I am deeply interested in.

First of all, I was not surprised at all to discover that auditory and motor imagery are linked; I can relate well to the experience of having the urge to move my fingers and “play along” when listening to other pianists performing pieces that I am acquainted with. Being a performer, I have absolutely no doubt that body movements are integral to musical experience. But Godøy’s suggestion that there is an important gestural component to sound would still have seemed a little strange to me had I not taken a course in conducting two years ago, which certainly made me much more aware of how gestures can accurately represent various sound qualities (with a lot of practice, of course).

What impressed me the most about this article was the fact that something as private and seemingly unobservable as imagery could be systematically studied and theorized upon so extensively. I think that Godøy backs up his argument about sonic objects convincingly. What I am primarily interested in, however, is whether action imagery would really prove effective in developing musical imagery in the context of mental practice, as his view implies. Up till now, I have rarely employed the strategy of mental practice myself. But I have always been taught that I must first know what kind of sound I want (in my “inner ear”) before I can experiment with various ways of pressing the keys that would get me closer to realizing that sound. So it seems to me that the music should come first and the action subservient to it. Nevertheless, I suppose that after some physical practice, the sound would become inseparable from the action associated with it, and, at this point, action imagery would be effective in bringing forth musical imagery. So perhaps one needs a certain amount of physical practice on a particular piece before action imagery can be used? Or maybe it would simply be best for one to start developing mental practice skills early on in one's training?

Reference
Godøy, R. I. (2001). Imagined action, excitation, and resonance. In R.I. Godøy, & H. Jørgensen (Eds.), Musical imagery (pp. 237-250). Exton, PA: Swets & Zeitlinger Publishers.

Memoirs of an Addicted Brain

2011-11-02T20:47:00.000-07:00

Lewis, M. (2011), Memoirs of an Addicted Brain. A neuroscientist examines his former life on drugs. Doubleday Canada, www.randomhouse.ca
ISBN 978-0-385-66925-2

Recently, I heard Dr. Marc Lewis interviewed on CBC. He is aneuroscientist from U of T, now living and teaching in Holland. He was talkingabout his book Memoirs of an AddictedBrain, not fundamentally about music and the brain although Lewis has an undergraduatedegree in music from Berkeley and is an avid sitar player. His personal storyof drug addiction and his unusual way of describing the brain’s chemistry compelledme to buy the book. I couldn't put it down. Here is the link tothe CBC interview. http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/episode/2011/10/10/addicted-mind

Summary

In Memoirs of anAddicted Brain, Marc Lewis recounts his life as a drug addict. Originallyfrom Toronto, he was shipped as a teenager to Boston to attend a boardingschool. Homesick, bullied and missing the warmth and affection of his(extended) family, Lewis began to deal with his pain through cough syrup andalcohol. He moved to Berkeley,California and became part of the LSD and heroin scene. Then, he joined hisfamily in Malaysia and later Calcutta turning to opium. When he returned toCanada to become a psychologist, he stole drugs from medical clinics and wassubsequently arrested. The book chronicles Lewis’ journey with drugs, addictionand healing. Lewis eventually recovered and became a professor of developmentalpsychology and then a researcher in neuroscience.

This extraordinary narrative is formatted around Lewis’progressive drug addiction. Each chapter gives colourful and detailedexplanation, intertwining underlyingemotional conditions with choices, as well as the prominent drug he was usingat the time. Lewis, an effective storyteller,distinguishes the effect of each drug on the brain: i.e. dextromethorphanhydrobromide (cough syrup), cannabinoids, LSD, PCP, heroin, opioids . The reader learns about brain structures,functions and locations in both healthy and drug-polluted brains. Lewis details healthy neurotransmission and then what happens when dopamine and serotonin are regulated intrusively with addictive drugs. He relates the VALUEand THRUST feedback cycles, the neurological basis for cravings that can take hold in the mind and inthe brain. Lewis shows the reader how the addict’s brain, fertilized by theemotional potency of repeated drug experiences, crystallizes synapticconnections, tightening, rigidifying, constraining the choices (Lewis, 2011).

Marc Lewis believes that addiction is a corrupted form oflearning and warns that the extensive flexibility of our brains is notinfinite. Synaptic sculpting, how learning occurs, uses up brain flexibility.He states that synaptic shaping is self-promoting and self-reinforcing and canbe accelerated by strong emotions. Addictive drugs are addictive because of thestrong emotions they release with meaning, value and the narrowing in of how the worldfeels (Lewis, 2011).

Lewis admits that once addiction sets in, the brain neverreturns to the state that preceded it. He would counsel young people in thisway: Say no in a way that catches andtakes hold. Pursue things that are real and have meaning rather than illusionsand imagined values.

Reflection

Memoirs of an AddictedBrain is a valuable resource for understanding neurochemistry and theimpact of chemical invaders or mimics. Lewis gives a comprehensive yetaccessible explanation of neurological structure, function and location. It waseasy to visualize baselines and distortions because Lewis relayed the brain asa functioning neighbourhood with each part interrelated doing its specific taski.e. bridging, gate keeping and because he offered the neuroscientificinformation cumulatively within the context of his growing need for control.

It is a known fact that many musicians struggle with drug addictions. In fact, yesterday in the Ottawa Citizen, Phil Dwyer, saxophonist/pianist/composer candidly describes how he has struggled with serious addiction and mental health issues. http://blogs.ottawacitizen.com/2011/11/01/the-phil-dwyer-interview-part-iv

One friend who toured with a rock band for many years,admittedly said that the touring lifestyle got boring, predictable and therewas lots of waiting around. Alcohol and drugs were a way of making it morebearable. Music and drugs seem attached –at-the -hip in the rave culture. The dissociations or amplifications with realitymay be potentiated through music. Certainly musicians of allgenres have died of drug overdose.

Memoirs of an AddictedBrain makes me think about the relationship to music and addiction inanother way. As music educators, how addicted do we become to “winning”the music competition. The craving feedback loop which is based on needing controland needing the fix may propel our choices – the wanting, the needing for our own sake of feeling good and needing control- pushing children at a young age tocompetitive, neurotic and even inappropriate goals without the care fullnurturing, love, and magical experience of music’s aesthetic and spiritual draw. Do we becomeaddicted to the applause of a performance?

Not for one moment did I need to point the finger at Lewisin his courageous autobiography. The neural activity spoke for itself andpotentially lies in each one of us. Addiction is insidious, formed day by day, synaptic rut by synaptic rut, with habits that are formed by personal choices, ultimately a result ofwhat we deeply think about ourselves. We are all vulnerable.

Your Brain on Improv

2011-10-23T17:29:00.000-07:00

Source:

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/charles_limb_your_brain_on_improv.html

About the Speaker: Charles Limb is an Associate Professor, Otolaryngology, Head & Neck Surgery, and Faculty, Peabody Conservatory of Music. He combines his two passions to study the way the brain creates and perceives music. He's a hearing specialist and surgeon at Johns Hopkins who performs cochlear implantations on patients who have lost their hearing.

(http://www.ted.com/speakers/charles_limb.html)

Overview:

The idea that artistic creativity is a product of the brain has inspired Limb to explore the connections between the two. By having jazz musicians and rappers demonstrate their creativity through improvisation and free-style rapping while in an fMRI scanner, Limb is able to see activity in specific areas of the brain. Most of the experiments took place at Johns Hopkins University while some took place at the National Institute of Health.

Summary:

How is the brain able to be creative?

For this experiment, a 35-key MIDI keyboard designed with minimal interference was used in the fMRI scanner. MIDI signals from the keyboard were sent out through the interface and into the computer for analysis.

This study consisted of three experiments. All three experiments involved memorizing a piece and then improvising immediately afterwards. Brain activity (blood flow increase or decrease) was then observed and discussed.

The first experiment had professional jazz musicians memorizing a particular piece of music and then improvising the same piece using the same chord changes. The results showed an increase in activity in the medial prefrontal cortex (self-expression) while the lateral prefrontal cortex (self-monitoring) had a decrease in activity.

In the second experiment, Limb explored what brain activity occurs when musicians are “trading” music back and forth with a 12 bar blues piece. One jazz musician was in the fMRI scanner having a musical conversation with another musician, Limb himself, in the control room. The results showed that the musician’s Broca’s area, language area, as well as the brain area potentially connected to expressive communication were activated. These results provide some insight to the claim that music is a language.

The third experiment was to think about the connections between free-style rap and jazz. Free-style artists first memorized a rap written by Limb (control conditions). With the help of various cued words, the artists then created their own version of the rap. From a combination of four rappers’ brains, similarily to the previous experiments, language areas were shown to be active. However, when free-styling occurred, there was an increase in brain activity in the visual areas as well as cerebellar activity (i.e.motor coordination).

The connections between the brain and creativity are insightful, but because these results are preliminary, it is Limb’s hope that in the next few decades, we will be able to see more comprehensive studies that demonstrate this connection.

Response:

It really is amazing to think just how a jazz musician such as Keith Jarrett, can improvise on a piano for an entire concert. It is also interesting to see the results that one might expect when the participants are expected to improvise laying down in an fMRI scanner. Seeing the results of this preliminary study, the brain areas that are affected when performing a creative task, I am led to some questions for future studies.

1. What brain activity would occur if participants did not have a memorized piece, but were given a new piece to improvise?

2. What is the definition of creativity? For example, some people are able to think creatively almost immediately while others are able to be very creative with more time and thought. It would be interesting for researchers to consider this concern in their future studies.

As researchers try to find the root of creativity in the brain, I think about how this and future studies relate to children and creativity. Though the results are preliminary, the connections that are involved between the brain and creative tasks provide some insight into the pedagogical implications for music education. I look forward to hearing about these future studies.

A Larynx Area in the Motor Cortex: study dispels previous conclusions that laryngeal function generalized across lip, jaw and tongue areas of brain

2011-10-23T13:51:00.000-07:00

Source: Brown, S., Ngan, E., & Liotti, M. (2008). A larynx area in the human motor cortex. Cerebral Cortex, 18, 837-845.

Have you ever wondered how your voice actually works? If you have, and looked into it, you will have discovered volumes of information on laryngeal function, aerodynamics, physics, and neurology to name a few. Vocal function is a field that has only recently come under the microscope, quite literally. Though Hipocrates speculated on the workings of the human voice as early as the fifth century BC, it wasn’t until Manuel García thought to shine a mirror down someone’s throat in 1854 that the living voice was seen in action. García presented his findings to the Royal Society of Medicine a year later. Voice medicine has been a slow and late bloomer compared to other specialties, but with increasing interest and new technologies there is unprecedented growth in a number of voice specialties. It’s no wonder than that neuroscientists have “answered the call” (vocally speaking) and begun exploring voice function where it really begins: in the brain.

Article Summary:

Until this study was concluded in 2008, it was widely believed that laryngeal control was spread across several areas of the motor cortex that corresponded to motor control of the articulators – the lips, tongue and jaw. This was based on the motor homunculus (pictured below), which was established by Wilder Penfield and others through neuro-stimulation in the 1930’s and 40’s.

The absence of a specific laryngeal centre in the brain is a pretty substantial thing when you get to thinking of the significance of phonatory communication to the human race. It is, after all, one of the most obvious evolutionary triumphs setting us apart from other species on this planet. Thus, Steven Brown of the McMaster Institute for Music and the Mind conducted a study of 16 individuals using fMRI imaging with a primary goal to define a somatotopic location for the larynx area.

This article described 4 of 6 oral tasks that the participants were asked to do while scanned. The tasks ranged from singing on a “schwa” vowel to performing glottal stops (ie. forced adduction of the vocal folds), lip protrusion and tongue movements. Each activity was done in a repeated pattern with breaks in between, this specificity requiring the subjects to attend a training session before their scan.

There were two principle findings in Browns analysis of the data gathered. First was that the peak activations in the motor cortex for glottal stops and those for phonation were nearly identical in all 16 subjects. This yields a strong argument that there is a common motor region underlying adduction (closing) and abduction (opening) and tensing/relaxing of the vocal folds – the major functions of the intrinsic musculature of the larynx. Brown refers to this general region as the larynx/phonation area (LPA) of the motor cortex. There was also activation in a superior temporal region known as “cortex of the dorsal Sylvian fissure at the parietal-temporal junction” (Spt). The Spt has been previously connected to audiomotor integration for vocal production, but Brown’s data revealed for the first time that this area could be activated in the absence of vocalization (during glottal stops), vocal imagery, or strong auditory stimulation – though Spt activity was significantly stronger during vocalization. It is unclear if the activity was due to auditory stimulation, increased laryngeal activity, or perhaps a combination of the two.

The second finding was that the human LPA is not ventral (in front of) the tongue area as was previously suggested in multiple sources. The LPA is actually located in a dorsal position (or behind) the tongue area and directly across from the lip area in all 16 subjects. Brown concludes that the human larynx area appears to have a novel localization next to the articulators and is much further away from the pharynx area than might be expected.

Reflection:

This was quite an ambitious read for me as I am in my first months of study of music and the brain. I was lead by my interest and investment in vocal function especially as it relates to vocal disorders. In the world of vocal disorders, nodes and polyps (physical abnormalities of the larynx) are what a singer often associates with voice disorders, however there are many vocal disorders that are neurological. Spasmodic dysphonia is one such disorder involving hyper function of the laryngeal muscles. Patients with spasmodic dysphonia deal with what seems to be a mis-firing of the larynx resulting in over adduction (too much closure) of the glottis. Sadly, this disorder has a fairly high incidence in professional voice users.

Though recent research into this disorder has shed some light on the cause (a problem in the feedback loop between the brain and organ with the dystonia), in many cases treatments only marginally restore function, and all treatments centre on the larynx instead of the brain. The most standard treatment is botulinum toxin injections (BOTOX) into the muscles that are spasming. These injections last about 4 months and often immobilize the muscles so much that singing isn’t possible. Other treatments include cutting the nerve to the voice box and attaching another nerve, changing the shape of the voice box, and speech therapy. Non of these treatments are particularly reliable from patient to patient.

Spasmodic dysphonia is just one example of several neurological disorders effecting the larynx. My hope is that Brown’s research will eventually lead to easier identification and diagnosis of neurologically based vocal dysfunction, and perhaps steer specialists toward treatments that include the brain.

Reading this article has helped me understand why the brain is left out of the treatment of these disorders and given me hope that the vocal specializations community is on the threshold of understanding the brain as it relates to vocal function in a whole new way.

Treadmill Training with Music Cueing: a New Approach for Parkinson's gait facilitation

2011-10-19T04:33:00.000-07:00

Reference: Treadmill Training with Music Cueing: a New Approach for Parkinson's gait facilitation

Author: Dootchai Chaiwanichsiri, Wuttinganok Wangno, Wasuwat Kitisomprayoonkul, Roongroj Bhidayasiri

Source: Asian Biomedicine Volume 5, No. 5 October 2011; 649-654

DOI: 10.5372/1905-0505.086

Summary:

This article describes the effects of musical cueing on treadmill training within a randomized single-blind controlled trial of thirty male Parkinson's disease (PD) patients. Participants eligible for the study were males between the ages of 60-80 years of age, diagnosed as idiopathic PD, Hoehn and Yahr stage 2-3, and possessing good cognitive function on Thai Mental State Examination, stable symptoms with unmodified anti-parkinsonian medication throughout the study, and independent walking skills without any aids. As well, there could not be any other existing medical conditions among the patients, nor could they have participated in any previous training during the previous two months, and good hearing and vision were imperative.

Participants were divided into three randomized groupings, each containing ten members: Group A, B, and C. Group A completed treadmill training with music cueing for three days/week and a home walking program for three days/week; treadmill training for three days/week combined with a home walking program three days/week was prescribed to group B, and group C participated in six days of home walking/week. Each treadmill session consisted of ten minutes of stretching exercise followed by twenty minutes of treadmill walking with long steps at each participants' preferred speed. Once the appropriate gait was selected, the pace was adjusted 5-10% faster, to the degree that the patients could still maintain an appropriate gait without difficulties or missteps. The music cue involved the use of five relaxing green music pieces which were chosen and modified by stretching or retracting the tempo using a computer music program manager. In group A, the treadmill speed was measured by an electric metronome, which was then matched with prepared music of a corresponding tempo. Participants were trained to walk in step with the rhythm of music on the treadmill, and were given MP3 recordings to take home and use during their home practice. Subjects’ home practice included a ten minute stretching exercise followed by twenty minutes of walking, which was monitored by a stretching handbook and walking diary.

Two physicians and one research assistant performed regular evaluations of participants that included interviews about medical history, gait and balance assessments, tests on step length and stride length, walking speed over 6-meter walking sections, and calculation of step cadence.

An assessment of the data collected throughout the study confirmed significant improvement to step and stride length only in group A, which was maintained to the end of the eight week study. Group A also showed the greatest increases in speed and balance, as compared between all three groups. Although one participant in this group fell during one of the at-home training sessions, he was still able to continue with the study, and did not sustain any injuries from the fall.

The enhancement to PD patients’ gait that members of participant group A displayed confirm the effectiveness of auditory cues, such as music, to module the gait pattern of an individual. External motor cues provided through the use of a 6-week intensive treadmill training sessions also increased the stride length and walking speed of those with mild to moderate cases of PD. During these sessions, the speed of the treadmill was increased in increments related to the patient’s ability to maintain gait. Evidence, however, shows that dual tasks, such as auditory and attentional cues, when used in synchronicity, can be detrimental to gait pattern in PD sufferers. Those patients who were given music cues, though, were able to follow the music-treadmill training without any difficulties, and compared to the use of a metronome, had a more therapeutic effect. Therefore, participants who walked with music cues were able to maintain a faster cadence than those who walked to the sound of metronomic cueing. The relaxation and positive emotions that result from music can also be linked to the overall improvements of music to PD patients, as typically, these are deficient areas, as well.

Conclusively, the use of auditory rhythmic musical cues can be used to improve gait and balance, through treadmill-training, for mild to moderate PD sufferers. Additionally, improvements to gait training, as well as to mood and adherence are other applications where musical cueing combined by treadmill walking can be effective.

Reflection:

This trial study, which measured the effectivity of musical cueing combined with treadmill training among Parkinson's Disease sufferers, affected me in an overwhelming way. I have always been a staunch advocate of practicing "music for music's sake" and not as an enabler or a tool to facilitate other learning or to accomplish other extrinsic goals. I do not promote or support the claims that music makes you smarter or that music should be used to build mathematical skills, and have always lumped music therapy in this same category--one that relies upon music to do something beyond simply existing. However, through my encounters with research that shows the transformative effects that music can have on one's overall health, I am evaluating my own value system and beginning to question why should music not be used to its full potential. In accordance, I am looking at the ways through which musical practices can improve the quality of one's health and thus, one's life, and realizing that it is a more indispensable component to our lives than just music on its own.

Several thoughts arise as I reflect on these results. For starters, the benefits that the participating PD patients encountered after an 8-week trial of treadmill training using musical cues hopeful to individuals suffering with PD, as well as other diseases which attack cognitive function, such as dementia and Alzheimer's disease, and possibly even victims of stroke. If music proves an effective tool for remoulding one's brain, forcing in-tact cerebral areas to assume the functions that the primary control-centres no longer support, there is future potential for rehabilitation in a myriad of situations. Patients who are experiencing depression, anxiety or even Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) stand to benefit from the therapeutic benefit of music. I am fascinated to conduct my own trials with individuals suffering from the early onset of both dementia and Parkinson's disease, and also, to test the effectivity of music in more pronounced cases of Alzheimer's. It is ironic, that, in an age of medical advancements technological developments, which are occurring at an alarming rate, the Western societal acceptance of music as a means of healing is only in its developing stages. Music education, therefore, needs to be an all-encompassing goal of not only developing musicians for aesthetic purposes, but also developing music for the health of body, mind and spirit.

The brain and classical music

2011-10-18T20:43:00.000-07:00

Source: www.youtube.com.

Title: Classical Music and the Brain. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srv4uvTB0sI.

The video features Oliver Sachs as a subject for two experiments held at Columbia University.

In the first experiment Sachs is asked to listen to a familiar piece of music while an fMRI is performed. Then he is asked to imagine the same piece in his head; again, an fMRI is performed. The comparison of the two fMRIs shows changes in blood flow in the brain during the two sessions. In both sessions, many brain regions were active in the same way; however, from the scans it is clear that 1) the frontal lobe, which performs the higher functions, is more active in the second session, when Sachs is imagining the piece, and 2) we cannot say anything about what piece Sachs was listening to, or imagining. The final question posited in the video is: are all brains musical, or only those that are trained to be musical?

In the second experiment, Sachs undergoes another pair of fMRI scans, to see whether his brain loves Bach as much as he does. During the experiment, he has to listen to two pieces: one by J. S. Bach and one by L. van Beethoven. Verbally, Sachs confirms that piece by Bach blew him away, while Beethoven’s left him flat. The scans show that the brain activity confirms his emotional description, and that Bach’s piece activated Sachs’ amygdale (which is crucial for processing emotions), while Beethoven’s music did not.

In his verbal description about his reaction to the two performances, Sachs states that, at a certain point during the experiment, he was not able to distinguish between the music of Bach and that of Beethoven; however, the fMRI scan confirms that his brain was.

The second experiment highlights that, in certain situations, parts of the brain operate independently from our will and consciousness (in the specific case, when an emotional state is involved). This makes me wonder what results the same experiment could produce on not-musically trained, or knowledgeable, subjects, and/or on subjects who do not know the repertoire played during the experiment. For example, how would the brain process the emotional side of the “unknown”? Would this emotional side still be processed in the amygdale or in other areas? Also, would the relationship between emotional and organizational sides of this “unknown” experience interact to generate different neuronal paths and activate different areas? My guess is that the role of memory would be crucial in this sense. But how?

Also, according to the first experiment, we can understand what areas of the brain are activated by certain information, but we cannot say anything about the content of that information as processed by the brain. Where does the integration among the different elements of the experience happen? And what is its nature?

Listening to tailor-made notched music reduces tinnitus loudness and tinnitus-related auditory cortex activity

2011-10-18T12:54:00.000-07:00

Reference:
Okamoto, Hidehiko, Henning Stracke, Wolfgang Stoll, and Christo Panteva. “Listening to tailor-made notched music reduces tinnitus loudness and tinnitus-related auditory cortex activity.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America vol. 107 no. 3: 1207-1210. 19 Jan. 2010. Web. 17 Oct. 2011.

Review:
Tinnitus, a ringing in the ears that is thought to be caused by “maladaptive auditory cortex reorganization,” is loud enough to affect daily life for 1-3% of the population. Scientists are just beginning to find methods of treating the causes of tinnitus rather than addressing only the symptoms, and this study demonstrates one effective way to retrain the brain in order to limit the perception of tinnitus.

Hearing loss from tinnitus is caused by a “rewiring” that takes place within the central auditory system. The specific neurons affected do not stop functioning altogether, but start responding to neighbouring frequencies instead of the frequencies they used to receive. Tinnitus will not resolve on its own, but the use of “notched” music prepared specifically for each person treated has been shown in this study to reduce tinnitus loudness and reorganize neural activity in the auditory cortex.

Preparation of these “notched” recordings for the target patient group used music chosen by each patient from which the frequency band of the pitch heard by the patient as a result of tinnitus was removed using a digital filter. The scientists decided to have each patient pick her or his own music because they assumed that whatever the patient chose would hold her or his attention and cause the release of dopamine, since “joyful listening to music activates the reward system of the brain and leads to release of dopamine.” Dopamine has been shown to help in cortical reorganization.

After a year of treatment, the target patient group showed great improvements in terms of tinnitus loudness and auditory cortex activity related to tinnitus.

Reflections:
Tinnitus has always been a factor in my life. My father has experienced a loud ringing in the ears for as long as I can remember, and has never been able to find an effective way to reverse his hearing loss. I would be curious to see what this notched music treatment could do for him.

One thing I find particularly interesting about this study is the decision to have the patients choose which music to use for their treatment. As a music educator, I have been taught to give students choices in order to allow them to feel ownership of the work we do together. In my teaching as well as in everyday life, I have often observed that when a person is given an opportunity to have some say in what happens to her or him, the effects are tremendously positive. It is not surprising that allowing the patients in this study a say in what they would be listening to for a year probably made the treatment more effective.

How will the scientific world make notched music treatments available to the general public? Will there someday be digital notch filters in every family doctor’s office, or even just one in every major city? If the technology were to become accessible to everyone, imagine how much we could improve the quality of life for that 1-3% of the population with severe tinnitus.

Music Improves Dopaminergic Neurotransmission: The Effect of Music on Blood Pressure Regulation

2011-10-18T11:34:00.000-07:00

Source:

Sutoo, D., & Akiyama, K. (2004). "Music improves dopaminergic neurotransmission: demonstration based on the effect of music on blood pressure regulation." Brain Research (August 2004) 1016, 2: 255-262

Summary:

The focuse of the study was on how music reduces blood pressure in different patients. Although specific mechanisms how music modifies the brain were not known, it still plays an important role in the regulation various symptoms of epilepsy, Parkinson's, senile dementia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Dopamine (DA) is a neurotransmitter involved in the increase and decrease of heart rate and blood pressure. Calmodulin (CaM) is a calcium-modulated protein that binds itself to calcium. It mediates activities such as metabolism, immunue system and intracellular movements. Previous studies have proved that calcium increases dopamine (DA) synthesis through a process called calmoduli(CaM)-dependent phosphorylation. The calcium ions are transported to the brain through blood: they enhance CaM activities and in return increase DA synthesis. The increase of dopaminergic activity further inhibits sympathetic nerve activities ("fight-or-flight" response), thus calming the blood pressure. (255-256)

The test subjects were spontaneously hypertensive (high blood pressure) rats. Mozrt's Adagio from Divertinento No.7 in D Major (K.205) was played repeatedly for 2 hours to the test group. Blood pressure levels were measured before, during, and after the experiement. The results were also compared to: 1. groups of rats with injections of various drugs targetted on dopamine and CaM receptors (W-7, SCH23390, EDTA, etc.), and 2. the non-music group of rats.

In the first group (music without injections), the blood pressure level in the rats decreased significantly within the 30 minutes of exposing to Mozart's music (approximately 190 to 170 mmHg). The effect continued to last, and reached its lowest point (165mmHg) even 30 minutes after the music finished. The blood pressure gradually returned back to normal after that duration.

Compared to the non-music group of almost no blood pressure changes, music was evident in the decrease of blood levels. To confirm whether the effect of music affected the calcium and DA synthesis, the rats with different injections were placed through the same music listening experiment. The results showed that the blood pressure levels from drugs that inhibited CaM, Calcium and Dopamine receptors (W-7, EDTA, Eticlopride, aMPT) showed no changes when exposed to the music. However, Dopamine (DA) type one (D1) receptor SCH23390 did not inhibit the music's ability to increase calcium levels, and that group of rats did have a decrease of blood pressure. This showed that the calcium passes through specific types of dopamine receptors (D2).

Neuroimaging has also provided more information on the region which DA levels were increased by the exposure to music. Only the laterial neostriatum region was shown with a heightened level of calcium after the music exposure. The study concluded with the findings and implications for further studies in music therapy.

Reflection:

As the introduction stated, "Music has a long history of healing physical and mental illnesses" (255). It is definitely interesting to see how the brain/body reacts to the mere sound of music. The study was done to three groups of rats and the results were compared. It is astonishing that even after the two-hour period, the blood pressure level continued to decrease. The continuing effect of music must have triggered parts in the brain that regulate short-term memory, so that even when the music is finished, the brain can still organize and process it to increase calcium levels.

The researchers stated that they do not know why and how music increases calcium levels, so that would be an interesting research to look into. It is curious that music listening evokes higher calcium levels in the lateral neostraium and nowhere else. It would be helpful to include some footnotes in the the study to examine keywords that are more biological.

It is also said that the increase of calcium/CaM in the DA synthesis process only passes through D2 receptors. Although no answers to why this happens, it is fascinating to see that everything in the brain is organized and categorized accroding to its various functions. I also would like to understand why the specific adagio from Mozart's Divertimento was chosen, and wheather certain elements in the music played a role in activation calcium levels.

In the last few paragraphs, the author talked about the similarity between music and exercise, and how exercise also stimulates the same pathway as the one illustrated in this experiment. This is important to use in combination to music therapy for better recovery as well. One topic to look further would be the effects of music on ADHD, epilepsy, dementia and Parkinson's disease in terms of regulating blood pressure level.

Chord Discrimination in Pigeons - Searching for the Evolutionary Origins of Human Perception of Music

2011-10-17T08:30:00.005-07:00

Source: Brooks, Daniel I. and Cook, Robert G. Chord Discrimination in Pigeons. Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Vol. 27, No. 3 (February 2010), pp. 183-196

Retrieved: October 17, 2010, from JSTOR

http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/mp.2010.27.3.183

Summary:

Though we may consider ourselves to be evolved and advanced today, there is substantial evidence to suggest that humans as a species originated from the most simple and primitive of life forms. From this it logically follows that the components that make us what we are have their roots in more primitive life forms, so to discover how we arrived at our current state we must look to the past and examine the biological and cognitive processes of even our most distant animal relatives.

It is for this reason that the study done by Daniel I. Brooks and Robert G. Cook entitled Chord Discrimination in Pigeons is useful to those who wish to understand the origins and evolution of human perception of music. The cognitive processes that help us identify the melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic components of music must have had some precursors in non-human primates, according to Brooks and Cook.

The focus of this study is interval perception in pigeons. Brooks and Cook note that interval perception is an interesting perceptual skill to study because it is so important to the way humans perceive differences between individual pitches and melodies. Finding out how it functions and develops in other species is the first step to understanding how it developed in humans.

Studies on musical perception and discrimination in animals have been done on a number of species, including songbirds and primates, but they have never been done on non-songbirds such as pigeons. Two new experiments were reported in this article. Experiment 1 involved training the pigeons with chords developed from the C major scale. Pigeons were trained in a go/no-go task to distinguish a C major triad from 4 other triads, each of which differed from the C major triad by one semitone (the no-go triads were C minor, C suspended 4, C flat 5, and C augmented). Pigeons were given food reinforcement when they pecked after hearing a C major triad, and no reinforcement when they pecked after hearing one of the other four triads. The training took place over fifty sessions. As the training progressed, 3 out of 5 pigeons successfully learned to discriminate among the five triads. The augmented triad was shown to be the easiest for the pigeons to identify as no-go (no pecking), while the other triads proved to be of variable levels of difficulty. This experiment revealed, for the first time, that non-song birds are able to discriminate between triadic chords differing by only one semitone.

In Experiment 2, a second set of triads was added to the discrimination test. These triads were the same type, but were based on a D root. The assumption was that if the pigeons has learned the general harmonic configuration of the chords (the relations between the notes), then they should be able to transfer this recognition to chords with a new root. This test proved more difficult for the birds, and while they were still inclined to recognize the augmented trias as no-go, they were not as successful in general in identifying go versus no-go triads.

According to Brooks and Cook, these results suggest that pigeons are able to identify different frequencies but are not as adept at identifying the relationships between different frequencies played simultaneously. Previous research suggests that in the auditory domain, birds and mammals differ in their ability to use absolute versus relational stimuli. This is especially so with regard to their capacity to process the absolute value of pitch. It is speculated that in general, birds tend to recognize more the absolute value of pitches, while mammals tend to recognize relationships between pitches.

When comparing the results of this study with other studies done on similar topics, such as the discrimination of chords in song-birds, or the discrimination of consonance and dissonance in humans, two interesting points present themselves and were mentioned in the general discussion section of the article. Firstly, as it has been shown through studies that song-birds can distinguish between chords, looking only at research done on song-birds might encourage one to assume that this ability could be the result of biological mechanisms responsible for learning songs, and therefore necessary for mating and survival as a species. However, since pigeons are non-song birds and this study suggest that they possess a similar ability to distinguish between chords, this is not necessarily the case. It seems that this ability is widely shared across birds as a class rather than just belonging to particular species for which it is a necessary survival skill. Secondly, further observations were made when the Brooks and Cook did studies on humans, asking them to define the relative consonance and dissonance of the same set of chords. Interestingly, humans and pigeons seemed to agree on many things, for example that the augmented 5 triad was the most different, or easiest to distinguish from the major triad. This may suggest while cultural conditioning plays a role in our perception of harmonies, there is a unified account that can be made of harmonic perception among all species.

Reflection:

Neurological descriptions and explanations of absolute pitch in humans are still unclear and unproven. In many ways this phenomenon is a mystery for neuroscientists and musicians alike. It is interesting, and also somewhat refreshing, to learn from this article that some animals may find using absolute pitch easier and more natural than using relative pitch, while in my experience the reverse is most often the case for humans. When I was in my first year in university, one of my professors said to the class ‘ok, if you have perfect pitch put up your hand.’ When those with the skill identified themselves, a sort of smile crept over his face that seemed to say to me ‘be envious class, these are the special people.’ Indeed my experience with opinions about absolute pitch from a cultural standpoint is that it is highly valued and admired, more so than relative pitch.

Do other species have a reversed hierarchy of importance for the skills of relative and absolute pitch? Perhaps this is the case for pigeons. So it causes me to wonder, why does this happen? Why do species prefer one skill over the other? What does this say about the nature of the two skills? Is absolute pitch a learned skill, or is there a gene that bestows some species, or some people, with the power to instantly recognize frequencies? If it is learned, then why do some people seem to display the skill so quickly and accurately that it appears to be automatic, while others can only use the skill in certain situations and with much less accuracy? If it is genetic, then do humans with true absolute pitch actually have a gene that was passed down from their aviary ancestors, while others discarded this gene in favour of some sort of ‘relative pitch gene?’ Is the absolute pitch gene recessive? Could it possibly go extinct like the gene for red hair?

Summary: Neurologic Music Therapy in Cognitive Rehabilitation

2011-10-16T20:43:00.000-07:00

Title: Neurologic Music Therapy in Cognitive Rehabilitation
Author: Michael H. Thaut

Reference: Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal
Vol. 27, No. 4 (April 2010), pp. 281-285
Published by: University of California Press
Article DOI: 10.1525/mp.2010.27.4.281
Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/stable/10.1525/mp.2010.27.4.281

Neurological Music Therapy in Cognitive Rehabilitation, by researcher Michael H. Thaut, looked at the development and applications of neurologic music therapy to cognitive rehabilitation.

The Role of Music in Cognitive Rehabilitation

In the field of neurologic music therapy, the role of music in cognitive rehabilitation (CR) has been the last domain to come into full focus (Thaut, 2010). Thaut explains that the applications of music to CR were not studied well in the past in comparison to music’s role in motor therapies or speech/language rehabilitation. The article further states that over the past 50 years, very few studies have examined how music influenced cognitive functions in a therapeutic context on a theoretical basis.

Another factor that hindered the progress of this area of research is more technical oriented, in that there were limitations to cognitive brain research from a neuroscience perspective before the advent of noninvasive research tools to study an intact functioning human brain (Thaut, 2010). It was between 1985 and 1990 that brain imaging techniques began to fully develop, and they were not readily available to musical brain research. The refinement in brain-wave measurement techniques through the EEG and MEG, has produced a new basis for biomedical research in music cognition and rehabilitation.

Links Between Music and Cognitive Functions

This ongoing research has shed new light on the intriguing links between music and a variety of cognitive functions, including temporal order learning (Hitch, Burgess, Towse, and Culpin, 1996), a spatiotemporal reasoning (Sarntheim et al., 1997), a spatiotemporal reasoning (Sarntheim et al., 1997), attention (Drake, Jones, and Baruch, 2000; Large and Jones, 1999), and auditory verbal memory (e.g., Deutsch, 1982; Glassman, 1999; Kilgour, Jakobson, and Cuddy, 2000; Thaut et al.,2005; Chan et al., 1998; Ho el al., 2003).

“Efforts have been put forward to examine models how music can remediate cognitive functions” (Thaut, 2010). Thaut reports that evidence has been found for divided attention mechanisms in song between processing of lyrics and processing of music (Bonnel, Faita, Peretz, and Besson, 2001). It is reported that very important connections between music and nonmusical memory formation have been laid out by Deutsch (1982). His study shows how some of the “fundamental organizational processes for memory formation in music- based on the structural principles of phrasing, grouping, and hierarchical abstraction in musical patterns – have their parallels in temporal chunking principles of nonmusical memory processes” (Thaut, 2010).

Shared Mechanisms and Brain Systems

The Rational Scientific Mediating Model (RSMM) was developed “to provide a systematic epistemology for translational research in music and rehabilitation” (Thaut, 2005).

Memory
According to various studies, music has been shown to serve as an “effective mnemonic device to facilitate verbal learning and recall in healthy persons, patients with memory disorders, and children with learning disabilities” (e.g., Claussen and Thaut, 1997; Gfeller, 1983; Maeller, 1996; Wallace, 1994; Wolfe and Hom, 1993).

In a recent study of patients with multiple sclerosis, Thaut (2005) reports that they were able to show that word lists from Rey’s Auditory Verbal Learning Test were “significantly better learned and recalled when presented and rehearsed via song as a rhythmic-melodic template vs. the usual spoken presentation and rehearsal”.

“Recent research also has shown that musical memories may survive longer than nonmusical memories and may be functionally available and accessible for persons with neurologic memory disorders such as dementia or Alzheimer’s disease” (Baur, Uttner, Illmberger, Fesl, and Mai, 2000; Crystal, Grober, and David, 1989; Cuddy and Duffin, 2005; Halpern and O’Connor, 2000; Haslam and Cook, 2002; Samson, Dellacherie, and Platel, 2009; Son, Therrien, and Whall, 2002; Vanstone and Cuddy, 2010; Vanstone, Cuddy, Duffin, and Alexander, 2009).

Due to the nature of music as a “highly salient emotional stimulus”, as described by Thaut (2010), he suggests that “music-based memory training in dementia and Alzheimer’s disease may therefore facilitate a shift in accessing this amygdale-based neuroanatomical network” (Thaut, 2010).

(In)attention and Neglect

There has been some evidence that shows that music can be an effective training modality in the areas of neglect training. In the 1990 study of Hommel, Peres, Pollak, and Memin proposed that the “beneficial effect of musical stimulation for overcoming visual neglect as a result of right hemispheric lesions due to stroke or traumatic brain injury”. The application of music stimuli was proven to enhance visual perception in neglect states.

Executive Function and Emotional Adjustment

Thaut (2010) states that the psychological functioning of patients as part of their executive control has always been a critical aspect of treatment. Neurologic music therapy has been found to be successful in addressing the treatment of psychological issues (Kleinstauber and Gurr, 2006; Nyak, Wheeler, Shiflett, and Agostinelli, 2000). In a recent study (Thaut et al., 2009), specific techniques in neurologic music therapy were shown to improve cognitive retraining in traumatic brain injury rehabilitation. In the study conducted by Thaut and colleagues, neurologic music therapy techniques were examined in regards to its relation to musical attention training, musical executive function training, and musical memory training. Following the study, data were measured “before and after a single therapy session and compared between the music condition and a standard neuropsychology condition” (Thaut, 2010). The results indicated that “after a single intervention, memory and attention did not show any significant improvement in either condition” (Thaut, 2010). However, executive function was significantly improved.

This study concludes that a new model for linking music learning to retraining the injured brain has emerged, allowing the study and application of music “efficiently as a complex multisensory stimulus to cognitive rehabilitation” (Thaut, 2010).

Reflection

“Research has shown that music can serve as an effective mnemonic device to facilitate verbal learning and recall in healthy persons, patients with memory disorders, and children with learning disabilities”(e.g., Claussen & Thaut, 1997; Gfeller, 1983; Maeller, 1996; Wallace, 1994; Wolfe & Hom, 1993).

Music is a powerful intervention tool. Having had the opportunity to utilize music therapy in special education, I can personally attest to the importance of crafting a musical activity, based on the ability and need of the student. As an example, I devised a music exercise to teach a young student, who was diagnosed with a moderate learning disability, basic mathematic skills. The student was administered 6 thirty minute music therapy sessions per week with the end result being a student who developed the ability, through music intervention, to learn the basic fundamentals of addition and subtraction, to the amazement of his teachers.

Musical memories may be retained longer than non-musical memories. This statement yet again validates the relevance of music and memory retention. Throughout my various encounters with diverse populations in the field of music therapy, I have also seen, how senior citizens with a mid-stage dementia diagnosis, have the ability to recall scales with the correct fingering, having been absent from practical music for more than 75 years. These older students find this “rediscovery” encouraging, as at later stages in life, one is often conditioned to focus on loss rather than retention.

Overall, I have found this article to be applicable in my interest to stay abreast of the latest research and findings in the area of neurologic music therapy. Furthermore, it will be studies such as this, which will assist in propelling the image and validity of music therapy in memory intervention in society.

Dance in the Piano Studio

2011-10-16T14:10:00.000-07:00

Source:

Seitz, Jay A. "Mind, Dance, and Pedagogy." Journal of Aesthetic Education 36. 4 (2002): 37-42.

Summary:

Aesthetic movement - or "dance" - has traditionally been used mostly in early education but recently, educators have begun to examine the role of kinesthetic learning in all levels of childhood learning. A basic definition of aesthetic movement is that it consists of reflective gesture - the imitation of reality. We see this occurring naturally in young children who use parts of their body to mimic objects in the world, such as arm flapping to describe a bird or plane. Dance is also used to express emotion, which we see in the way modern dancers use their bodies to convey pathos. Jay Seitz refers to the work of Rudolf Laban, who claims that the use of movement specifically in arts education increases artistic expression in children, even more so when children are encouraged to engage in movement from a young age.

Reflection:

At some point between kindergarten and grade 1, children are expected to sit quietly for extended periods of time. While this is probably to keep classroom chaos to a minimum, it does not make as much sense in the private piano lesson setting. I began formal piano lessons at age four and I recall being reminded before each lesson that I should "sit still and listen carefully." Sitting still for thirty minutes! Although I was a quiet child, I likely had trouble holding my perfect piano posture for what would have seemed like hours. Thankfully, today's piano lessons are less rigid and I have the freedom to engage my students in movement activities right from the beginning. I have found they are able to relate motions to music better than if I simply explained. Marching is an excellent way of feeling the pulse while making flowing arm gestures illustrates legato and phrasing. I've also noticed that beginning the lesson with dancing uses up energy, meaning the student will be able to "sit still and listen carefully" later on.

Most significantly, dance helps my students feel the spaces between the notes. Piano students often fall into the habit of simply pressing the keys without thinking of the relationships between them. Engaging students in "continuous flow" activities develops their auditory imagery to hear the links between notes, which in turn leads to a more musical and intentional sense of phrasing.

This article helped me to place my students' physical abilities on a general timeline. Between the ages of three and four, children are able to mimic jumping and marching but they may have trouble balancing and performing more precise actions. By ages five and six, they have mastered skipping, and they are able to mimic geometric shapes and animals. Understanding these stages will help me to tailor movement activities to the specific abilities of each student and I am already enjoying the process of creating fun and increasingly complex exercises as my little students grow in physical and musical awareness.

From singing to speaking: facilitating recovery from nonfluent aphasia.

2011-10-16T13:59:00.001-07:00

Reference:

Schlaug, Gottfried, Andrea Norton,Sarah Marchina, Lauryn Zipse,and Catherine Y Wan. "From singing to speaking: facilitating recovery from nonfluent aphasia." Future Neurology Sep. 2010; 5(5): 657-665.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2982746/?tool=pubmed

Summary:

Aphasia is an impairment of language ability that ranges from having difficulty remembering words to being completely unable to speak, read, or write. This disorder usually develops quickly as a result of head injury or stroke, but can develop slowly from a brain tumor, infection, or dementia. Of the estimated 750,000–800,000 new stroke cases occurring in the USA each year, approximately 25–50% present with some form of aphasia. Nonfluent aphasia is caused by damage to or developmental issues in anterior regions of the brain, including the left posterior inferior frontal gyrus known as Broca’s area.

Recovery from aphasia can happen in two ways using a recruitment process, which is an increase in the response to a stimulus owing to the activation of additional receptors, resulting from the continuous application of the stimulus with the same intensity. The first type of recovery consists of the recruitment of perilesional brain regions in the affected hemisphere, with variable recruitment of right-hemispheric regions if the lesion is small. The second type of recovery consists of the recruitment of homologous language and speech-motor regions in the unaffected hemisphere if the lesion of the affected hemisphere is extensive. Patients with large left-hemispheric lesions that result in severe nonfluent aphasia typically do not show a good natural recovery nor do they appear to be as responsive to traditional speech therapy methods as patients with smaller lesions or other types of aphasia.

Melodic intonation therapy (MIT) is an intonation-based treatment method for nonfluent or dysfluent aphasic patients that was developed in response to the observation that severely aphasic patients can often produce well-articulated, linguistically accurate words while singing, but not during speech. The intonation works by translating prosodic speech patterns (spoken phrases) into melodically intoned patterns using just two pitches. The higher pitch represents the syllables that would naturally be stressed (accented) during speech. Compared with nonintonation-based speech therapies, MIT contains two unique components: the melodic intonation (singing), with its inherent continuous voicing, and the rhythmic tapping of each syllable (using the patient’s left hand) while phrases are intoned and repeated.

In one of their previous studies, the authors compared two patients with similar speech output impairments and similar lesion sizes. One was subjected to MIT and the other to a control intervention termed ‘speech repetition therapy’. Both interventions yielded significant improvements in propositional speech that generalized to nonpracticed words and phrases, but the MIT-treated patient gains surpassed those of the control-treated patients. Since MIT incorporates both the melodic and rhythmic aspects of music, it may be unique in its potential for engaging not only auditory–motor regions on the right but also nonlesional regions in the affected left hemisphere. The following image shows diffusion tensor imaging scans of a patient before and after an intense course of melodic intonation therapy.

There is a visible increase in the size (number of fibers and volume of tract) of the right arcuate fasciculus after therapy (B).

Research has shown that both components of MIT are capable of engaging fronto–temporal regions in the right hemisphere, thereby making it particularly well suited for patients with large left hemisphere lesions who also suffer from nonfluent aphasia. Treatment-associated neural changes in patients undergoing MIT indicate that the unique engagement of right-hemispheric structures (e.g., the superior temporal lobe, primary sensorimotor, premotor and inferior frontal gyrus regions) and changes in the connections across these brain regions may be responsible for its therapeutic effect. However, despite several small case series, the efficacy of MIT has not been substantiated and its neural correlates remain largely unexplored. Research

Reflections:

The research conducted by Gottfried Schlaug & al. explores new approaches to traditional therapy for patients with nonfluent aphasia. It is encouraging to discover that melodic intonation therapy engages the right fronto–temporal network through two unique components: melodic intonation and left-hand tapping. This leads to improvement in spontaneous language skills, therefore increasing the recovery rate of patients. Although approximately 1,000,000 people in the USA suffer from aphasia, reliable and standard treatment methods have not been established for this disorder. More case studies have to be conducted on the efficacy of MIT, as well as understanding the specific differences within the brain between singing and speaking, in order to implement this therapy as a standard treatment process.

As a voice performer, I always find that it is much easier and faster to learn the poetry of a song by singing it and taping the rhythm at the same time. I often tap the rhythm by clapping the hands, using conducting gestures, or even dance if it is a dance rhythm. It seems that the more body parts you have working in synchronism, the faster the brain memorizes the musical patterns. When reading this article, I was not surprise to learn that MIT was proven to be a more effective therapy for patients with nonfluent aphasia, as opposed to simple speech therapy. If a patient has a lesion in the speech area of the brain, it will be difficult to stimulate that area with speech, since it is this specific area of the brain that has been affected. By contrast, singing stimulates more areas of the brain, therefore implicating regions of the brain that do not have lesions. This seems to be the reason why the recovery process is more effective when singing for patients with nonfluent aphasia.

Brain-Compatible Music Teaching Part 2: Teaching “Nongame” Songs – Susan Kenney, 2010 23: 31General Music Today

2011-10-16T06:23:00.000-07:00

Summary

The article begins with a summary of the previous article entitled “Brain-Compatible Music Teaching”. She revisits the idea of whole song learning instead of breaking it down into phrases and students echoing the musical material. This methodology allows the brain to make meaningful connections through patterning when singing.

In this article, the author explores the brain-compatible assumptions that are consistent with the way we learn music. Firstly, in order to learn a song the brain must hear it many times. This is validated through popular music on the radio, where the listener starts to sing along after multiple listenings. Secondly, the repetition must be meaningful to the learner. This means that students learn songs best through games or activities instead of simply singing. Yes students make take longer to learn the song itself, but their learning will be more meaningful in the end with a focus on the process instead of the product. Finally, the best way to learn a song is through whole song learning, which encourages the brain to find meaningful patterns within parts of the whole.

Children may learn music in these three ways, but what about songs that do not easily lend themselves to actions or games? For these songs, educators can encourage movement to the beat. As the teacher models the whole song, encourage tapping games on different parts of the body. After students are comfortable with the beat, start to develop skills through metre by modeling tapping with an accented beat and conducting a pattern to the song, all while singing the whole song. Remember to take time for repetition, as the brain needs to process all of the new movements along with the melody, and do not be discouraged if some students have not yet sung along with the tune.

Another method of instruction is antiphoning, where the teacher begins the phrase and drops out as the student finishes it. This is more effective then echoing because it encourages students to finish the pattern rather then mirror it. The entire lesson must be rather brief to keep the students attention, but it can be continued next class with the following additions.

One is the use of instruments, where students are invited to play the drum on the accented first beat and move to the weaker beats. Or, if drums are not available, students can play along with the rhythm on rhythm sticks. Auditory Figure-Ground is the next technique used. Here the teacher gives clues about an important word in the song and encourages students to discover it. Once it is discovered, the students start to recognize similar patterns within the music. This exercise could also be done with rhythm patters, where the teacher shows a pattern in the music and students must hunt to find where it occurs again. Finally, you need to give students an opportunity for solo singing whenever possible so you know where they need help.

An important aspect of brain-compatible teaching is how many different skills students can build through learning a song. Instead of just reaching one expectation, the student is achieving multiple expectations at the same time. As long as we remember the cycle of learning a new song (sensing information, integrating information into meaningful wholes, and transforming the meaningful wholes into action) then we can use this brain-compatible teaching technique in each of our classes.

Reflection

Since reading the first article in this series I have started to incorporate whole song learning in my primary music classroom. Students were frustrated at first because it was not simple echoing, but they were also engaged in learning to “figure out” the patterns within the music. There were points however where I reverted back to echoing to correct mistakes and secure pitches. Now I am going to incorporate some of these techniques, such as antiphoning and auditory figure-ground, in place of simple echoing to check for understanding.

I’ve already begun incorporating movement through beat and rhythm in my classes and encourage students to move along with the music. I also emphasize the accented beat one through use of passing a bean bag around the circle, shakers, and tennis balls bouncing on the down beat. The students have really enjoyed these activities and my next step is to incorporate accapella singing during them. We’ve started to locate patterns in the music already, but it’s mostly teacher lead at this point. I think my next step will be asking the students to find and identify the rhythmic and/or melodic patterns as suggested in the article.

I enjoyed reading this article because it already aligns with my way of teaching. I don’t have to question her motives and whether or not the methods work because I’ve seen them in action. I like that I can pull new, practical ideas from this article that encourage music literacy with scientific support. In my music classroom I try and align our topics with our school-wide math and language program to re-enforce those concepts while teaching musical ones. The response from my colleagues has been positive as the students demonstrate their understanding in their homerooms. I look forward to adding these new techniques to my repertoire and discovering more in the classroom.

2011-10-15T19:29:00.000-07:00

How it feels to have a stroke!

featuring Jill Bolte Taylor

on TEDtalks

paste: http://youtu.be/UyyjU8fzEYU

Summary:

Uploaded by TEDtalksDirector on Mar 13, 2008

http://www.ted.com Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened -- as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding -- she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story about how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another.

Reflection:

Over the past number of weeks in our "Music and Brain" class, we have been exposed to a whole new world of knowledge focused primarily on the brain and our obsession as humans to understand its mysterious qualities and ways. Jill Bolte Taylor takes you in, to her personal space, a narrative story of her moments before, during and after having a stroke. By the end of her story, you'll have a deep sense of the uniqueness of both the right and left hemispheres of the brain. Although a very serious medical situation for anyone, she presents her experience of a stroke using humour at her stories core. A spiritual person, she conveys a deep sense of grace and apprecation for the gift that life is. Towards the end of her presentation, she says that it was during her stroke that she found nirvana - that transcendent state in which there is neither suffering, desire, nor sense of self, and the subject is released from the effects of karma and samsara. In hope, she suggests that all of us can find this nirvana too, and that one doesn't need to have a stroke to feel it or find it.

While music isn't mentioned in this presentation, as a musician, I found her explanation of the right and left brain to be informative and 'eye-opening.' When I sit at the piano and compose a piece of music, for worship, for a wedding, an anniversary or a memorial service, I lose the sense of time and I am inspired and energetic throughout the process. My right brain appears to be guiding my creativity and sense of accomplishment. At times, what feels like 30 minutes, in actual time is about 4 hours. During this creative time, I believe that I sense nirvana - it almost feels like an out of body experience. Contrary to this feeling of freedom, is the frustration I feel when practicing on the 5-manuel organ at Metropolitan United Church. A late starter on this instrument, I have been studying for a short 3 years. For me, my time spent on the instrument is one of frustration, focus, fatigue, with few moments of feeling satisfied. I have no sense of nirvana! It is clear, that during the times that I spend studying the preludes and fugues of Bach, my left hemisphere is doing its best to manage my music-making; with feet playing the correct pedal notes, my hands on different keyboards articulating appropriately, my eyes focused on the complex page of Bach's notation and my ears evaluating whether I am playing correctly or not. It all seems very technical!

Jill Bolte Taylor, in her presentation for TEDtalks has brought some clarity to my understanding of how my brain works when I am making music! Her presentation really is a "stroke of genius!"

How one’s favourite song activates the reward circuitry of the brain: Personality matters!

2011-10-12T12:10:00.000-07:00

Source:
Axmacher, N., Montag, C., & Reuter, M. (2011). How one’s favorite song activates the reward circuitry of the brain: Personality matters! Behavioural Brain Research 225, 511-514. Retrieved October 2, 2011, from Scholars Portal Journals
<http://resolver.scholarsportal.info/resolve/01664328/v225i0002/511_hofsatcotbpm>

Summary:
Researchers Christian Montag, Martin Reuter, and Nikolai Axmacher at the University of Bonn in Germany investigated two intriguing questions in the neuroscience of music and emotions. First, they wanted to compare brain activity when one listens to one’s favourite song and when one listens to one’s most unlikeable song. Second, they wanted to find out how this brain activity might relate to one’s personality traits, particularly the traits of “self-transcendence” and “absorption abilities”.

The researchers conducted their study on 33 undergraduate psychology students, who first had to complete two questionnaires for personality assessment: the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) and the Tellegen Absorption Scale. Then, the participants listened to their favourite and most unlikeable songs for three minutes each via earphones in the fMRI machine.

Citing the results of another study that linked the activity of the nucleus accumbens (ventral striatum) to the peak of experienced positive emotionality and the activity of the caudate nucleus to the anticipation of that emotional peak, the researchers hypothesized that there would be substantially increased activity of these areas when listening to the self-selected pleasant song as compared to the self-selected unpleasant song. The statistical fMRI analyses confirmed this. There was significant activation of the insula and the cuneus as well.

The researchers also hypothesized that participants with high scores in the traits of absorption (according to the Tellegen Absorption Scale) and/or “self-forgetfulness” (a subscale of the “self-transcendence” trait in the TCI) would demonstrate higher activity in the ventral striatum when listening to their favourite songs. But surprisingly, the results revealed a negative correlation between “self-forgetfulness” and ventral striatum activity. That is, people who described themselves as being prone to absorption by music or other arts were actually not so absorbed while listening to their favourite songs. The researchers explained that perhaps these individuals needed another surrounding – other than a noisy fMRI setting – or needed to feel more intensity and closeness to the arts to achieve the state of absorption.

Reflection:
I am really fascinated by the results of this study. In my opinion, the fact that the results indicated a negative correlation between “self-forgetfulness” and ventral striatum activity, even though the researchers expected a positive correlation between the two, perhaps points to the inherent difficulty of conducting a scientific investigation of such a subjective matter as individual emotional responses to music.

I think that there are many factors involved here. First of all, I do agree with the researchers that some people could find a noisy fMRI setting distracting, thus preventing them from becoming absorbed in the music. But I am not so sure that there is a clear connection between the tendency towards self-forgetfulness and the need for a different surrounding to become immersed in music. I think that listening habits simply vary among individuals. Some people listen to their MP3 players in noisy public spaces and still seem to be really absorbed, as they tap their feet, nod their heads, or hum along. Others prefer to enjoy music in a quieter, more private space; perhaps alone at home. I do not believe that those who require a more peaceful environment are necessarily less or more self-forgetful. For instance, certain individuals, regardless of whether they are highly self-forgetful or not, may just happen to have very sensitive hearing and simply cannot enjoy music in a noisy surrounding, even if they might love to otherwise. I would have liked to see what sort of questions were on the TCI questionnaire and what my “self-forgetfulness” score would be. (Unfortunately, I could not find a (free) online version of the TCI.)

More importantly, it seems to me that there is a difference between being moved by the music and being moved by the music to an emotional peak, which is what ventral striatum activity is supposed to indicate. I would imagine that reaching an emotional peak is a gradual process that might take longer or shorter depending on the individual. This was not taken into account in the present study, since each listening session invariably lasted three minutes.

Related to this is the fact that some music just requires more time to unfold. What if my favourite piece of music is, say, Barber’s Adagio for Strings? The duration of this piece is approximately ten minutes. The music gradually builds to a climax around seven minutes into the piece and the ending fades away. Listening to just the first three minutes might be insufficient to give me the experience of an emotional peak. The same result would perhaps be expected even if I were to listen to three minutes of music around the climactic moment, as this excerpt would be completely out of context; a peak cannot exist without the build-up to it.

Nevertheless, as a performer, I am very intrigued by the link of ventral striatum activity to the peak of experienced positive emotionality. So instead of just having participants listen to music, in the future, I hope that it would be possible to conduct a study that measures the ventral striatum activity of performers and listeners in a setting that more closely resembles a concert. I would be especially curious to know whether there would be high ventral striatum activity in both performers and listeners at the same moments during the performance. Put another way, would the listeners be more likely to become absorbed by the music when the performers themselves are? Or would the listeners be more likely to achieve the state of musical absorption when the performers are more objectively in control of their performance?

Still a Performer

2011-10-11T17:15:00.000-07:00

Reference:

Article: “Still A Performer”

Extracted from: Article Collection- Boston.com

Author: Linda Matchan, Globe Staff

Date: October 8, 2011

Link: http://articles.boston.com/2011-10-08/yourtown/30258468_1_piano-students-teaching-piano-cantors

Summary:

The news article, “Still A Performer,” which appeared on the Boston.com article collection describes the lasting impact that a lifetime filled with musical experiences can have on an individual. At 82-years of age, Naomi Kliman, regularly demonstrated her musical expertise through daily performances of a variety of piano repertoire. The former music educator and piano teacher of nearly 65 years still played “with vigor and passion”, despite her age, and also, exclusively by memory. Ironically, Kliman lives in an assisted living facility, within a unit for people with dementia. She suffers from Alzheimer’s disease and can remember very little from the last 50 years. Although her lengthy teaching career put her in touch with over 1000 students, when asked, Kliman says that she had 100. And, upon turning 80, she could no longer recognize her own piano, even after having played it each day of her adult life. Through the progression of the Alzheimer’s, however, one thing that has stuck with Kliman is her musical prowess and love for performing.

Within the facility that Kliman resides, the piano is located in a common area, but has had to be locked away when not in use. Due to Kliman’s incessant nature to play the piano constantly, it is important that it be out of sight, during times when the musical entertainment would be bothersome to the other residents. She automatically resorts to performing whenever she is able, which, according to John Zeisel, president of Woburn-based Hearthstone Alzheimer Care and cofounder of the Artists for Alzheimer’s (ARTZ), a nonprofit organization that develops cultural experiences for people with the disease, serves as evidence that sufferers can remember parts from their past including who they are. Zeisel believes that musicians with Alzheimer’s revert to activities from their past which gave them enjoyment and created their identity.

Zeisel refers to the biochemistry that occurs when an individual engages in a meaningful activities, such as when Kliman performs music on the piano. These acts of enjoyment cause neurotransmitters to be released in the brain, and they become addictive behaviours, in order to continue on the high. Alzheimer patients and those who suffer from dementia search for skills that allow them to foster a connection to their past identities, and once they find them, they want to keep this association alive. Zeisel believes that it helps the individual to feel as though they are themself once again, as opposed to being a “sick person.” Kliman proved her past musicianship as she played, daily, for the residents at the assisted care facility where she resided, and despite her declining memory from off the piano bench, it is easy to see that some parts of this 82-year old are as sound as ever.

Reflection:

This article, depicting the untainted level of musicianship that an individual suffering with Alzheimer’s disease is able to maintain, holds promise in the growing field of research in music, health and medicine. Kliman’s ability to effortlessly perform classical music that was learned decades earlier, by memory, despite her inability to remember who she is or even recognize her own instrument, speaks volumes to how dementia affects one’s brain and memory. Through the study of individuals affected by Alzheimer’s like Kliman, who demonstrate the lasting skills of musicianship, researchers will be able to begin to map the areas of the brain that are most impacted by this disease. These understandings may then be useful to assist doctors with earlier detection of the onset of dementia, and may even be able to help slow the progression of memory loss within patients. The possibilities are vast.

John Zeisel, president of ARTZ, described patient’s sense of identity that resulted from engagement in activities that they used to enjoy, such as making music. The satisfaction and return-to-oneself that musical activities provide to patients supports the use of music as a means of therapy, in these situations. Monitoring the change in a patient’s motor skills, memory and cognition before, and after the musical experience could also lead to greater understanding of how our brains process music, and in turn, how music cognition influences other brain functions. Both music and medical disciplines stand to benefit from this research, as there seems to be a growing connection between the two fields.

Finally, when one considers both the release of positive endorphins and neurotransmitters in the brain, in addition to the sense of self-identify that music brings to Alzheimer’s sufferers, one also begins to question whether music could be used to restore and retrain one’s brain, as the disease progresses. Knowledge about the cerebral areas to which dementia wrecks havoc, as well as those regions which control musical activities, could be used to help restore the broken connections or to assume control of the functions that have been lost through the disease. There is research yet to be done, and understanding to gain, however, one cannot argue with the definitive delight and relief that music brings to those with dementia.