Formal Musical Training Research Articles

Analysis of hand-arm vibration syndrome in drummers

Around the world there are a great number of musical bands, therefore the number of professional drummers is also high. Drums are usually played by striking with the hand, or with one or two sticks, therefore professional drummers need to have a fitness levels similar to those of top athletes. Even though that the drum kit is one of the more physically demanding instruments, as it uses all the limbs, particularly the hand-arm system, some injuries can appear in the musicians. In fact, due to continuous vibrations and repetitive motions, drummers are subjected to risk factors that can lead to musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs). The European Directive 2002/44/EC on the minimum health and safety requirements, regarding worker exposure to risks from physical agents (e.g. vibration), limit the exposure to vibrations. The aim of this study was to analyze the level of exposure to hand-arm vibrations (HAV) in six drummers, three of them have formal Musical Training (MT) and the other three do not have any musical Training (NMT). All drummers were evaluated while playing drum and the vibrations were measured in both hands, but also in both drumsticks. In the case of drumsticks the results indicate that impacts and transient vibrations lead to a higher musculoskeletal injuries, particularly in the case of the musicians without MT. The data obtained in the present study can be an improvement in the design of new tools for the drummers in order to reduce the value of the HAV transmitted and, consequently decrease the risk of musculoskeletal injuries in the musicians.

Early neural responses underlie advantages for consonance over dissonance

Consonant musical intervals tend to be more readily processed than dissonant intervals. In the present study, we explore the neural basis for this difference by registering how the brain responds after changes in consonance and dissonance, and how formal musical training modulates these responses. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were registered while participants were presented with sequences of consonant intervals interrupted by a dissonant interval, or sequences of dissonant intervals interrupted by a consonant interval. Participants were musicians and non-musicians. Our results show that brain responses triggered by changes in a consonant context differ from those triggered in a dissonant context. Changes in a sequence of consonant intervals are rapidly processed independently of musical expertise, as revealed by a change-related mismatch negativity (MMN, a component of the ERPs triggered by an odd stimulus in a sequence of stimuli) elicited in both musicians and non-musicians. In contrast, changes in a sequence of dissonant intervals elicited a late MMN only in participants with prolonged musical training. These different neural responses might form the basis for the processing advantages observed for consonance over dissonance and provide information about how formal musical training modulates them.

Evaluating predisposition and training in shaping the musician's brain: the need for a developmental perspective.

The study of music training as a model for structural plasticity has evolved significantly over the past 15 years. Neuroimaging studies have identified characteristic structural brain alterations in musicians compared to nonmusicians in school-age children and adults, using primarily cross-sectional designs. Despite this emerging evidence and advances in pediatric neuroimaging techniques, hardly any studies have examined brain development in early childhood (before age 8) in association with musical training, and longitudinal studies starting in infancy or preschool are particularly scarce. Consequently, it remains unclear whether the characteristic "musician brain" is solely the result of musical training, or whether certain predispositions may have an impact on its development. Moving toward a developmental perspective, the present review considers various factors that may contribute to early brain structure prior to the onset of formal musical training. This review introduces a model for potential neurobiological pathways leading to the characteristic "musician brain," which involves a developmental interaction between predisposition and its temporal dynamics, environmental experience, and training-induced plasticity. This perspective illuminates the importance of studying the brain structure associated with musical training through a developmental lens, and the need for longitudinal studies in early childhood to advance our understanding of music training-induced structural plasticity.

When music compensates language: a case study of severe aphasia in dementia and the use of music by a spousal caregiver

ABSTRACTBackground: There is accumulating evidence of the preservation of music skills in people with Alzheimer’s dementia (AD), including spared memory for familiar music and the ability to produce music by singing or playing an instrument. Music can also be used to alleviate symptoms of dementia, leading to reduced agitation, improved positive mood, memory, and expressive language functions.Aims: We evaluated the rate of decline of expressive language and music skills in TC, a 77 year old woman with aphasia in the context of severe AD, and her husband’s use of music in caregiving. Neither TC nor her husband had any formal music training. We also explored whether the preservation of music skills had implications for treating a symptom of her dementia, specifically her misidentification delusion.Methods & Procedures: A retrospective comparison of the progressive decline in TC’s expressive music and language skills was obtained through interviews with her husband. He also completed a purposefully developed questionnaire regarding his use of music during caregiving. Assessment of TC’s language skills was attempted using the Sydney Language Battery, and her music engagement skills were evaluated with the Music Engagement Questionnaire (MusEQ, informant version). Her behaviour and verbal communication was observed during four different conditions, presented by her husband; (1) reading a newspaper article, (2) reading familiar song lyrics, (3) singing familiar song lyrics, and (4) listening to the original version of the familiar song.Outcomes & Results: TC exhibited a gradual deterioration of her expressive language abilities, whereas her music skills (singing and music engagement), were relatively preserved. Her overall score on the MusEQ was in keeping with age matched healthy controls (50–55 percentile) and she had a high average (80–85 percentile) score on the “emotion” subscale. The impact of preserved music engagement was powerfully demonstrated when TC developed a transient misidentification delusion and believed that her husband was an intruder. Her delusion was only resolved after her husband repeatedly sang a significant song that they had shared as a couple for close to 60 years. By singing this special song (“Unchained Melody”), TC eventually “came back” and recognised him. During behavioural observations under different language and music conditions, TC’s verbal communication did not appear to change.Conclusions: This case study illustrates that when language skills deteriorate in AD, music functions may persist, providing a vital tool in coping with the symptoms of severe dementia.

Strumming your way into Foundation Phase Education

Abstract Most Foundation Phase (FP) students in South Africa arrive at university without having had any formal music training. Music skills must then be acquired in a fraction of one semester as part of a general Life Skills module. Education students in the FP have traditionally been taught to play the piano and/or recorder and/or Orff instruments with a two-fold aim – to be able to teach these instruments to learners and for accompaniment during music activities. The use of a guitar to replace the traditional choices could be beneficial to pre-service educators. The research question is: How suitable is the guitar as an instrument for Foundation Phase (FP) education students? Specific aims are to investigate the suitability, benefits and impact of the guitar in Foundation Phase courses and the guitar learning process. Mixed methods research was done through a pragmatic paradigm. Literature was studied and surveys and interviews were done with FP stakeholders. FP students were monitored during guitar tuition and the outcomes were notated. This research will provide curriculum module developers with a tested musical instrument alternative and programme for generalist educator training. Results of this study show that a guitar is a rational choice for use in FP educator training.

Moving to the Beat: Using Music, Rhythm, and Movement to Enhance Self-Regulation in Early Childhood Classrooms

Differences in early self-regulation skills contribute to disparities in success in early learning and school transition, as well as in childhood wellbeing. Self-regulation refers to managing emotional, cognitive and behavioral processes that are conducive to positive adjustment and social relationships. Researchers have identified that various domains of learning and development are enhanced by musical training, and understanding about the neurological processes responsible for such effects is increasing. This paper argues that coordinated rhythmic movement activities in preschool are an effective approach to support the neurological bases of self-regulation. Evidence and theory related to beat synchronization, cognitive benefits of formal music training, and music therapy for clinical populations are discussed to argue that musical activities could be better leveraged in early childhood education. The paper concludes that preschool activities designed to stimulate beat synchronization and motor coordination skills, and embedded in group activities can enhance young children’s motor, auditory, and self-regulatory functioning.

Teaching Art Music in Nigerian Schools: The Academic, Technical and Social Implications

Art music in the Nigerian context is the composition of Nigerians who have formal music training and have composed using Western medium to express traditional Nigerian music. This paper sets out to illuminate the technicalities involved in this form of musical composition and proposes a model of art music instruction for Nigerian schools. The author posits that the teaching and performing of art music in Nigerian schools will bring music closer to the people. He argues that whereas art music is an aberration from Nigerian traditional music, yet with concerted efforts and skill, the practice of art music will help in preserving Nigerian culture on paper and facilitate the promotion of its local music to the global level. The paper concludes that traditional music elements that are entrenched in art music composition can constitute a model and parameter for identifying and appreciating Nigerian music. The teaching of art music therefore must be encouraged by Nigerian music curricular planners.Art music in Nigerian context is the composition of Nigerians who have formal music training and have composed usingWestern medium to express traditional Nigerian music. This paper sets out to illuminate the technicalities involved in this form of musical composition and proposes a model of art music instruction for Nigerian schools. The author posits that the teaching and performing of art music in our schools will bring music closer to the people. The author equally argues that whereas art music is an aberration from our traditional music, yet with concerted efforts and skill, the practice of art music will help in preserving our culture on paper and facilitate the promotion of our local music to the global level. The paper concludes that traditional music elements that are entrenched in art music composition can constitute a model and parameter for identifying and appreciating Nigerian music. The teaching of art music, therefore, must be encouraged by Nigerian music curricular planners.

Bienestar Psicológico y Estrategias Cognitivas de Aprendizaje en Estudiantes Secundarios con y sin Formación Musical Formal en la Región de Coquimbo

This study aimed to investigate the possible relationship between formal music training, Cognitive Learning Strategies and Psychological Well-being in secondary students. The sample was of 216 students from establishments with and without formal musical training, in the Coquimbo Region, Chile. This research is of a cross-correlation type, in which a series of comparisons were made through a quantitative analysis. For the data analysis procedure, we used ANOVA, t-Student and Linear Regression tests. The results show significant differences only when considering the socioeconomic level. In the middle-low socioeconomic level, those who received musical training showed better results in Cognitive Learning Strategies, specifically in strategies related to searching, elaborating and selecting information, critical thinking, creativity, and memorization. In the middle-high socioeconomic level, those who received musical training had a lower average in Psychological Well-Being, especially in regard to meaning and vital purpose, and self-acceptance.

“I know it when I hear it”

Listeners regularly judge the accuracy of musical performances. However, as is true for several types of judgments (e.g., beauty or obscenity), estimating the correctness of melodies is not based on a precise definition of the object/performance but rather follows arguments such as “I know it when I hear it”. In order to clarify the definition of correctness in melodies, participants identified parametrically manipulated sung melodies as in-tune or out-of-tune, using the method of limits procedure (Experiment 1). Listeners’ tolerance with regard to mistuning was compared across melodies (Experiment 2). The potential roots of correctness perception were investigated by testing the effect of familiarity, the influence of formal musical training (Experiment 3), and the task repetition effect (Experiment 4). The results highlight a surprisingly small tolerance with regard to mistuning (half of a quarter tone), whatever the melodic context, large individual differences, but high consistency over time. This high sensitivity was mainly modulated by musical training as well as by previous exposure. In addition to defining the boundary between in- and out-of-tune melodies, this study supports the implicit development of the normative notion of “correctness” as a category that might drive listeners’ appreciation of artistic performances.

Music and Speech Perception in Children Using Sung Speech.

This study examined music and speech perception in normal-hearing children with some or no musical training. Thirty children (mean age = 11.3 years), 15 with and 15 without formal music training participated in the study. Music perception was measured using a melodic contour identification (MCI) task; stimuli were a piano sample or sung speech with a fixed timbre (same word for each note) or a mixed timbre (different words for each note). Speech perception was measured in quiet and in steady noise using a matrix-styled sentence recognition task; stimuli were naturally intonated speech or sung speech with a fixed pitch (same note for each word) or a mixed pitch (different notes for each word). Significant musician advantages were observed for MCI and speech in noise but not for speech in quiet. MCI performance was significantly poorer with the mixed timbre stimuli. Speech performance in noise was significantly poorer with the fixed or mixed pitch stimuli than with spoken speech. Across all subjects, age at testing and MCI performance were significantly correlated with speech performance in noise. MCI and speech performance in quiet was significantly poorer for children than for adults from a related study using the same stimuli and tasks; speech performance in noise was significantly poorer for young than for older children. Long-term music training appeared to benefit melodic pitch perception and speech understanding in noise in these pediatric listeners.

Rhythm perception and music cognition: a brief survey

How does our mind process musical rhythm? Based on recent researches and theories on music cognition, the present paper seeks to clarify this question by discussing some issues related to rhythm perception, such as the mental processes involved in the recognition, coding, and retrieval of rhythm and the influence of enculturation and formal musical training on these processes.

Factors affecting pitch discrimination performance in a cohort of extensively phenotyped healthy volunteers

Despite efforts to characterize the different aspects of musical abilities in humans, many elements of this complex area remain unknown. Musical abilities are known to be associated with factors like intelligence, training, and sex, but a comprehensive evaluation of the simultaneous impact of multiple factors has not yet been performed. Here, we assessed 918 healthy volunteers for pitch discrimination abilities—their ability to tell two tones close in pitch apart. We identified the minimal threshold that the participants could detect, and we found that better performance was associated with higher intelligence, East Asian ancestry, male sex, younger age, formal music training–especially before age 6–and English as the native language. All these factors remained significant when controlling for the others, with general intelligence, musical training, and male sex having the biggest impacts. We also performed a small GWAS and gene-based collapsing analysis, identifying no significant associations. Future genetic studies of musical abilities should involve large sample sizes and an unbiased genome-wide approach, with the factors highlighted here included as important covariates.

Standard-interval size affects interval-discrimination thresholds for pure-tone melodic pitch intervals

Our ability to discriminate between pitch intervals of different sizes is not only an important aspect of speech and music perception, but also a useful means of evaluating higher-level pitch perception. The current study examined how pitch-interval discrimination was affected by the size of the intervals being compared, and by musical training. Using an adaptive procedure, pitch-interval discrimination thresholds were measured for sequentially presented pure-tone intervals with standard intervals of 1 semitone (minor second), 6 semitones (the tri-tone), and 7 semitones (perfect fifth). Listeners were classified into three groups based on musical experience: non-musicians had less than 3 years of informal musical experience, amateur musicians had at least 10 years of experience but no formal music theory training, and expert musicians had at least 12 years of experience with 1 year of formal ear training, and were either currently pursuing or had earned a Bachelor's degree as either a music major or music minor. Consistent with previous studies, discrimination thresholds obtained from expert musicians were significantly lower than those from other listeners. Thresholds also significantly varied with the magnitude of the reference interval and were higher for conditions with a 6- or 7-semitone standard than a 1-semitone standard. These data show that interval-discrimination thresholds are strongly affected by the size of the standard interval.

Esquivel! Space Age Sound Artist by S. Wood

Wood, Susan. Esquivel! Space Age Sound Artist, illustrated by Duncan Tonatiuh. Charlesbridge, 2016.This is a picture book that tells the story of Mexican composer, band leader and pianist, Juan Garcia Esquivel. “Esquivel!”, as he came to be known, came from a poor family and became a very popular and wealthy composer. He was a pioneer in sound art in the 1950s and 1960s, influencing many later composers of experimental music and sound art. The text is quite ordinary, factual material about the artist, with the exception of words representing sounds. These are often in bright colours, many shapes and sizes and different typefaces. The differing scripts sometimes make reading the sentences difficult. Some of the words and concepts are too high level for a picture book and most children at the picture book reading stage will not understand strange, weird and edgy music, so it is likely that this book will be most useful to older children. The artwork is the most interesting part of the book. The images are all done in black-line, with colour fill being photographs of textures or patterns. The other unusual part of the work is that Duncan Tonatiuh has drawn people in the style of ancient Mexican art, specifically the Mixtec codex. Because this art predates the concept of perspective, all of the images are two dimensional and do not have depth. Also all of the faces are drawn in the style of the ancient artworks. The faces are all in profile with ears shaped like the number 3, pointy mouths and very flat forehead to nose profiles. These sorts of details, while interesting to adults, will be lost on small children.The music message of this book is historical, highlighting Esquivel!’s early contributions to sound art. The work also makes the point that Esquivel! had no formal musical training, showing that music is for everyone. Because there is little written about this Esquivel! at a children’s reading level this book should be bought for public libraries and school libraries.Highly Recommended: 3 stars out of 4Reviewer: Sean BorleSean Borle is a University of Alberta undergraduate student who is an advocate for child health and safety.

Efficacy of a short-term intense piano training program for cognitive aging: A pilot study

The purpose of this research was to evaluate the efficacy of a short-term intense piano training program on executive functions in healthy older adults. Thirty-four adult participants with little to no formal music training were recruited and completed a battery of standardized cognitive measures at three time points: pre-training, pre-training two (upon completion of a control time period), and post-training. The piano training program included 30 hours of focused music theory, finger dexterity exercises, bimanual coordination exercises, technical exercises, performance duets, and standard piano repertoire. Results of a Repeated Measures MANOVA show significantly enhanced verbal fluency and processing speed, post-training; however, no difference was found in verbal memory performance. Data suggest that a short-term intense piano training program may benefit cognitive performance in areas of verbal fluency and processing speed. Short-term intense music programs may be an appropriate structure for a cognitive training program with the added benefit of increased interest in continued music participation.

Relative role of heredity or training for music perception in children

The effect of familial inheritance and/or environment on human behaviour has long been investigated. In the area of auditory processing, researchers have demonstrated the relative role of heredity or training in music perception for children, but both the factors were seldom been investigated simultaneously. The present study aimed to identify the factors important for music perception in children. Young children (age = 5–7 years) were selected and divided into four groups. First group of children had familial inheritance of music and also received formal music training. The second and third group had either familial inheritance of music or received music training, respectively, whereas the last group had neither of the two advantages. Tests including melody mistuning detection, timbre change detection, pitch discrimination and pitch change detection were administered. Results revealed that both familial inheritance of music expertise and music training significantly improves the music perception abilities. These findings were discussed in terms of relative role of both heredity and music training in the music perception in children. This information may be helpful designing therapeutic protocol for children with auditory processing disorders and in understanding the perceptual processes underlying music perception in children.

Computer-Generated Stylistic Compositions with Long-Term Repetitive and Phrasal Structure

This article describes and evaluates an algorithm called Racchmaninof-Jun2015, referred to hereafter as Racchmaninof, which generates passages of music in a specifiable style. For generating all four parts of a Bach hymn (one of two target styles evaluated as part of a listening study – the other being Chopin mazurkas), we found that only five out of 25 participants performed significantly better than chance at distinguishing Racchmaninof’s output from original human compositions. These participants had a mean of 8.56 years of formal musical training and mode “daily/weekly” regularity of playing an instrument or singing. In the context of relatively high levels of musical expertise, this difficulty of distinguishing Racchmaninof’s output from original human compositions underlines the promise of our approach. Current trends and issues in the area of automatic stylistic composition are introduced and discussed and we consider the potential for applying our algorithm to additional composers and/or genres of music.

Investigating the influence of music training on verbal memory

Previous research has shown that musical training is associated with enhanced verbal memory. The current study investigated the generality of this association by presenting undergraduates who had received musical training ( n = 20) and undergraduates with no formal music training ( n = 20) with four types of word list; high visual imagery, high auditory imagery, high tactile imagery, and abstract. Those who had received music training showed enhanced memory for all word lists, suggesting that music training leads to a general enhancement in verbal memory that is not restricted to specific types of words (e.g., those invoking auditory imagery). The findings support previous research in showing that music training enhances cognitive skills beyond those that are specific to the domain of music. The possible cognitive and neural factors underpinning this effect are discussed.

Perception and Familiarity of Diatonic Modes

In a prior study (Temperley & Tan, 2013), participants rated the “happiness” of melodies in different diatonic modes. A strong pattern was found, with happiness decreasing as scale steps were lowered. We wondered: Does this pattern reflect the familiarity of diatonic modes? The current study examines familiarity directly. In the experiments reported here, college students without formal music training heard a series of melodies, each with a three-measure beginning (“context”) in a diatonic mode and a one-measure ending that was either in the context mode or in a mode that differed from the context by one scale degree. Melodies were constructed using four pairs of modes with the same tonic: Lydian/Ionian, Ionian/Mixolydian, Dorian/Aeolian, and Aeolian/Phrygian. Participants rated how well the ending “fit” the context. Two questions were of interest: (1) Do listeners give higher ratings to some modes (as endings) overall? (2) Do listeners give a higher rating to the ending if its mode matches that of the context? The results show a strong main effect of ending, with Ionian (major) and Aeolian (natural minor) as the most familiar (highly rated) modes. This aligns well with corpus data representing the frequency of different modes in popular music. There was also a significant interaction between ending and context, whereby listeners rated an ending higher if its mode matched the context. Our findings suggest that (1) our earlier “happiness” results cannot be attributed to familiarity alone, and (2) listeners without formal knowledge of diatonic modes are able to internalize diatonic modal frameworks.

Early musical training contributes to decision-making ability.

Decision making is a complex process that involves weighing the probabilities of alternative options that can be desirable, undesirable, or neutral. Such a process necessarily involves both emotional responses and cognitive processes (Damasio, Everitt, & Bishop, 1996; Li, Lu, D'Argembeau, Ng, & Bechara, 2010). Indeed, previous studies have found that decision-making performance is associated with both emotion (Bajaj, Lamichhane, Adhikari, & Dhamala, 2013; Choi, de Melo, Woo, & Gratch, 2012; Furl, Gallagher, & Averbeck, 2012; Mussel, Goritz, & Hewig, 2013) and cognition (e.g., working memory [WM]; Dretsch & Tipples, 2008; Kerr & Zelazo, 2004; Remijnse, Nielen, Uylings, & Veltman, 2005). Previous research has further distinguished two types of decision making based on the degree of uncertainty about the outcome: decisions under ambiguity are those without knowing the precise probability distribution of the possible outcomes, and decisions under risk are those with known outcome probabilities (Bechara, Damasio, Damasio, & Anderson, 1994, Bechara, Damasio, & Damasio, 2000; He et al., 2010; Stoltenberg & Vandever, 2010). The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) has been widely used to assess decision making under both ambiguity and risk (Bechara et al., 1994, 2000; He et al., 2010). At the early stage of the IGT, players have little explicit knowledge about IGT alternatives, so they are making decisions under ambiguity. As the task progresses, players develop explicit knowledge of the risk profile across IGT alternatives, so they make decision knowing the risks (Brand, Recknor, Grabenhorst, & Bechara, 2007; Upton, Bishara, Ahn, & Stout, 2011).Musical training has been found to improve emotional processes such as emotion perception (Alluri et al., 2015) and understanding (Schellenberg & Mankarious, 2012), as well as cognitive processes such as WM (George & Coch, 2011; Hou et al., 2014). However, no study to date has examined whether musical training can influence decision-making ability. Given the positive effects of musical training on emotional and cognitive processes, the current study tested the hypothesis that musical training (especially early training) would be associated with better performance on the IGT. In addition, this study examined whether such effects were inde- pendent of training-related improvement in WM and/or emotion perception.Method and MaterialsParticipantsData for this study came from a larger project (e.g., Chen et al., 2013; Hou et al., 2014). Five hundred sixty-seven undergraduates at Beijing Normal University took the IGT test as well as other cognitive tests (see below for details). Based on their self-report (see below), 42 participants had early musical training (e.g., piano, keyboard, violin, and accordion) starting before the age of 7 years (11 males and 31 females; Table 1); 52 participants had late musical training (e.g., piano, keyboard, clarinet, and saxophone) starting after the age of 8 years (13 males and 39 females; see Table 1). From 473 participants who had no musical training, we selected 60 participants (12 males and 48 females; see Table 1) to match, roughly, the early and late musical training participants, in terms of age, gender, and IQ.MeasuresMusical training history. Participants were asked the age at which they started formal musical training, the types of musical instruments they used, and the number of years they had such formal training.The IGT. A computerized version of the IGT (Bechara et al., 2000; He et al., 2010) was used in the current study to assess decision making under ambiguity and risk (a screen shot is displayed in Figure 1). To motivate subjects, they were informed that the amount of their winning would be converted into real money. Participants were asked to select one card at a time (100 trials in total) from one of the four decks (labeled A, B, C, and D). As described in previous studies and the IGT manual (PAR, Inc, Lutz, FL), two of the decks were disadvantageous because they yielded high immediate gain but a greater loss in the long run (i. …