Albert Einstein began playing the violin when
he was 6-years-old. By the age of 13, he was playing Mozart's sonatas. Einstein
once said, "Life without playing
music is inconceivable to me. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in
terms of music ... I get most joy in life out of music."
Musical
training has the potential to change brain structure and function when practiced
for a long period of time. The anatomical differences have been found between a
musician’s and a non-musician’s auditory and motor cortices and neural
connectivity linking these areas.
Practicing musical instrument can lead
to structural changes after only 15 months in early childhood. These changes correlate
with improvements in certain motor and auditory nerve cells and structural
Brain changes in Hippocampus, an area devoted to learning and memory processes.
According to a Research at Brain
and Creativity Institute, Southern California, which involved children between
the age of 6 to 7, the results showed that these children were highly attentive
to melodies and had stronger brain response to differences in pitch after 2
years of training.
Playing a musical instrument involves multiple components of the
· Central (brain and spinal cord) and
·
peripheral (nerves outside the brain
and spinal cord) nervous systems.
As a musician plays an instrument, motor systems in the brain control both
gross and fine movements needed to produce sound. The sound is processed
by auditory circuitry,
which in turn can adjust signalling by the motor control centers. In
addition, sensory information from the fingers, hands and
arms is sent to the brain for processing. If the musician is reading
music, visual information is sent to the brain for
processing and interpreting commands for the motor centers. And of
course, the brain processes emotional responses to the music as well!
Brain
scanning studies have found that the anatomical change in musicians' brains as
an adult is related to the age when training began and ideally it should begin
by the age of 7 as learning at a younger age causes the most drastic changes.
Brain circuits are involved in musical
improvisation are shaped by systematic training leading to less reliance on working
memory and more extensive memory within the brain. Some brain changes occur
with automation of task and acquisition of highly specific sensorimotor and
cognitive skills required for various aspects of musical expertise.
Intense musical training generates new
processes within the brain and a range of effects on creativity, cognition and learning.
These insights suggest potential new roles for music training including fostering
plasticity in the brain and an alternative tool in education and treating range
of learning disabilities.
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