Hey, superstar!

Inside the mind of a Musician

Today I'm going to be talking a bit about what happens in our brains when we listen to and/or play music. In addition, I will also bring to light some of the benefits of music and what sets musicians apart from the rest.

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For starters, we should address the obvious question:

What is music (personally and also in general) ?

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Well, some might may say it is a form of expression, a sort of art. But lets leave the philosophy aspect of music and focus more on the objective components.

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In a nutshell, music is a complex process that derives from the culmination of various simples elements such as the ones that follow:

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The incredible variety of fundamental elements that compose music as we know it were first observed being processed with the use of FMRIs (Functional magnetic resonance imaging).

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This incredible technology allows specialists to observe brain activity in real time, as well as which parts are more active by identifying areas with high blood flow.

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With that in mind, scientist conducted experiments where they analyzed people doing different activities like talking, reading, etc, all of which displayed activity in different parts of the brain. However, when they made people listen to music their brain activity sky rocketed, activating multiple different areas at once, just like firework had gone of in the brains. 

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And so I invite you to listen

to the following piano piece and wonder

how the brains processes all of these different

elements and how they may be written in music sheets for people to play them, and, last but not least, what emotions you feel while listening to it

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Hope you enjoyed that! Moving on, here is the music sheet for the first seven compasses:

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As you can see, at the top you have the rhythm (116bpm), then you have mF which tells us the intensity at which the notes should be played, next, the colour and number of "legs" a note has defines its duration and their position on the lines dictates its pitch (if its a C or a F, for example.). Finally, the combination of multiple notes result in the harmony and melody of a song.

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But just how do we process all of this?

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Well, it all being in our ears. Sound waves make our eardrums vibrate. These vary according to frequency, wavelength and amplitude. After, these vibrations are passed on to our Cochlea, a snail shell like organ that has  hair cells that resonate differently according to the aforementioned characteristics of the wave creating varying nervous signals.

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These are then transmitted via the auditory nerve and end up at the auditive cortex, the main processing facility for sound in the brain. Nevertheless, the signal is then also further taken apart and interpreted in various parts of the brain. For example, rhythm is mainly interpreted in motor areas. At last, all of this information is once again put together and we get to experience music as a whole.

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And also, why/how do we feel music?

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Actually, it just so happens that our auditory cortex has a direct connection to our limbic system, which is responsible for our emotional responses. This is why you may feel stressed out by a song or notice your heart beat increase.

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Another interesting fact is that our limbic system also participates in retrieving memories and that’s why its very common to feel a certain nostalgia along with remembering a certain distant memory when we listen to a song

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Lastly, music also activates our brains natural reward system. This is because our brain is highly good at recognising patterns and creating expectations and so, when a song is building up to a climax, once this climax is reached all of this built up tension is released along with dopamine.

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Next up, the obvious question is:

Does music actually affect human interaction?

And the answer is of course. A recent study found that around 89% of high school students prefer party and social gatherings with music playing in the background. 

But why?

Well to explain let’s look at this second experiment. A scientist formed two groups of babies. He threw the first in the air in sync with a certain rhythm playing simultaneously. The second group, however, was thrown out of rhythm.

Oddly enough, when the man then dropped a pen amidst all of them he noticed that only the babies from group one would try to retrieve the pen and return it to the man.

This clearly demonstrates that music is essential in forming meaningful and lasting social bonds with one another.

Regardless let’s move on to the main topic: What about playing an instrument instead of just listening?

When subjected to the previously mentioned FMRI, scientists were astonished to find that practically every area of the brain is used simultaneously. This is because in addition to everything needed for listening, playing music also requires reading the sheets and precise motor skills.

After further research was made we can infer that playing music leads to:

1. Creation of an exponential amount of new neural networks;

2. Refined and precise motor skills. This is because repeating the same physical activity actually develops myelin sheaths which help the nervous signals spread faster and with greater intensity;

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3. Larger and more active corpus callosum, because of all the interaction between hemispheres. This leads to faster and more diverse neural signal transmission;

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4. Better solving of complex problems, especially ones involving both academic and social capabilities;

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5. Enhanced memory, since musicians have been proven to associate more semantic clues when they form a new memory, making its recognition and recovery easier.

And thats about it. Music is definitely amazing, right? It clearly shows how many simple mindless things can come together to form an amazingly complex and enjoyable whole!