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 How playing an instrument benefits your brain 
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Post How playing an instrument benefits your brain
An excellent study on brain activity of those listening and playing music.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0JKCYZ8hng[/youtube]

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Mon Nov 10, 2014 9:16 am
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Post Re: How playing an instrument benefits your brain
Neat! Really great animation, too!

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Mon Nov 10, 2014 11:43 am
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Post Re: How playing an instrument benefits your brain
Thanks Gene, I already put it on my FB page...

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Mon Nov 10, 2014 12:05 pm
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Post Re: How playing an instrument benefits your brain
Thanks Gene. Nice graphics too, simple and to the point. This TED presentation is in agreement with what I've read and experienced on the subject. The brain is modular, bundles of specific gifts and abilities, but there's also the luxury of seamless consciousness where the compartments are interactive.

Music may be our other language, or one we aspire to, so the brain lights up connecting remote regions. (The brain is a "universe" and the speed of light at galactic distances relates to the speed of chemical transmission within the skull.)

This November issue of Scientific American has an news article "Inside the Audience Studio" about Univ. of Toronto's upcoming scanning experiments using performers and improvisors on musical instruments. I'm pretty sure this is the study that will be using Dale Ladouceur as a (willing) subject.

I recently send Greg this message for our Website News page about Dale's strange gig:

"Dale called me a few days ago about a medical university neurology dept. brain experiment involving her Stick performance. I think it'll be a hi-res, real time CAT scan or MRI, or possibly a blood flow sonogram to detect activity in both the memory and language centers. (We're built very modular, I guess.)

The plan is that she'll play Stick counterpoint, then also sing while playing. I told her I'd expect to see duality in the instrumental mode and unity when adding the vocal. She said it's an interesting theory. (Theory is all we have on the brain, more impenetrable than the deep ocean bottom.)

I can't find my old book, which I believe is entitled "The Origin of Consciousness and the Bicameral Mind" by Julian Jaynes, but I remember reading that the right hemisphere equivalent of Broca's area was also about language, but more about hearing voices - God's commands, deceased parents, even crowds urging you on.

It'll be interesting to learn which language center is active during modes of musical performance. Then again, maybe music isn't related to language at all. (Wouldn't that be nice!) From whence comes the muse?


Mon Nov 10, 2014 12:18 pm
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Post Re: How playing an instrument benefits your brain
This reminds me of some experiments I did here in L.A. with an engineer friend of mine named Steve Ripley some years back. He had an EEG brain wave reading device and by attaching its electrodes to your head you could monitor and amplify Alpha, Beta, Theta and Delta waves and from there, turn them into sine wave tones. This particular gadget was marketed as a "New Age" feed back device to allow one to learn to control his state of relaxation by trying to keep Alpha tones dominant instead of the others. If you practiced with it, supposedly you could train yourself to go into a deep meditative state at will. I couldn't figure out exactly what to "practice" and anyhow we wanted to make music with it instead so Ripley devised a way to interface it with an A to D midi converter using simple transducers. It was pretty crude as were our skills with it but it did work. I hooked it up to a drum machine with the goal of being able to keep a steady beat with kick,snare and hi-hat. I got as far as triggering the hi-hat with Beta waves when I blinked my eyes but ultimately the best I could do was to make it sound like a drum set falling down a flight of stairs - causing me to laugh which triggered even more cacophony. Using a multi-timbral synth with a different midi channel for each of 4 of brain waves driving simple synth tones worked too but all I could manage was to sound like 4 theremin players waving their hands randomly.When I turned off the pitch bend option it then sounded like 4 monkeys dragging their knuckles up and down a keyboard in semi-tone intervals. I did notice I had more a little more control when I was stoned which I guess is worth noting.....The whole concept showed promise though and I would have liked to try to take it farther but we both had careers and road gigs to deal with so that was as far as it went. I'm sure that by now though,someone somewhere has accomplished much more along those lines.


Mon Nov 10, 2014 2:50 pm
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Post Re: How playing an instrument benefits your brain
That was a pretty cool video, no doubt setting off a storm of its own within my skull. If you know a neuroscientist, point them to my "Health News" thread and add "this guy is getting a Stick." :lol:

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Mon Nov 10, 2014 5:49 pm
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Post Re: How playing an instrument benefits your brain
Nice !!!


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Tue Nov 18, 2014 10:28 am
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Post Re: How playing an instrument benefits your brain
Great post Gbro!

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kev

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Tue Nov 18, 2014 5:52 pm
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Post Re: How playing an instrument benefits your brain
BSharp wrote:
Then again, maybe music isn't related to language at all. (Wouldn't that be nice!) From whence comes the muse?

Since I began to sing while playing the Stick, I noticed that the more you do it, the more you realize there are different brain circuits used for singing and playing. Like different modules for different functions.


Wed Nov 19, 2014 5:06 am
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Post Re: How playing an instrument benefits your brain
"Yarr... thinking hurts brainz!"
No more need for suffering - you can play an instrument! :-)

But hey, isn't it funny that the more you play the less inclined you become to use your new bonus brain cycles for thinking! I mean, since you actually need to "un-think" to be able to make music.

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Wed Nov 19, 2014 9:34 am
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