For
most of us, music is an ever present element in our lives. Look down
any busy city street and you witness a spectrum of musical activity,
from the haggard guitarist panhandling on the corner, to the high-end
department stores blaring upbeat pop in front of their stores to attract
customers, and not to mention the countless number of pedestrians
toting oversized (and overpriced) headphones, lost in their own personal
soundtrack as they go about their day. Whether we take an active
interest in it through singing or playing an instrument, or if we are
simply passive consumers, music permeates our daily experience.
Differences between the passive and active participants are glaringly
obvious to anyone. Most of us consider ourselves as either being musical
or not. I know I’ve never considered myself at all musical. In my case,
a childhood fascination with music was curtailed by a
less-than-supportive orchestra teacher that informed me that I just
“wasn’t cut out for it”. But for a select portion of the population,
music has been an integral part of their lives since childhood. So the
question that comes to mind is, what fundamental differences arise
between those of us with the ability to produce music and those of us
who cannot? A number of psychologists and neuroscientists have looked at
this question and offered some fascinating insights into the contrasts
between the “musical brain” and the rest of us.
One psychologist who has extensively studied the development of so
called “musicality” is Gary Marcus, a cognitive psychologist at New York
University. In his book, “Guitar Zero”, Marcus chronicles his adventure
towards becoming a musician at the tender age of, well, thirty-eight.
Marcus approaches a myriad of questions and topics on the subject of
musical talent and learning with the rigor of a seasoned research
psychologist, but is also able to bring the insightful, and often
comical, musings of a man conquering his limitations. Marcus is, of
course, not the only researcher interested in music and its relation to
the brain. A recent article on the New York Times website summarizes the
work of several researchers in the realm of auditory research. A
majority of the article illustrates several examples of musical
trainings benefit on the brain and how it may help facilitate various
auditory tasks in subjects. Researchers at Northwestern have found that
the effects of musical training are robust, in that their benefits
persist even after training has stopped. Specifically, individuals who
had received musical training at some point in their lives were more
adept at recognizing things like pitch. The ability to recognize and
discern differences in pitch is an ability that Marcus details
throughout his book. As someone who studies evolutionary psychology as
well, Marcus is particularly interested in the idea of someone
possessing an “absolute pitch” or perfect pitch as it is known more
colloquially, an ability that would seem to be aided by a certain
confluence of genes that may lead to better auditory hardware. Evidence
for this can be seen in studies performed on infants, in which the
infants show an ability to recognize changes in pitch and rhythm. But a
point made by both Marcus and the article is that this seemingly inborn
propensity for music is nothing without training. Researchers at the
University of California in San Francisco are attempting to tease out
the contributions that genes make in the ability to recognize pitch, but
have made clear that such abilities will only manifest themselves in
the presence of musical training. 
What is it about musical training that allows an individual to discern
things like pitch? Well, like any type of learning, music training
relies on the concept of brain plasticity, or the brain’s ability to
rewire itself. The brain has an unparalleled ability to reshape itself
as we learn and this reshaping leads to improved skills in areas such as
those that are responsible for our ability to discern sounds.
Differences in the brains of musicians vs non-musicians is a well
documented phenomenon. Notable characteristics of the trained musician’s
brain can be found in regions of the brain employed in music. Areas
such as the planum temporale, an area that has been equated with pitch
perception, have been shown to develop differently in musicians. These
studies also can show us how areas of the brain with large roles in our
other faculties can play a contributing role in music. For example the
cerebellum, an area of the brain usually associated with motor
coordination, is also responsible for the sense of rhythm necessary to
produce music. Other brain areas can be dually utilized in music and our
other facilities, which seems to be the case when studying the subject
of language.
Both
language and music rely heavily on rhythm and pitch in their
comprehension and so are likely relying on the same processing areas in
the brain. Talk to any native English speaker trying to learn Chinese
and they will tell you how important pitch and rhythm can be to a
language. Tonal languages, like Chinese, rely on different intonations
and pitch when trying to confer meaning. Marcus’s contribution to this
area of discussion draws heavily on his evolutionary background. Marcus
points to the medley of brain areas involved in music that have been
observed over the years with the help of brain-imaging technologies.
What he and other neuroscientists can infer from that is that there is
no single module in the brain responsible for music. Instead, it draws
on areas of the brain that have evolved to be implemented in other areas
of perception and have just recently become utilized in music.
Researchers at Northwestern’s Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory are
addressing questions similar to the ones that Marcus addresses in his
book. They are looking at tasks that are likely implemented in both
music and language learning, things such as working memory and making
“sound-to-meaning connections”.
So
what is the overall message we can draw from work by Marcus and others?
I would like to think it is all about the idea of potential. We, as a
species, can take parts of ourselves, of our brains, that evolved to do
things completely outside the realm of music, and create works of art.
Songs that persist in the collective milieu of culture for centuries.
Songs that can inspire. Songs that can humanize. Songs that push the
boundaries. I believe that, in most cases, the esteem that most
societies have placed on musicians can be well founded. Musicians can
take the very essence of human experience and put it to a melody, give
it a rhythm, and make it accessible to anyone willing to listen. But
there is no reason we cannot all do that in some way. It may not be in
the way Jimi Hendrix or the Beatles have, but it can still be something
profoundly real to you. Something that captures the very core of you, if
only for a few brief minutes. I believe music, art in general really,
can be our most veracious endeavor. And for people like Marcus, an
endeavor that knows no “critical period”, no defined time to blossom.
Marcus’s success in learning the guitar at such an age, however modest
he made it seem, speaks volumes of potential and of the benefit of
concerted effort. Such an effort can overcome the greatest barriers
erected in our psyches by ourselves, or in some cases by others, and
help us achieve the goals we once thought impossible, just as impossible
as Marcus once believed it would be for him to rock.
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