Do You Hear What I Hear?

     The ability to listen comes quite naturally for most of the human population, except in cases of hearing impairment.  Listening, for obvious reasons, has many advantages to humans from the ability to engage in communication and away to intake surroundings and information as part of awareness.The brain is constructed in such a way that even before birth babies are already taking in the sounds that surround them such as heartbeats, their mother's voice, and other bodily sensations like breathing.  During infancy, babies learn to differentiate between sounds partially in language breakdown; their neural network changes to reflect what the baby hears.  The act of listening starts early in life and begins to lay the foundation for language structures long before a child even learns to speak.  What's even more amazing then the brains ability to listen to absorb language is its ability to listen to music. 

     In Guitar Zero: The Science of Learning to be Musical, by Gary Marcus, listening is a huge part of Marcus's discussion since the ability to listen plays a key role within learning and understanding music.  Listening to music, like language, starts during infancy, and shares some of the same characteristics.  Listening to music is also not a learned skill in the same sense as learning to be musical is; learning to sing or play an instrument takes directed focus and practice, but listening comes more naturally.  Humans are all expert listeners and the ability to listen to music between musicians and non-musicians are surprisingly very similar with not a huge difference.

     Marcus' discussions about the act of listening, whether be language or music, holds much truths in terms of recent neuroscience research that is emerging.  An article posted in Daily Science, Listening to music lights up the whole brain, discusses groundbreaking fMRI research which supports much of what Marcus discussed about all the brain facilities involved in simply listening to music.  Listening to music is not merely a simple act; listening to music engages the whole brain from more technical aspects to emotion.  Maybe this is why music has such a profound effect on people... their mind is activated in a dynamic way!

     This dynamic activation of the brain most likely plays a large role in the fact non-musicians and musicians are apt to both being experts in music listening. Marcus writes about research done by Emmanuel Bigand who sought to find the differences between the two groups.  In the the end, regardless of training, "the average listener comes to know implicitly many aspects of the formal structure of music.  Untrained listeners won't necessarily be able to articulate that knowledge; professional musicians can often describe what's going on in a song with far more precision than mere listeners can (Marcus 151)."  In summary, listening can be honed in through a trained ear and declarative knowledge, but listening itself is at entry level into musicianship.  The research done through fMRI shows that music listening is encompassing which shows that trained skill is not needed for the task of listening; the brain takes on listening tasks with vigor.

     The researchers that conducted the fMRI studied in the Daily Science article (their experiment can be found here http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811911013000) "found that music listening recruits not only the auditory areas of the brain, but also employs large-scale neural networks (Listening to music 3)."  This found strong correlations of music activating motor areas of the brain and music activating the limbic system.  Music is closely related to movement, and Marcus discusses this in his book on multiple occasions; one of the most compelling aspect of movement Marcus touched on is when he attended a Dalcroze method class where learning music at a young age was brought about through movement! The fMRI research supports movement being deeply embedded with music.  Not only did Marcus touch on music's relationship to movement but also to emotion.  Parts of the limbic system are huge players in our emotional states, and it is easy to say on a personal level that music effects mood.  Marcus acknowledges that emotions and emotional intelligence play roles in music whether as a listener or a creator; music is written with emotion and achieves its purpose when the listener and feel it through his or her emotions. 

    Music listening is a gateway into the world of music and takes place as soon as hearing facilities are developed.  Marcus, as a student of music, saw how basic listening is to the world of music and further sought research to help show how powerful listening is whether one is a musician or not.  Recent research also helps to show captivating listening to music is for the brain.  Music is not simple in any way and lights up the brain in a vast network of connections from the way music makes one feel to driving beat behind it.

New Article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111205081731.htm