Imagery—Music in the Mind’s Eye, Ear, Body

Abstract

Abstract Musicians tend to use visual and auditory imagery when they practice but are less familiar with motor imagery. When we imagine the movements necessary to play an instrument, or motor imagery, we are using kinesthesia, the sense that delivers information to the brain about effort, movement, position, and weight delivery, One can learn a great deal about the value of motor imagery through the story of pianist Fei-Ping Hsu, who practiced for ten years using motor imagery when he was not allowed to physically practice during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Hsu was able to return to playing and forge an international career following the end of the Revolution due to his use of motor imagery. Rather than the generic term “mental practice,” one should more accurately use visual imagery, auditory imagery, and motor imagery, which are specific brain processes. Visual perception and imagery share processing areas in the brain, as do auditory perception and imagery. In motor imagery, all the areas of the brain involved in music processing are active, with the single exception of the primary motor cortex, which sends signals to the muscles. Motor imagery has been shown in multiple studies to be the only kind of imagery that causes neuroplastic changes in the brain in a nearly identical way to physical practice.