Scientists do not know of a culture
that doesn’t have some form of music. Theories of why music is a common feature
of all cultures include ideas such as it facilitates community and helps spread
information. Humans are not the only species that manipulate sound, all kinds
of animals use ‘music’ to attract mates, find food, and warn of impending
danger. What is it about music that makes it such a fundamental component of
human, and animal, interaction? Is it instinctual?
In 2012, researchers at McGill
University in Montreal studied the relationship between listening to music and
dopamine activity in the brain. They used fMRI technology to watch dopamine
levels in patients who were listening to music as well as anticipating
listening to music. The findings indicated that music increases dopamine levels
in the listener’s brain. In addition, different areas of the brain were
activated by different activities: listening to music and anticipating
listening to music. What does it mean that music has an effect on dopamine?
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that
plays a large role in pleasure, learning, even movement and is involved in
everything from drug addiction to Parkinson’s disease. One of dopamine’s most
well-documented roles is in reward-based learning. When a person gets rewarded
for some specific action, their brain releases dopamine, resulting in feelings
of pleasure. Over time, the person learns to associate the behavior with
pleasure, and continues to engage in the behavior. The finding that listening
to music, or thinking about it, releases dopamine in the brain is consistent
with the process of pleasure-based learning. So, it seems there is an intrinsic
reward for listening to music.
In Guitar Zero, Gary Marcus contemplates the notion of ‘music instinct’
in humans. There is research, he points out, that infants can tell the
difference between consonance and dissonance, recognize foreign rhythm
deviations, and recognize ‘relative pitch’. These are very basic understandings
of music, however, and they certainly don’t translate to the ability to play
instruments. As Marcus puts it, “Although…the rudiments of both rhythm and
pitch are in place by the end of the first year, a small initial sensitivity to
rhythm and pitch does not a symphony make.” (Marcus 25-26) So, is there a music
instinct?
Yes, but an intrinsic inclination to
enjoy music is different than the intrinsic ability to create music. As Marcus
learns firsthand, understanding and mastering a musical instrument requires
thousands of hours or practice. The ability to play an instrument and create
music on one is not intrinsic because it draws on many more complex abilities,
like learning the mechanics of an instrument or the arbitrary labeling systems
created by musicians. Of course an infant, or any untrained person, cannot
‘make a symphony’ because it requires understanding arbitrary symbolic
representations of real concepts: a ‘C’ will sound the same regardless of what
we call it. In addition, creating music requires learning to navigate an
instrument, a task that also has little to do with rhythm and pitch and much
more to do with the physical mechanics of the instrument in relation to one’s
movements.
Even though people cannot
instinctually sit down at a piano and play “Happy Birthday”, that does not mean
there is not an innate inclination to music. What really matters when listening
to music is understanding pitch and rhythm, tasks that one-year olds are capable
of. The case for a ‘music instinct’ is strongly supported by the evidence from
McGill University that listening to music releases dopamine. The human body
does not like to expend energy on things that don’t enhance its survival, so
the fact that listening to music, something that is often regarded as purely
aesthetic, has intrinsic biological rewards is really exciting news.
The intrinsic reward in listening to music is
probably one reason why musical novices devote literally thousands of hours to
learning to create music. Marcus learned firsthand that creating music does not
come naturally to the average person. It would be nice if a person could pick
up a guitar and just play, but that kind of talent is reserved for legends. The
rest of us will just have to stick it out and take advantage of the built-in
skills we do have, while working hard to fine tune the ones we must learn.
Marcus, Gary F. Guitar Zero: The New Musician and the Science of Learning. New York: Penguin, 2012. Print.
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