What Parts Of The Brain Interpret Music and How Do They Do So?

by Lesley Sampson Freelance Writer

Music has been shown to have stimulating effects on a variety of parts of the brain, which isn't a surprise when you realise how easily and often it can cause you to start tapping your feet or drumming your fingers.

Let's take a look at the various regions of the brain, and see what their functions are, and how these influence the way in which we all appreciate music.

Pre-frontal cortex: This is the region which governs our expectations, and therefore is likely to be the first to react when it detects a missed beat. Recent research suggest that, when a musician is improvising, this part of the brain is capable of shutting down and letting those involved in generating thoughts take over.

Motor cortex: the part of the brain which controls movement clearly has a part to play when playing an instrument, but it is also responsible for generating those unconscious foot and finger-tapping movements which we often find ourselves making when we are listening to a tune.

Sensory cortex: this part of the brain receives messages related to the order in which strings and strummed or keys and hit when playing a tune.

Auditory cortex: This part of the brain is most important for how we analyse a tune, and whether we consider it to be to our taste. It contains a pre-set diagram of tones, which compare how we expect to hear them with how they actually sound.

Cerebellum: This is the part of the brain which gives us our sense of timing and synchrony, and allows us to follow a tune's beat. It also detects familiar patterns in tunes, and prompts us to react positively to songs which we recognise, or which have particular emotional resonances for us.

Hippocampus: Part of the brain responsible for interpreting our long-term memories, this is thought to create and help us recognise the links between particular tunes and experiences which we have. This is the part of the brain which will generate a smile when we hear the first few bars of a tune we particularly like!

And if you've ever wondered why so many successful and popular songs contain so much repetition, there is apparently a psychological reason for it. It stimulates a part of the brain called the amygdala, which is programmed to create positive feelings in us when we hear repetition in music which is cleverly done.

Separately, studies into modern classical music, and why so many people find it discordant and hard to understand, have found that the brain struggles to find the familiar patterns which are essential for us to be able to interpret what we're hearing.

This supports the view that music critics' dislike of much modern classical music is rooted in their inability to pick up on the subtleties of the piece, and explains why many listeners are simply confused by listening to such music.

So our perception of what is a good tune comes from far more than just the structure of the song itself. While a good, simple riff will clearly be effective in grabbing lots of people's attention, an awful lot of our perception of a 'good' song comes from memories planted in our brains from many years before, not to mention the media through which we hear them. Good quality wireless speakers can help a great deal in this regard

SOURCES:

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/61593/title/Your_brain_on_music

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/7279626/Audiences-hate-modern-classical-music-because-their-brains-cannot-cope.html