16 - Is there an Anatomical Localisation for Musical Faculties?

Abstract

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses whether there is any anatomical localization for musical faculties. Musical perception and performance is an inborn capacity of the human brain. This ability is common among human beings and is independent of education or culture that can refine but not produce it. There are wide variations in the degree and development of the musical faculty but the anatomo-functional substratum is probably the same in a professional musician and a person lacking all musical training. According to some opinions, musical function relies on three basic abilities: (1) the rhythmic sense, (2) the sense of sounds, and (3) the aptitude to convert musical perception into emotional or intellectual content. In the absence of any one of these qualities, there can be no musical function. While perception of intensity, duration and timber is necessary for the musician, the perception of pitch is also essential for normal musical function. All the foregoing components are a part of the receptive aspect of the musical function. The expressive aspect is built up empirically or through persistent study that permits the elaboration of a special praxic ability based upon the three receptive components mentioned.