Why Musicians are Superior to Non-Musicians

      I like to consider myself a pretty skilled musician. I love all sorts of genres of music, from electronic to classical to disco. I am very passionate about the power of music, and the experiences that can come from expressing yourself through music and dance. I am a pianist, and I DJ for fun. I’ve read before that because musical training requires a very unique style of learning and a particular focus, musicians tend to be more intelligent. According to research done by Dr. Dye, musicians seem to perform better in social situations as well. Dr. Dye is a researcher who has done a lot of work involving music and neurology, and how the musician’s brain works differently, and may I even suggest, better, than non-musicians. He came to Loyola University Chicago a few weeks ago and talked to us about his research. His presentation inspired me to look more into the relationship between music/musical training and cognitive development.

     Christian Gaser addressed exactly how the brains of musicians and non-musicians differ in his article aptly named “Brain Structures Differ between Musicians and Non-Musicians.” In this experiment, musician status was weighed into 3 different categories, professional musician, amateur musician, and non-musicians. Gaser found that there was a significant positive correlation between musical experience and gray matter volume in a number of areas of the brain, including the primary motor area, somatosensory area, premotor areas, anterior superior parietal areas, and in the inferior temporal gyrus bilaterally. In order words, the positive correlation means that gray matter was highest amongst professional musicians, moderate in ameatuers, and lowest in non-musicians. The left cerebellum in professional musicians was also more developed and more gray matter was seen there. It is important to note that the study actually did not find any area that had less gray matter or was less developed in relation to musician status. The study also discussed how each of these areas are used in certain musical tasks which helped explain why more gray matter was seen in those areas. For example, the superior parietal region is responsible for processing auditory, visual, and somatosensory stimuli in order to guide the motor cortex. So because musicians require such fine-tuned hand-eye coordination in order to read and interpret sheet music and then play it on their instrument, this part of their brain is much more developed. This is especially important during musical tasks like sight reading where a musician is expected to be able to instantly recognize, understand, and play sheet music. Understanding music in such a way can be simply translated to non-musicians by comparing sheet music to a set of instructions that must be closely followed, quickly and accurately. Years and years of practicing this sort of fast reaction to get your body to respond physically to a visual stimulus further explains why musicians’ brains differ drastically from non-musicians. In other words, musicians ask their brains to work with information and translate it to another part of their brain so much that the connections between those areas are used much more than in a non-musician’s brain. Finding this information led me to ask, what exactly makes a musician? How do they develop their talents and affluence for music?

     An article by Bret Stetka explains that affluence for music actually is present within your genome. And despite how vigorously you may practice your instrument, “greatness,” or finding immense success in your musical talents and pursuits, is influenced by whether or not musical greatness is in your genes. There are certain traits that attribute to musical aptitude, musical enjoyment, and motivation, and, if present, has the potential to positively affect someone’s musical ability. It was found that the people who had the genetic contributions to their musical ability were also more likely to regularly practice their instrument, which also happened to mean that those people would see more efficient progress in their abilities than those who didn’t have the genetic contributions. It is not as simple to say that anyone with those genetic markers is a better musician, but I found it very interesting that genetics played a significant role in potential success with music.

Gaser, Christian. "Brain Structures Differ between Musicians and Non-Musicians." Journal of Neuroscience, 4 Sept. 2013. Web. Feb. 2017. <http://www.jneurosci.org/content/23/27/9240>.

Stetka, Bret. "What Do Great Musicians Have in Common? DNA." Scientific American, 01 Aug. 2014. Web. Feb. 2017. <https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-do-great-musicians-have-in-common-dna/>.