Are We Hardwired for Music

Is a talent for music innate?

How do some people pick up an
instrument and just play what they hear– even without an ability to
read music or knowledge of what notes are being played? How do some
folks learn to read and play while other people are tone deaf.

Although
I have an intellectually challenging job where I am continually
learning new things, I find that while learning bass I am using a
completely different part of my brain. Particularly during lessons I
feel a tremendous brain work out – like the right and left sides are
coming together. My teacher Buddy and I frequently discuss this issue -
the interconnectivity of music, and the brain (and language).

Interesting
enough, Sharon Begley recently wrote about this subject in The Wall
Street Journal (3/31/06) Science Journal article (online subscription required).

Here are a few
snippets of her article where she also provides insight into Harvard
professor Stephen Mithen latest book "The Singing Neanderthal"

"…He
starts with evidence that music is not merely a side effect of
intelligence and language, as some argue. Instead, recent discoveries
suggest that music lays sole claim to specific neural real estate.
Consider musical savants. Although learning-disabled or retarded, they
have astounding musical abilities. One savant could hardly speak or
understand words, yet he played flawlessly a simple piano melody from
memory despite hearing it only once. In an encore, he added left-hand
chords and transposed it into a minor key.

"Music,"
says Prof. Mithen, "can exist within the brain in the absence of
language," a sign that the two evolved independently. And since
language impairment does not wipe out musical ability, the latter "must
have a longer evolutionary history."

In
the opposite of musical savantism, people with "amusia" can’t perceive
changes in rhythm, identify melodies they’ve heard before or recognize
changes in pitch. Since they have normal hearing and language, the
problem must lie in brain circuits that are music-specific.

More
evidence that the brain has dedicated, inborn musical circuits is that
even babies have musical preferences, finds Sandra Trehub of the
University of Toronto. They listen longer to perfect fifths and perfect
fourths, and look pained by minor thirds.

…The
fact that listeners hear the same emotion in a given musical score is
something a Neanderthal crooner might have exploited. Music can
manipulate people’s emotional states (think of liturgical music,
martial music or workplace music). Happy people are more cooperative
and creative. By fostering cooperation and creativity among bands of
early, prelanguage human ancestors, music would have given them a
survival edge. "If you can manipulate other people’s emotions," says
Prof. Mithen, "you have an advantage…."

Are
we hardwired for music? Can picking up an instrument later in life be
the next "brain buster" activity to help slow the brain aging process?

Let me know what you think…

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