How Music Affects Your Brain: Notes on the Folds

Scientists are now finally discovering what thinkers, musicians, or even any of us with a Spotify account and a set of headphones could have told you on instinct: music lights up multiple corners of the brain, strengthening our neural networks, firing up memory and emotion, and showing us what it means to be human. In fact, music is as essential to being human as language and may even predate it. Can music also repair broken networks, restore memory, and strengthen the brain?

PARTICIPANTS: Meagan Curtis, Mari Kimura, Edward Large, Psyche Loui, David Poeppel

MODERATOR: John Schaefer

This program is part of the “Big, the Small, and the Complex,” series sponsored by The Kavli Foundation and The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. The Kavli Prize recognizes scientists for their seminal advances in astrophysics, nanoscience, and neuroscience.

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TOPICS:
0:31 - Music performance
1:16 - Participant Intros
2:10 - What makes a piece of music sound "ghostly"
3:45 - How music syncs up with the brain stem
4:36 - Individual variability in response to music
6:06 - Neuroscience and the study of music
8:01 - How does the brain interpret music differently than speech?
9:53 - How do you compose music that aligns with an audience?
11:33 - How do musicians keep performances 'fresh'?
16:25 - What kinds of composition elicits emotion?
17:44 - Using rhythm to stimulate the brain and makes you want to move.
20:00 - How do you study the brain's response to music?
21:49 - How much does culture affect our emotional response to music?
26:11 - At what age do children respond to the emotion and rhythm of music?
29:43 - How music triggers memories from childhood
30:20 - How sad music can create a positive experience
33:05 - Why do some people get chills or shivers while listening to music and others don't?
41:55 - This history of science studying music - why do certain notes sound good together?
43:36 - Why should science study music?
48:40 - Do other animal species respond to music the same way we do?

PROGRAM CREDITS:
- Produced by Nils Kongshaug and Christine Driscoll

This program was recorded live at the 2018 World Science Festival and has been edited and condensed for YouTube.

[MickeyThomas]

What makes a musician tick?

It’s communicating the emotions of the human experience through music. For them, this is the ideal form of that expression. It’s the best and/or worst life experiences, and the consequences thereof that sparks their creativity. They see sounds, they know how to set moods through vibrations in the air.

They can see their life as a movie, and are in pursuit of the perfect soundtrack

[richardsilmai]

After I recovered from heroin addiction, been clean since '88, l can hardly listen to Eric Clapton's black summer rain album it does triggered a very deep emotions in me.

[matthewolsen]

I feel I agree more with the neuroscientist in the argument stated about if a composition has "no alignment" means a composition is "failing" is taking a large leap in that her argument relies on interpretation having an inherent need to be universal by any stretch. I believe there's evidence to support the idea that we react to pitch and tone very uniquely especially being that it heavily depends on the role music has played in our own individual lives. Since language, amongst same language speakers, must share some level of shared meaning; albeit difference in many regards. Music may share similarity but seems to be another means of expressing one's self using tone, as does language, but in a wholly different means of using sound. Therefore, I would make a case for say 2 individuals who have spent a lifetime learning to express themselves via the piano might show more overlap or similarity in how specific notes and tones make them feel. In opposite take 2 individuals who relatively are inert to music as an interest may or may not share any overlap in their implicit depiction of a given sound. I find this research altogether unique and incredibly interesting as there's a lot to yet explore.

[kerylorbsmultidimensional]

I'm a lifelong singer/songwriter /musician. I've noted that autistic people seem to be more inclined to relate to, if not have an affinity for music & rhythm. Also I have a cat that is extremely sensitive to music. (he's exceptionally empathetic & intelligent, tho)
I enjoyed this video - Thanx for sharing!

[chrismccullough]

Thats why music is so powerful because everyone interprets every song differently...Thanks for breaking the science down...Would be interesting to look at the brain activity

[andrewlankford]

First one has all the charm of a hand rake being dragged along a blackboard.

[maadhavdantuluri]

hey.. this is my understanding of music.. as we all know we are made of fundamental particle called quarks which are nothing but a frequency of vibrating string, so when we listen to music that matches with this frequency then there is a resonance in the body. maybe your brain and body detect and resonate to it.

[anteconfig]

"Am I everything you need
you better rock your body right
Everybody (Yeah)
Rock your body (yeah)
Everybody
Rock, your, body right
Backstreet's back, Alright!"
That bird knows how to groove.

[BenKrisfield]

I play multiple instruments, and often search Spotify for new music. It's a good pastime if anything.

[Tagstarum]

I think the music piece with two people‘s clean singing old folk song was pared with 8 degrees in between. I heard from my teacher that man‘s voice and woman‘s voice have a 8 degree difference when the target the same note. I guess that explains why the song had a parallel resonant.

[mitchkahle]

Learn to improvise (and practice daily), and you'll never be bored as a musician.

[robertbritt]

analyzing the emotional response to music physiologically, is like picking new shoes by thread count.

[mirandac]

John is the hardest-working man in showbiz.

[batmandeltaforce]

Your connection to music IS your Consciousness connection the infinite universe.... it's ALL waves baby:) "Science" will never know this however, since it is firmly rooted in the dark ages:)

[matthewolsen]

I'm curious why we have feeling as newborns or even neonates in the womb seeming to show reaction to music in the womb. Why do we have some degree of innate reaction to music?

[RobSinclaire]

A wonderful, endlessly wonderful, example of how Speech may be made Musical is Shakespeare - and, any one (though some more so than others) of the 37 plays as compiled in the BBC Shakespeare Series from 1978 or so will delight you! :O)

[aperson]

13:29 " ..bored out of their TINY minds" was kinda rude

[RobSinclaire]

Greeting John, thought you might like this: Emmylou Harris With Dolly Parton & Linda Ronstadt . Those Memories Of You.Mpg

[trailblazer]

I recommend everyone to hear the song called "Dark Light"
by - Night Lovell
Maybe you will experience some great chillness

[shanemike]

I thought they would talk about Dr. Rife and how he used different frequencies to cure certain deceases, i know canada is working on his work since he killed certain cancer cells just by sound.