Musicians' Brains Wired Differently???

[Tedster]

This comes courtesy of Associated Press, through David Gross' "Punmaster's Music Wire"... Musicians' Brains Wired Differently SAN DIEGO (AP) - The brain waves of professional musicians respond to music in a way that suggests they have an intuitive sense of the notes that amateurs lack, researchers said Wednesday. Neuroscientists, using brain-scanning MRI machines to peer inside the minds of professional German violinists, found they could hear the music simply by thinking about it, a skill amateurs in the study were unable to match. The research offers insight into the inner workings of the brain and shows that musicians' brains are uniquely wired for sound, researchers said at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. Neuroscientists often study how we hear and play music because it is one of the few activities that use many functions of the brain, including memory, learning, motor control, emotion, hearing and creativity, said Dr. Robert Zatorre of the Montreal Neurological Institute. ``It offers a window onto the highest levels of human cognition,'' Zatorre said. In a study by researchers at the University of Tuebingen, the brains of eight violinists with German orchestras and eight amateurs were analyzed as they silently tapped out the first 16 bars of Mozart's violin concerto in G major. Brain scans showed professionals had significant activity in the part of their brains that controlled hearing, said Dr. Gabriela Scheler of the University of Tuebingen. ``When the professionals move their fingers, they are also hearing the music in their heads,'' Scheler said. Amateurs, by contrast, showed more activity in the motor cortex, the region that controls finger movements, suggesting they were more preoccupied with hitting the correct notes, she said. Scheler, a former violinist with the Nuremberg Philharmonic Orchestra, said the findings suggest that professionals have ``liberated'' their minds from worrying about hitting the right notes. As a result, they are able to listen, judge and control their play, Scheler said. ``Presumably, this enhances the musical performance,'' she said. In a second experiment, the violinists were asked to imagine playing the concerto without moving their fingers. Brain scans showed again that the professionals were hearing the music in their heads. Zatorre, who has studied the brain's response to music for two decades, said it was the first time anyone had studied music and its relationship to motor control and imagery.

[TRiP Project]

For me, hearing it in my head has always been the easy thing, the hard thing is getting it out there in the air so everyone else can hear it... I guess that's the real trick isn't it?

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[quote]Originally posted by Tedster: [b] Neuroscientists, using brain-scanning MRI machines to peer inside the minds of professional German violinists, found they could hear the music simply by thinking about it, a skill amateurs in the study were unable to match. [/b][/quote] They don't mention whether they think that's a skill you're born with or one you develop... I think it's a skill you develop, although maybe some people are born with a better chance at developing it than others...? [ 11-15-2001: Message edited by: popmusic ]

[Steve LeBlanc]

[quote]said the findings suggest that professionals have ``liberated'' their minds from worrying about hitting the right notes.[/quote] Well, that the basic goal when trying to learn an instrument right? [quote]They don't mention whether they think that's a skill you're born with or one you develop...[/quote] Not directly but I think it's implied when they say Amature/Professional. I could be wrong but I think they're defining an Amature as someone who has worked on learning music through study/practice but never made it to the professional level for whatever reason...perhaps their brains aren't wired for it? I don't know...that's how I interpret the article...can't see any other reason for the study.

[Tedster]

I just thought it was interesting. We all know that there are some people who want to be musicians, (whether first chair violinists or playing bass at the Dew Drop Inn on Friday nights...) but in all honesty will never have the chops for even the simplest gig. Others take to it like a duck to water. There is such a thing as natural ability, whether it's for music, academics, athletics, what have you.

[dansouth]

It IS interesting, but I'd like to see more data on the people in the study. Are these "amateurs" people who took some lessons as a kid and play occasionally, or are they people like the non-professionals on this forum, extremely capabable musicians who can imagine and create music with relative ease. Maybe they should analyze the brains of MP contributers. (No THERE's a scary thought!)

[BobSanders]

I wonder what prompted this study? Anyway we all know that place called the zone where your playing effortlessly without thinking and your whole being seems connected to your instrument. When I started playing these times were few and far between but now after thirty years of playing I can find that place fairly easily. I think it's just part of the natural progression of musicianship you can attain if you stay focused.

[videoeditor1]

just three questions... 1. What's a "mozart"? Is that one of those "african american" abbreviations?? Like mo' money? 2. Who's concerto? Is that like, a concert promoter or something? 3. What does TC Electronics' "G.Major" have to do with this test? Or does "G-major" denote a rank of major in the german Orchestra? Curious, non musicians would like to know, so we can jump in on a piece of the action..... NYC Drew

[jeff strong]

I wonder what prompted this study? (My first post. I have no idea how to place a quote). Anyway, this seems to be a follow-up study to a series of experiments conducted at the University of Texas starting about 8 years ago (called "The Manhattan Project for the Brain"). The only differences between this study and the UT one is that UT used piano players for the experiment and employed PET scans instead of the fMRI. As far as whether this is learned behavior, it is. Study after study is showing that the more exposure someone has to music, even listening, the more active certain areas of the brain become, particularly those related to "higher" brain function. There is quite a community doing studies on this kind of thing. In fact, we've been looking at how music effects the brain for over 10 years now (and finding out some really interesting stuff). There's a great database that has a ton of articles on MusicMedicine (the term for this field of research). [url=http://imr.utsa.edu/CAIRSS.htm]web page[/url] Jeff

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[quote]Originally posted by strong@reiinstitute.com: [b](My first post. I have no idea how to place a quote). [/b][/quote] Hi Jeff... Welcome aboard! To place a quote, click on the icon that looks like two black quotation marks at the top of the post you want to quote from. From there, you can edit down the quote however you'd like (but it's a good idea to leave the UBB tags in place -- they're the things that have a [ and ] around certain words like QUOTE and QB.

[Chip McDonald]

[quote]Originally posted by Tedster: [b]Musicians' Brains Wired Differently[/b][/quote] What, this is a surprise? [b]minds of professional German violinists, found they could hear the music simply by thinking about it, a skill amateurs in the study were unable to match.[/b] This is funny, I've never gone a moment in my life where I'm *not* hearing music in my head. This isn't normal? [b]``When the professionals move their fingers, they are also hearing the music in their heads,'' Scheler said.[/b] How else can you do music?????? Are they saying there's people that play music without hearing it in their mind at the same time? How else could they do it if they're not hearing it in their mind? [b]Amateurs, by contrast, showed more activity in the motor cortex, the region that controls finger movements, suggesting they were more preoccupied with hitting the correct notes, she said.[/b] Then maybe the amateurs were remembering *themselves* playing it. This study doesn't mean anything without the qualification of whether or not the testees knew how to play the piece of music on their respective instruments. [b]``liberated'' their minds from worrying about hitting the right notes. As a result, they are able to listen, judge and control their play, Scheler said.[/b] ? Isn't that what everyone is supposed to do? How do you think about the right notes without actually hearing them internally? [b]In a second experiment, the violinists were asked to imagine playing the concerto without moving their fingers. Brain scans showed again that the professionals were hearing the music in their heads.[/b] This would explain "a lot", but I find it hard to believe there are people that don't hear music in their head.

[dansouth]

[quote]Originally posted by Chip McDonald: [b]``When the professionals move their fingers, they are also hearing the music in their heads,'' Scheler said.[/b] How else can you do music??????[/quote] If you learn only to read music instead of playing it by ear, you may not know what it sounds like until you've played it. As a lad learning to play the trumpet, this was a common experience. Classical students overcome this when they learn sight singing, but until they reach that point, they play new music without knowing what it will sound like first. It's like following a road map and not knowing where you're going, but you end up there as long as you don't make any wrong turns.

[KikkyMonk]

I absolutly HATE stuff like this. What if im not wired for music then what. Or what if my IQ isn't high enough. Its all crap that makes you feel bad... unless you happen to be some of the few. Just the other day I was about to take an IQ test but I realized that I really don't want to know what my IQ is. It might limit my thinking of what I can do. Bleh! Dave

[timrocker]

This study doesn't mean anything without the qualification of whether or not the testees knew how to play the piece of music on their respective instruments. Hehehe... He said "testes" Hehehe... :D :rolleyes: :D

[Chip McDonald]

[quote]Originally posted by dansouth@yahoo.com: [b] If you learn only to read music instead of playing it by ear, you may not know what it sounds like until you've played it. [/b][/quote] But it's assumed the test SUBJECTS (attn. Mr. Rocker) had heard this music before... [b] As a lad learning to play the trumpet, this was a common experience. Classical students overcome this when they learn sight singing, but until they reach that point, they play new music without knowing what it will sound like first. It's like following a road map and not knowing where you're going, but you end up there as long as you don't make any wrong turns.[/b] I don't think that's what they're refering to, though? My problem as a kid was that it was always obvious where the music was going after the first two notes; so my reading always sucked because I never actually bothered to do it. Pretended to, though.

[Chip McDonald]

[quote]Originally posted by KikkyMonk: [b]I absolutly HATE stuff like this. What if im not wired for music then what.[/b][/quote] Then figure out what you're wired for, then. I think everyone has a "switch" that's marked "DO NOT THROW" that should be the purpose of everyone's life to figure out. If there is any cosmic non-existential purpose to human existance it would have to be that I'm convinced. [b] Or what if my IQ isn't high enough. Its all crap that makes you feel bad... unless you happen to be some of the few. Just the other day I was about to take an IQ test but I realized that I really don't want to know what my IQ is. It might limit my thinking of what I can do. [/b] Your general I.Q. has nothing to do with your musical ability, although it helps IMO. I've encountered people who are probably marginal, IQ of low 90's perhaps, who have a good ear in respect to picking out something. But they don't have the means to put anything together on their own, or understand what they're doing. Likewise the best they can do is very limited. I've encountered smart people who try to use their intelligence to overcome lack of musical ability. Works to a degree - ultimately fails, music is too deep to empirically slog through. Achieving synergy is always best. I think it's telling one assumes Sting is a smart fellow. Or your more technical musicians - Morse, Holdsworth, etc. It's funny, I've taught a lot of people guitar, a few who have gotten to a level where it doesn't make sense to try to analyze things with standard musical nomenclature. Right now I've got a student who knows technically as much as I think he should know, but he keeps pouting "why is it when you play it automatically sounds good?". I try to tell him it's not the scale or interval I just played, or however you want to describe it, but that it's the book I read last night (Lance Armstrong's bio), or a great movie (North by Northwest?), or knowing there's people at Harvard making matter whose atomic number exceeds 300, or that a relative died, or the great chicken tom kha soup I had monday, being beat up as a kid, or the hay bales Monet painting at a museum in Florida, or the way comet Hayakataki(sp) looked scarily gigantic to the naked eye, or the curiously foamy developer used to make an offset printing press plate, or the expression on a woman's face when... ...well, I'd better stop.. The point being, it's interesting what they think they've found, but they really haven't found anything at all relative to music itself. They should have included an equal number of classical music fans familiar with Mozart; that would have made the results more telling and interesting. As well as a test group presented with the music briefly, and then asked to remember it. It wouldn't reveal *why* they think as they do, though.

[Botch.]

This reminds me of a Kurzweil demo I witnessed years ago, the salesman asked for a classically-trained pianist in the audience to come up and try the new 250. She began playing a rather fast, intricate piece (kinda like "Flight of the Bumblebee" and about halfway through, with an impish grin, the salesman pushed a button which reversed all the tones on the keyboard, i.e. the bass notes were to the right and high to the left. She scowled and said, "Put it back the old way!", but HER FINGERS KEPT GOING!!! When he pushed the button again she apparently hadn't missed a note, and finished the piece!! Now, that kinda tells me her fingers had "memorized" the pattern they had to play, but the finger-hearing feedback that would've made me stop dead in my tracks was obviously not there in her cerebral cortex/nerve system/ether/whatever. Very, very surprising!!

[jeff strong]

[quote]Originally posted by popmusic: [b] Hi Jeff... Welcome aboard! To place a quote, click on the icon that looks like two black quotation marks at the top of the post you want to quote from. From there, you can edit down the quote however you'd like (but it's a good idea to leave the UBB tags in place -- they're the things that have a [ and ] around certain words like QUOTE and QB.[/b][/quote] Aha! Thanks

[jeff strong]

[quote]Originally posted by KikkyMonk: [b]I absolutly HATE stuff like this. What if im not wired for music then what. Or what if my IQ isn't high enough. Bleh! Dave[/b][/quote] You could always play drums. :D Seriously, there doesn't seem to be a correlation between musical aptitude and IQ. In fact, people with William's Syndrome often have severe developmental delays and learning disabilities yet they often exhibit incredible musical abilities. Jeff BTW: I'm a drummer [ 11-16-2001: Message edited by: strong@reiinstitute.com ]

[Empty Planet]

Just on the training note, here's a quick quote... "I began playing guitar with no sense of timing and tone-deaf. So it's wholly preposterous that I'm a professional musician. It should give hope to anyone, frankly." That's Fripp. He might well have been placed on the "non-musician gene" side of the test when he started, but now...? :eek:

[meccajay]

<> True indeed!! Ive been around the most illiterate, ignorant cats who play circles around anyone you could think of....just think about the be bop, rock, blues and country virtuosos this nation has produced, not everyone's got the highest of IQ's. *wink wink*

[surfjunkie]

[quote]Originally posted in the medical journal "Well, [i]Duh![/i]" [b]The brain waves of professional musicians respond to music in a way that suggests they have an intuitive sense of the notes that amateurs lack, researchers said Wednesday.[/b][/quote] interesting article, though. that research link (CAIRRS) is good, too.

[KikkyMonk]

I wasn't saying that there is a correlation between musical talent and IQ what I am saying is it would suck if you really wanted to do something, but you were unable to because you weren't wired for it. My cousin wanted to be a fighter pilot, but the fact that he wore glasses made it impossable for him to do it. Its those damn little 8 year olds playing virtuistic parts that piss me off. I'm into my 20s and since I didn't grow up playing an instrument I missed my chance to be a killer player. Or maybe I'm just wired wrong. Dave

[Curve Dominant]

[quote]posted by Chip MacDonald: [b]a great movie (North by Northwest?)[/b][/quote] That IS a great movie! One of my all-time favorites! I love that scene where Cary Grant and Eva-Marie Saint are alone in her train cabin at night, making out...and he says, "How do you know I won't kill [i]you[/i]," and she says, "[i]Please dooo..."[/i] You KNOW he hit that booty HARD that night after a comment like that! E :)

[Tedster]

[quote]Originally posted by KikkyMonk: [b]I'm into my 20s and since I didn't grow up playing an instrument I missed my chance to be a killer player. Or maybe I'm just wired wrong. Dave[/b][/quote] I don't think so, Dave...and I certainly didn't post the article to degrade anyone here. I think that people are here *because* they have a gift, and I was using the article to ask the question "Why do some people take naturally to music, and some never do?" Everyone's got tons of relatives that don't play...and probably couldn't play much. You have the rest of your life to become a killer player. That doesn't mean you have to be the next Holdsworth or whatever...it just means you ought to keep moving until you're having fun with your playing. No one can argue with that!

[Lee Flier]

Sheeesh, they should have spent their money on something worthwhile... I didn't need a study to know that musicians' brains are wired differently... --Lee

[Chip McDonald]

[quote]Originally posted by Curve Dominant: [b] That IS a great movie! One of my all-time favorites! I love that scene where Cary Grant and Eva-Marie Saint are alone in her train cabin at night, making out...and he says, "How do you know I won't kill [i]you[/i]," and she says, "[i]Please dooo..."[/i] You KNOW he hit that booty HARD that night after a comment like that! E :) [/b][/quote] Great subtle expressions in that movie. Borders on the absurd, but in a clever way that keeps you watching. Grant was one cool cat. Eva - classic. Hmm. Actually (here I go thinking too much) all of those guys back then had really uniquely cool voices. When Grant delivers that line it has a weird flavor to it: "how do you knOWw I won't keill you?" - just like the old Jimmy Stewart movies. A truly peculiar accent, odd pacing, but classically great and unique - like Sean Connery's voice. Only people that come to mind today with such a similarly "musical" spoken voice is Christopher Walken and Patrick Stewart (I consider Nicholson and Hopper in a borderline transitory period....). Again, though, trying to wrestle this back on topic - how appreciating such things makes one a better musician is what's going to take a lonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng time to figure out. Trying to convey that to a student is a trick unto itself. Being able to hear music in one's head is only part of it (not that I believe there are people that don't. Just like I also don't believe there are people that dream in black and white.).

[Chip McDonald]

[quote]Originally posted by Lee Flier: [b]Sheeesh, they should have spent their money on something worthwhile... I didn't need a study to know that musicians' brains are wired differently... -Lee[/b][/quote] At least they could ask some musicians what they thought would be the way to go about the test. How'd thursday go? Sorry I couldn't make it....

[miroslav]

[quote]Originally posted by Lee Flier: [b]...I didn't need a study to know that musicians' brains are wired differently...[/b][/quote] Badges?...badges?...ve don' need no stinkin' badges!!! :D

[Kendrix]

Interesting thread i have a few points. 1) Based on yours truly I beleive at least some of us are wired for music genetically. Some of my earliest memories are of deeply appreciating music and then trying to pound it out on my little primary colored xylophone. I've always been able to hear the stuff in my head. Im certain this was not learned behavior. Maybe it can be learned. But I was wired for sure. Some people are truly tone deaf- they cant learn their way out of this. Some people just cant keep a beat. Pray for them. 2) Did anyone ever think that it might be all the drugs that make the musicians brains act differently? They need to control for this in their experiments. :D :D :D