Posts tagged musical training
Articles and news from the latest research reports.
Musical Training Offsets Some Academic Achievement Gaps
Learning to play a musical instrument or to sing can help disadvantaged children strengthen their reading and language skills, according to research presented at the American Psychological Association’s 122nd Annual Convention.
The findings, which involved hundreds of kids participating in musical training programs in Chicago and Los Angeles public schools, highlight the role learning music can have on the brains of youth in impoverished areas, according to presenter Nina Kraus, PhD, a neurobiologist at Northwestern University.
“Research has shown that there are differences in the brains of children raised in impoverished environments that affect their ability to learn,” said Kraus. “While more affluent students do better in school than children from lower income backgrounds, we are finding that musical training can alter the nervous system to create a better learner and help offset this academic gap.” Up until now, research on the impact of musical training has been primarily conducted on middle- to upper-income music students participating in private music lessons, she said.
Kraus’s lab research has concluded that musical training appears to enhance the way children’s nervous systems process sounds in a busy environment, such as a classroom or a playground. This improved neural function may lead to enhanced memory and attention spans which, in turn, allow kids to focus better in the classroom and improve their communication skills, she said.
Many of Kraus’s study participants are part of the Harmony Project in Los Angeles, which was founded by fellow presenter Margaret Martin, DrPH. In her most recent research, Kraus studied children beginning when they were in first and second grade. Half participated in musical training and the other half were randomly selected from the program’s lengthy waiting list and received no musical training during the first year of the study. Children who had no musical training had diminished reading scores while Harmony Project participants’ reading scores remained unchanged over the same time span.
Kraus’s lab also found that, after two years, neural responses to sound in adolescent music students were faster and more precise than in students in another type of enrichment class. The researchers tested the auditory abilities in adolescents from lower economic backgrounds at three public high schools in Chicago. Over two years, half of the students participated in either band or choir during each school day while the other half were enrolled in Junior Reserve Officer’s Training Corps classes, which teaches character education, achievement, wellness, leadership and diversity. All participants had comparable reading ability and IQs at the start of the study. The researchers recorded the children’s brain waves as they listened to a repeated syllable against soft background sound, which made it harder for the brain to process. The researchers repeated measures after one year and again at the two-year mark. They found music students’ neural responses had strengthened while the JROTC students’ responses had remained the same. Interestingly, the differences in the music students’ brain waves in response to sounds as described above occurred after two years but not at one year, which showed that these programs cannot be used as quick fixes, Kraus said. This is the strongest evidence to date that public school music education in lower-income students can lead to better sound processing in the brain when compared to other types of enrichment education, she added.
Even after the lessons stop, the brain still reaps benefits, according to studies on the long-term benefits of music lessons. In one study, Kraus’s team surveyed college students and asked them how many years they had music training. As they found with the elementary school students, college students who had more than five years of musical training in elementary school or high school had improved neural responses to sound when compared to college students who had had no musical training.
The Harmony Project provides instruments for the students who participate five or more hours a week in musical instruction and ensemble rehearsals. The project is year-round and tuition-free based on income, said Martin. Many of the programs build full-time bands in neighborhoods where the students live and the students agree to commit to the program from elementary school through high school, she said.
“We’re spending millions of dollars on drugs to help kids focus and here we have a non-pharmacologic intervention that thousands of disadvantaged kids devote themselves to in their non-school hours — that works,” Martin said. “Learning to make music appears to remodel our kids’ brains in ways that facilitates and improves their ability to learn.”
The Harmony Project has launched programs in other urban school districts, including Miami, New Orleans, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Kansas City, Missouri and Ventura, California.
(Image: Shutterstock)
Musical training increases blood flow in the brain
Research by the University of Liverpool has found that brief musical training can increase the blood flow in the left hemisphere of our brain. This suggests that the areas responsible for music and language share common brain pathways.
Researchers from the University’s Institute of Psychology, Health and Society carried out two separate studies which looked at brain activity patterns in musicians and non-musicians.
The first study looking for patterns of brain activity of 14 musicians and 9 non-musicians whilst they participated in music and word generation tasks. The results showed that patterns in the musician’s brains were similar in both tasks but this was not the case for the non-musicians.
In the second study, brain activity patterns were measured in a different group of non-musical participants who took part in a word generation task and a music perception task.
The measurements were also taken again following half an hour’s musical training. The measurements of brain activity taken before the musical training* showed no significant pattern of correlation. However, following the training significant similarities were found.
Amy Spray, who conducted the research as part of a School of Psychology Summer Internship Scheme, said: “The areas of our brain that process music and language are thought to be shared and previous research has suggested that musical training can lead to the increased use of the left hemisphere of the brain.
This study looked into the modulatory effects that musical training could have on the use of the different sides of the brain when performing music and language tasks.”
Amy added: “It was fascinating to see that the similarities in blood flow signatures could be brought about after just half an hour of simple musical training.”
Liverpool Psychologist, Dr Georg Mayer, explained: “This suggests that the correlated brain patterns were the result of using areas thought to be involved in language processing. Therefore we can assume that musical training results in a rapid change in the cognitive mechansims utilised for music perception and these shared mechanisms are usually employed for language.”
Musical training shapes brain anatomy and affects function
New findings show that extensive musical training affects the structure and function of different brain regions, how those regions communicate during the creation of music, and how the brain interprets and integrates sensory information. The findings were presented at Neuroscience 2013, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience and the world’s largest source of emerging news about brain science and health.
These insights suggest potential new roles for musical training including fostering plasticity in the brain, an alternative tool in education, and treating a range of learning disabilities.
Today’s new findings show that:
- Long-term high level musical training has a broader impact than previously thought. Researchers found that musicians have an enhanced ability to integrate sensory information from hearing, touch, and sight (Julie Roy, abstract 550.13, see attached summary).
- The age at which musical training begins affects brain anatomy as an adult; beginning training before the age of seven has the greatest impact (Yunxin Wang, abstract 765.07, see attached summary).
- Brain circuits involved in musical improvisation are shaped by systematic training, leading to less reliance on working memory and more extensive connectivity within the rain (Ana Pinho, MS, abstract 122.13, see attached summary).
Some of the brain changes that occur with musical training reflect the automation of task (much as one would recite a multiplication table) and the acquisition of highly specific sensorimotor and cognitive skills required for various aspects of musical expertise.
“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,” said press conference moderator Gottfried Schlaug, MD, PhD, of Harvard Medical School/Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, an expert on music, neuroimaging and brain plasticity. “As today’s findings show, 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.”
Ability To Move To A Beat Linked To Brain’s Response To Speech
Study suggests musical training could possibly sharpen language processing
People who are better able to move to a beat show more consistent brain responses to speech than those with less rhythm, according to a study published in the September 18 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. The findings suggest that musical training could possibly sharpen the brain’s response to language.
Scientists have long known that moving to a steady beat requires synchronization between the parts of the brain responsible for hearing and movement. In the current study, Professor Nina Kraus, PhD, and colleagues at Northwestern University examined the relationship between the ability to keep a beat and the brain’s response to sound.
More than 100 teenagers from the Chicago area participated in the Kraus Lab study, where they were instructed to listen and tap their finger along to a metronome. The teens’ tapping accuracy was computed based on how closely their taps aligned in time with the “tic-toc” of the metronome. In a second test, the researchers used a technique called electroencephalography (EEG) to record brainwaves from a major brain hub for sound processing as the teens listened to the synthesized speech sound “da” repeated periodically over a 30-minute period. The researchers then calculated how similarly the nerve cells in this region responded each time the “da” sound was repeated.
“Across this population of adolescents, the more accurate they were at tapping along to the beat, the more consistent their brains’ response to the ‘da’ syllable was,” Kraus said. Because previous studies show a link between reading ability and beat-keeping ability as well as reading ability and the consistency of the brain’s response to sound, Kraus explained that these new findings show that hearing is a common basis for these associations.
“Rhythm is inherently a part of music and language,” Kraus said. “It may be that musical training, with an emphasis on rhythmic skills, exercises the auditory-system, leading to strong sound-to-meaning associations that are so essential in learning to read.”
John Iversen, PhD, who studies how the brain processes music at the University of California, San Diego, and was not involved with this study, noted that the findings raise the possibility that musical training may have important impacts on the brain.“This study adds another piece to the puzzle in the emerging story suggesting that musical rhythmic abilities are correlated with improved performance in non-music areas, particularly language,” he said.
Kraus’ group is now working on a multi-year study to evaluate the effects of musical training on beat synchronization, response consistency, and reading skills in a group of children engaging in musical training.
(Source: alphagalileo.org)
Early music lessons boost brain development
If you started piano lessons in grade one, or played the recorder in kindergarten, thank your parents and teachers. Those lessons you dreaded – or loved – helped develop your brain. The younger you started music lessons, the stronger the connections in your brain.
A study published last month in the Journal of Neuroscience suggests that musical training before the age of seven has a significant effect on the development of the brain, showing that those who began early had stronger connections between motor regions – the parts of the brain that help you plan and carry out movements.
This research was carried out by students in the laboratory of Concordia University psychology professor Virginia Penhune, and in collaboration with Robert J. Zatorre, a researcher at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital at McGill University.
The study provides strong evidence that the years between ages six and eight are a “sensitive period” when musical training interacts with normal brain development to produce long-lasting changes in motor abilities and brain structure. “Learning to play an instrument requires coordination between hands and with visual or auditory stimuli,” says Penhune. “Practicing an instrument before age seven likely boosts the normal maturation of connections between motor and sensory regions of the brain, creating a framework upon which ongoing training can build.”
Musical Training as a Framework for Brain Plasticity: Behavior, Function, and Structure
Musical training has emerged as a useful framework for the investigation of training-related plasticity in the human brain. Learning to play an instrument is a highly complex task that involves the interaction of several modalities and higher-order cognitive functions and that results in behavioral, structural, and functional changes on time scales ranging from days to years. While early work focused on comparison of musical experts and novices, more recently an increasing number of controlled training studies provide clear experimental evidence for training effects. Here, we review research investigating brain plasticity induced by musical training, highlight common patterns and possible underlying mechanisms of such plasticity, and integrate these studies with findings and models for mechanisms of plasticity in other domains.
Perfect Pitch: Knowing the Note May Be in Your Genes
People with perfect pitch seem to possess their own inner pitch pipe, allowing them to sing a specific note without first hearing a reference tone. This skill has long been associated with early and extensive musical training, but new research suggests that perfect pitch may have as much to do with genetics as it does with learning an instrument or studying voice.
Previous research does draw a connection between early musical training and the likelihood of a person developing perfect pitch, which is also referred to as absolute pitch. This is especially true among speakers of tonal languages, such as Mandarin. Speakers of English and other non-tonal languages are far less likely to develop perfect pitch, even if they were exposed to early and extensive musical training.
“We have wondered if perfect pitch is as much about nature or nurture,” said Diana Deutsch, a professor of psychology at the University of California, San Diego. “What is clear is that musically trained individuals who speak a non-tone language can acquire absolute pitch, but it is still a remarkably rare talent. What has been less clear is why most others with equivalent musical training do not.” Deutsch and her colleague Kevin Dooley present their findings at the 164th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA), held Oct. 22 – 26 in Kansas City, Missouri.
To shine light on this question, the researchers studied 27 English speaking adults, 7 of whom possessed perfect pitch. All began extensive musical training at or before the age of 6. The researchers tested the subjects’ memory ability using a test known as the digit span, which measures how many digits a person can hold in memory and immediately recall in correct order. They presented the digits either visually or auditorily; for the auditory test, the subject listened to the numbers through headphones, and for the visual test the digits were presented successively at the center of a computer screen.
The people with perfect pitch substantially outperformed the others in the audio portion of the test. In contrast, for the visual test, the two groups exhibited very similar performance, and their scores were not significantly different from each other. This is significant because other researchers have shown previously that auditory digit span has a genetic component.
“Our finding therefore shows that perfect pitch is associated with an unusually large memory span for speech sounds,” said Deutsch, “which in turn could facilitate the development of associations between pitches and their spoken languages early in life.”
(Source: newswise.com)