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How The Brain Interprets Music (May 9, 2003, Two)

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Program Summary

Ever gotten a song stuck in your head? Do certain songs make you happy? Sad? Or just grate on your nerves? Why do music and emotions go together? What is it about the brain that links the two and how? These are some of the questions Ira and his guests explore.

One of the ways scientists do this is to try and map areas of the brain that respond to music. By measuring how much oxygen brain cells take in, researchers can determine which areas of the brain are active while listening to music.

However the brain processes the sounds, music is universal. No matter what the culture, music plays a part. Also similarly, musical notes are grouped into octaves the world over. And the mathematical connection to music doesn’t stop with octaves. Musical scales come in groups of five, eight, and 13, which also happen to be Fibonacci numbers (a sequence in which two numbers added together equal the next number in the sequence).

Babies may not know who Fibonacci is, but they do have musical preferences, according to a Harvard study and the experience of at least one of Ira’s callers. Apparently it’s an innate quality, perhaps designed to give humans a sense of commonality. “We had to bond together,” says guest Mark Tramo, “and form societies and not fight each other and kill each other all the time if we were going to really make it past saber-tooth tigers.” Music can help do that. Well, maybe not the music students love to blast and parents hate to hear. Good thing saber-tooths are extinct.

Guests

Petr Janata, research assistant professor at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire

Mark Jude Tramo, neurologist, neuroscientist, and musician. Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Related Links and Resources

BBC News, August 7, 2000: “Scans Uncover ‘Music of the Mind’”
Dartmouth College’s “News and Events,” December 12, 2002: “Melodies in Your Mind”
Harvard University Gazette: “Music on the Brain: Researchers Explore the Biology of Music”
Musica, the Music and Science Information Computer Archive
Neuroscience for Kids, The Musical Brain
University of Washington, College of Arts and Sciences’ “A&S Perspectives,” Winter-Spring 2002: “Using fMRI Technology to Probe Musical Comprehension”

For Discussion:

• How do the ears and brain process sound? What areas of the brain appear to “handle” music?
• What kinds of music do you enjoy? Do your parents enjoy it too? Why do you think kids and parents have different tastes in music? Are there types of music you both like? What makes that music appeal to everyone?
• Have you ever responded emotionally to a song? What about the song made you feel that way? Why do you think music and emotions are intertwined?
• What do math and music have in common? What are Fibonacci numbers and what do they have to do with music?

Activities

Sound science. For an excellent primer about how our ears and brain process sound waves, go to the Neuroscience for Kids page Our Sense of Hearing. It contains, extensive resources, activities, and guides for both teachers and students. A page written just for students is KidsHealth’s Let’s Hear It for the Ear! After looking into the science of hearing, ask students to trace the route of a musical note as it enters the ear and travels through the brain.

Do the wave. Scientists may not know yet how the brain interprets music, but they have been able to make music using brain waves. At the George Mason University page Brain Wave Music, you can listen to the “songs” created by the brain. Learn how scientist Paras Kaul turns brain waves into music and listen to music “composed” by visitors to her lab. Play samples and ask students to guess whether the person was calm or agitated when his or her brain waves were recorded.

It’s not over until the fat brain sings. “The Brain Opera” is a blending of science and music in which audience members experiment with high-tech electronic instruments; their efforts are recorded and later woven together by composer Tod Machover and a team of musicians and scientists from MIT’s Media Lab. The result is a unique audience-created composition. PBS’s “Scientific American Frontiers” featured “The Brain Opera” and produced educational activities to accompany the show in The Art of Science: Brain Music. Students can make their own simple instruments, record their sounds, and create a mix highlighting the recordings. They can also visit “The Brain Opera” site and learn how they can make and send in recordings that could become part of an upcoming performance.

The music/math connection. Help students get the math underlying the music. After all, musical scales are groups of notes in sets of five, eight, and 13 (Pentatonic, Diatonic, and Chromatic, respectively). It just so happens that these groupings also fit into the Fibonacci Sequence—a set of numbers discovered by Leonardo Fibonacci in the 13^th century in which the next number in a sequence equals the sum of the two preceding it. For example, here are the first several Fibonacci numbers: 0 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 … . Delve further into Fibonacci numbers and music using Jazz and Math: The Fibonacci Keyboard, an activity designed to accompany Ken Burns’ “Jazz,” a PBS documentary.

Use the search box below to perform a Google search within any of the specifc sites or general domains mentioned in this Activities section.

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