Music in the Noisy World

For decades, society has been fascinated with music's impact in seemingly limitless aspects. Gary Marcus's Guitar Zero discusses the influence of learning to make music in many topics ranging from specific brain regions to genetic influences and finally dedication. The first few chapters of his book mention that predicting great musicians by solely looking at brain structures and scans is near impossible. It appears that there is no specific musical area within the brain. This is hard to believe because of the large benefit that comes from music training.

Even the act of listening to music releases dopamine and causes individuals to feel happiness and comfort. Marcus’s long journey of learning to play guitar, while well into his adulthood, stemmed from his love of music and interest in creating his own. He mentions being incredibly disappointed as a child upon failing to learn to play the recorder and his feeble attempts at music lessons. Many children and even adults can connect with this feeling. Personally, music has been an enormous part of my life. However, listening to it is unfortunately the best I can do. I took piano lessons for many years, and was quite successful. Unlike Marcus, I was never interested in creating my own, I just wanted to be able to replicate the songs I loved and once I gained the skills needed I quit.

Even with just a few lessons like Marcus or years of experience, a study done by Skoe and Kraus shows the long lasting impacts of music training persists into adulthood. Unlike Marcus’s focus of learning in adulthood, the article discusses how training in childhood affects the brain for the long term. By recording auditory brainstem activity to sound, they found an increase directly correlated with the amount of training received. Music training can shape brain development to improve differentiation between speech and sound.

This finding may not sound incredibly important because many people do not realize how difficult this can be. Not only does a better ability to differentiate help detect speech within noise, but it is also found to facilitate understanding of foreign languages. Kraus and Skoe write that “akin to physical exercise and its impact on body fitness, music is a resource that tones the brain for auditory fitness.” The benefits of just a few years of music training are immense in improving performance on everyday listening tasks.

It would be interesting to see if these same implications are found in people such as Gary Marcus, or if the neuroplasticity of the brain is more limited in auditory brainstem responses as we age.