There are certain activities that seem to stimulate the brain more than others: music appears to be one such activity.
There is no question about the role of music in this respect. Music is a fundamental human activity, and making music probably preceded making conversation. Most tribal groups celebrate through music, particularly dancing, which stimulates both body and mind.
That music has been credited for stimulating the brain is also not new. American neurologist Oliver Sacks has famously popularised this issue through books such as Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, where he highlighted the effects of music on patients with various neurological disorders.
The so-called ‘Mozart Effect’, where background music was claimed to improve productivity by not only calming the nerves but also by enhancing concentration and mental activity, has now been rather watered down. However, this concept still highlights the fact that there is indeed something special about music and its systemic and cerebral effects.
At a recent conference on neuroscience in San Diego, California, several papers were presented, which confirm the not inconsiderable effect of music on brain activity.
Gottfried Schlaug from Harvard Medical School concludes: “Playing a musical instrument is a multisensory and motor experience that creates emotions and motions – from finger tapping to dancing – and engages pleasure and reward systems in the brain. It has the potential to change brain function and structure when done over a long period of time.”
Note that the emphasis is not on passive listening to music. Engaging and stimulating the brain requires a deeper involvement, as when playing a musical instrument.
Schlaug states that: “Intense musical training generates new processes within the brain, at different stages of life, and with a range of impacts on creativity, cognition, and learning.”
Another group of researchers from Beijing University found that there were actually demonstrable changes in the brain, particularly those areas associated with hearing, language production and self-awareness in those who began music lessons before the age of seven. They concluded that: “Early musical training does more good for kids than just making it easier for them to enjoy music; it changes their brain and these brain changes could lead to cognitive advances as well. Our study provides evidence that early music training could change the structure of the brain’s cortex.”
These researchers believe that musical training has “various cognitive benefits, such as better working memory, pitch discrimination performance and selective attention”.
This effect of childhood musical training seems to have a lasting effect. Adults who learned to play music as children seem to have a “faster brain response to speech sounds”.
Another report by Julie Roy from the University of Montreal finds that musical training seems to be particularly effective in enabling the individual to tackle “multisensory processing”, thus separating and discriminating between information coming from the various senses.
She said: “We live in a multisensory environment where auditory and tactile information are processed together to give us the perception of the world as we know it.”
These findings were confirmed by Ana Pinho from the Karolinska Institute (Stockholm), who used functional MRI techniques that allow visual demonstration of which parts of the brain are actually functioning at any particular time. Professional pianists, she finds, have increased functional connectivity between various parts of the brain.
Every child should be encouraged to learn to play a musical instrument from an early age
It looks likely, therefore, that the ancient Greek philosophers, like Plato and his mates, were right in emphasising the over-riding role of music in providing an important basis for education.
We cannot avoid the conclusion that expanding the brain is a much more important function of education than cramming for examinations. Every child should be encouraged to learn to play a musical instrument from an early age.
It is also becoming more clear that the brain is not a museum of collected artefacts: it has an innate plasticity, a capacity to react to stimuli resulting in increased speed of communication and creating new shortcuts and bypasses. Active mental activity, including active participation in music-making, enhances this plasticity.
Particularly in an age where one of the commonest conditions affecting our ageing population is brain degeneration and dementia, music participation could be used as a tool to prevent or at least delay the inevitable.