Music (Page 5)

Music plays a part in our evolution (as well as climate change!), because learning to play a musical instrument changes the brain in ways that lead to improved learning and understanding of language.

In LiveScience.com, Rachael Rettner reports that musicians have larger areas in the parts of the brain that are important for playing a musical instrument, and the connections created between brain cells during musical training help other forms of communication, such as speech, reading and understanding a foreign language. This means that cutting out music class (as many schools are doing) may be a BIG mistake.
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Better to just LISTEN – Most of the time research is important, but sometimes it’s not. For instance, to fully enjoy your next trip to the symphony, you may want to listen to the music before you read the notes provided in the program. Research results suggest that reading program notes before hearing music can significantly lessen a listener’s enjoyment!

Music theorist Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis explains: “Listeners are less likely to simply let the music wash over them if they have read a description–they are more likely to listen in terms of the concepts just encountered.” She says that struggling to listen conceptually may inhibit a sense of flow, which studies have shown to be critical to many types of musical enjoyment.
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Teaching stroke victims who have lost the ability to speak to sing again can “rewire” their brains so they can speak again as well. And music isn’t just important for the old: Neuroscientists now think that music training should start in kindergarten and go through high school, because music helps shape the sensory system (this is at a time when most schools have eliminated music classes).

In BBC News, Victoria Gill tells the remarkable story of a woman whose “speech center” was damaged (a common aftereffect of a stroke) who learned to talk again by putting the words she wanted to use into melodies.
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A philosopher once wrote a book in which he asked the question, “What is music?” He described a group of acolytes who had stayed up all night debating and biting their nails over that koan. We know that we’re related to primates but as far as scientists can tell, monkeys have no interest in music. They prefer silence.
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