Cognitive Neuroscience Applied to Music and Music Education

by Dr. Mark Pihowich

With specific reference to “This Is Your Brain On Music” by

Daniel J. Levitin

Perception and Physical ProcessesOrigins of music

• To study the biological origins of music, we need to look back 50 000 years. Some think music is “cheesecake” (frill) but now it appears it may be a precursor to speech and have had function in selecting mates as well.

• The lowest pitch the human ear hears is very close to the frequency that moving pictures begin (27 pictures per second) P. 26

• As light is colorless, color only exists in the as pitch exists; in the mind translated from frequency. (pitch and frequency are almost the same) p.22

• Melody is an auditory object that retains its identity in spite of transformations (Happy Birthday for example)p.27

• If 440 is played into your ear with electrodes attached to the auditory cortex, your auditory cortex will emit electrical activity at 440Hz (p.29)

• Tempo recall varies 4% for average listeners. (P.61) All cultures have arrangements of strong and weak beats.

• Doubling a sounds source adds only 3 db. 120 = pain. The ear compresses messages at 4 to 1 for the ie. 4db received = 1 db transmitted. (P. 70-71)

• The human ear hears simple integer relationships as consonant (eg. 1:1, 2:1, 3:2) but not a tri-tone which is half an octave but 41:29 (p.74)

• Sounds that start together are perceived as together (eg. oboe and trumpet) but difference in onset times of milliseconds can be determined. Time, timbre, pitch and amplitude help differentiate sounds.

• We have an ability to locate based on milliseconds of reverb and time of arrival. ie echo location

• Musical activity involves nearly every region of the brain and neural sub-system (p.86)

• Auditory processing systems can work on many things at once (unlike computers) because of the exponential connecting capability of thousands of neurons. (p.88)

• As Noam Chomsky believes, we are hard wired to learn any of the world’s languages.

• Levitin believes we can learn any of the world’s music (p.109)

Right and Left Brain

• Although oversimplified –shows musicians with increased training move some processes from the right to the left. Children show less lateralization of process then do adults whether they are musicians or not. – (p. 125/6)

• Pitch is left hemisphere, timbre is right (Ravel lost left hemisphere – Bolero) (p.127)

• Babies are thought to be “synesthetic” or experiencing life with every sense.(p.127) As a child grows, neural connections are “cut and pruned”. Music and speech start out with the same neural pathways.

• The cerebellum (oldest part of the brain) handles rhythm and movement but is also strongly attached to the emotional. (p.175) note: dyslexia is related to a timing deficit in children’s auditory systems. (p.177)

• Emotions were originally for survival (fear etc.) and is also movement is more effective with steady motion. (p.183)

• The amygdale, midbrain and frontal cortex which are involved with reward, motivation and arousal are also associated with intense musical emotion (p.189) and the ventral striatum , which releases dopamine is as well. (pleasure can be blocked with dopamine inhibitors to inhibit musical enjoyment)

• One year olds can recognize music heard in the womb (head turning) (p.224)

• Babies (9 months) recognize any scale with differing intervals as an adult recognizes a major scale. But adults only recognize the scales that have evolved with them. This demonstrates that scales of unequal interval patterns are easier to follow for humans as well.

• Auditory development begins with the ability to detect contour, this leads to babies having an easier time encoding consonant intervals. (P4,P5 as opposed to aug4) (p.228/9)

• Studying music for music’s sake increases the size of the corpus callosum, which connects the two hemispheres. (P.226)

• Under the age of 8, children have a hard time not being distracted, for example, singing rounds as their frontal lobes and cingulated gyrus connection is not fully formed. This connection can be improved or speed up with exercises (Mike Posner – NASA attention and concentration exercises) (p.230) Try singing row, row, row your boat.

Understanding and Higher Level Thinking

• Listening to Music requires Higher Level thinking (p14)• Pitch, Rhythm, Tempo, Contour, Timbre, Loudness,

Reverberation combine on one level to bring the second level: Meter, Key, Melody and Harmony. This can in turn be advanced to a third level which would be aesthetic experience.

• A convention in English is that we end the sentence with a higher pitch to covey a question. This translates to many conventions in music (p.27) (for example in music: rising or falling stepwise or chromatic motion or timbre leitmotifs like Peter and the Wolf and where major =happy. (p.28)

• The brain can be said to function in accordance with Gestalt theory (the whole is understood but the parts not) when listening to a melody (p.76).

• Gestalt psychologists stipulate that perception is the product of complex interactions among various stimuli (as opposed to Behaviorists)

• Grouping is a visual process (for example, a forest to a lawn) and sound groups too (for example an orchestra or not hearing the individual harmonics of an instrument but a sound). Brains use “likelihood principal” to group many “sounds” as one. ( p.78)

• Abrupt, short loud sounds tend to be interpreted as a warning where long, slower, quiet ones can be calming (p.92) (note: This explains why loud and fast are associated).

• Joseph Hayden’s “Surprise symphony” provides a good example which also parallels the idea of expectation and musical meaning (p.92)

Listening Example Haydn “Surprise” Symphony

No. 94 2nd Movement

• The ear drum is simply a membrane but past experience helps us characterize sound (Gives us a bias)(p.102)

• Listening to music is feature extraction followed by feature integration or bottom up processing where top down is expectation. (p.103)

• Filling in is top down ,for example hearing a string of very fast notes heard as a gesture (which can also be clumping) (p.106/7)

• The brain deals with standard situations by creating “schema” which is a framework of characteristics for a given event. Schema is a form of clumping for manageability. (p.116)

• Large melodic leaps “violate” the “fill the melodic gap” schema and are resolved by step. Tonality or scale is generally the schema. This relates to equilibrium/disequilibrium as the definition of a healthy mind. In a musical piece, we can challenge some schema while simultaneously fulfilling others. (p.118)Within the brain, schema are neural codes somewhat higher than neural firings. (p.120)

How do we categorize music?

• Memory seems to be partly “constructivist” (ignore details and keep the gist) that it involves both hemispheres and the right tends to remember “metaphorically” or through other impetus than linear (eg. feelings) note: neither constructivist or “record-keeping” are entirely correct. (p.137)

• “Categories” are correct for memory but only so far as “family resemblance” The brain doesn’t reify. This could be known as “adaptive categorization”. In this sense the brain works differently than the process of scientific study as relationships are often isolated to study them at the expense of the whole. This system of categorization could be applied to the treatment of “standards” in jazz or theme and variation in baroque/classical. (p.142)

• Singers with perfect pitch when unable to hear their singing and forced to rely on muscle memory are only close within a third of an octave. This means that musical memory can’t only rely on muscle memory. This is experiment is accomplished by having them sing where they can’t hear themselves. (p.152)

• Song memory when there is a canon is quite correct for pitch and better for tempo and rhythm. Using EEG, memory and perception can be seen to be very similar which explains why visualization is effective as a technique. (p.154)

• Timbrel recognition is key even with a 1 second example, listeners can recognize. So, why don’t we spend more time studying timbre if it is a main way musical memory functions? It is because it is difficult to reify it for study. (p.155) Timbre recognition also applies to recognition of era and recording techniques (for example microphone technology) (p.157)

• Hierarchical encoding (different than a tape recorder) is used also used to remember.(singing back USA anthem looking for the word “at”; try this) (p.157)

• It seems that a hybrid “multiple trace” memory model (combination of record keeping and constructivist) exists (p.164)

• The more neural encodings you have in different categories (timbre, rhythm, pitch etc) the quicker and more precise your ability to invoke schema or like a style of music. (p.241)

Cross Cultural and Cross Curricular Implications

• Every known culture has an octave (2:1) relationship in its music (p.31) Men, woman and children often speak in octaves with each other which is one reason that the octave can be a meaningful relationship in many melodies. This leads to circularity in pitch perception which parallels circularity in the color spectrum.

• Teaching implication: All memories are recorded, including emotional, and can be recalled parallel to others, stressing the importance of the teaching atmosphere. Memory and emotional centers are in close proximity. Because music is processed through the cerebellum (among many other areas) listening to and “enjoying” a piece of music passes us through many of our previous pleasurable memories. (p.192) Dopamine release also reinforces the encoding of memory trace. (p.198)

• The 10 000 hours to expertise is true but it is difficult to determine to what extent differing potentials (genetic) influence this. (p.197) Mozart is often used to refute the 10 000 hours theory however, Mozart’s early works are known as curiosities only because his later works were excellent. (p.199)

• Neuro-chemical tags, however, are stronger when emotion is involved (positive or negative). The repetition of these tags combine to create a stronger memory representation. That is “caring” influences learning and this may be part of the “aptitude equation”.

• Memorizing in music (successfully) uses “chunking” (like phone numbers and area codes)eg. chord progressions, rhythmic patterns etc. – so teaching analysis should link with its usefulness to memorization. Rote memory is greatly facilitated by hierarchical organization. (p.218)

• Some people have a biological pre-disposition toward a musical instrument (eg. Oscar Peterson and Segovia’s hands) (p.206)

• It seems that genes are about 50% of the story (from current data) so we can predict percentage trends within a group but not individuals. (p.207) Usually, expressiveness (communication) is not taught but figured out by musicians and this is really what makes success (not just technical proficiency) (p.208) Movement and emotional cues are required to perform at the highest level

• Physical movements and “presence” affect communication. However, celebrity status and musicianship are separate. (p.210)

Systemic Educational Implications: Why Study Music?

• “Just a small exposure to music lessons as a child creates neural circuits for music processing that are enhanced and more efficient than for those who lack training.” (194)

• Study of Music in MS - children take on a real musical interest around 10 or 11 (ie. Middle School) This is when emotional tags act heavily upon neural transmitters and the corpus callosum matures. This is a very effective time to introduce musical study as it will heavily affect brain development in ways nothing else can. (p.231)

• Neuroplasticity in music and math extend beyond language (age 6) but only until about 20 yrs old and reduced after 16 years old. (p.233)

• Musical Schema (framework for understanding) s very important for understanding perceived complexity and “liking” music. (mylination of the brain is complete by age 20). If music is too simple (predictable) it tends to bore us as our schema is complex. We need some familiar landmarks to invoke a musical schema and a skilful composer can include these so as to help listeners understand their work. (p.234)

• Listening to music involves a vulnerability to surrender to its affect which can be a hinder enjoyment if a listener has unsafe associations or memories with the music (p.243) We learn schema from early childhood (of our musical culture) so this affects what we find familiar and safe. (p.246) SO.....

•Enjoy Music!