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Music and emotion—a case for north indian classical music.

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Emotional responses to Hindustani raga music: the role of musical structure

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• Language Literacy and Music Laboratory, National Brain Research Centre, Manesar, India

The ragas of North Indian Classical Music (NICM) have been historically known to elicit emotions. Recently, Mathur et al. (2015) provided empirical support for these historical assumptions, that distinct ragas elicit distinct emotional responses. In this review, we discuss the findings of Mathur et al. (2015) in the context of the structure of NICM. Using, Mathur et al. (2015) as a demonstrative case-in-point, we argue that ragas of NICM can be viewed as uniquely designed stimulus tools for investigating the tonal and rhythmic influences on musical emotion.

Introduction

Music is the art of sound in time, organized to the principles of pitch, rhythm, and harmony ( Limb and Braun, 2008 ). An important function of music is its capacity to communicate emotions ( Tanner and Budd, 1985 ), a view that has been agreed upon by both music performers ( Laukka, 2004 ) and music listeners ( Juslin and Laukka, 2004 ). Indeed, almost all known forms of music have been recognized for their affective emotional qualities ( Goldstein, 1980 ). However, the exact causal mechanisms by which musical sounds generate emotions are still unclear. Current models posit that specific acoustic factors embedded in a music signal exploit the physical environment, the cognitive and perceptual processing systems, and the structure of the auditory system, to generate emotional responses ( Huron, 2006 ; Thompson and Schellenberg, 2006 ).

Though the link between music and emotion has been empirically established ( Juslin and Sloboda, 2011 ), most findings lack generalizability across multi-cultural representations of music. Consequently, while music and emotion studies have standardized the use of Western Classical music as a staple source of stimuli, only a handful have incorporated genres of music native to other cultures. This not only precludes interpretations of universality in musical emotions from their findings, it also overlooks musical stimuli which might have advantages as tools for studying musical emotion ( Thompson and Balkwill, 2010 ). The goal of this review is to make such a case for the unique experimental utility offered by North Indian Classical Music (NICM).

In particular, this review will highlight and expand upon the findings of Mathur et al. (2015) , to demonstrate that NICM comprises of stimuli that not only permit the study of music and emotional response, but are also uniquely designed stimulus tools to investigate how specific psychophysical features like tonality and rhythm modulate musical emotion as separable factors.

North Indian Classical music (NICM), or Hindustani music , is an ancient musical form of India that emerged from a cultural synthesis of the Vedic chant tradition and traditional Persian music ( Kaufmann, 1965 ). The central notion in this system of music are ragas , which are described as musical compositions capable of inducing specific moods or emotions. Past studies have investigated ragas and have shown that distinct ragas elicit distinct emotions ( Balkwill and Thompson, 1999 ; Chordia et al., 2008 ; Wieczorkowska et al., 2010 ). In a study published recently, Mathur et al. (2015) exploited a novel feature of raga stimuli, namely that of different presentation modes, differing in tempo/rhythm but matched in tonal structure, to study music and emotion. They found that when the same raga was presented in distinct presentation modes participants reported elicited emotions with varying levels of arousal. They also found that specific tonal combinations emerged as reliable predictors of emotions that participants reported feeling. These findings indicated that the ragas of NICM not only served as interesting and useful acoustic stimuli that could be exploited to study emotion, but also that the structure of the ragas permitted a systematic, controlled investigation of the role of specific features, namely tonality and rhythm in modulating emotions felt by listeners.

KEY CONCEPT 1. Raga Modal melodies comprising the canon of North Indian Classical Music. Each raga is constructed from five or more musical notes, organized into one ascending sequence, and one descending sequence of notes, which together comprise a single melodic framework. Performance of a raga is restricted within the note sequences of its ascending and descending halves, but is improvised in all other respects (e.g., timing between notes; sustain, attack of each note).

In this review we expand upon these findings, and make the case that NICM is tailor-made for disentangling tonal and temporal influences on musical emotion, and thus an invaluable stimulus tool worth bringing to the attention of researchers in all cultural contexts. Specifically, we will build evidence to support that NICM provides (1) a catalog of systematically varying emotion valence, best reflected in the Circle of Thaats (described below); and (2) a form of musical stimulus which has embedded in its very structure an experimentally controlled manipulation of rhythm and tempo keeping tonality constant, allowing for the disentanglement of tonal from rhythmic influences on emotion.

KEY CONCEPT 2 . Circle of Thaats The Circle of Thaats organizes the ten canonical thaats into a system of incremental variation in tonal ratio (#minor/#Major), with clockwise movement adding Major intervals, and counterclockwise movement subtracting minor intervals. Our lab has previously demonstrated the correlation between emotional valence and tonal ratio in Mathur et al. (2015) . For researchers, the Circle can be used as a “dial” for be systematically and gradually manipulating valence.

The review is organized as follows: We begin with the concepts of consonance and dissonance, one of the primary means by which subjective impressions and emotional responses to music arise predictably from frequency ratios between different notes. We then provide an overview of the NICM system, in which different combinations of consonances and dissonances, in the form of tonal intervals, comprise a canon of melodic themes, as the aforementioned ragas , with prescribed emotional functions. We then segue to an overview of Mathur et al. (2015) , which showed that distinct emotional experiences are reported by listeners for each raga , and expand upon these findings by demonstrating that these inter- raga emotion differences vary systematically and predictably as a function of minor-to-major tonal interval ratios. Finally, we generalize the findings of Mathur et al. to argue that the structure of NICM is well-positioned for empirical studies of the subtleties and universality of emotions communicated through sound.

On a final introductory note, throughout the discussion that follows we refer to musical emotions as being elicited, induced, etc. in listeners, as opposed to using terms like perceived or identified. This choice of terminology is intentional, as the study by Mathur et al. (2015) which motivated this review was explicitly in the latter camp of the debate between cognitivists and emotivists. The cognitivist view is that listeners do not actually feel emotions when they listen to music, they perceive the emotions being expressed ( Kivy, 1989 ). Emotivists, on the other hand, argue that music truly induces emotions, such that a happy tune elicits the same autonomic nervous system responses as any other happy experience ( Scherer and Zentner, 2001 ; Sloboda and Juslin, 2010 ). For a complete overview of how music elicits emotion, see Juslin and Västfjäll (2008) , who provide an extensive review and model for what they argue are the six mechanisms by which music induces emotion: brain stem reflexes, conditioning, visual imagery, contagion, episodic memory, and expectancies fulfilled or denied.

Consonance, Dissonance, and Tonal Intervals—from Quantitative Sound Qualities, to Qualitative Musical Impressions

Once a musical note leaves an instrument or vocal tract, its timbre, and pitch produce minute fluctuations in air pressure around the listener, triggering electrophysiological impulses in the cochlea which then travel through the brain stem and midbrain en route to specialized subregions of the auditory cortex, where they are imbued with emotional interpretation and memory by higher cognitive processes in the orbitofrontal region of the prefrontal cortex ( Zatorre, 2005 ). It is in this way that objective physical changes in an acoustic signal induce psychological effects as subjective and abstract as feelings, turning acoustic features into psychoacoustic phenomena ( Juslin, 1997 ; Laukka et al., 2013 ). Communication of the intended emotion, then, depends upon the musician/composer encoding the emotion in acoustic cues, and the listener successfully decoding these acoustic features from psychophysiological stimulation to emotional meaning. Of the various acoustic cues embedded in music, consonance is the most frequently cited as central to influencing emotion perception. Subjectively speaking, consonance and dissonance describe a level of sweetness/harshness of the sound ( Zentner and Kagan, 1998 ). In terms of the aforementioned encoding/decoding communication between composer and listener, consonance encodes a sense of resolution into a composition, dissonance a sense of unresolved tension ( Limb, 2006 ). Indeed, Kamien (2008 , p. 41) describes consonance and dissonance qualitatively stating that “A stable tone combination is a consonance; consonances are points of arrival, rest, and resolution. An unstable tone combination is a dissonance; its tension demands an onward motion to a stable chord. Thus dissonant chords are “active;” traditionally they have been considered harsh and have expressed pain, grief, and conflict.”

Studies have confirmed the presence of an innate preference for consonance over dissonance, even in infant populations ( Schellenberg and Trehub, 1996 ; Juslin and Zentner, 2002 ). Early investigations of the human auditory system revealed that the human ear can disentangle the harmonic overtones of a series if they are separated by a critical bandwidth ( Plomp and Mimpen, 1968 ). The ability of the auditory nerve fibers to resolve closely spaced frequencies, then, leads to subjective impressions of pleasant sounds or consonance, whereas the inability to clearly resolve closely spaced frequencies resulted in the impression of dissonance or a “harsher” sound ( Von Helmholtz, 1912 ; Plomp and Levelt, 1965 ).

Musically speaking, the range of consonance and dissonance that result from different bandwidths is determined by tonal intervals ( Plomp and Levelt, 1965 ). The tonal interval is determined by two tones, one of which is conventionally the tonic ( Parncutt and Hair, 2011 ). The tonic is the root note around which a musical piece is organized, providing a reference for each tone that is sounded during the performance. Tonal intervals produce impressions of consonance if the frequency differences exceed the critical bandwidth ( Plomp and Levelt, 1965 ).

In Parncutt and Hair's (2011) deconstruction of consonance and dissonance, they argue that the two are not in fact diametrically opposed musical phenomena, as they arise from different relationships between tones in a piece of music, some of which are “vertical,” others “horizontal,” in terms of their placement in staff notation. Simultaneously played tones (e.g., as in a chord) have a vertical relationship, whereas the tonal differences between notes or chords separated temporally (e.g., as in a melody) have a horizontal relationship (p. 139): “In a holistic approach, consonance can be promoted by spectral harmonicity (vertical), harmonic proximity or pitch commonality (horizontal), and familiarity (both vertical and horizontal); dissonance by roughness (vertical) and linear pitch distance (horizontal).” Whilst this less dichotomous definition of consonance and dissonance is somewhat specific to Western music (NICM does not rely on the harmonic progressions of chords, as the tanpura drone serves the purpose of providing the tonic root from which tension/resolution are implied), it does suggest that gauging the consonance/dissonance of NICM ragas is a function of both the relationships between the notes, or swaras , of a raga and the tonic drone, and the relationships between the swaras of a raga in the melodic, horizontal sense.

Tonal intervals form an important organizational principle of musical systems ( Castellano and Krumhansl, 1984 ). When assembled in different combinations, they form diatonic musical modes, the basis of melody construction in any musical system. Due to varying ecological settings, resources, and instrument constructions, some modes used by different musical systems are unique to their native culture ( Perlovsky, 2010 ). Most of our current understanding of the emotions associated with music—emotions presumed to be universal—has come from studies using the modes of Western classical music. Though the literature has consistently shown that listeners associate major and minor modes with positive and plaintive emotions, respectively ( Gagnon and Peretz, 2003 ), increasing work in the field of ethnomusicology suggests that different tonal systems may be able to elicit a subtler gradation of emotions ( Thompson and Balkwill, 2010 ).

North Indian Classical Music

The two dominant genres of Indian music are North Indian Hindustani classical music, and South Indian Carnatic classical music. Whilst the styles of singing, presentation of the notes, emphasis on structure of the musical modes and instruments used in each vary, Hindustani and Carnatic music share many common features, from the raga system, to the use of gamakas (similar to vibrato) and portamento (phrase-leading accents of rapidly increasing pitch; Capwell, 1986 ; Swift, 1990 ). That the arguments made below are made with respect to NICM is due to the fact that the Mathur et al. study from which the data were drawn focused on NICM ragas ; we suspect the same to hold true for Carnatic music as well.

The canon of standard NICM ragas is categorized and organized around a series of heptatonic scales known as thaats (Figure 1 ; Jairazbhoy, 1995 ). In the most widely accepted NICM system, there are 10 thaats consisting of different sequential combinations of 12 notes. Similar to Western Classical Music, the basic set of tones and tonal intervals used in NICM are the 12-tone octave divisions ( Castellano and Krumhansl, 1984 ; Bowling et al., 2012 ). While Western music is based on tones with defined frequencies (e.g., A = 440 Hz) NICM music is constructed from tonal intervals, known as swaras , which are defined in relation to a tonic tone (in practice this tonic takes the form of a drone note, described below). The “major” intervals (i.e., natural notes) are the shuddh swaras while the “minor” intervals are the komal swaras . The tonal intervals are Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha , and Ni , either in their shush (major) or komal (minor) form, but never both within the same thaat ( Bhatkhande, 1934 ).

Figure 1 . Circle of Thaats . The circle of thaats illustrating inter- thaat distance. Nine of the ten thaats on the circle are members of Bhatkhande's classification system ( Bhatkhande, 1934 ). No. 7 thaat Bhairav is not currently used in NICM. Thaat Bhairav with the scale of S r G M P d N is not represented within the circle of thaats (Adapted from Jairazbhoy, 1995 , p. 59).

KEY CONCEPT 3 . Thaat The ten heptatonic scale families which are used to classify the canon of North Indian Classical ragas into tonally similar groups. Not all ragas in a given thaat include every note of that parent thaat , but all ragas in a thaat can be derived from its defining scale.

The fourth natural note, Ma shuddh , has a variant known as the tivr or the augmented fourth (raised by a semitone). Table 1 provides a reference to the shuddh (major) and komal (minor) intervals, and their Western equivalences, for readers versed in Western music theory.

Table 1 . Indian/western tonal interval equivalences and frequency ratios.

Across all thaats however, the tonic ( Sa ) and fifth ( Pa ) are considered immutable. Thus theoretically, there can be 32 different thaats , but Bhatkhande's early census and classification of traditional ragas found that the vast majority of ragas can be categorized into 10 families or “ thaats .” The prominent thaats have their names adopted from eminent ragas that are derived of the same mode though the ragas themselves need not necessarily be heptatonic.

It is believed that the most common modes were chosen by Bhatkande such that the structure and practicality were both preserved ( Chordia et al., 2008 ). These 10 canonical thaats , and the relationships between them, are summarized by the Circle of Thaats (Figure 1 , adapted from Jairazbhoy, p. 59). As seen in Figure 1 , since all thaats are heptatonic, as one moves along the circle starting from Bilawal (which has only major notes) in a clockwise manner, the number of minor intervals systematically increases till one reaches a thaat that has no name (but has the highest number of minor intervals). Thus Bilawal and the thaat with no name are diametrically opposite each other. Continuing further, as one move from Todi , the number of minor intervals decreases, and the number of major intervals increases systematically till one reaches Bilawal again.

Thaats provide a useful classification framework, but the core of NICM is the raga ( Bhatkhande, 1934 ; Vatsyayan, 1996 ) The word “ raga ,” which originated in Sanskrit, is defined as “the act of coloring or dyeing;” in this case, the mind and its emotions. The raga was thus conceived as a modal melody capable of eliciting specific emotions, or rasas .

An intrinsic difference between Indian classical and Western classical music is the tonic drone, usually played by a tanpura , provides a reference to the listener (a tonic Sa , often accompanied by a fifth Pa and/or octave Sa ') creating tonal relationships with the “solitary” melody line of the performance. Because the drone is sounded throughout the presentation of the raga , the entire piece can be viewed as a presentation of intervals, not just between notes of the melody line, but between each note and the Sa drone. Table 1 dictates the 12 swaras of Hindustani music displaying their Western classical counterparts, and the frequency ratio of the given note to the tonic.

Tonal Composition

Each raga uses a set of five or more notes from the seven comprising its parent thaat to construct a melody. Multiple ragas are generated from a single thaat , each distinguished by its own signature phrase ( pakar ) and a defined frequency of occurrence of particular notes, vadi being the most prominent note and samvadi being the second most prominent ( Jairazbhoy, 1995 ; Mathur et al., 2015 ). This feature allows two ragas to have the exact same note selection, yet sound different due to varying emphasis on the notes. Bhupali , belonging to thaat Kalyan , and Deskar to thaat Bilawal , are pentatonic ragas and use the notes that are common to both thaats ( Sadhana, 2011 ). Therefore, even while casually interchanged at times, it is important to understand that a raga is not synonymous with a scale; it is a modal melody comprising a defined note selection, differentiated not only on the basis of the notes contained, but also by the frequency of usage of certain notes, the sequencing of ascending ( aarohan ) and descending ( avrohan ) segments, and the pakar ( Kaufmann, 1965 ; Leifer, 1987 ; Jairazbhoy, 1995 ).

The specific combination of tonal intervals in a raga thus create a consonance-dissonance map that then determine which raga will feel pleasant on the ear, and which would fall into areas of dissonance, leading to a harsher sound and the need to be resolved into a consonant interval ( Helmholtz, 1875 ; Zuckerkandl, 1956 ). This subtle combination of tonal intervals permits subtle differences in emotions elicited through music to be investigated using NICM.

Rhythmic Structure

Ragas are usually presented in two consequent sections, the alaap and the gat . The alaap is an elaborate rendition of the various notes of a raga , rendered in free time, introducing and developing the melodic framework, defining characteristics, and mood of a raga . The gat follows the alaap , shifting emphasis to faster sequences of notes, with the accompanying tabla (the main NICM percussion instrument) providing a more explicit rhythmic structure while leaving behind most of the subtleties of pitch articulation. Importantly, the tonal structure of the raga is consistent between alaap and gat , only the tempo is changed. In this way, the raga structure offers an ideal experimental stimulus for disentangling the effects of tempo and tonality: tonality is controlled for between alaap and gat , while rhythm and tempo are manipulated. It is for this reason that NICM was used by Mathur et al. (2015) , enabling the group to isolate the effect of rhythm on emotional elicitationsand, in doing so, demonstrating the unique utility NICM offers as an experimental stimulus.

KEY CONCEPT 4. Alaap and Gat Raga performance has two stages, alaap and gat. The alaap introduces the raga, laying out a tonal framework. The gat introduces the rhythmic accompaniment, increasing in tempo and becoming stricter in rhythmic structure until there is very little room left for improvisation. As both stages use the same scale, changing tempo, ragas are experimental stimuli by nature, with which melodic and temporal effects on emotion can be distinguished.

Cultural Relationship between Raga, Rasa , and Bhava (Modal Melody, Mood, and Emotion Label)

On a more subjective level, emotional intent is a distinguishing feature of the NICM raga system. Whereas emotions and moods are implied characteristics of Western Classical music, Indian ragas have prescribed emotional effects, or rasa s ( Vatsyayan, 1996 ), each rasa intended to alter the mood ( bhava ) of the listener in a particular manner. Erotic love ( sringara ), patheticness ( karuna ), devotion ( bhakti ), comedy ( hasya ), horror ( bhayanaka ), repugnancy ( bibhatsa ), heroism ( vira ), fantastical, furious ( roudra ), and peaceful ( shanta ) were named in Bhatkhande's description of rasa and bhava ( Bhatkhande, 1934 ; Bowling et al., 2012 ).

Knowing the bhava that the rasa of a particular raga is meant to induce ( Mathur et al., 2015 ), such stimuli are invaluable to musical emotion studies, cross-cultural or otherwise, as the Circle of Thaats , and the canon of standard ragas it encompasses, can be utilized as a catalog for eliciting subtle gradations in emotional effect, some of which are culturally universal, others less so. Whilst Western listeners perceive the same basic emotions—happy, sad, angry, disgusted, surprised, fearful—as native listeners in Hindustani music, more subtle emotional gradations of basic emotions (e.g., “peacefulness” rather than happiness) are more easily identified by native listeners ( Balkwill and Thompson, 1999 ; William Forde Balkwill et al., 2004 ; Fritz et al., 2009 ; Laukka et al., 2013 ).

Mathur et al. (2015)

Recently, Mathur et al. (2015) tested the hypothesis that ragas elicit distinct emotional feelings. Using 3-min compositions of 12 ragas , presented in the form of an online survey, participants rated these ragas on the degree to which they elicited different emotions. All ragas were composed by a professional musician and rendered on sarod , an Indian stringed instrument.

As indicated earlier, Mathur et al. exploited the structure of a raga composition and presented each of the 12 ragas in both alaap and gat . Participants were instructed to rate each excerpt on eight distinct emotions on a 0–4 Likert scale (with 0 being “not at all felt” to 4 being “felt the most”) for each of the following emotion labels: happy, romantic, devotional, calm/soothed, angry, longing/yearning, tensed/restless, and sad. The study did not use a forced choice task but instead sought each raga to be rated for each of the eight emotions, sensitive to the fact that a single musical composition can elicit multiple moods. Specifically the study sought to determine if participant responses (1) differed between the emotions experienced by alaap and gat for various ragas (2) whether the psychophysical variables of rhythm and tonality influenced the emotions experienced.

The first finding of Mathur et al.'s study was that distinct ragas are associated with distinct emotional elicitations. This was similar to the findings reported by Balkwill and Thompson (1999) which showed that even western listeners who were unfamiliar with the tonal system of NICM perceived the intended emotion in ragas . However Balkwill and Thompson used ragas only in the alaap mode and implemented forced choice task. Participants in that study were required to indicate which of the four target emotions was dominant for the raga. Mathur et al. on the other hand asked each participant to rate the extent to which each of the emotions were experienced during the listening of the raga . Mathur et al. also found that that when the raga was presented in “ alaap ,” participants ratings were either calm (positive) or sad (negative) emotion. However, when presented in the gat condition, a finer discrimination of emotions were elicited (happy, romantic, calm) and (sad, longing, tension). This was the first experimental verification of the hypothesis that distinct emotions are associated with alaap and gat of a raga . Further, since Mathur et al. also used acoustic analysis to extract estimates of rhythmic regularity and tempo, they correlated acoustic features with behavioral ratings of emotional elicitation and were able to demonstrate that high arousal emotions like happy/tensed were associated with gat . As elaborated earlier the gat follows faster sequences of notes and provides an explicit rhythmic structure. A comparison of these results with those from the study conducted by Balkwill and Thompson showed that tempo and melodic complexity had some predictive power. However this was found only for some differences. Balkwill and Thompson (1999) used psychophysical ratings of tempo and melodic complexity and found that a combination of the two, predicted emotions primarily joy and sadness. Similar results were also reported by Gabrielsson and Juslin (1996) who showed that faster tempo were associated with positive emotions while slower tempo with negative emotions.

What was novel in Mathur et al.'s study was the finding that there is a change in the level of arousal between alaap and gat for the same raga. Since the tonal structure of the raga is preserved between alaap and gat , only the tempo is changed and the finding that high arousal emotions are associated with gat points to the fact that the raga structure is an optimal stimulus to dissociate the effects of tempo and tonality: tonality is controlled for between alaap and gat , while rhythm and tempo are manipulated. This result from Mathur et al. (2015) , illustrated that this unique structure of NICM that enables the isolation of the effect of rhythm on emotion elicitationrenders it as a useful experimental stimulus.

Of greater interest was the second primary finding of Mathur et al. (2015) study which showed that specific tonic intervals were robust predictors of elicited emotions. Major intervals were found to be associated with positive emotions and minor intervals to be associated with negative emotions. An analysis of tonal intervals of ragas , revealed that ragas rated as positive (such as “calm” and “happy”) had a greater mean frequency of occurrence of major intervals ( shuddh swaras ) whereas ragas with negative emotion (e.g., sad or tensed) were characterized by an increased frequency of minor intervals ( Komal swaras ). Figure 2 shows a distribution of mean frequency of occurrence of tonic intervals for the 12 ragas used in the study. Red bars represent the mean frequency of occurrence of shuddh swaras whereas that of komal swaras is represented with blue bars for each raga . To the best of our knowledge this finding for ragas is novel and has not been reported earlier.

Figure 2 . Tonality for ragas . The above figure represents the tonic interval distribution for the 12 ragas used in the study ( Mathur et al., 2015 ). The tonal distribution of ragas rated as “calm” is represented with red background color panel whereas the tonal distribution of ragas rated as “sad” is represented with blue background color panel. Within each panel the mean frequency of occurrence of shuddh swaras [S ( Sa ), R ( Re ), G ( Ga ), M ( Ma ), P ( Pa ), D ( Dha ), N ( Ni )] is depicted with red bars whereas the mean frequency of occurrence of komal swaras [r( re ), g( ga ), m( ma ), d( dha ), n( ni )] is depicted with blue bars.

To further explore the findings from Mathur et al. and assess the degree to which emotion ratings agree with rasa variation around the Circle of Thaats , we first associated a valence score with each raga , which is a difference in the ratings of the two highest experienced emotions, calm and sad. As a consequence, a value >0 is associated with positive valence whereas, a difference < 0 is associated with negative valence. Next, we define a tonal ratio, which is the ratio of the number of minor intervals (m) to major intervals (M) for each raga . The valence score and tonal ratios estimated are listed in Table 2 .

Table 2 . Ratios of minor (m) to major (M) intervals along with mean ratings for ragas belonging to each thaat as estimated in Mathur et al. (2015) .

In Figure 3 , we compare the tonal ratios with the valence score of the ragas used by Mathur et al. The tonal ratios and valence score as estimated for various ragas are represented along the Circle of Thaats (refer to Table 2 and Figure 3 ). The thaats for which emotional elicitations for more than one raga were available, an average valence score has been estimated (Table 2 ). The tonal ratios are expressed on a color scale (red to blue) while the average valence score associated with each thaat is indicated along with the name of the respective thaat . Figure 3 reveals that ragas belonging to thaat Bilawal (tonal ratio 0.00), elicits emotions with positive valence (e.g., valence score of raga Hansadhwani and Tilak Kamod are 1.22 and 1.28, respectively) where ragas belonging to thaat Todi (tonal ratio 0.57) and thaat Marwa (tonal ratio 0.29) evokes emotions of negative valence (e.g., valence score of Basant Mukhari or Mivan ki Todi is −0.35 and −0.33, respectively). Thus as the tonal ratio systematically increases moving clockwise from 0 and subsequently decreases, valence follows suit. In effect, the qualitative rasa variation adumbrated by the Circle of Thaats aligns with quantitative variations in both emotion rating valence and tonal ratio for the ragas tested.

KEY CONCEPT 5. TONAL RATIO The ratio of #minor/#Major intervals in a raga. As minor intervals are dissonant and Major intervals are consonant, this ratio gauges consonance/dissonance across an entire raga scale. Raga tonal ratios align with valences of participants' subjective ratings, suggesting the canon of North Indian ragas is a source for experimental stimuli with for those seeking a range and gradation of valences.

Figure 3 . Similarities between the tonal ratio (m/M) and valence of ragas when arranged along Circle of Thaats . The tonal ratio is color coded in increasing order on a scale of red to blue. Valence values associated with each thaat are indicated next to the names of the thaat , with negative valence preceded by the minus sign. For thaats where multiple ragas were included in Mathur et al. a mean valence was estimated based on the ratings in Table 2 .

Finally, a third finding of Mathur et al. (2015) was that out of the 12 tonic intervals, the minor second interval ( komal re ) was the best predictor of negative valence. As seen in Figure 3 , there are two locations along the circle of thaats , which we refer to as transition thaats where a change in tonal ratio is accompanied by a change in valence category (refer to Figure 3 and Table 2 ). These are Kafi to Asavari (positive to negative valence) and Purvi to Khamaaj (negative to positive). While symmetrically located on the circle of thaats , and similar tonal ratios the subsequent valence associated with the transition thaats is quite different. We attribute this to the specific minor intervals involved.

While the minor intervals present in transition thaats Kafi to Asavari are minor third ( komal ga ) and minor seventh ( komal ni ) those present in transition thaats Purvi to Marwa are minor second ( komal re ) and tritone ( tivra ma ) respectively. We suggest that the presence of the minor second in the transition thaats Purvi and Marwa leads to their association with higher negative valence score (−0.26 and −0.42, respectively) as compared to thaat Kafi (0.50). While the study by Mathur et al. did not include a raga from thaat Asvari the results encourage us to hypothesize that the minor second serves a crucial role in conveying negative valence. Further studies should attempt to investigate its role in detail by sampling a larger representation of ragas from each thaat .

The purpose of this review was to demonstrate NICM ragas as robust stimuli capable of eliciting distinct, predictable emotions, with tonal relationships and rhythmic tempo influencing the valence and strength of emotional effects in the listener. The ragas used in Mathur et al. (2015) were only 12 in number, but since they had been sampled across almost all thaats we attempted to speculate how the structure of the tonic intervals might predict the emotional valence associated with a raga .

Moving around the Circle of Thaats , emotional valence systematically varied along with the tonal ratios of each thaat . In this way, music emotion researchers may find experimental utility in the Circle of Thaats, as a catalog of stimuli varying in degrees of valence not only systematically, but incrementally , in the sense of finer gradations of valence than the more binary notions of “positive”/”negative” “happy”/”sad” typically ascribed to consonance and dissonance effects on emotion. In addition, built into the very structure of Indian compositions is an experimental manipulation of rhythmic tempo between alaap and gat , keeping tonal intervals constant, which in Mathur et al. (2015) revealed that the musical differences between sadness and tension, calmness and happiness may be more a function of rhythm than melody.

In sum, the catalog of systematically and incrementally varying emotional valence comprising the Circle of Thaats ; and a varying rhythmic structure which controls for tonality across a single raga , together make NICM music an invaluable auditory stimulus, tailor made and uniquely useful for experimentally controlled studies of musical emotion. We acknowledge that at present the preliminary results discussed here are speculative and require more detailed investigation. Since the tonic ratio is directly related to emotional response, further studies should also probe the nature of this relationship in influencing the strength of arousal of positive or negative valence of a raga , a feature that is often adopted by various performing artistes that has not been experimentally investigated. Future research would also do well to test the degree to which the constant tonic drone amplifies the strength of the emotional valences induced via the consonances and dissonances of these tonic ratios.

Finally, whilst a main aim of this review was to describe why ragas are a uniquely useful experimental stimuli for studies of music and emotion, this methodological prescription comes with an important caveat. Ragas are musical stimuli with deep, specific cultural origins and associations ( Wieczorkowska et al., 2010 ). But although they have been shown to elicit culturally-specific emotions which appear to be lost on non-native listeners, they also convey emotions that are shared between native and non-native listeners ( Laukka et al., 2013 ). Consequently, for experiments using raga stimuli for cross-cultural research this is crucial to note, as beyond universal emotions there are enculturated emotions elicited by culture-specific cues in music. For studies using only Western or only Indian samples, however, such cultural effects should not be a concern, as all participants would be equally advantaged or disadvantaged in identifying culturally dependent musical cues.

On a final, related point, it is important to note that the usage of ragas in the Western music cognition literature is nearly always in the context of cross-cultural differences. We hope Western readers come away from this review with an understanding that ragas can be thought of as more than “world music,” and useful for more than only cross-cultural studies of music cognition and emotion.

Ultimately, we hope this review brings the unique experimental value of NICM to the attention of music emotion researchers, useful for investigating emotional elicitations to music, within, between, and across different cultures.

Author Contributions

NS: designed the study and wrote the paper; JV and JA: contributed to paper writing; AM: collected data, conducted analysis, and contributed in writing the paper.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

Funding for this work was provided by National Brain Research Centre, India. We thank Pt. Mukesh Sharma for composing the stimuli for the study. We thank our volunteers for their participation in the survey. We thank Hymavathy Balasubramanian for feedback during manuscript editing. We thank Hymavathy Balasubramanian for feedback during manuscript editing.

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Keywords: raga , emotion, tonic ratio, thaat , music

Citation: Valla JM, Alappatt JA, Mathur A and Singh NC (2017) Music and Emotion—A Case for North Indian Classical Music. Front. Psychol . 8:2115. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02115

Received: 07 January 2017; Accepted: 20 November 2017; Published: 19 December 2017.

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The Impact of Classical Music on Neuroanatomy and Brain Functions

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The human brain is responsible for a variety of functions that govern daily life, adaptation, and survival. Characteristics such as memory consolidation, mood states, and neural plasticity give rise to brain biodiversity and higher-order intelligence. There are many external stimuli that evoke such characteristics, from a car horn to the latest Marvel movie, and classical music is no exception.This genre of music is a means to stimulate neural chemistry and cerebral circuits. This paper focuses on the nervous system as well as the neuroanatomy that can be impacted by engagement with such music. Classical music increases memory consolidation, relaxes the nervous system, can amplify emotional mood states, and can increase neural plasticity to slow down age-related cognitive decline. Furthermore, ti can be used as a therapy for memory-related brain- based conditions such as Alzheimer's disease and dementia.

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Vani Sharma, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Vani Sharma is majoring in MCB Honors on the pre-med track, with a minor in public health & neuroscience certificate. She is a writer for Brain Matters. which allows her the opportunity to learn about the brain & its neuroanatomy in depth along with her interest in brain disorders. On campus, she is heavily involved with medical clubs & the Illini Strings Orchestra, serves as an undergraduate research ambassador, is a part of the Madak Erdogan Women's Health & Metabolism Lab, and works as a teaching assistant for chemistry. After graduating from VIUC, she hopes to attend medical school.

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Cultural evolution of music

• Patrick E. Savage   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6996-7496 1  

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The concept of cultural evolution was fundamental to the foundation of academic musicology and the subfield of comparative musicology, but largely disappeared from discussion after World War II despite a recent resurgence of interest in cultural evolution in other fields. I draw on recent advances in the scientific understanding of cultural evolution to clarify persistent misconceptions about the roles of genes and progress in musical evolution, and review literature relevant to musical evolution ranging from macroevolution of global song-style to microevolution of tune families. I also address criticisms regarding issues of musical agency, meaning, and reductionism, and highlight potential applications including music education and copyright. While cultural evolution will never explain all aspects of music, it offers a useful theoretical framework for understanding diversity and change in the world’s music.

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Introduction.

The concept of evolution played a central role during the formation of academic musicology in the late nineteenth century (Adler, 1885 / 1981 ; Rehding, 2000 ). During the twentieth century, theoretical and political implications of evolution were heavily debated, leading evolution to go out of favor in musicology and cultural anthropology (Carneiro, 2003 ). In the twenty first century, refined concepts of biological evolution were reintroduced to musicology through the work of psychologists of music to the extent that the biological evolution of the capacity to make and experience music ("evolution of musicality") has returned as an important topic of contemporary musicological research (Wallin et al., 2000 ; Huron, 2006 ; Patel, 2008 ; Lawson, 2012 ; Tomlinson, 2013 , 2015 ; Honing, 2018 ). Yet the concept of cultural evolution of music itself ("musical evolution") remains largely undeveloped by musicologists, despite an explosion of recent research on cultural evolution in related fields such as linguistics. This absence has been especially prominent in ethnomusicology, but is also observable in historical musicology and other subfields of musicology Footnote 1 .

One major exception was the two-volume special edition of The World of Music devoted to critical analysis of Victor Grauer's ( 2006 ) essay entitled "Echoes of Our Forgotten Ancestors" (later expanded into book form in Grauer, 2011 ). Grauer proposed that the evolution and global dispersal of human song-style parallels the evolution and dispersal of anatomically modern humans out of Africa, and that certain groups of contemporary African hunter-gatherers retain the ancestral singing style shared by all humans tens of thousands of years ago. The two evolutionary biologists contributing to this publication found the concept of musical evolution self-evident enough that they simply opened their contribution by stating: "Songs, like genes and languages, evolve" (Leroi and Swire, 2006 , p. 43). However, the musicologists displayed concern and some confusion over the concept of cultural evolution.

My goal in this article is to clarify some of these issues in terms of the definitions, assumptions, and implications involved in studying the cultural evolution of music to show how cultural evolutionary theory can benefit musicology in a variety of ways. I will begin with a brief overview of cultural evolution in general, move to cultural evolution of music in particular, and then end by addressing some potential applications and criticisms. Because this article is aimed both at musicologists with limited knowledge of cultural evolution and at cultural evolutionists with limited knowledge of music, I have included some discussion that may seem obvious to some readers but not others.

What is “evolution”?

Although the term “evolution” is often assumed to refer to directional progress and/or to require a genetic basis, neither genes nor progress are included in some contemporary general definitions of evolution. Furthermore, while it is true that the discovery of genes and the precise molecular mechanisms by which they change revolutionized evolutionary biology, Darwin formulated his theory of evolution without the concept of genes.

Instead of genes, Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection contained three key requirements: (1) there must be variation among individuals; (2) variation must be inherited via intergenerational transmission; (3) certain variants must be more likely to be inherited than others due to competitive selection (Darwin, 1859 ). These principles apply equally to biological and cultural evolution (Mesoudi, 2011 ).

Evolution did often come to be defined in purely genetic terms during the twentieth century. However, recent advances in our understanding of areas such as cultural evolution, epigenetics, and ecology (Bonduriansky and Day, 2018 ) have led to new inclusive definitions of evolution such as:

'the process by which the frequencies of variants in a population change over time', where the word ‘variants’ replaces the word ‘genes’ in order to include any inherited information….In particular, this…should include cultural inheritance. (Danchin et al., 2011 , p. 483–484)

While there remains some debate about how central a role genes should play in evolutionary theory (Laland et al., 2014 ), few scientists today would insist that the term evolution applies only to genes. Note also that there is nothing about progress or direction contained in the above definition: evolution simply refers to changes in the frequencies of heritable variants. These changes can be in the direction of simple to complex—and it is possible that there may be a general trend towards complexity (McShea and Brandon, 2010 ; Currie and Mace, 2011 )—but the reverse is also possible (Allen et al., 2018 ), as are non-directional changes with little or no functional consequences (Nei et al., 2010 ).

Does culture “evolve”?

From the time Darwin ( 1859 ) first proposed that his theory of evolution explained “The Origin of Species”, scholars immediately tried to apply it to explain the origin of culture. Indeed, Darwin himself explicitly argued that language and species evolution were "curiously parallel…the survival or preservation of certain favored words in the struggle for existence is natural selection" (Darwin, 1871 , p. 89–90). Scholars of cultural evolution have tabulated a number of such “curious parallels”, to which I have added musical examples (Table 1 ).

Theories about cultural evolution quickly adopted assumptions about progress (e.g., Spencer, 1875 ) linked with attempts to legitimize ideologies of Western superiority and justify the oppression of the weak by the powerful as survival of the fittest (Hofstadter, 1955 ; Laland and Brown, 2011 ; Stocking, 1982 ) Footnote 2 . It is no accident that Zallinger's iconic “March of Progress” illustration (Fig. 1 ) showed a gradual lightening of the skin from dark-skinned, ape-like ancestors to light-skinned humans: evolution was used to justify scientific racism by eugenicists (Gould, 1989 ). Although both the lightening of skin and the linear progression from ape to man are inaccurate (Gould, 1989 ), this image unfortunately remains extremely enduring and is commonly adapted to represent all kinds of evolution, including musical evolution (e.g., http://www.mandolincafe.com/archives/spoof.html ).

The classic example of an inaccurate but widespread representation of evolution as a linear “march of progress” (from Howell, 1965 )

Ideas of linear progress through a series of fixed stages continued to dominate cultural evolution for over a century (see Carneiro, 2003 for an in-depth review). It was not until late in the 20th century that several teams of scholars including Charles Lumsden and Edward O. Wilson ( 1981 ), L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza and Marcus Feldman ( 1981 ), and Robert Boyd and Peter Richerson ( 1985 ) began making attempts to model and measure changing frequencies of cultural variants (aka “memes”; Dawkins, 1976 ), as scientists such as Sewall Wright and Ronald Fisher had done for gene frequencies since the 1930s.

The theoretical and empirical work of cultural evolutionary scholars that emerged from this tradition has been crucial in demonstrating that evolution occurs "Not by Genes Alone" (Richerson and Boyd, 2005 ). Scholars have applied theory and methods from evolutionary biology to help understand complex cultural evolutionary processes in a variety of domains including languages, folklore, archeology, religion, social structure, and politics (Mesoudi, 2011 ; Levinson and Gray, 2012 ; Whiten et al., 2012 ; Fuentes and Wiessner, 2016 ; Henrich, 2016 ; Bortolini et al., 2017 ; Turchin et al., 2018 ; Whitehouse et al., In press ). The field has now blossomed to the extent that researchers founded a dedicated academic society: the Cultural Evolution Society (Brewer et al., 2017 ; Youngblood and Lahti, 2018 ). Its inaugural conference in September 2017 at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History was attended by 300 researchers from 40 countries (Savage, 2017 ) Footnote 3 .

Language has proven to be particularly amenable to evolutionary analysis. For example, applying phylogenetic methods from evolutionary biology to standardized lists of 200 of the most universal and slowest-changing words (e.g., numbers, body parts, kinship terminology) from hundreds of existing and ancient languages has allowed researchers to reconstruct the timing, geography, and specific mechanisms of change by which the descendants of proto-languages such as Proto-Indo-European or Proto-Austronesian evolved to become languages such as English, Hindi, Javanese, and Maori that are spoken today (Levinson and Gray, 2012 ). These evolutionary relationships can be represented as phylogenetic trees or networks (with some caveats, c.f. Doolittle, 1999 ; Gray et al., 2010 ; Le Bomin et al., 2016 ; Tëmkin and Eldredge, 2007 ). Such phylogenies can in turn be useful for exploring more complicated evolutionary questions, such as regarding the existence of cross-cultural universals (including universal aspects of music, cf. Savage et al., 2015 ]) or gene-culture coevolution (e.g., the coevolution of lactose tolerance and dairy farming, Mace and Holden, 2005 ).

Although modern cultural evolutionary theories have made many of the earlier criticisms about cultural evolution obsolete (e.g., assumptions of progress or of memetic replicators directly analogous to genes; cf. Henrich et al., 2008 ), there is still an active debate about the value of cultural evolution, with critics coming from both the sciences and the humanities. For example, evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker ( 2012 ) still maintains that cultural evolution is simply a “loose metaphor” that “adds little to what we have always called ‘history’", echoing similar criticisms made by historian Joseph Fracchia and geneticist Richard Lewontin ( 1999 , 2005 ). Biological anthropologist Jonathan Marks has also strongly criticized cultural evolution as being based on “false premises” (Marks, 2012 , p. 40) and adding little value beyond traditional explanations from cultural anthropology. It seems fair to say that, while cultural evolution is making a comeback and the basic idea that culture changes over time is beyond dispute, the idea that evolutionary theory and its methods can enhance our understanding of cultural change and diversity has yet to unambiguously prove its value. Perhaps music might be one area that could help?

Musical evolution and early comparative musicology

I have previously outlined some modern cultural evolutionary theory as part of one of five major themes in a "new comparative musicology" (Savage and Brown, 2013 ), including the relationships between cultural evolution and the other four themes (classification, human history, universals, and biological evolution) Footnote 4 . Early comparative musicologists, however, relied on Spencer's notion of progressive evolution rather than Darwin's of phylogenetic diversification (Rehding, 2000 ) Footnote 5 . Two assumptions were fundamental to much of the work of the founding figures of comparative musicology:

1. Cultures evolved from simple to complex, and as they do so they move from primitive to civilized.

2. Music evolves from simple to complex within societies as they progress. (Stone, 2008 , p. 25)

For example, in The Origins of Music , Carl Stumpf wrote of "the most primitive songs, e.g., those of the Vedda of Ceylon…. One may label them as mere preliminary stages or even as the origins of music." (Stumpf, 1911/ 2012 , p. 49). As late as 1943, Curt Sachs wrote of "the plain truth that the singsong of Pygmies and Pygmoids stands infinitely closer to the beginnings of music than Beethoven’s symphonies and Schubert’s lieder…the only working hypothesis admissible is that the earliest music must be found among the most primitive peoples" (Sachs, 1943 , p. 20–21). Scholars from the “Berlin school” of comparative musicology such as Stumpf, Sachs, and Erich von Hornbostel created the Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv, the first archive of traditional music recordings from around the world, motivated in part by the belief that they could use these recordings to reconstruct the cultural evolution of complex Western art music from the simpler music of hunter-gatherers (Nettl and Bohlman, 1991 ; Nettl, 2006 ).

As the previous section made clear, old assumptions about the roles of progress and genes in evolution have been discarded by modern cultural evolutionary scholars. Nevertheless, ethnomusicologists still often equate ideas about the cultural evolution of music with those of the early comparative musicologists. Rahaim opens his response to Grauer by noting that his use of “the unfashionable language of human genetics and evolutionary biology” would lead many ethnomusicologists to be suspicious:

Would the "echoes of forgotten ancestors" turn out to be echoes of Social Darwinism? Was this to be a retelling of the story of modern Europe's heroic musical ascent above the rest of the world? (Rahaim, 2006 , p. 29)

Similarly, Mundy’s response to Grauer states that "the conception of progress inherent in evolution creates its own hierarchies" (Mundy, 2006 , p. 22). Elsewhere, Kartomi ( 2001 , p. 306) rejected the application of evolutionary theory in classifying musical instruments because "the concepts of evolution and lineage are not applicable to anything but animate beings, which are able to inherit genes from their forebears" Footnote 6 . Overall, since changing its name from comparative musicology to ethnomusicology during the middle of the 20th century, the field has largely avoided discussion of musical evolution, and recent advances in our understanding of cultural evolution have yet to make a substantial impact on musicology.

Macroevolution and Cantometrics

One striking exception to the general tendency to avoid theories of musical evolution in the second half of the twentieth century was Alan Lomax's Cantometrics Project (Lomax, 1968 , 1989 ; Lomax and Berkowitz, 1972 ). Although mostly (in)famous for its claims for a functional relationship between song style and social structure, another controversial aspect was Lomax's evolutionary interpretation of the global distribution of song style itself (for detailed critical review of the Cantometrics Project, see Savage, 2018 and Wood, 2018 a, 2018 b).

Through standardized classification and statistical analysis of 36 stylistic features from approximately 1800 traditional songs from 148 societies Footnote 7 , Lomax classified the world's musical diversity into 10 regional styles. Although this classification was not itself based on any evolutionary assumptions, Lomax proceeded to organize and interpret these 10 styles in the form of a crude phylogenetic tree:

This tree of performance style appears to have two roots: (1) in Siberia and (2) among African Gatherers. The Siberian root has two branches: one into the Circum-Pacific and Nuclear America, thence into Oceania through Melanesia and into East Africa, the second branch to Central Asia and thence into Europe and Asian High Culture... the main facts of style evolution may be accounted for by the elaboration of two contrastive traditions…. As their cultural base became more complex, these two root traditions became more specialized: the Siberian producing the virtuosic solo, highly articulated, elaborated, and alienated style of Eurasian high culture, the Early Agriculture tradition developing more and more cohesive and complexly integrated choruses and orchestras. West Europe and Oceania, flowering late on the borders of these two ancient specializations, show kinship to both. (Lomax, 1980 , p. 39–40)

Although this tree retains some aspects of progressivism (e.g., contemporary African gatherers occupying the "roots" while other traditions "became more complex", West Europe "flowering late"), it also shows more sophisticated concepts such as the possibility of multiple ancestors (polygenesis) and of borrowing/merging between lineages (horizontal transmission). With some modifications, it can be converted into a phylogenetic model as a working hypothesis for future testing/refinement (see Fig. 2 ) Footnote 8 .

A simplified phylogenetic model of global macroevolution of 10 song-style regions. Adapted from Fig. 2 of Lomax ( 1980 , p. 39), which is based on an analysis of ~1800 songs from 148 cultural groups using 36 Cantometric features. Lomax originally placed cultures at different stages along the vertical axis, but here all cultures are represented at the present time and the distance along the phylogenetic branches instead represents approximate time since diverging from a shared ancestral musical style. Dashed arrows represent horizontal transmission (borrowing/fusion) between lineages. Lomax's song-style region names varied—here I chose the most geographically descriptive names from Lomax's 1980 and 1989 publications (e.g., "Eurasian High Culture" instead of "Old High Culture")

Cantometrics provided the major point of departure both for Grauer's essay Footnote 9 and for a series of recent scientific studies exploring parallels in musical and genetic evolution. Some of these studies have directly compared patterns of musical and genetic diversity among populations of certain regions (e.g., Sub-Saharan Africa [Callaway, 2007 ], Eurasia [Pamjav et al., 2012 ], Taiwan [Brown et al., 2014 ], Northeast Asia [Savage et al., 2015 ]). All of these studies found that musical similarities between populations tend to be moderately correlated with genetic similarities, suggesting that both music and genes preserve histories of human migration and cultural contact.

Others have analyzed musical change using theories and methods from evolutionary biology. For example, Zivic et al. ( 2013 ) linked traditional periodization boundaries in Western classical music (Baroque, Classical, Romantic, 20 th century) to changes in pitch distribution patterns, while Serrà et al. ( 2012 ) and Mauch et al. ( 2015 ) both quantified the evolution of diversity in Western popular music, with the former concluding that musical diversity was decreasing while the latter rejected this conclusion in favor of a more complex “punctuated evolution” model (see further discussion below in the section on “Reductionism”). Although the details differ greatly, these studies share a common thread in arguing that musical evolution follows patterns and processes that can be usefully understood using theories and methods adapted from the study of biological evolution (see also Bentley et al., 2007 ; Interiano et al., 2018 ; Brand et al., 2019 ).

Like Cantometrics, most of these studies are more interested in the macroevolutionary relationships between cultures/genres than in microevolutionary relationships among songs within cultures/genres Footnote 10 . This makes them more amenable to broad cross-cultural comparison with domains such as population genetics and linguistics, as focusing on ethnolinguistically defined populations has proved useful in other fields of cultural and biological evolution. However, one drawback to such studies is that it is difficult to reconstruct the precise sequence of small microevolutionary changes that may have given rise to these large cross-cultural musical differences (Stock, 2006 ).

Microevolution and tune family research

One area of research strikingly absent from the discussion of musical evolution surrounding Grauer's essay was the extensive research on microevolution of tune families (groups of melodies sharing descent from a common ancestor or ancestors). Tune family research was particularly influenced by the realization in the early twentieth century that many traditional ballads that had become moribund or extinct in England were flourishing in modified forms far away in the US Appalachian mountains (Sharp, 1932 ). Cecil Sharp's folk song collecting led him to formulate a theory of musical evolution incorporating essentially the same three key mechanisms recognized by modern evolutionary theory: (1) continuity, (2) variation, and (3) selection (Sharp, 1907 ; note that Sharp used the term “continuity” rather than the modern term “inheritance” discussed above). These three principles were later developed by Sharp’s disciple, Maud Karpeles, who helped draft an official definition of folk music adopted in 1955 by the International Folk Music Council (the ancestor of today's International Council for Traditional Music Footnote 11 ) that explicitly invoked evolutionary theory:

Folk music is the product of a musical tradition that has been evolved through the process of oral transmission. The factors that shape the tradition are: (i) continuity which links the present with the past; (ii) variation which springs from the creative impulse of the individual or the group; and (iii) selection by the community, which determines the form or forms in which the music survives. (International Folk Music Council, 1955 , p. 23, emphasis added)

The general mechanisms proposed by Sharp and Karpeles for British-American tune family evolution were explored more thoroughly by scholars such as Bertrand Bronson ( 1959 –72, 1969 , 1976 ), Samuel Bayard ( 1950 , 1954 ), Charles Seeger ( 1966 ), Anne Shapiro ( 1975 ) Footnote 12 , Jeff Titon ( 1977 ), and James Cowdery ( 1984 ; 2009 ). In some cases, the melodic parallels were made explicit by aligning notes thought to share descent from a common ancestor and by verbally reconstructing the historical process of evolutionary changes. For example, Bayard used a series of melodic alignments to illustrate the "process, often conceived but seldom actually observed... of a tune's having material added onto its end and also losing material from its beginning", giving "evolution of one air out of another by variation, deletion, and addition" (Bayard, 1954 , p. 25). Charles Boilès ( 1973 ) even proposed a formal method for reconstructing ancestral proto-melodies, based on the linguistic comparative method for reconstructing proto-languages. Bronson attempted to automate such attempts on a vast scale. His attempts to use punch-cards to mechanically sort thousands of melodic variants of Child ballads and other traditional British-American folk melodies into tune families (Bronson, 1959– 72 , 1969 ) represented one of the first uses of computers in musicology, even preceding Lomax’s Cantometrics Project Footnote 13 .

During my own studies in Japan, I learned that scholars of Japanese music had developed similar approaches based on alignment of related melodies to understand musical evolution, although without explicit reference to tune family research. For example, Kashō Machida and Tsutomu Takeuchi ( 1965 ) traced the evolution of the famous folk songs Esashi Oiwake and Sado Okesa from their simpler, unaccompanied beginnings in the work songs of distant prefectures, and Atsumi Kaneshiro ( 1990 ) developed a quantitative method that he used to test proposed relationships within Esashi Oiwake 's tune family. Meanwhile, Laurence Picken and colleagues traced the evolution of modern Japanese gagaku melodies for flute and reed-pipe back over a thousand years to the simpler and faster ancient melodies of China's Tang court (Picken et al., 1981 –2000; Marett, 1985 ).

Tune family scholarship has not been limited to British-American and Japanese music—those just happen to be the two traditions I am most familiar with. Elsewhere, scholars such as Béla Bartók ( 1931 ) and Walter Wiora ( 1953 ) studied tune family evolution in European folk songs, Steven Jan ( 2007 ) studied the evolution of melodic motives in Western classical music, and Joep Bor ( 1975 ) and Wim van der Meer ( 1975 ) made detailed arguments for treating North Indian ragas as evolving "melodic species" (Bor, 1975 , p. 17).

Recently, scientists have attempted to apply microevolutionary methods to a variety of Western and non-Western genres in the form of sequence alignment techniques adapted from molecular biology (Mongeau and Sankoff, 1990 ; van Kranenburg et al. 2009 ; Toussaint, 2013 ; Windram et al., 2014 ; Savage and Atkinson, 2015 ). Such techniques make it possible to automate things like quantifying melodic similarities and identifying boundaries between tune families (Savage and Atkinson 2015 ; Jan, 2018 ), making analysis possible on vast scales that would be impossible to perform manually.

In addition, some scientists have explored musical microevolution in the laboratory, using techniques originally designed to explore controlled evolution of organisms and languages. Thus, one group mimicked sexual reproduction by having short audio loops recombine and mutate, then used an online survey to allow listeners to mimic the process of natural selection on the resulting music, finding that esthetically pleasing music evolved from nearly random noise over the course of several thousand generations solely under the influence of listener selection (MacCallum et al., 2012 ) Footnote 14 . Using a different experimental paradigm similar to the children's game Telephone, other groups found that melodies and rhythms became simpler and more structured in the course of transmission, paralleling findings from experimental language evolution (Ravignani et al., 2016 ; Jacoby and McDermott, 2017 ; Lumaca and Baggio, 2017 ). Like biological evolution and language evolution, our knowledge of musical evolution can be enhanced by combining ecologically valid studies of musical evolution in the wild (i.e., in its cultural context) with controlled laboratory experiments.

So far, the microevolution of tune families has been investigated largely independently in a variety of cultures and genres, without much attempt at comparing them to explore general patterns of musical evolution. One reason for this is that a broader cross-cultural comparison would require standardized methods for analyzing and measuring musical evolution in different contexts. I proposed such a method and applied it to several of the cases studies discussed above (Savage and Atkinson, 2015 ; Savage, 2017 ). Figure 3 shows an example of this method using an example of melodic microevolution in a well-known folk song: Scarborough Fair .

An example of analyzing tune family microevolution through melodic sequence alignment. The opening two phrases of Simon and Garfunkel's phenomenally successful 1966 version of Scarborough Fair (bottom melody) and its immediate ancestor, Martin Carthy's 1965 version (top melody) are shown, transposed to the common tonic of C (cf. Kloss, 2012 for a detailed discussion of the historical evolution of this ballad). In b , the melodies are shown using standard staff notation, while in c they are shown as aligned note sequences, with letters corresponding to notes as shown in a (following Savage and Atkinson, 2015 ). See Savage ( 2017 ) for a detailed explanation of how this evolution can be quantified (percent melodic identity = 81%; mutation rate = 0.25 per note per year) and discussion of the mechanisms of note substitutions (red arrows) and deletions (blue arrows) shown here

By demonstrating consistent cross-cultural and cross-genre trends in the rates and mechanisms of melodic evolution, I showed that musical evolution, like biological evolution, follows some general rules (Savage, 2017 ). For example, notes with stronger structural function are more resistant to change (e.g., rhythmically accented notes more stable than ornamental notes), and notes are more likely to change to melodically neighboring notes (e.g., 2nds) than to distant ones (e.g., 7ths; cf. Fig. 3 ). This suggests that a general theory of evolution may prove a helpful unifying theory in musicology, as it has in biology.

Musical evolution applications: education and copyright

All musicology is in some sense applied through our research, teaching, and outreach, but some is more explicitly applied for the benefit of those outside of academia (Titon, 1992 ). In this article, I argue that cultural evolutionary theory can provide a useful unifying theoretical framework to apply to research on understanding and reconstructing musical change at multiple levels (both macro and micro) across cultures, genres, and time periods. I now briefly discuss two other ways it can be more directly applied: education and copyright.

The world's musical diversity is woefully underrepresented at all levels of education. Often the job of correcting this falls to ethnomusicologists teaching survey courses on "World Music". As Rahaim ( 2006 , p. 32) notes, "as teachers, we often find ourselves in situations that require us to say something in short-hand about [musical] origins, and have few models at hand apart from evolution". Evolutionary models like Lomax's world phylogenetic tree of regional song style (Fig. 2 ) provide a simple and convenient starting point for teaching about similarities and differences in the world's music, and are flexible enough to adapt to diverse contexts such as conservatory classrooms, instrument museums, or pop music recommendation websites. Such coarse models can be further improved and/or nuanced by following them with microevolutionary case studies of musical change in specific cultures. An evolutionary approach further provides the chance to teach about connections beyond music to other domains in order to understand the ways in which the global distribution of music may be related to the distributions of the people who make it and to other aspects of their culture such as language or social structure (Lomax, 1968 ; Savage and Brown, 2013 ; Grauer, 2006 ).

Since almost all music is influenced by the past in at least some way, whether such influence is within norms of creativity and tradition or amounts to plagiarism is connected to an understanding of processes of musical evolution. US copyright law resembles concepts of tune family evolution in that the core copyrightable essence of a song consists of its representation in musical notation, and that the degree of overall melodic correspondence at structurally significant places between two tunes is a primary criterion for deciding whether the level of similarity constitutes plagiarism (Cronin, 2015 ; Fruehwald, 1992 ; Müllensiefen and Pendzich, 2009 ; Fishman, 2018 ) Footnote 15 . Thus, one famous case concluded that the melody of George Harrison's My Sweet Lord (1970) was similar enough to the Chiffons' He's So Fine (1962) as to constitute subconscious plagiarism (Judge Owen, 1976 ). I used new evolutionary methods involving sequence alignment of melodies to confirm that not only do the two tunes share over 50% identical notes, but the differences that do exist are consistent with the most common types of melodic change (e.g., insertion/deletion of ornamental notes, substitution to melodically neighboring notes; Savage, 2017 , cf. Fig. 3 ). Using a sample of 20 court cases, including He’s So Fine , I showed that this melodic sequence alignment method is a strong predictor of copyright infringement decisions, accurately predicting 16 out of the 20 cases (Savage et al., 2018 ).

However, the concept of individual ownership by composers in copyright law differs from concepts of folk song tune families, where traditional tunes are usually considered to be general property of the community. They are also different from conceptions in many non-Western cultures in which the essence of song ownership may be considered to lie not in its notated melody but in the performance style, performance context, or other extra-melodic features (A. Seeger, 1992 ). Even within US copyright law the question of what types and degrees of copying should be regarded as legitimate borrowing versus copyright infringement is hotly debated and dynamically interpreted, with musicians and lawyers commonly invoking evolutionary principles of continuity and variation to argue for the legitimacy of certain degrees of borrowing, as well as the principle of selection to argue against the deleterious effects on musical creativity if certain types of inspiration are overly restricted (Fishman, 2018 ).

The interpretation of copyright law can dramatically affect the livelihoods of musicians and communities around the world. Thus, a holistic understanding of general dynamics of musical evolution (including the many aspects beyond melodic evolution) and their specific manifestations in various musical cultures and genres may prove crucial to a more cross-culturally principled interpretation of concepts of creativity and ownership.

Objections to musical evolution: agency, meaning, and reductionism

Musical evolution has been and continues to be of interest to musicologists and non-musicologists alike. In fact, many of the processes I discuss are immediately recognizable to many under the terminology of musical change, for which musicologists have long sought a rigorous theory. Merriam ( 1964 , p. 307) argued that ethnomusicology "needs a theory of change". Over a half century later, Nettl ( 2015 , p. 292) summarizes that "there have been many attempts to generalize about change but no generally accepted theory". Why have musicologists interested in general theories of change not adopted the framework of evolution (which is, simply put, a formal theory of change)?

I have presented versions of this argument at international musicology conferences in the USA and Japan, receiving a variety of responses. Most objections to the use of evolutionary theory focused on three issues: implications of progress, individual agency, and reductionism. Since I have already clarified misconceptions about progress at length above Footnote 16 , I will focus here on agency and reductionism.

Building on arguments against cultural evolution by the evolutionary biologists Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin, Rahaim ( 2006 , p. 36) argues: "Perhaps most importantly for ethnomusicologists, metaphors of both situated and progressive evolution turn attention away from the agency of individuals". But does the concept of musical evolution negate the agency of individuals to create their own music any more than the concept of biological evolution negates individual free will? In each case, our cultural/genetic inheritances are the product of long evolutionary processes shaped by historical factors, but cannot be simply reduced to or wholly explained by such factors.

Musicians are often free to compose their own music or modify the existing repertoire in whatever ways they see fit (within the physical limits imposed by acoustics, neurobiology, etc.). But whether their creations will appeal to others and be passed on through the generations depends on a variety of factors beyond their control, including the sociopolitical context and the perceptual capacities of the audience. Thus, the role of the individual musicians in this process and their relationships with other actors (audiences, composers, accompanists, producers, judges, etc.) are in fact central to understanding the cultural evolution of music. As Seeger put it:

musical traditions depend on transmission, continuity, change, and interested audiences, but…these take place in a context of emerging mass media, the involvement of outsiders, and the often unpredictable actions of local and national governments. (Anthony Seeger, foreword to Grant, 2014 , p. 9)

Seeger's summary succinctly captures the three key evolutionary mechanisms of "continuity [inheritance], change [variation], and interested audiences [selection]", as well as their dynamic relationships with individual agency and cultural context.

My research has focused on identifying general constraints that apply across many individuals, but this does not mean that other studies must do so. For example, one potentially productive area for exploring the role of individual agency in musical evolution might involve comparing different performers attempting to create their own signature versions of music originally composed and/or performed by others. This could easily apply to a variety of cultures and genres, including art (e.g., the same symphony performed by different orchestras), popular (e.g., cover songs, hip-hop sampling; Youngblood, 2018 ), and folk (e.g., folk song variants; cf. the Scarborough Fair example in Fig. 3 ).

In fact, the presence of human agency and the intentional innovation that comes with it is one of the most interesting aspects about studying cultural evolution. In genetic evolution, natural selection provides the major explanatory mechanism due to the fact that genetic variation is arbitrary (i.e., genetic mutations are not directed towards particular evolutionary goals). However, in cultural evolution, both selection and variation can be directed consciously and unconsciously through a much broader range of mechanisms than typically found in genetic evolution. To accommodate this complexity, cultural evolutionary theorists have proposed a dizzying array of mechanisms to expand the terminological framework of evolutionary biology to cultural evolution (e.g., transmission biases based on prestige, aesthetics, or conformity/anti-conformity; guided variation driven by cognition and/or emotion; cultural attraction through processes of reconstructive rather than replicative transmission; Richerson and Boyd, 2005 ; Mesoudi, 2011 ; Claidière et al., 2014 ; Fogarty et al., 2015 ). The relative strengths of these different types of evolutionary mechanisms and their implications for musical evolution in particular and cultural evolution in general are hotly debated (Claidière et al., 2012 ; Leroi et al., 2012 ). Thus, this is an area where musicologists and cultural evolutionary theorists could both learn much from one another.

An anonymous reviewer of an earlier iteration of this article flatly stated that my cultural evolutionary approach “is not compatible with an anthropological understanding of culture, and seems instead to describe changes in the surface structures of music (tune families and the like)…”. This criticism seems to echo Rahaim’s concerns about agency discussed above, but also goes even further into the longstanding debate regarding the roles of sound vs. behavior, process vs. product, etc. in musicology (Merriam, 1964 ; Rice, 1987 ; Solis, 2012 ). In particular, it follows criticisms by Blacking ( 1977 ) and Feld ( 1984 ) of Lomax’s attempts to use Cantometrics to understand cultural evolution. As Blacking ( 1977 , p. 10) puts it: “Lomax compares the surface structures of music without questioning whether the same musical sounds always have the same "deep structure" and the same meaning”.

Unlike language, music generally lacks clear referential semantic meaning (Meyer, 1956 ; Patel, 2008 ), and this crucial difference is one reason we must be cautious about uncritically borrowing linguistic concepts wholesale to apply to music (Feld, 1974 ). While I agree that a full understanding of the cultural evolution of music will require integrating understanding of both sound structures and their meanings, I can not accept the implication that the study of musical structures such as tune families are not an appropriate subject of musicological inquiry. Here I can only respond by quoting the final sentence published by Alan Merriam ( 1982 ): “ethnomusicology for me is the study of music as culture, and that does not preclude the study of form; indeed we cannot proceed without it.".

Reductionism

Another critique I would like to mention is a broader but related one regarding reductionism and science. This criticism was levelled at cultural evolution in general by Fracchia and Lewontin ( 1999 , p. 507): "the demand for a theory of cultural evolution is really a demand that cultural anthropology be included in the grand twentieth-century movement to scientize all aspects of the study of society, to become validated as a part of ‘social science'".

One version of this criticism appeared in response to one of the studies cited in this review entitled “Measuring the Evolution of Contemporary Western Popular Music” (Serrà et al., 2012 ). In response, Fink ( 2013 ) made a persuasive refutation of the paper’s central finding of decreasing musical diversity and the newspaper headlines touting it (“Modern Music too Loud, All Sounds the Same”), pointing out that the analyses failed to detect increasing rhythmic diversity because the methods ignored rhythm. Or, as Fink put it: "Music isn’t getting stupider, it’s getting funkier.”

Nevertheless, Fink argues that the same reductionistic science that made the study’s conclusion misleading was also a reason it made headlines:

as reporters rush to assure us, they are newsworthy because, for the first time, the conclusions are backed with hard data, not squishy aesthetic theorizing. The numbers do not lie. But research can only be as good as the encoded data it’s based on; look under the surface of recently reported computer-enabled analyses of pop music and you’ll find that the old programmer’s dictum—“garbage in, garbage out”—is still the last word. (Fink, 2013 )

Not long after Serrà et al. published their study, Mauch et al. ( 2015 ) also measured the evolution of Western popular music over a similar time period, but using less reductionistic methods that importantly included rhythmic features. Mauch et al. came to the opposite conclusion: musical diversity actually increased after a brief decline during the 1980s. This provides quantitative support for Fink’s criticism above. Overall, this case highlights both the value of quantifying the cultural evolution of music and the importance of critical thinking in interpreting the reductionism inherent in such studies. Although science does generally require some level of reductionism, the goal is to be “as simple as possible, but not simpler” Footnote 17 .

Charges of reductionism were also leveled directly at my own (Savage and Brown, 2013 ) proposal that included cultural evolution as one of five major themes in a new comparative musicology. In a thorough and nuanced review entitled "On Not Losing Heart", David Clarke approved of the call for more cross-cultural comparison, but worried about its "strongly empiricist paradigm":

Lomax's particular mode of integration "between the humanistic and the scientific" [was] fueled by a politics that had an emancipatory motive. In the metrics and technics of the new comparative musicology proposed by Savage and Brown, traces of any such informing polity melt into air….A political neutrality that is the correlate of an unalloyed empiricism is problematic….My own predilections here are perhaps more attuned to ethnomusicologists who are interested in the particularities of a culture and the actual experience of encounter in the field. By contrast, Savage, Brown, et al. advocate different epistemological values with a different ethos, based on the abstraction of music and people into data. To characterize that ethos as a recapitulation of Lomax, only without the heart, might be an unfair caricature. For the various statistical representations and correlations emerging from their research may well be sublimating a lot of passion, and Savage and Brown’s own day-to-day dealings with musicians and musicking may be no less affective than anyone else’s (it’s just that they exclude this from their research) Footnote 18 . (Clarke, 2014 , 6, pp. 11–12)

While Clarke argues that a "political neutrality that is the correlate of an unalloyed empiricism is problematic", I believe it may be valuable to maintain a relatively neutral political stance, in large part to avoid the problems of confirmation bias that were leveled at Lomax. With Cantometrics, Lomax sought to scientifically validate his strong political views regarding "cultural equity" (Lomax, 1977 ). One of the concerns that doomed Cantometrics was that Lomax's analyses were viewed as being too strongly biased by his political views (Savage, 2018 ; Szwed, 2010 ; Wood, 2018a , 2018b ). Personally, I strongly share Lomax's views about the value of cultural equity, and I, too, see quantitative data as a helpful tool in arguing for the value of all of the world's music. However, I believe it is legitimate to try to limit political aspects in one's published work, and it may well be a more effective long-term strategy for the types of applications described in the previous section Footnote 19 .

Certainly, neither a purely qualitative, ethnographic approach nor a purely quantitative, scientific approach alone will succeed in advancing our knowledge of how and why music evolves. But by combining the two approaches through cross-cultural comparative study, we can achieve a better understanding of the forces governing the world's musical diversity and their real-world implications (Savage and Brown, 2013 ). For instance, the My Sweet Lord plagiarism case mentioned above gives a clear example where quantitative measurements of the degree of melodic similarity (56%) between two tunes and its qualitative interpretation in the context of copyright law has major practical implications in which millions of dollars are at stake. Although perhaps less easily quantified in terms of dollar values, an understanding of the mechanisms of evolution of traditional folk songs may be just as valuable to traditional musicians struggling to protect their intangible cultural heritage.

Music evolves, through mechanisms that are both similar to and distinct from biological evolution. Cultural evolutionary theory has been developed to the point that it shows promise for providing explanatory power from the broad levels of macroevolution of global musical styles to the minute microevolutionary details of individual performers and performances. Musical evolution shows potential for applications beyond research to such disparate domains as education and copyright.

However, I am aware that my review is inevitably incomplete and I have only been able to highlight a tiny fraction of the types of situations and methodologies through which the evolutionary framework can be fruitfully applied to music. To me, that incompleteness highlights the broad explanatory power of evolutionary theory, and broad explanatory theory is something that musicologists such as Timothy Rice ( 2010 ) have argued is sorely needed.

Scientific interest in musical evolution is already growing rapidly, and will continue with or without the involvement of musicologists. Here again, we can learn from language evolution. Several high-profile articles on language evolution were published by teams of scientists without close collaboration with linguists, resulting in bitter disputes and accusations of "naïve arrogance" (Campbell, 2013 , p. 472) that have limited what could have been mutually beneficial collaboration (Marris, 2008 ). A similar pattern seems to be playing out in the recent controversy regarding a team of Harvard scientists analyzing ethnographic recordings around the world to construct a “Natural History of Song” (Mehr et al. 2018 a, 2018 b; Marshall, 2018 ; Yong, 2018 ). I share concerns about scientists studying music and evolution without collaborating with musicologists, but I believe that ultimately both musicology and cultural evolution stand to benefit from productive interdisciplinary collaboration. I have chosen to try to avoid such pitfalls by being proactive in initiating collaborations on musical evolution with cultural evolutionary scientists to combine our knowledge and skills (e.g., Savage et al. 2015 ; Savage and Atkinson, 2015 ).

I do not intend by any means to imply that the predominantly quantitative approach I have presented here—strongly informed by my collaborations with scientists studying cultural and biological evolution, as well as my own earlier training in psychology and biochemistry - is the only way to study musical evolution. One reason I focused in my dissertation on a rigorously quantitative approach modeled on molecular genetics is that such quantitative approaches have shown success in rehabilitating cultural evolutionary theory after much criticism of earlier incarnations such as memetics as lacking in empirical rigor (Laland and Brown, 2011 ; Mesoudi, 2011 ). But I believe that one of the strengths of evolutionary theory is that it is flexible enough to be usefully adapted to a variety of scientific and humanistic methodologies, with plenty of room to coexist productively with non-evolutionary theories. As Ruth Stone ( 2008 , p. 225) has noted, "there is no such thing as a best theory. Some theories are simply more suited for answering certain kinds of questions than others" (emphasis in original). Even if the concept of cultural evolution cannot provide all the answers, I believe it helps to answer enough musical questions of abiding interest that it should be ignored no more.

Data availability

Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.

For reasons of space and expertise, I will focus here primarily on the ethnomusicological literature, but the concept of cultural evolution of music should also be applicable to other sub-fields, not least the evolution of contemporary Western classical music from medieval Gregorian chant over the course of the second millennium AD.

Although this movement came to be known as “Social Darwinism”, it was in fact not very reflective of Darwin′s ideas, but rather the ideas of Herbert Spencer ( 1875 ), who coined the term "survival of the fittest". While the historical relationship between evolutionary theory and Social Darwinism is debated, today′s scholars of cultural evolution unequivocally reject such political misappropriation of evolutionary theory (Laland and Brown, 2011 ; Mesoudi, 2011 ; Richerson and Boyd, 2005 ; Wilson and Johnson, 2015 ).

Two of these presentations were about music: my own about the evolution of British-American and Japanese folk song melodies and one by Aurélie Helmlinger

about the evolution of steelpan instrumental layouts in Trinidad and Tobago. The 2018 Cultural Evolution Society conference featured an entire panel with four presentations devoted to music.

Due to space limitations this article will not delve into the areas of biological evolution and gene-culture evolution of musicality (Honing, 2018 ; Tomlinson, 2013 , 2015 ; Patel, 2018 ; Savage et al., In prep.).

Of the musicologists responding to Grauer′s essay, only Rahaim ( 2006 , p. 29) carefully distinguished between these two, using the terms "progressive" and "situated" evolution, respectively.

Kartomi has since changed her views, writing "I now think that music has evolved in a measurable way, as long as ′evolved′ is not defined as ′improved′" (personal communication, June 10th 2016 email to the author).

Discrepancies in published numbers and further details are explained by Savage ( 2018 ).

Although not shown here, finer-scale relationships within and among groups can also be modeled using evolutionary methods (cf. Fig. 3 of Lomax, 1980 , p. 41; Rzeszutek et al., 2012 ; Savage and Brown, 2014 ).

Grauer was heavily involved in the Cantometrics Project as both the co-inventor of the Cantometric classification scheme and primary coder of the Cantometric data.

Macroevolution generally refers to changes among populations (e.g., species, cultural groups), while microevolution generally refers to changes within populations.

Lineages of organizations, composers, performers, etc. are a potentially productive area of studying musical evolution, but I will not discuss them in detail here due to limitations of space and expertise.

Unfortunately, Shapiro′s dissertation was never published and is not available for interlibrary loan.

The research leading to the articles republished in book form in Bronson ( 1969 ) was begun several decades earlier, with one article laying out the basic idea of “Mechanical Help in the Study of Folk Song” published as early as 1949.

Note that this finding is conceptually distinct from the “sound-to-music illusion” (Simchy-Gross and Margulis, 2018 ). The sound-to-music illusion involves the same sound being perceived as more musical after repeated listening by a single listener, whereas MacCallum et al.′s study experimentally evolved new and more pleasing music over time.

Note, however, that Fishman ( 2018 ) in particular has argued that the traditional emphasis on melody may be changing, as evidenced by recent high-profile cases such as the dispute over Blurred Lines .

Unfortunately, the association of evolution with progress is particularly entrenched where I live in Japan, where the characters used to translate evolution (進化 [ shinka ]) literally mean "progressive change" (the English word evolution itself evolved from the Latin evolutio , meaning "unfolding"). In my opinion, those avoiding the term "evolution" because of misconceptions about its meaning are contributing to this popular misconception. Instead I believe concerted effort to correct this misconception for future generations is in order.

Anonymous quote attributed to Einstein (cf. Anonymous, 2011 ).

Personally, I do feel a lot of passion for the world′s musicians and see one of my life′s goals as being advocating for their value. My interest in folk song evolution was motivated not only by theoretical concerns about mechanisms of cultural microevolution, but on my own experiences learning and performing British-American and Japanese folk songs and my hopes that my (Japanese-New Zealand-American) children will be able to sing these songs that have been handed down to them over the course of hundreds of years from their ancestors on opposite sides of the world. I have won trophies in a number of Japanese folk song competitions, so questions about agency in performance and what types of musical (and extra-musical) variation are selected for or against are not merely academic but affect me personally. Do I think that all of these factors can be perfectly quantified? Absolutely not. But I do believe that theories of musical evolution informed by quantitative data could have a positive influence on musicology and beyond. As Clarke ( 2014 , p. 12) later admits: “in fairness, the empirical and the metric have as much potential as any other paradigm to work to humanistic ends”.

Language evolution provides another good analogy. Much work in language evolution focuses on the evolution of basic vocabulary due to its resistance to change and amenability to evolutionary analysis (Pagel, 2017 ). However, broader theories of language evolution incorporate many complex cognitive and social factors, including race, gender and class (Labov, 1994 –2010).

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Acknowledgements

I thank my PhD supervisory committee (Yukio Uemura, Yasuko Tsukahara, Atsushi Marui, and Hugh de Ferranti) for guidance and feedback on this article and my dissertation, and thank Steven Brown, Victor Grauer, Thomas Currie, Quentin Atkinson, Andrea Ravignani, and Jamshid Tehrani for comments on earlier versions of this article. This research was supported by a Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) scholarship, a Keio Research Institute at SFC Startup Grant, and a Keio Gijuku Academic Development Fund Individual Grant.

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Music moves brain to pay attention, Stanford study finds

August 1, 2007 - By Mitzi Baker

STANFORD, Calif. - Using brain images of people listening to short symphonies by an obscure 18th-century composer, a research team from the Stanford University School of Medicine has gained valuable insight into how the brain sorts out the chaotic world around it.

The research team showed that music engages the areas of the brain involved with paying attention, making predictions and updating the event in memory. Peak brain activity occurred during a short period of silence between musical movements - when seemingly nothing was happening.

Beyond understanding the process of listening to music, their work has far-reaching implications for how human brains sort out events in general. Their findings are published in the Aug. 2 issue of Neuron .

This 20-second clip of a subject's fMRI illustrates how cognitive activity increases in anticipation of the transition points between movements.

The researchers caught glimpses of the brain in action using functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, which gives a dynamic image showing which parts of the brain are working during a given activity. The goal of the study was to look at how the brain sorts out events, but the research also revealed that musical techniques used by composers 200 years ago help the brain organize incoming information.

"In a concert setting, for example, different individuals listen to a piece of music with wandering attention, but at the transition point between movements, their attention is arrested," said the paper's senior author Vinod Menon , PhD, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and of neurosciences.

"I'm not sure if the baroque composers would have thought of it in this way, but certainly from a modern neuroscience perspective, our study shows that this is a moment when individual brains respond in a tightly synchronized manner," Menon said.

The team used music to help study the brain's attempt to make sense of the continual flow of information the real world generates, a process called event segmentation. The brain partitions information into meaningful chunks by extracting information about beginnings, endings and the boundaries between events.

"These transitions between musical movements offer an ideal setting to study the dynamically changing landscape of activity in the brain during this segmentation process," said Devarajan Sridharan, a neurosciences graduate student trained in Indian percussion and first author of the article.

No previous study, to the researchers' knowledge, has directly addressed the question of event segmentation in the act of hearing and, specifically, in music. To explore this area, the team chose pieces of music that contained several movements, which are self-contained sections that break a single work into segments. They chose eight symphonies by the English late-baroque period composer William Boyce (1711-79), because his music has a familiar style but is not widely recognized, and it contains several well-defined transitions between relatively short movements.

The study focused on movement transitions - when the music slows down, is punctuated by a brief silence and begins the next movement. These transitions span a few seconds and are obvious to even a non-musician - an aspect critical to their study, which was limited to participants with no formal music training.

The researchers attempted to mimic the everyday activity of listening to music, while their subjects were lying prone inside the large, noisy chamber of an MRI machine. Ten men and eight women entered the MRI scanner with noise-reducing headphones, with instructions to simply listen passively to the music.

In the analysis of the participants' brain scans, the researchers focused on a 10-second window before and after the transition between movements. They identified two distinct neural networks involved in processing the movement transition, located in two separate areas of the brain. They found what they called a "striking" difference between activity levels in the right and left sides of the brain during the entire transition, with the right side significantly more active.

In this foundational study, the researchers conclude that dynamic changes seen in the fMRI scans reflect the brain's evolving responses to different phases of a symphony. An event change - the movement transition signaled by the termination of one movement, a brief pause, followed by the initiation of a new movement - activates the first network, called the ventral fronto-temporal network. Then a second network, the dorsal fronto-parietal network, turns the spotlight of attention to the change and, upon the next event beginning, updates working memory.

"The study suggests one possible adaptive evolutionary purpose of music," said Jonathan Berger , PhD, associate professor of music and a musician who is another co-author of the study. Music engages the brain over a period of time, he said, and the process of listening to music could be a way that the brain sharpens its ability to anticipate events and sustain attention.

According to the researchers, their findings expand on previous functional brain imaging studies of anticipation, which is at the heart of the musical experience. Even non-musicians are actively engaged, at least subconsciously, in tracking the ongoing development of a musical piece, and forming predictions about what will come next. Typically in music, when something will come next is known, because of the music's underlying pulse or rhythm, but what will occur next is less known, they said.

Having a mismatch between what listeners expect to hear vs. what they actually hear - for example, if an unrelated chord follows an ongoing harmony - triggers similar ventral regions of the brain. Once activated, that region partitions the deviant chord as a different segment with distinct boundaries.

The results of the study "may put us closer to solving the cocktail party problem - how it is that we are able to follow one conversation in a crowded room of many conversations," said one of the co-authors, Daniel Levitin , PhD, a music psychologist from McGill University who has written a popular book called This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession .

Chris Chafe , PhD, the Duca Family Professor of Music at Stanford, also contributed to this work. This research was supported by grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada , the National Science Foundation , the Ben and A. Jess Shenson Fund, the National Institutes of Health and a Stanford graduate fellowship. The fMRI analysis was performed at the Stanford Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience Laboratory .

• Mitzi Baker

About Stanford Medicine

Stanford Medicine is an integrated academic health system comprising the Stanford School of Medicine and adult and pediatric health care delivery systems. Together, they harness the full potential of biomedicine through collaborative research, education and clinical care for patients. For more information, please visit med.stanford.edu .

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Think Twice

Does listening to classical music improve academic performance.

Image from theconversation.com

In the 18th century, Amadeus Mozart gripped the musical world with his elegantly crafted symphonies and intricate, melodic orchestral pieces. But can his music help students with studying? 

“The Mozart Effect” was first suggested in 1993 in a study conducted by psychologist Francis Rauscher at the University of California in Irvine. Students assigned to listen to a piano sonata composed by Mozart scored higher on a spatial reasoning test compared to those who did not.  

According to a study published in Learning and Individual Differences , students who listened to classical music during a lecture received superior marks on exams compared to their peers who did not. However, this may relate to classical music in general rather than Mozart in particular. An additional study on “The impact of music on the bioelectrical oscillations of the brain” used EEG data to measure brain activity, which suggested that music had a positive impact on brain function. The theory is that music reduces stress while stimulating happiness and arousal, which in turn helps students better concentrate on the task at hand. In the experiment, as long as the music was not too dynamic and did not become distracting, it was associated with better student performance on cognitive based exams.  

So the next time you are stressing about an exam, consider popping in some earbuds and listening to classical music. It might offer heightened stimulation to help you focus on the task at hand and get the most out of your studying time. 

https://news.usc.edu/71969/studying-for-finals-let-classical-music-help/

https://www.incadence.org/post/the-mozart-effect-explaining-a-musical-theory#:~:text=The%20Mozart%20Effect%20refers%20to,and%20their%20reactions%20when%20listening .

https://lighthouse.mq.edu.au/article/please-explain/february-2022/please-explain-does-music-help-you-study

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02044/full

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6130927/#:~:text=According%20to%20scientists%2C%20music%20that,right%20frontal%20and%20temporal%20regions

One thought on “Does listening to classical music improve academic performance?”

I noticed that every year more and more people are interested in the subject of classical music. But unfortunately very often only online. Therefore, any such information helps to revive interest in real concerts.

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Classical Music Benefits (Research paper)

Enjoy reading this amazing writing; you will learn a whole bunch😊

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The purpose of this study IS to determine effectiveness of hangdrip relaxation and classical music in lowering blood pressure and headache in people with hypertension. The present Non-randomized design uses quasi experimental control group (nonrandomized control group prestest-posttest design). This research was conducted in Dr. M. Haulussy Hospital, Ambon with research population is people with hypertension recorded in Dr. M. Haulussy Hospital, Ambon, with 4 groups respectively, 7 respondents were experimental group of relaxation handgrip,7 respondents were classical music group, 7 respondents were handgrip relaxation group and classical music, and 7 respondents were control group. Sampling method was carried out by using consecutive sampling. Blood pressure measurement instruments are calibrated mercury spigmamoteri and pain levels using numerical rating scale (NRS). The analysis used is t test. The result indicate that 3 rd day systolic rate decreaseis the highest in relaxation handgrip group with significance value of 0.003 (<0.05), and 3 rd day diastolic day with significance value of 0.014 (<0.05), pain level decreased on the 1st day with significance of 0.001 (<0.05).

Daniel Drexler , S. Rodio

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Classical music lifts our mood by synchronizing our “extended amygdala”

Whether Bach, Beethoven, or Mozart, it’s widely recognized that classical music can affect a person’s mood. In a study published August 9 in the Cell Press journal  Cell Reports , scientists in China use brainwave measurements and neural imaging techniques to show how Western classical music elicits its positive effects on the brain. Their goal is to find more effective ways to use music to activate the brain in those who otherwise don’t respond, such as people with treatment-resistant depression.

“Our research integrates the fields of neuroscience, psychiatry, and neurosurgery, providing a foundation for any research targeting the interaction between music and emotion,” says senior author Bomin Sun, director and professor of the Center for Functional Neurosurgery at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. “Ultimately, we hope to translate our research findings into clinical practice, developing convenient and effective music therapy tools and applications.”

The study focused on 13 patients with treatment-resistant depression who already had electrodes implanted in their brains for the purpose of deep-brain stimulation. These implants are placed in a circuit connecting two areas in the forebrain—the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) and the nucleus accumbens (NAc). Using these implants, the researchers found that music generates its antidepressant effects by synchronizing the neural oscillations between the auditory cortex, which is responsible for processing of sensory information, and the rewards circuit, which is responsible for processing emotional information.

“The BNST-NAc circuit, sometimes referred to as part of the ‘extended amygdala,’ underscores the close relationship between this circuit and the amygdala, a central structure in emotional information processing,” Sun says. “This study reveals that music induces triple-time locking of neural oscillations in the cortical-BNST-NAc circuit through auditory synchronization.”

The patients in the study were assigned to two groups: low music appreciation or high music appreciation. Those in the high music appreciation group demonstrated more significant neural synchronization and better antidepressant effects, while those in the low music appreciation group showed poorer results. By grouping the patients, the investigators were able to study the antidepressant mechanisms of music more precisely and propose personalized music therapy plans that would improve treatment outcomes. For example, when inserting theta frequency noise into music to enhance BNST-NAc oscillatory coupling, those in the low music appreciation group of patients reported higher music enjoyment.

Several pieces of Western classical music were used in the study. This type of music was chosen because most participants did not have familiarity with it, and the researchers wanted to avoid any interference that could arise from subjective familiarity. “We concluded that the music choices during the formal listening process were individualized and unrelated to the music’s emotional background,” Sun says.

The team’s future research will focus on several areas. For one, they aim to study how the interaction between music and the deep structures of the brain play a role in depressive disorders. They will also introduce other forms of sensory stimuli, including visual images, to investigate potential combined therapeutic effects of multi-sensory stimulation on depression.

“By collaborating with clinicians, music therapists, computer scientists, and engineers, we plan to develop a series of digital health products based on music therapy, such as smartphone applications and wearable devices,” Sun says. “These products will integrate personalized music recommendations, real-time emotional monitoring and feedback, and virtual-reality multi-sensory experiences to provide convenient and effective self-help tools for managing emotions and improving symptoms in daily life.”

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, the scientific and technological innovation action plan of Shanghai, and the Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Major Project.

Cell Reports , Lv, Wang, and Zhang et al: “Auditory entrainment coordinated cortical-BNST-NAc triple time locking to induce an antidepressant effect.” https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(24)00803-9  

Cell Reports ( @CellReports ), published by Cell Press, is a weekly open access journal that publishes high-quality papers across the entire life sciences spectrum. The journal features reports, articles, and resources that provide new biological insights, are thought-provoking, and/or are examples of cutting-edge research. Visit  http://www.cell.com/cell-reports . To receive Cell Press media alerts, contact  [email protected] .

Cell Reports

10.1016/j.celrep.2024.114474

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

Article title.

Auditory entrainment coordinated cortical-BNST-NAc triple time locking to induce an antidepressant effect

Article Publication Date

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61 Classical Music Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best classical music topic ideas & essay examples, 👍 interesting topics to write about classical music, 📃 good research topics about classical music.

• Classical and Rock Music Genres As for the differences between rock and classical, the first thing that comes to mind is the length of the songs.
• Classical Music: Merriam’s Tripartite Model of Music Classical music is characterized by the harmony that is full of chromaticism. Music is meant to provide a meaningful interaction of the body and soul.
• Classical and Contemporary Music Comparison Lyrical content is of great import to hip-hop and has spawned a new style of singing that has riveted the audiences’ attention to this music.
• Classical Symphonies: Investigating Style Evolution of Western Classical Music The formative period of classical music was between the 18th and 19th centuries. Beethoven wrote music slowly and purposely with the romantics’ guidance.
• Modernist Movement in Music: Investigating Style Evolution of Western Classical Music The modernist movement in music seems appropriate for this paper because of the unique and exciting styles of composing modern-era music, such as jazz, pop, and rock.
• Listening to Classical Music This whole thing repeats, but with more complication, and then moves into a slower part like a waltz added in, and then the notes repeat the up and down pattern that sounded like shallow waterfall […]
• Classical Symphony and Classical Chamber Music 140″ is still one of the greatest works of the Baroque era. The composer is famous for many works, and some of them have left riddles.
• Classical Music: Cultural Consumption and Cultural Diversity The author states that the value of classical music is great, and it is recognized widely. It seems important to emphasize that the author of the given article aligns classical music with equality and dignity.
• Classical Music Concerts: Video Report The lighting in the contemporary venue is clear and sharp for this segment of the performance. The energy and complete commitment to the music on the part of the violinist, as well as the rest […]
• Pomona College Choir Classical Music Concert While in the previous performances, I perceived this song as a repenting of a sinner, when listening to the Pomona College Choir, I realized that there was a touch of childlike innocence to it.
• Classical Music: Influence on Brain and Mood Considering the potential positive effects of classical music on the mood and the brain, the music can be adapted to influence people to behave in certain ways.
• Classical and Modern Music To understand the connection between music performance and the epoch, it is possible to consider a concert in the late eighteenth century and a concert of hip-hop music in the early twenty-first century.
• Verismo in Classical Music Verismo refers to the composition of classical music based on natural elements and it was introduced to Italy in the late 19th Century.
• Pieces From Classical and Romantic Music E-Concert The material of the first part is repeated, and at the end of the Overture the harmonic balance of the orchestra is assaulted by sudden sounds of trombones, as if questioning the achieved harmony.
• Classical Music Concert “Toyota Symphonies for Youths” The lady was mainly doing the vocals while one of the gentlemen was playing the piano, the other was playing an oboe and the last one was playing a bassoon.
• Classical Music: Composer Philip Glass Classic music emerged in the beginning of the 11th century in the West. Conclusion Philip Glass is a great composer who has helped conserve the unique nature of classical music.
• Washington Cathedral Classical Music Christmas Concert The pieces were performed beautifully; actually, I got a sense of satisfaction and deep rumination of the Christmas season because of the expressive execution of the pieces by the band and the choir.
• The Classical Music and Their Effects Classical Music can be defined as a form of Art music that is produced in traditions concerned with secular and western liturgical music.
• Benjamin Britten: A Renowned Classic Musician However, his mother was a part time singer and she aided his growth in approach and musical content.”The Royal Falily” is one of his well known compositions in his early childhood, which was about the […]
• Classical Music: Attending a Concert 2 is one of the most remarkable stories in the world of classical music. Le Grand Tango for violin and piano is one of the most beautiful masterpieces in classical music.
• Overview of Baroque and Classical Music Differences
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• Can Culturally-Specific Perspectives to Teaching Western Classical Music Benefit International Students?
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• The Eastern Classical Music Cultural Studies
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• Western Classical Music Development: Statistical Analysis of Composers’ Similarity, Differentiation, and Evolution
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Impact on Classical Music
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1. IvyPanda . "61 Classical Music Essay Topic Ideas & Examples." March 2, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/classical-music-essay-topics/.

Bibliography

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Brain Study Shows How Classical Music Lifts Your Mood

Key takeaways.

Classical music lifts a person’s mood by improving brain connections

The music caused stronger interactions between regions related to sound and pleasure

Adding low-frequency sound to music increased people’s enjoyment of it

MONDAY, Aug. 12, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Does listening to classical music make you feel sublime?

A new study suggests there might be a scientific reason for that: Researchers discovered that the music lifts a person’s mood by improving connections between brain regions related to both sound and pleasure.

How? Music synchronizes brain waves between the auditory cortes, which processes sound, and the rewards circuit that processes emotional information, according to findings published Aug. 9 in the journal Cell Reports .

The study focused on a brain circuit connecting two areas of the forebrain -- the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) and the nucleus accumbens (NAc)

A group of 13 patients with treatment-resistant depression already had electrodes implanted in this circuit for the purpose of deep-brain stimulation, researchers explained.

“The BNST-NAc circuit, sometimes referred to as part of the ‘extended amygdala,’ underscores the close relationship between this circuit and the amygdala, a central structure in emotional information processing,” said senior researcher Dr. Bomin Sun , director of the Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s Center for Functional Neurosurgery.

In the study, patients listened to the third movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, “representing joy and excitement,” researchers wrote in their paper.

Electrode scans revealed that the music boosted the flow of brain waves through this circuit, researchers reported.

They also found that altering the music slightly could improve the patients’ response to it.

For example, inserting low-frequency theta noise into music increased patient’s reported enjoyment, results showed.

Theta frequency sounds are associated with the lightest stage of sleep and can induce a meditative effect, according to the Sleep Foundation.

The research team next plans to study the interaction between music and the deep structures of the brain. They also want to introduce other sensory stimuli, including visual imagery.

“By collaborating with clinicians, music therapists, computer scientists and engineers, we plan to develop a series of digital health products based on music therapy, such as smartphone applications and wearable devices,” Sun said in a journal news release.

“These products will integrate personalized music recommendations, real-time emotional monitoring and feedback, and virtual-reality multi-sensory experiences to provide convenient and effective self-help tools for managing emotions and improving symptoms in daily life,” Sun added.

More information

The Sleep Foundation has more on theta waves and binaural beats .

SOURCE: Cell Press , news release, Aug. 9, 2024

What This Means For You

Classical music can improve a person’s mood by stimulating the interaction between the brain’s sensory and reward systems.

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Cognitive Crescendo: How Music Shapes the Brain’s Structure and Function

Corneliu toader.

1 Department of Neurosurgery, “Carol Davila” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 020021 Bucharest, Romania; [email protected] (C.T.); [email protected] (B.-G.B.); [email protected] (L.A.G.); [email protected] (A.B.); [email protected] (D.-I.D.); [email protected] (A.V.C.)

2 Department of Vascular Neurosurgery, National Institute of Neurology and Neurovascular Diseases, 077160 Bucharest, Romania

Calin Petru Tataru

3 Department of Opthamology, “Carol Davila” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 020021 Bucharest, Romania

4 Central Military Emergency Hospital “Dr. Carol Davila”, 010825 Bucharest, Romania

Ioan-Alexandru Florian

5 Department of Neurosciences, “Iuliu Hatieganu” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 400012 Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Razvan-Adrian Covache-Busuioc

Bogdan-gabriel bratu, luca andrei glavan, andrei bordeianu, david-ioan dumitrascu, alexandru vlad ciurea.

6 Neurosurgery Department, Sanador Clinical Hospital, 010991 Bucharest, Romania

Associated Data

All data are available online in libraries such as PubMed.

Music is a complex phenomenon with multiple brain areas and neural connections being implicated. Centuries ago, music was discovered as an efficient modality for psychological status enrichment and even for the treatment of multiple pathologies. Modern research investigations give a new avenue for music perception and the understanding of the underlying neurological mechanisms, using neuroimaging, especially magnetic resonance imaging. Multiple brain areas were depicted in the last decades as being of high value for music processing, and further analyses in the neuropsychology field uncover the implications in emotional and cognitive activities. Music listening improves cognitive functions such as memory, attention span, and behavioral augmentation. In rehabilitation, music-based therapies have a high rate of success for the treatment of depression and anxiety and even in neurological disorders such as regaining the body integrity after a stroke episode. Our review focused on the neurological and psychological implications of music, as well as presenting the significant clinical relevance of therapies using music.

1. Introduction

The inherent complexity of music renders it a multifaceted subject that eludes simple definitions. While many describe it as an ordered arrangement of sounds, musical elements such as harmony or the bass line require intricate understanding and considerable effort to master. In this research, our focus is on the neurological and psychological benefits of music listening, especially the potential usage of musical therapies, and how the brain might respond during varied activities set within a musical context [ 1 ].

Music is a universal phenomenon that utilizes a myriad of brain resources. Engaging with music is among the most cognitively demanding tasks a human can undergo, and it is identified across all cultures; therefore, it underscores its fundamental human nature [ 2 ]. The proclivity to create and appreciate music is ubiquitous among humans, permeating daily life across diverse societies [ 3 ]. This inherent connection to musical expression is deeply intertwined with human identity and experience. Molnar-Szakacs further emphasizes music’s unique capacity to evoke memories, stimulate emotions, and enrich social interactions [ 3 ]. Historical examples underscore the therapeutic potential of music. For instance, Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations (BWV 988) was purportedly composed to alleviate a count’s insomnia, underscoring music’s therapeutic potential [ 4 , 5 , 6 ]. The profound emotional impact of music, whether it be the melancholy evoked by a nocturne from F. Chopin or the elation induced by W. A. Mozart, has inspired ongoing research into its relationship with emotions and psychological disorders [ 7 ]. Fundamental to understanding music are the concepts of pitch perception, rhythm perception, and tonality perception.

1.1. Pitch Perception

Predominantly processed in the auditory cortex, pitch perception pertains to the brain’s handling of sound information. The auditory cortex features a tonotopic map wherein specific regions are sensitive to distinct frequencies. Human auditory perception ranges from 20 to 20,000 Hz, with distinct pitches resonating at precise locations on the basilar membrane. Yost et al. expound that understanding pitch necessitates a grasp of the biomechanical mechanisms and neurological shifts in sound as well as the diverse ways pitch can be conceptualized and potentially quantified [ 8 ]. Often, pitch is defined as the attribute of sound that sequences it from low to high levels. Musically, pitch aids in recognizing melodies and discerning intervals, with quantification methods ranging from equal-temperament tuning scales to the perceptive mel scale [ 9 ].

For instance, a standard 1000 Hz tone delivered at a 40 dB sound pressure level corresponds to 100 mels on the mel scale. It is important to note that variations in perceived pitch proportionately influence mel values. Much of pitch perception research delves into complex sounds, with the pitch of basic tones like sinusoids determined by frequency. Intricacies in encoding high-frequency and low-frequency tonal signals differentiate them, and while amplitude modulation is absent in simple tonal sounds, temporal mechanisms might play a role in low-frequency pitch perception [ 10 ].

In summary, understanding sound transformations, coupled with a range of definitions and measurement techniques, is imperative for accurate pitch perception. This encompasses melody recognition capacity, interval discernment, and frequency perception, with various mechanisms, both spectral and temporal, influencing pitch perception [ 11 ].

1.2. Rhythm Perception

Beat perception engages specific brain regions associated with motor planning and timing, notably the basal ganglia and the supplementary motor area. Interestingly, even passive listening to music can activate these neural domains [ 12 ]. The ability to discern a steady pulse underlying a rhythmic stimulus defines beat perception. This inherent pulse, which rhythmically structures the music, is an elemental consistency that the human cognitive apparatus innately detects. By accentuating beats in specific patterns, we can synchronize our movements (e.g., dancing or foot tapping) and regulate our temporal perception, culminating in the creation of meter. Rhythmic perception necessitates a combination of interval-based (absolute) timing and beat-based (relative) timing. While interval-based timing is observed in both humans and various animal species, beat-based timing might be unique to humans [ 13 , 14 ].

Motor theories centered on timing are primarily focused on beat-based timing. Active motor engagement seems to actively mold our perception of beats. For instance, the negative mean asynchrony effect, where one’s taps often precede the actual beat, underscores the pivotal role of anticipation in beat-based timing. Humans establish rhythmic timing anticipations and maintain a versatile perception of the intrinsic rhythmic architecture, even when confronted with alterations in tempo. Notably, rhythm perception is not merely passive; it is influenced by an individual’s active cognitive processing and volitional control, underpinned by metric interpretation [ 15 ]. Moreover, the very act of motor engagement shapes the perception of beats, manifests bodily movements, enhances temporal perception, and influences interpretations of ambiguous rhythms. Both overt motor actions and their covert counterparts play a role in refining perceptual sharpness. Even in scenarios devoid of visible motion, there is accumulating evidence that motor engagement modulates the perception of beat and meter. Contemporary research posits that the motor system not only influences beat perception but can also augment synchronicity with music [ 13 ]. Faster movements can also modulate the perceived pace of music segments [ 16 ].

To encapsulate, beat perception involves recognizing a steady pulse amidst rhythmic stimuli, a process that is dynamically shaped by motor activity, conscious modulation, adaptive tempo perception, and anticipatory mechanisms. Remarkably, even in scenarios devoid of overt motion, our sense of rhythm and meter remains intricately linked with the motor system [ 17 , 18 ].

1.3. Tonality Perception

The comprehension of key and harmony in music engages distinct neural domains, including the auditory, prefrontal, and parietal cortices. Scientific investigations are currently delving deeper into understanding the brain’s intricacies in processing musical harmony. The notion of harmony primarily stems from the amalgamation of sounds in Western tonal music. Within this musical paradigm, pitches are hierarchically arranged based on their congruence within a specific tonal context. Scales utilized in Western tonal compositions emanate from this pitch hierarchy. While the behavioral science community acknowledges the hierarchical essence of pitch organization, the neural substrates underpinning it remain a realm of exploration [ 19 ].

In a distinct study centered on J. S. Bach’s compositions, researchers probed the psychological relevance of musicians’ conception of tonality. Here, musically trained listeners were tasked with singing the first scale that resonated with them post hearing snippets from Bach’s Preludes in The Well-Tempered Clavier. The selected tonic (starting note) and mode (major/minor) were then juxtaposed against Bach’s original specifications. The data revealed that listeners could often discern the designated tonic and mode merely from the initial quartet of notes. However, as the piece progressed, there was a marked tendency to gravitate toward tonalities divergent from the original key, notably within the initial eight bars. By the concluding quartet of bars, the original tonic was often reaffirmed. Such findings not only spotlight the cognitive intricacies of tonality perception but also align with the postulations of music theorists regarding tonal discernment by listeners [ 20 ].

Tonality serves as the linchpin in music, underpinning the creation and comprehension of musical constructs such as melodies. A contemporary dynamic theory on musical tonality posits a nonlinear response of auditory neuron networks to musical stimuli. This tonal cognition, the intrinsic interconnections perceived amidst tones, arises from the robust and harmonious associations among brain frequencies, a phenomenon attributable to nonlinear resonance [ 21 , 22 ].

2. Materials and Methods

We conducted a comprehensive search on PubMed database for the most relevant articles regarding music studies, musicology mechanisms, and music-based therapies. For the search formula, we used the following terms: “pitch perception”, “rhythm perception”, “tonality perception”, “memory encoding”, “limbic system”, “neuroplasticity”, “motor coordination”, “evoked memories”, “rehabilitation”, and “music-based therapies”. Initially, PubMed database showed 341 studies. Furthermore, each title of those articles was reviewed to include minimally one of the searching terms. Those studies that did not respect the inclusion criteria or were focused on other subjects besides musicology were excluded. After the analyses, only 132 studies were included in our study.

In this comprehensive review segment, we delve into existing studies, results, and theoretical postulations regarding the neurological implications of music and its therapeutic applications. The aim is to furnish a meticulous analysis of the current state of knowledge within this field, accentuating pivotal research endeavors, methodologies, and discoveries. Subdivisions within this section are delineated based on thematic content, research domains, or specific dimensions of the topic.

3.1. Emotion and Reward Mechanisms in Musical Perception

Music possesses the unique capability to induce profound emotional responses, often intertwined with personal memories of significance. The neuroscientific underpinnings of this phenomenon suggest that music’s emotive power is rooted in the activation of the brain’s reward system. Notable neural regions involved include the nucleus accumbens and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, elucidating the intrinsically rewarding and emotionally charged nature of musical experiences.

3.1.1. The Interplay of Music with the Limbic System

Central to our emotional resonance with music is the limbic system, an intricate assembly of neural circuits and pathways. Key components of this system, such as the amygdala—responsible for emotional processing—and the hippocampus—integral to memory consolidation—become activated during musical exposure ( Table 1 ). Such neural activities account for the evocative power of music to invoke vivid emotional and mnemonic experiences. The consequential effects can be observed when an individual is emotionally transported to a distinct temporal or spatial context upon hearing a particular musical piece or when a gamut of emotions is experienced in response to auditory stimuli [ 23 ].

Brain areas activated during music listening. Auditory cortices from temporal lobe and limbic system areas are the most frequently implicated brain regions in music processing, as well as other eloquent areas depicted in the table.

During passive listening to unfamiliar yet positively perceived music, there was a spontaneous activation in both the limbic and paralimbic regions. Consistent with prior research on passive auditory experiences, primary and secondary auditory cortices displayed activations, corroborating findings from studies that analyzed listening to either monophonic or harmonized auditory sequences [ 24 ]. Furthermore, there were observed activations in the temporal pole, subcallosal cingulate gyrus, affective segment of the anterior cingulate cortex, retrosplenial cortex, hippocampus, anterior insula, and nucleus accumbens. It is plausible that these observed neuroanatomical patterns are a result of the intricate musical nature of the stimuli, which were highly favored by the participants. There is a prevailing theory suggesting that the left hemisphere predominantly facilitates positive emotions. This is in line with our findings that indicate a predominance of limbic and paralimbic activations on the left side, potentially mirroring the participants’ positive aesthetic reactions. The acquired functional neuroanatomical insights augment existing literature on music–emotion interplay, especially those employing high-temporal-resolution methodologies such as electroencephalography and magnetoencephalography [ 23 ].

Contrasting minor with major melodies showed multiple activation sites ( Figure 1 ) with the right parahippocampal gyrus (RPHG) being an eloquent brain area ( Figure 2 ). Another discernible activation, when subjected to cluster-level correction, spanned both the left and right ventral anterior cingulate cortex (VACC) (BA 24) and extended into the left medial frontal gyrus (LMFG) within the medial prefrontal cortex (BA 10) ( Figure 3 ). Remarkably, the inverse contrast (major over minor) did not yield significant activations. In a peak-voxel analysis, the response to the chromatic scale was intermediary when juxtaposed against the major and minor mode melodies for three of the aforementioned regions. These differential responses between the chromatic scale and melodies were not statistically significant, with an exception. Within the LMFG, the chromatic scale evoked the most prominent (least negative) response, trailed by the minor and subsequently the major mode. Notably, the contrast between the chromatic scale and the major mode was statistically significant in this context [ 25 ].

Activation pattern during music listening task. The transversal MRI sequence shows the overall cerebral activation pattern. The lower part of the image will be further explained in Figure 2 , while the upper part will be specifically described in Figure 3 .

A sagittal MRI sequence is shown, which depicts significant neural activity in the right parahippocampal gyrus.

A sagittal MRI sequence is shown, which shows significant neural activity in the right anterior cingulate cortex (BA 24), left anterior cingulate cortex (BA 24), and left medial frontal gyrus (BA 10).

VACC activation is generally associated with affective processing, while its dorsal counterpart is linked with cognitive functions [ 26 ]. Moreover, the existing literature indicates that the VACC displays heightened sensitivity to emotional content characterized by negativity or sadness [ 27 ]. The observed engagement of the VACC might be consistent with the perception of minor mode melodies as possessing a sadder tonality in comparison to major melodies. Notably, prior neuroimaging research on mode-based contrasts has not reported VACC activation in contrasts between minor and major modes [ 28 ].

The detected involvement of the left medial frontal gyrus (LMFG) may be attributed to its robust neural connectivity with the anterior cingulate cortex and other limbic systems. Such a connectivity profile underscores the proposed function of the medial prefrontal cortex as an integrative nexus for emotional input from these associated regions [ 29 ].

Research encompassing neuropsychology, neurophysiology, and health science domains suggests that patients in a low-awareness state exhibit both anatomical and behavioral divergences in response to auditory stimuli. These differences underline the auditory channel’s pivotal role in evaluating such patients. More specifically, the distinct auditory responses between individuals in a vegetative state (VS) and those in a minimally conscious state (MCS) when exposed to emotionally significant auditory stimuli imply that interventions incorporating personally resonant auditory content could lead to discernible outcomes, thus aiding diagnosis. However, diagnostic endeavors are often confounded by non-intentional emotional, or “limbic”, reactions observed in VS patients [ 30 ].

Multiple studies have documented elevated neural activity in MCS patients when exposed to emotionally significant auditory cues, suggesting these individuals possess the capability for discriminatory auditory responses. For instance, Boly et al. observed that stimuli like distress calls or a patient’s own name elicited more extensive neural activations compared to irrelevant noises [ 31 ]. In addition, cognitive-evoked potentials in response to an individual’s own name differed from those induced by other names, reinforcing the clinical premise and observational data that personally significant stimuli are more likely to induce pronounced behavioral alterations [ 32 ].

3.1.2. Music Seems to Encourage Enhanced Connectivity between the Auditory and Emotional Regions of the Brain

Listening to music engages not only the auditory cortex, responsible for sound processing but also several emotional centers within the brain. For instance, a musical composition perceived as melancholic might enhance the connectivity between the auditory cortex and the hippocampus, a region integral to memory and emotional processing. This interconnection can trigger the recollection of somber memories or evoke feelings of sadness.

Activations were prominently observed bilaterally in the anterior sections of the middle and superior temporal gyri. Prior research has identified the anterior temporal lobe’s involvement in comprehension at the sentence level, distinct from the temporal assimilation of significant auditory cues. Notably, this region’s activation is rather selective for sentence-level stimuli. It does not exhibit pronounced responses to unstructured meaningful auditory cues like word lists or random sequences of environmental noises. Nevertheless, it does react to both coherent sentences and nonsensical pseudoword sentences. The study’s authors noted the unresolved question of whether this region also becomes active during musical engagements [ 33 ].

Positron emission tomography (PET) studies focused on auditory imagery for music have documented the active involvement of the supplementary motor areas (SMAs) during image generation. This indicates the SMA’s potential role in an internalized “singing” process during auditory imagery tasks [ 34 , 35 ]. However, these studies did not explicitly associate SMA activity with the rhythmic elements of music. Notably, research involving patients with SMA lesions unequivocally demonstrates their difficulties in replicating rhythms [ 36 ]. The observed diminishing correlation of SMA activity with rhythmical performance following each alteration in the degree of temporal deviations from the reference interval ratio (DRIR) mirrors the decline in SMA activity as a motor task is reiterated. This parallel highlights the analogous motor-related neural activations during both motor activities and musical perception [ 37 ].

3.2. Motor Systems

Engaging in musical activities necessitates intricate motor tasks that demand precise timing and coordination. The cerebellum, an integral part of the brain dedicated to timing and motor coordination, demonstrates heightened activity among musicians. Other motor-related regions, such as the premotor cortex and the basal ganglia, play pivotal roles in both producing and perceiving music. Comprehensive motor systems, spanning from fine motor skills to broad motor coordination, are crucial for regulating the physical actions inherent in playing a musical instrument or singing [ 38 ].

Fine Motor Control: Precision in playing musical instruments necessitates exceptional motor control, specifically in muscles such as the fingers and hands.

Finger Dexterity: Musicians cultivate nuanced finger motions, granting them the capability to adeptly handle their instrument’s keys, strings, or frets. This proficiency enables diverse pitch generation and the execution of intricate melodies or chords. Notably, pianists, aspiring to master compositions like Liszt’s “Transcendental Studies”, S. 139, or Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 21 “Waldstein”, Op. 53, commonly practice upward of 6 h daily [ 39 ].

Hand Coordination: Instruments such as pianos or guitars necessitate meticulous coordination between hands. A harmonious interplay is required where one hand typically manages the melody or leads, while the counterpart offers harmonic or rhythmic accompaniment [ 40 ].

Embouchure Control: Wind instrument performers, encompassing flutists and trumpeters, are reliant on meticulous muscle control of their mouth and lips for tone production and airflow modulation [ 41 ].

Gross Motor Coordination: Distinct from precision-centered fine motor control, gross motor coordination emphasizes the integration of larger muscle group activities.

Body Movement: Many musicians incorporate physical gestures to accentuate rhythm or enhance their presentations, such as rhythmically swaying or foot tapping [ 42 ].

Posture and Breathing: Vocalists and wind instrument practitioners stress the importance of appropriate posture and breath management. Optimal posture underpins efficient breathing, ensuring voice projection and breath modulation [ 43 ].

Sensorimotor Integration: An intimate synergy between motor coordination and sensory feedback is paramount for musical endeavors.

Visual Feedback: Musicians harness visual indicators like music notations or the synchronized actions of co-performers to facilitate timing coordination and group harmonization [ 44 ].

Tactile Feedback: Musicians depend on tactile sensations and muscle memory, underpinning finger positioning and pressure modulation on their instruments [ 45 ].

Auditory Feedback: By closely monitoring their auditory output, musicians can fine-tune pitch, pace, and tonal quality. This auditory feedback loop enables real-time adjustments, promoting accuracy [ 46 ].

In summation, the intricate interplay of fine motor skills, gross motor coordination, and sensorimotor integration embodies the complexity of musical performance. Through relentless training and practice, musicians refine their motor capabilities, striving for both mastery and evocative expression.

3.2.1. Music and Rhythm Processing

Music, at its core, engages our motor systems predominantly through the element of rhythm. The basal ganglia and the supplementary motor area (SMA) stand out as pivotal neural regions governing rhythm processing. Specifically, the basal ganglia take center stage in organizing movements, determining timing and sequencing, and forecasting forthcoming rhythmic beats [ 47 , 48 ].

To delve deeper into rhythm cognition within music, one should familiarize oneself with the PRISM framework. This framework elucidates three central mechanisms: precise auditory processing, synchronization of brain oscillations to rhythmic stimuli, and the interplay between sensory perception and motor action known as sensorimotor coupling. Collectively, these mechanisms facilitate rhythm processing in both musical and speech domains [ 48 , 49 ].

Accurate Auditory Processing: This entails discerning minute time deviations and provides the bedrock for rhythm perception, enabling the detection of intricate temporal patterns.

Brain Oscillation Synchronization: This mechanism concerns the brain’s ability to anticipate ensuing events and conform to hierarchical rhythm structures. It ensures the alignment of rhythmic components, contributing to the holistic rhythm experience [ 47 ].

Sensorimotor Coupling: This establishes a link between perception and execution, implicating the motor system in tasks like timing, prediction, and integrating auditory cues with motor actions.

The PRISM framework offers an innovative lens through which rhythm processing in music and speech is perceived. By illuminating shared neural mechanisms between music and speech, this model enriches our understanding of rhythm processing, thereby opening avenues for further research, particularly in the arena of speech and language impediments [ 48 ].

However, beyond the neurocognitive realm, rhythm perception and production are intertwined with cultural nuances. While cognitive and physiological components might offer a universal rhythm perception baseline, cultural experiences undeniably play a significant role. Infants, for instance, exhibit an inclination toward rhythmic patterns emblematic of their culture’s music, suggesting cultural influences even at infancy [ 50 ]. Cultural aspects also influence language rhythm perception, with speech patterns often mirroring a given culture’s musical rhythms. A comparison between Western and East African music presents a stark difference in rhythm complexities and significance, highlighting the cultural diversity in rhythm processing [ 51 ].

Furthermore, cultural disparities might not only dictate how rhythm is perceived but also the range of rhythmic frequencies one aligns with. For instance, African music’s inherent metrical ambiguity might afford listeners the flexibility to engage with multiple rhythmic levels, diverging from the more rigid Western musical counterparts [ 52 ].

In summary, rhythm’s multifaceted nature intertwines neural processing with cultural nuances. Cultural exposure and familiarity undoubtedly mold our rhythmic preferences and processing capabilities, underscoring the intricate relationship binding music, language, and societal constructs [ 14 ].

3.2.2. Music and Motor Coordination

Playing a musical instrument, especially the piano, is a testament to the intricate dance of our motor systems. Brain scans of musicians highlight heightened activity in regions like the motor cortex and cerebellum, both critical for motion and coordination. Notably, the cerebellum emerges as the linchpin for fine motor control and timing, skills indispensable to instrumentalists. Music is not just an art; it reshapes the brain. Lifelong musical tutelage can cause an enlarged motor cortex and cerebellum, imprinting physical markers of musical expertise [ 53 ].

One striking feature of our motor system is its redundancy. With a plethora of joints and muscles at our disposal, multiple movement combinations can yield the same outcome. Renowned pianists like Martha Argerich and Dinu Lipatti exemplify this by leveraging redundancy to achieve specific acoustic effects, each using unique motor configurations [ 54 ]. This fluidity arises from neuroplasticity, where the neuromuscular system continually reshapes itself, enhancing the finesse of advanced motor activities. By juxtaposing skilled versus novice pianists, researchers probe into the interplay of neuroplasticity, motor redundancy, and the nuanced organization of piano-playing movements. While gauging the long-term impact of training remains challenging, such comparisons offer valuable glimpses into the artistry of motor skills [ 55 ].

The redundancy in pianists’ motor systems is multilayered. They can achieve the same note with various force and movement patterns at the fingertip, navigate multiple joint combinations to produce identical fingertip movements, and leverage various forces to generate the same joint rotation [ 56 ]. Amidst this intricate web, muscular torque stands out. It is birthed from the balance of forces exerted by opposing muscles around a joint. Given the motor system’s richness, pianists have countless ways to strike a single note. Masters of the craft excel in navigating this maze by optimizing energy use, achieving physiological efficiency. Their prowess is evident in their enhanced coordination, minimal muscle discomfort, and adeptness at offsetting mechanical interactions [ 50 ].

How pianists employ joint rotations and balance various forces exemplifies the interplay of kinematic and kinetic configurations. Elite pianists adopt strategies like optimized postures and sequential joint movements, optimizing movement and conserving muscle energy. By harnessing gravity, they also conserve energy when pressing keys, further showcasing motor redundancy. A consistent finding in studies contrasting expert versus novice pianists is the former’s unique upper limb motion organization, honed through rigorous practice. Such an organization is attuned to physiological efficiency, minimizing energy costs for known tasks. It is no surprise then that seasoned pianists, even in demanding performances, manage to retain their performance quality, all while fending off muscle fatigue [ 57 ].

In a fascinating dive into the world of jazz improvisation, Setzler M and colleagues explore how mutual coupling influences the coordination dynamics of professional jazz performers. The study revolves around understanding the interplay of rhythmic and tonal patterns as musicians exchange and spontaneously produce musical elements. With expert pianists from the vibrant New York City jazz circuit as participants, the study juxtaposes a unique one-way scenario, where a pianist improvises to a pre-recorded duet, against two dynamic duo conditions: a coupled setting where both pianists are improvising in real-time. While the one-way setup showcases unilateral coordination, in the duo scenario, the pianists adjust to each other’s rhythms and tones. The catch? The improvisations are uninhibited by any predefined song structure, key, or tempo [ 58 ].

The study dives deep into the data, examining parameters like tonal consonance (how harmoniously musical combinations sound) and onset density (the extent of rhythmic activity). The findings are illuminating: when pianists are connected and responding to each other in the duo setup, they consistently exhibit enhanced coordinated behavior. They create more harmonious tonal structures and display heightened rhythmic synchronization, compared to the unilateral one-way condition. Notably, these observations align with both the pianists’ personal experiences and the auditory preferences of lay listeners [ 58 ].

But why does this matter? The implications of this research are manifold. Firstly, it propels the domain of collaborative action studies and music technology. By understanding the nuances of how mutual coupling impacts musical coordination, we gain insights into complex, unrestrained coordination typical of stellar artistic performances. Such insights go beyond controlled lab environments. Moreover, the findings can shape the future of interactive music systems, potentially revolutionizing how ensemble performances are evaluated in musical training. The study’s roster boasts 28 seasoned pianists, all with robust backgrounds in jazz improvisation, along with a diverse listening panel comprising both jazz maestros and undergraduate psychology students. In essence, this research provides a valuable lens into the intricate dance of coordination during musical improvisation, shedding light on how it elevates the quality of the resultant melodies [ 59 ].

3.2.3. Music and Rehabilitation

Music’s healing touch has progressively found its way into motor rehabilitation, offering a rhythmic respite to those grappling with motor skill challenges. Music-based therapeutic interventions, for instance, have emerged as powerful tools for stroke patients, helping them regain lost motor functions. The rhythmic predictability embedded within music seems to have a harmonious effect on patients with Parkinson’s disease, addressing their movement-related issues like gait and timing disruptions. This rhythmic auditory stimulation (RAS), as is known, offers an external rhythmic pulse that works wonders in steadying and regulating motor timing. This incorporation of music in treating age-related neurological ailments is backed by numerous studies [ 6 ].

The global surge in age-related neurological disorders, propelled by an aging population, has escalated the economic burdens associated mainly with non-acute treatments. This has ignited the quest for cost-efficient rehabilitative methods to complement traditional approaches like physiotherapy. While there is a limit to how much adult brain neurogenesis can contribute to healing, functional restoration does not share this limitation. Shifting from targeted training of impaired functions, some modern methods are championing a holistic rise in brain activity through sensory and cognitive stimulations [ 4 ].

Research has illuminated how musical pursuits like playing an instrument can reshape the brain. Even mere listening to music has been observed to bolster neuronal connections in certain brain areas, such as the auditory and visual cortices. Music’s therapeutic touch extends to post-operative recovery as well, alleviating pain and anxiety and reducing the dependence on painkillers [ 60 ]. Certified music therapists employ both active and receptive music-based therapies, encompassing musical expressions ranging from singing to playing instruments [ 61 ]. While initial studies revolved around music’s impact on acquired brain injuries, comprehensive investigations into its effect on major neurological diseases are still unfolding [ 6 ].

The review delves into music-based therapies’ impact on ailments like stroke, dementia, Parkinson’s, epilepsy, and multiple sclerosis, gauging the therapies’ efficacy through randomized controlled trials. The “effect size” metric offers insights into the degree of improvement observed [ 5 ].

Further, the study zooms in on the potential of dance and RAS in rehabilitating individuals with cerebral palsy (CP) [ 62 ]. Preliminary evidence champions the benefits of dance and RAS in enhancing physical functionalities, especially areas like balance, walking, and cardiorespiratory fitness in CP patients. Despite the extensive categories in the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF), there remain research voids, especially in areas concerning participation and environmental factors [ 63 ]. Bridging these gaps, the review synthesizes quantitative rehabilitation findings within the ICF framework, pinpointing further research avenues. It concludes by celebrating dance and RAS’s potential in enhancing not just physical processes but also emotional expression, social interactions, and overall well-being [ 64 ].

3.2.4. Entrainment

Entrainment, a captivating phenomenon where we unconsciously synchronize our movements to an external rhythm, emerges as an inherent human response when engaged with music. This almost involuntary response—be it foot tapping or dancing—is not just about moving to the beat. It is an intricate interplay of various brain regions responsible for auditory processing, motor functions, and even prediction [ 65 ].

Music, a rich tapestry of sensory, cognitive, and emotional experiences, is not just about the melody or rhythm. When we engage with music, it evokes a spectrum of emotions—from joy and sorrow to more nuanced feelings like wonder or nostalgia. These complex emotions do not necessarily fit into conventional neuroscientific emotion categories, leaving a vast realm still largely unexplored [ 66 ]. The authors delve deep into these intricate emotions, suggesting they are possibly birthed from the confluence of multiple brain areas, including those responsible for attention, motor functions, and memory, intertwined with emotional and motivational pathways. Such an understanding holds profound implications, especially in therapeutic realms, potentially aiding conditions marred by attention, motor, or affective disruptions [ 67 , 68 ].

“New Music” presents another dimension to our musical discourse. Unlike its classical counterpart, defining “New Music” is like capturing lightning in a bottle—it is ever-evolving, challenging norms, and shunning traditional tonality and rhythms. The listener, when immersed in the world of New Music, must recalibrate their cognitive tools to truly appreciate this avant-garde genre. While it is a mosaic of styles, some dominant shades include the second Vienna School, electronic synthesis, microtonal music, and more [ 9 , 69 ]. Branching further, genres like Ambient Music and Postclassical Minimal emerge, each with its unique essence.

Recognizing the need for a deeper dive into “New Music” and its neurological interplay, a dedicated research topic was launched, casting a wide net from embodied cognition to technological impacts and even neuroimaging techniques like EEG and fMRI [ 9 ]. The selected studies ventured into diverse terrains—from tempo perceptions, the philosophy of sound objects, and networked music performances to the nuances of atonal music, especially with pioneers like Arnold Schönberg at its helm [ 70 ]. Truly appreciating New Music mandates unconventional cognitive frameworks, from embodiment to heightened attention to recurring or absent elements. Functional brain imaging, though still in its nascent stages, promises insights into our cerebral engagement with these novel musical narratives. While the current discourse sheds light on New Music’s mysteries, a harmonious symphony of extensive and collaborative research is imperative for a deeper understanding [ 71 ].

3.3. Memory

Music and memory share an intimate bond. Often, a song can trigger a cascade of vivid memories, while melodies and lyrics, even from years past, can be effortlessly recalled. Such connections correlate with activations in areas like the hippocampus, pivotal in memory storage and retrieval.

3.3.1. Memory Encoding with Music

Harnessing a song’s melody and rhythm can be a powerful mnemonic device. Information set to a catchy tune tends to stick, an approach adopted in education to teach topics ranging from languages to science.

Smith et al. (1985) posited a compelling idea—using music as a backdrop during the encoding of words can be a catalyst in context-dependent memory during retrieval. This effectively boosts the recall of the encoded words [ 72 ]. Extending this thought, there is mounting evidence that suggests music’s potency in facilitating episodic encoding of events [ 73 ]. Across various studies, employing musical stimuli like background tunes or sung texts consistently showed improvements in verbal memory for both standard [ 74 ] and clinical groups [ 75 , 76 ]. However, while these studies underscore music’s ability to enhance the recall of encoded items, most have not delved into the musical context during the retrieval process. Among those that did, outcomes have been mixed [ 77 ].

Using fNIRS studies, it has been found that musical backdrops during verbal material encoding can bolster both item and source memory, linked to the modulation of prefrontal cortex activity [ 78 ]. However, some limitations exist, primarily since these studies only compared musical contexts to silence, leaving unanswered questions regarding the impact of non-musical auditory stimulations on memory.

Contrary to the majority, El Haj et al. (2014) proposed that musical backgrounds might impede source memory performance across age groups, adding more layers to the ongoing debate [ 77 ].

Ferreri et al. (2015) shed more light on the subject, indicating that specifically a musical backdrop (and not just any sound) can enhance verbal encoding. The ongoing discussion shifts to which specific elements of music augment memory. Past research has indicated that factors like perceptual characteristics, the emotional undertone, and interpretive variations in musical stimuli play pivotal roles in boosting memory and learning [ 79 ]. Adding depth to this understanding, it is noted that emotional inputs modulate musical memory akin to their influence in other domains [ 80 ].

A salient aspect of the music–memory nexus is the role of rewarding stimuli in cognitive tasks. Music stands tall as one of the most rewarding stimuli, and recent insights suggest its potential in augmenting cognitive performance [ 81 ].

3.3.2. Evoking Memories

Music has an uncanny ability to immerse us back into past moments, often reviving the very emotions we felt during those times. This phenomenon arises because music not only captures the essence of our emotional state when memories form but also acts as a potent cue to rekindle them. Thus, a mere tune or lyric can instantaneously propel us to a distinct time or place, evoking associated feelings.

This intricate bond between music and memory has led to the term “musical memory”. This refers to the unique connection between certain songs and personal experiences, elucidating why particular melodies can instantaneously remind us of specific past events or people.

Music-evoked autobiographical memories (MEAMs) are often charged with intense emotions—be it joy, excitement, or nostalgia [ 82 ]. For instance, a study by Janata et al. (2007) found that popular music-triggered MEAMs were profoundly emotional. They noted that when participants resonated deeply with a song, they were more inclined to associate it with a personal memory [ 83 ]. Neuroimaging research supports the emotionally charged nature of MEAMs and illuminates music’s ability to evoke memories of varying specificity [ 84 ]. Such revelations underscore music’s prominence as a memory catalyst.

Research also explores music’s role in memory recall among Alzheimer’s patients. For instance, Foster and Valentine (2001) noted that Alzheimer’s patients retrieved more personal memories post music exposure compared to when exposed to white noise or silence [ 85 ]. Similarly, a study by Irish et al. (2006) found that Alzheimer’s patients exhibited enhanced episodic memory recall when exposed to Vivaldi’s Spring from the Four Seasons [ 86 ]. However, since music in these studies played in the background and not as a direct memory cue, the results showcase music’s influence on memory recall but do not differentiate music-evoked memories from those elicited by other stimuli.

When pitting memories triggered by music against those by faces, the former emerged as more vivid. However, the total number of internal details remained consistent across both. The primary distinction was in external details—face-induced memories contained more such details, often rich in semantic information about the pictured individual [ 87 ]. Interestingly, gender dynamics were evident in memory retrieval; women consistently described more vivid autobiographical memories than men, regardless of the cue. Several studies have hypothesized that this could be attributed to gender-specific encoding styles, with women registering memories more intricately. Additionally, Piefke et al. (2005) proposed that men and women employ distinct cognitive strategies during memory retrieval [ 88 ]. Another variable impacting the vividness of autobiographical memories is age. Typically, older adults recall memories that are less specific and contain fewer episodic details compared to their younger counterparts [ 89 ].

3.3.3. Neurological Basis

Our understanding of music’s influence on the brain is intricate, involving numerous regions that process auditory information, emotions, and memories.

During music perception, the auditory cortex plays a central role, processing the sound. Simultaneously, areas associated with emotional responses, like the amygdala, and memory, such as the hippocampus, become activated. The medial prefrontal cortex is particularly interesting; it springs into action when we hear familiar tunes. It is also significant to note that this region is one of the last to degenerate in Alzheimer’s disease, hinting at its role in the robust link between music and autobiographical memories.

Delving into the neural mechanics of music performance, Langheim et al. (2002) discovered activations in various brain areas, including the supplementary motor and premotor regions, right superior parietal lobule, right inferior frontal gyrus, bilateral midfrontal gyri, and the bilateral lateral cerebellum, during imagined musical performance. Notably, they did not observe activation in primary sensorimotor areas and auditory cortices [ 90 ]. The specific activation of the right inferior frontal gyrus is believed to be tied to music production. This idea is reinforced by other studies highlighting the involvement of this area in selective attention, working memory, and motor synchronization with auditory cues [ 91 , 92 ].

In another exploration, Nirkko et al. (2001) demonstrated that playing a musical sequence on a violin led to activation in several brain regions. Notably, they highlighted the involvement of bilateral fronto-opercular regions, suggesting their role in timed motor sequences present in both music and language production [ 93 ].

Another crucial region, the superior temporal gyrus, processes complex patterns formed by individual musical notes [ 94 ]. Platel et al. (1997) observed that the activation of specific parts of this gyrus, coupled with the left inferior frontal gyrus, indicates semantic access to melodic elements [ 95 ].

Popescu et al. (2004) noted early activations around primary and secondary auditory cortices, as well as in posterior parietal areas post stimulus onset [ 96 ]. These regions are critical for language and music processing. Furthermore, activations in the supramarginal and postcentral gyri have been associated with processing the basic attributes of sound [ 97 ]. Meanwhile, music listening’s impact on the precuneus has been documented in several studies, emphasizing its role in sound processing [ 98 ].

In sum, our brain’s reaction to music, whether in perception or production, is a symphony of neural activations across multiple regions, underpinning our rich emotional and cognitive experiences with melodies.

3.3.4. Music in Therapeutics

Music, renowned for its potent link with memory, has been harnessed therapeutically in numerous medical scenarios. In conditions like Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, where individuals frequently grapple with short-term memory loss, familiar tunes can rekindle past memories and experiences. This often enhances mood and bolsters social interactions. In the realm of stroke rehabilitation, music therapy has been instrumental in assisting patients in regaining verbal memory ( Figure 4 ).

The potential of music-based interventions in the neurological realm is immense, particularly in mending motor or cognitive functions. However, the design of these interventions often targets a specific pathology group. Among these, the evidence is most compelling for bolstering motor skills in stroke patients. It is imperative to approach these findings with caution; there is a risk of attributing improvements solely to the interventions, overlooking the role of natural recovery. Some studies, for instance, that employed bimanual piano training or gait training to musical cues, may not have utilized the most accurate measures to gauge improvements in coordination, dexterity, or balance. Nevertheless, the adaptability of music-based interventions in a clinical setting is noteworthy. They can be tailored to the individual, offering both a progression in therapy and personalization in treatment choice [ 99 ].

One salient area where music-based interventions shine is in addressing cognitive–motor interference, a common challenge in many neurological ailments [ 100 ]. Parallel executive deficits can sometimes hinder the effective rehabilitation of cognitive or motor shortcomings [ 101 ].

Here, music-based approaches emerge as dual-task training, transcending mere motor or cognitive training. Consider, for instance, an intervention utilizing a musical instrument. Here, the act of producing music, which involves moving parts of the body like the fingers (motor system), dovetails with the cognitive system, which processes new musical data, such as rhythm or pitch. This is especially pertinent, as significant cognitive–motor disruptions arising from such dual tasks are prevalent in many neurological conditions and can escalate the risk of falls [ 102 , 103 ].

This image depicts examples of the main possibilities of clinical therapies using music. The given context is music therapies and daily music listening in various situations, such as in groups or individually and active or passive listening. Music offers multiple cognitive advantages and might be perceived in multiple ways which are described as “capacities”. Underlying mechanisms of music processing were aforementioned in this study, audio-motor functions and neuroplasticity being of high interest. Multiple behavioral-cognitive benefits, as well as motricity and psychological status, are highly improved [ 61 , 104 ]. Preprinted from Brancatisano, Baird, and Thompson, 2020 [ 61 ], with permission from the authors.

In essence, the therapeutic power of music, weaving together cognitive and motor systems, can be a beacon of hope in the multifaceted landscape of neurological rehabilitation.

3.4. Language Processing

Music and language are intricately linked, both weaving together structured sequences of sound and resonating in similar domains of the brain’s left hemisphere. Evidence suggesting that musical training can bolster language skills lends weight to the idea that the neural mechanisms underpinning both might overlap.

3.4.1. Musical Training’s Influence on Language Skills

It has been established that musical education can enrich language abilities. This is likely due to the shared demands both disciplines place on discerning differences in pitch, timing, and tone. Musicians often exhibit heightened skills in phonetic discrimination (the capacity to differentiate between speech sounds), enhanced verbal memory, and superior reading capabilities. Furthermore, rhythmic competencies, which are sharpened through music, correlate with improved reading and linguistic prowess.

The nexus between musical training and intelligence has been a subject of rigorous debate in recent times. Music training and its duration have been consistently linked with higher intelligence across age groups, from children to adults [ 105 , 106 ]. This relationship is evident in various studies, where notable differences in non-verbal reasoning skills emerge between those with and without musical training [ 107 , 108 ]. Moreover, a correlation exists between non-verbal intelligence and musical aptitude. However, a potential confounder is the fact that children who receive music lessons often hail from affluent backgrounds, which could potentially skew the interpretation of these findings, especially in studies relying on correlation [ 109 , 110 ].

Recent data reveal that consistent participation in music playschools augments the development of phoneme processing abilities and vocabulary in children aged 5–6. In contrast, dance lessons did not exhibit a comparable impact. The disparities in children’s development crystallized over our two-year monitoring period. Interestingly, children exposed to both musical and dance education did not display a noticeable edge in vocabulary development. One theory is that these children had relatively high scores at the onset, leading to a potential ceiling effect as the study progressed. However, by the study’s conclusion, children who only attended music playschool and initially exhibited lower scores gravitated toward the higher-scoring group. This suggests that music-centric activities might especially benefit children who initially lag in linguistic tasks, at least within the observed age bracket of 5–6 years [ 111 ].

In essence, the confluence of music and language is undeniable, and the enriching impact of musical training on linguistic skills is evident, shedding light on the profound interconnectedness of these domains.

3.4.2. Music and Speech Prosody

Music’s ties to the prosody of speech are compelling. Prosody, encompassing pitch, rhythm, and volume, is pivotal for embedding emotion and context in speech. Notably, these facets are fundamental to music, underlining a profound link between the musical and the expressive elements of language.

However, the waters are murkier when exploring pitch. While studies on pitch perception distinctly delineate between global and local processing, research on human voice recognition often treats pitch as a unified acoustic/perceptual element. The role of pitch in identifying talkers remains an enigma. Idiosyncratic prosodic alterations, especially the dynamics of the F0 contour, prove useful for distinguishing speakers [ 112 ]. However, absolute pitch height is another identifier, rooted in the individual’s unique laryngeal structure. For instance, by adjusting the pitch of synthetic speech, one can shift listeners’ perception of the number of dialogue participants [ 113 ]. A focus on individual differences can illuminate pitch perception’s role in talker identification, potentially disentangling the different ways pitch is processed in this context. Earlier studies indicate that global and local pitch processing can be separated, especially when linked to other linguistic proficiencies like reading [ 114 ]. Connecting differences in global versus local pitch perception with listeners’ variability in talker identification can provide a clearer understanding of pitch’s role in this process.

Long-term musical training is reputed to enhance pitch discernment [ 115 ]. This perceptual edge extends beyond musical pitch, touching the linguistic realm. A compelling connection between music and language is evident in studies examining lexical tone processing. For instance, musical training or aptitude can predict non-tonal language speakers’ prowess in identifying lexical tones [ 116 ] and in mimicking them, as well as their competency in learning them [ 117 ].

These findings, which underscore improved talker identification via experience in music and language, carry significant ramifications for understanding auditory perception’s adaptability. The evidence suggests that long-term engagement with music or consistent lexical tone use can augment listeners’ pitch sensitivity. This challenges the rigid compartmentalization of cognitive systems dedicated to music, language, and talker identification, pointing toward a more fluid, interconnected cognitive landscape [ 118 ]. In essence, music and language are not just standalone entities but intertwined realms, each enriching the other.

3.4.3. Therapeutic Applications

The bond between music and language not only provides insight into cognitive function but has also been harnessed for therapeutic means. A salient example is melodic intonation therapy ( Table 2 ), a method designed to assist aphasia patients (those who have lost language abilities typically due to brain damage, often resulting from a stroke) in regaining their speech. By engaging a patient’s preserved musical processing abilities, the therapy facilitates language recovery.

Optimal profile for a patient with high responsiveness to melodic intonation therapy.

However, the therapeutic application of this connection has seen a myriad of interpretations. Initial accounts [ 119 ] present deviations from the original protocol, indicating the use of three pitches instead of the initially outlined two. Anecdotal evidence further showcases this diversity: therapists, based on observational data from across the U.S., each bring their own flair to the technique. Variations range from employing two pitches with specific intervals and crafting unique melodies for phrases incorporating multiple pitches to using the piano as an accompaniment or even tapping a sequence of notes on a patient’s arm as words or phrases are sung. Such diverse interpretations, while possibly tapping into right hemisphere regions pivotal for speech, might deter therapists lacking a musical foundation from adopting the therapy, given its intricate nature [ 120 ].

Additionally, the act of tapping the left hand could activate the right hemisphere’s sensorimotor network, responsible for both hand and mouth movements [ 121 ]. This action might bolster sound–motor mapping—an essential facet of meaningful vocal exchanges. Moreover, akin to the consistent beat of a metronome, tapping could offer a rhythmic guide, ensuring regular pacing and ongoing cues for the production of syllables [ 122 ]. In essence, the nuanced interplay between music and language has profound therapeutic potential, albeit varied in its execution.

4. Discussion

Music training has been identified as a catalyst for neurological transformation, exemplifying the phenomenon of neuroplasticity. Notably, individuals with a background in music often exhibit more pronounced auditory and motor regions compared to their non-musical counterparts. Such changes have far-reaching implications, encompassing areas like memory enhancement and heightened attention [ 123 ].

4.1. Anatomical Adaptations

Long-term involvement in musical endeavors can result in discernible anatomical shifts within the brain. Such transformations mirror the refined skills inherent to musicians, encompassing areas like auditory discernment, sound-associated emotional interpretation, and intricate motor control. Musicians, for instance, typically possess a more substantial corpus callosum—the neural bridge uniting the brain’s two halves. This could arise from the necessity of synchronized hand movements or the amalgamation of sensory–motor data. Moreover, regions governing motor functions, like the precentral gyrus, often exhibit greater development in musicians. Likewise, areas pivotal for auditory functions, such as the superior temporal gyrus, are frequently more evolved [ 124 ].

4.2. Operational Modifications

Beyond anatomical alterations, enduring musical training can usher in functional adaptations. When undertaking specific tasks, musicians often demonstrate unique brain activation patterns, emphasizing the brain’s adaptability in response to persistent training. For instance, the auditory cortex in musicians may exhibit heightened activity during music perception, signifying their adeptness in deconstructing musical elements [ 125 ].

4.3. Neurochemical Interactions and Neuronal Growth

Musical interactions influence more than just the brain’s physical contours; they also modulate its internal chemistry. Engaging with musical elements can spur dopamine release, linked with pleasure sensations, serotonin, regulating mood, and oxytocin, associated with social trust and bonding [ 126 ]. Furthermore, music might bolster neurogenesis, or the genesis of novel neurons. Preliminary animal research suggests that music exposure can amplify hippocampal neurogenesis, a core component in learning and memory. While promising, particularly concerning conditions like Alzheimer’s, further studies are imperative for a comprehensive grasp [ 127 ].

4.4. Cognitive Enhancement through Music

Music-induced neuroplasticity can elevate cognitive prowess, transcending just musical abilities. Musical children often outpace their non-musical peers in areas like reading, linguistics, and mathematical proficiency. Additionally, their attention span, memory, and executive functionality are frequently more advanced. Such augmentations are theorized to emerge from the transfer effect, where proficiency in one domain (e.g., music) amplifies skills in another (e.g., math). In essence, the cognitive tools sharpened by musical immersion—such as pattern detection and motor coordination—might be applicable across diverse domains [ 128 ].

4.5. Therapeutic Application of Music

The neurological adaptability influenced by music has been harnessed therapeutically, especially in neurorehabilitation post traumatic events like strokes [ 129 ]. Music-centric therapies can instigate restorative neuroplasticity. An illustration is music-supported therapy, wherein patients rehabilitate motor functions by playing musical instruments. Playing instruments mandates recurrent, meticulous movements, essential for reinstating motor command. Furthermore, the intrinsic reward of music amplifies patient motivation [ 130 ]. Another intervention, melodic intonation therapy (MIT), targets non-fluent aphasia patients, aiding their speech recovery. This method capitalizes on the brain’s adaptive potential, utilizing unharmed singing capacities to reinvigorate linguistic prowess [ 131 ].

An important point of view for an efficient rehabilitation process is using comprehensive approaches, especially in those patients who suffered a myocardial infarction or an ischemic stroke. In a recent study [ 132 ] focused on the effect of implementing robot-assisted physiotherapy technology for heart infarction treatment, great results were obtained in ADLs (activities of daily living) and motor functions. Moreover, in ischemic stroke scenarios, multidisciplinary combined healthcare management provides a better outcome, and by utilizing therapeutic modalities and behavioral-cognitive tests, assessing psychomotor status, and implementing robotic-based therapies, significant results are obtained [ 133 ]. Therefore, all the available therapeutical possibilities have to be used according to the patient’s status for a decrease in morbidity and mortality, as well as the patient’s ability improvement and reintegration into society. In this context, the capacity of music to reconfigure our brains, sharpening various abilities, provides an outstanding avenue as a therapeutic tool in healthcare situations.

5. Conclusions

The compendium of research synthesized in this review, titled “Cognitive Crescendo: How Music Shapes the Brain’s Structure and Function”, serves as a seminal contribution to the burgeoning interdisciplinary field at the intersection of musicology, cognitive neuroscience, and clinical psychology. By dissecting a range of subtopics—from rudimentary perceptual features such as pitch, rhythm, and tonality to complex interactions involving emotion, memory, and motor systems—the review offers a comprehensive, integrative framework for understanding how music orchestrates a vast array of neurocognitive processes.

One of the salient contributions of this review is its focus on the bidirectional interactions between music and the limbic system, which has elucidated the underlying neurobiological mechanisms by which music modulates emotional states. The evidence for enhanced connectivity between auditory and emotional regions of the brain brings a new layer of complexity to our understanding of affective regulation and provides fertile ground for future investigation into targeted music-based therapeutic interventions. Regarding motor systems and coordination, the review casts a spotlight on the neural entrainment mechanisms that facilitate synchrony between external rhythmic stimuli and internal neural oscillators. These findings are particularly germane for envisaging music-based rehabilitation paradigms, and the integration of rhythmic elements could revolutionize existing therapeutic approaches.

Furthermore, the review explicates the linguistic dividends of musical training, providing compelling empirical support for shared neural resources between musical and language processing. The implications here are not merely academic but could inform educational curricula that seek to leverage musical training for enhanced linguistic and cognitive skills in children and adults alike. As a corollary to the wide-ranging topics covered, this review also outlines a number of prospective avenues for research. For instance, the operational modifications and neurochemical interactions triggered by chronic exposure to music demand longitudinal studies to ascertain the sustainability of these neural changes. There is also a discernible gap in the literature concerning how these cognitive enhancements translate to real-world skills and well-being, an area ripe for further empirical inquiry.

Another promising avenue for exploration pertains to the therapeutic applications of music. While the existing literature, as summarized in this review, posits a strong case for music as a potent therapeutic tool, the exact protocols, durations, and modalities through which optimal therapeutic outcomes can be achieved remain to be standardized.

In summation, this review serves as both an analytical repository and a conceptual springboard, illuminating the multifaceted ways in which music interacts with the human cognitive apparatus. Its contributions are manifold, offering academic, clinical, and pedagogical insights that advance our understanding of the potent neurocognitive effects of musical engagement. By highlighting nascent areas warranting further exploration, this review not only synthesizes current knowledge but also catalyzes future interdisciplinary research aimed at decoding the myriad ways music intricately shapes our brains and our lives.

Funding Statement

This research received no external funding.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, C.T. and C.P.T.; methodology, C.P.T. and I.-A.F.; software, R.-A.C.-B.; validation, B.-G.B.; formal analysis, L.A.G.; investigation, C.T. and I.-A.F.; resources, A.B.; data curation, D.-I.D.; writing—original draft preparation, R.-A.C.-B. and B.-G.B.; writing—review and editing, B.-G.B. and L.A.G.; visualization, C.T.; supervision, I.-A.F.; project administration, A.V.C.; funding acquisition, A.V.C. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statement

Data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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