Music Listening, Music Therapy, Phenomenology and Neuroscience

Appendix 3.04 Survey of

The Neurosciences and Music I

V

Conference 2011

Learning and Memory

Symposium 3:

CULTURAL NEUROSCIENCE OF MUSIC

(16

-21)

Title, Category

Aim

Mus. Material, Cultural Ref.

Technology & Procedure

Main focus of interest

Conclusion

16. Laurel Trainor, David W. Gerry and Andrea Unrau
    Effects of learning on musical enculturation in infancy
    Cat. 7: Culture Cat. 10: Learning
    17. Peter Vuust
    Practice

d musical style

shapes auditory skills

Cat. 7: Culture Cat. 8: Musicians

Articles: Vuust et al.

(2011, 2012)

18. Mari Tervaniemi, T. Tupala and Elvira Brattico
    Expertise in folk music alters the brain processing of Western harmony
    Cat. 2: Harmony Cat. 7:

Culture

Cat. 8: Musicians

19. Edward Large
    Neurodynamics of tonality
    Cat. 1: Scales
    (Online only in the conference proceedings)

In recent work we have examined infant learning in

detail by controlling exposure

We aimed at tackling the role of musical style on modulating neural and

behavioral responses

to

changes in musical features

We suggest a neuro

plasticity

of harmony

processing in

Finnish folk musicians derived from their

long

-term exposure

to both Western and non

• 
  

Western music

A new

theory of musical

tonality is proposed, which treats the central auditory pathway as a complex nonlinear dynamical system

1) Training in

Western

rhythmic structures

versus no

training

2)

Melodies in guitar timbre

versus marimba timbre

3) Music classes ve

rsus

background music

Sound features of

six different

types: pitch, timbre, location, intensity, slide, rhythm

Incongruous chords violating the rules of chord succession crystallized in Western harmony theory

Comparison of two groups after a period

of training or

exposure

EEG:

Using a novel, fast and

musical sounding multi

• 
  

feature MMN paradigm, we

measured the mismatch negativity (MMN)

, a

preattentive brain response

EEG

Just as infants learn the language(s) in their environment, they learn

the

specific musical systems to which they are exposed. This enculturation occurs to a large

extent without formal training

MMN response to six types of musical feature change in musicians playing three distinct styles of music (classical, jazz,

rock/pop

) and

in non

-musicians

Incongruous chor

ds violating

the rules of chord succession crystallized in Western harmony theory generate an early right anterior negativity (ERAN) in the inferior f

rontal

gyrus of the human brain

As networks of auditory neuron

s resonate to musical

stimuli, stability and attraction relationships develop among frequencies, and

these

dynamic forces correspond to feelings of

stability and

attraction among musical tones

Together these studies show that musical acquisition is not simply on a genetically determined timetable, but is greatly affected by the particular learning

ex-

periences of the individual Jazz musicians had larger MMN

-amplitude than all other

experimental groups across the six different sound features, indicating a

greater overall sensitivity to auditory outliers

The morphology of the ERAN to a mildly incongruous chord embedded in the musical cadence was altered in musician

s trained in Finnish

folk music

A canonical model of

phase

-locked neural

oscillation predicts complex

nonlinear population re

• 
  

sponses to musical intervals that have been observed in the human brainstem. This observation

provides support

for the theory