==> Inner Songs
…
... more recent work has yielded a more nuanced understanding, relating to two of the features that music
and language share: both are a means of communication, and each has a syntax, a set of rules
that govern the proper combination of elements (notes and words, respectively). According to
Aniruddh D. Patel of the Neurosciences Institute in San Diego, imaging findings suggest that a region in the
frontal lobe enables proper construction of the syntax of both music and language, whereas other parts of the
brain handle related aspects of language and music processing.
….. Like other sensory systems, the one for hearing is arranged hierarchically, consisting of a string of neural
processing stations from the ear to the highest level, the auditory cortex. The processing of sounds, such as
musical tones, begins with the inner ear (cochlea), which sorts complex sounds produced by, say, a violin, into
their constituent elementary frequencies. The cochlea then transmits this information along separately tuned
fibers of the auditory nerve as trains of neural discharges. Eventually these trains reach the auditory cortex in
the temporal lobe. ……
The response to music per se, though, is more complicated. Music consists of a sequence of tones, and
perception of it depends on grasping the relationships between sounds. Many areas of the brain are involved in
processing the various components of music. Consider tone, which encompasses both the frequencies and
loudness of a sound…..
But in the late 1980s Thomas M. McKenna and I, working in my laboratory at the University of California at
Irvine, raised doubts about that notion when we studied contour, which is the pattern of rising and falling
pitches that is the basis for all melodies. …… These findings show that the pattern of a melody matters:
processing in the auditory system is not like the simple relaying of sound in a telephone or stereo system.
Although most research has focused on melody, rhythm (the relative lengths and spacing of notes), harmony
(the relation of two or more simultaneous tones) and timbre (the characteristic difference in sound between
two instruments playing the same tone) are also of interest. Studies of rhythm have concluded that one
hemisphere is more involved, although they disagree on which hemisphere. The problem is that different tasks
and even different rhythmic stimuli can demand different processing capacities. For example, the left temporal
lobe seems to process briefer stimuli than the right temporal lobe and so would be more involved when the
listener is trying to discern rhythm while hearing briefer musical sounds.
The situation is clearer for harmony. Imaging studies of the cerebral cortex find greater activation in the
auditory regions of the right temporal lobe when subjects are focusing on aspects of harmony. Timbre also has
been “assigned” a right temporal lobe preference. Patients whose temporal lobe has been removed (such as to
eliminate seizures) show deficits in discriminating timbre if tissue from the right, but not the left, hemisphere
is excised. In addition, the right temporal lobe becomes active in normal subjects when they discriminate
between different timbres.
Brain responses also depend on the experiences and training of the listener. Even a little training can quickly
alter the brain’s reactions. For instance, until about 10 years ago, scientists believed that tuning was “fixed”
for each cell in the audi ѽ