Connected Blog

Those interested in the science of learning may be interested in The Biology of Learning (including tips) from Luminosity’s Brain Health Blog.

It’s not really news, I know, but it’s always good to see reaffirmation of the benefits of exercise on learning and the brain – like this article in the Independent. One aspect I hadn’t seen articulated quite so directly concerns the role exercise plays in reducing aggression. Perhaps that explains why, almost without exception, martial artists seem to be amongst the least aggressive people around. Much of the article concerns the work of Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, John Ratey, author of a book entitled Spark and a related blog.

Got a spare 15 minutes? Would you like to take part in a national, online survey about how people listen to music? The mission of Feeling Sound Musiclab is to test how we perceive music – and also to gauge the nation’s favourite chord – the result of which will be used to commission a new piece of music.

Why not read about the project, about the staff involved or take the test?

In a recent edition of The Material World on Radio 4 there was a fascinating discussion on how the brain processes sound. Presented by the mercurial Quentin ‘For me science isn’t a subject, it’s a perspective’ Cooper the guests – Jan Schnupp from the University of Oxford and Sophie Scott from the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience – discussed:

• how we select which sounds merit our concentration in a noisy environment
• how, through the one-dimensional information supplied by compressed airwaves hitting the ear drum, we detect location, distance, whether the source is moving and, if so, in which direction. This process, for me, becomes more fascinating when considering that stereo hi-fi products essentially strive to create the illusion of what is already an illusion.
• how 20 millisecond chunks seem to be the choice of the brain for both auditory and visual input – the constant refreshment of sound and vision gives us the illusion of a continuum
• foreign accent syndrome (the Times had a good piece on how the brain works out our accent)
• which parts of the brain become active when an impressionist is conjuring up the sound of of another person – or when a person is selecting different registers of the voice (just take a look at Sophie Scott working with impressionist Duncan Wiseby)

The last of these topics is something we use so naturally in teaching that it is taken for granted:

• the tone used to gently nudge someone back on task
• the slightly more emphatic one used to highlight that what’s being said is a reminder and not the first mention
• the increased intensity which suggests that the behaviour is becoming an issue
• the complete re-orchestration required if we realise that there is a perfectly valid and blame-free source of distraction

You can download the programme here (the item begins halfway through the broadcast).

Why should religious music be of interest to our largely secular society? BBC 4’s Sacred Music, presented by Simon Russel Beale, visited Notre Dame de Paris to show how two innovations of the 12^th Century Notre Dame School underpin what has since come to be known as western classical music.

Four members of early music specialist choir, The Sixteen and their director Harry Christophers, demonstrated music’s journey from homophonic (Int 2 concept) plainchant (H Music concept) to polyphony (Int 2 concept). Their lively, committed performances, which maximised the acoustics of Notre Dame’s Gothic architecture made it possible to believe that contemporary listeners would have experienced something of the vitality of the Punk revolution in the 1970s. This fresh approach was pioneered by Léonin and developed by his successor Pérotin.

Aside from the obvious connectivity between music and architecture, the links between music and science (notably physics) were explored. Composers, deciding which notes would best fit those already present in the setting of the plainchant would choose intervals (an Int 2 concept), in order, from the harmonic series i.e. 8ve, 5th & 4^th. Although the triad had not yet become the building block of Western harmony, the foundations of the genre had been laid.

Musicologist, Helen Deeming, enthusiastically outlined the possibilities afforded by the second innovation of the time, the development of musical notation. Although the words of the liturgy were written, the associated music was taught by rote and memorised. This meant that, were a new setting to be sent to another cathedral city, a singer, familiar with the music, would have to tag along to coach the choir. Now, the music could be sent and realised from afar.

There remain three more episodes of this promising series. Here are links to details of all episodes, an overview of the series and a reflection on the place of sacred music in a secular world.

Overview of the series

The four episodes: The Gothic Revolution; Palestrina And The Popes; Tallis, Byrd and The Tudors; Bach And The Lutheran Legacy

Richard Langham Smith, Head of Music at the Open University, writes eloquently on Sacred Music in a Secular World.

In the Music Matters special on Music & Health one of the guests, Dr John Zeisel, claimed that music attacks The Four A words associated with Alzheimers – agitation, aggression, anxiety & apathy. Aware that the study of dysfunction often enhances awareness of function, I soon began to wonder whether music (specifically the study of music) has the potential similarly to benefit those not affected by that particular disease.

All of us experience elements of the above conditions at some time or other – perhaps never more so than during our teenage years. I’m inclined to believe that any activity which heightens awareness of surroundings at the expense of that of the self is bound to help.

I learned one new term in this broadcast – retrogenesis – the degenerating mind’s equivalent of a common response to staffing cutbacks i.e. last in – first out – or rather – first in – last out. It seems that music has been hard-wired for so long in our evolution that it outlasts many other abilities. This disposition to longevity seems also to be due to its reliance on procedural as opposed to declarative memory.

Sergio della Sala’s video contributions to LTS stress that memories are recreated dynamically as opposed to being accessed from an unchanging archive. This certainly resonates with how I feel when playing music by memory (which constitutes the majority of occasions) and also with what pupils describe of their experiences of memorising music. If pressed, one could name the pitches, durations, harmonies, concepts etc. – but it seems so much easier just to play it!

One of the more interesting features to emerge from the New Scientist (NS) special The Roots of Music was an article on amusia. Like many people, I had imagined this simply to mean the inability to carry a tune or to perceive changes in pitch and rhythm. However, researching further in a listen again edition of BBC Radio 4’s Frontiers I began to appreciate how annoying the omnipresence of music in our society might be for sufferers.

What, to the majority, must seem like easily filterable background music in pubs, shops etc. must constitute little more than an irritating clatter – perhaps something like trying to think or have a conversation in a noisy hotel kitchen.

It is thought that around 4% of the population are amusic. This could amount to more than 50 people in a large school – perhaps some on the staff – perhaps some in the Music Department

At the bottom of the NS article was an invitation to take part in an online test. Why not log on and try for yourself? It consists of listening to two playings of short tunes and deciding if they were the same or different. I was interested in taking part see whether it might be possible to simulate what it must be like for the P5 pupils who undergo an aural test at the start of each session.*

However, I quickly found my lengthy experience of processing music made it impossible for me to hear the tests in the same way that a beginner or an amusic person might. I realised that just a few notes into the first playing of each test I was unconsciously encoding the sounds – specifically the tonality (key) and metre (pulse and rhythmic groupings). This gave me something more concrete with which to compare the second playing. However, there were a couple of examples which were sufficiently up-tempo, irregular and lengthy to feel quite challenging.

I’ve often been struck by this educational paradox – the more proficient you become in your chosen field, the more difficult it becomes truly to appreciate what those who struggle with it really feel.

* In August of 2006 I wrote 5 posts on the testing process for instrumental instruction: 1 2 3 4 5

In an attempt to refresh mind and body between school and a twilight Parents’ Evening, I recently spent an hour in the pool and health suite of North Berwick Sports Centre. In the steam room I found myself, inexplicably whistling*. Apart from the fantastic acoustic and the apparent contribution of the steam to the quality of sound, I wondered, “why is this so easy?” I’ve never been inclined to whistle and have probably whistled fewer than 40 seconds worth of music in as many years.

Intrigued, I decided to push the envelope and put myself through a mock Grade 8 Whistling exam. I tested myself on ascending and descending scales (major, harmonic minor, melodic minor, whole tone & chromatic both forms of diminished & augmented) and then the remaining modes (dorian, phrygian, lydian, mixolydian, aeolian, & locrian). Then came the turn of arpeggios (major, minor, dominant 7^th, minor 7^th, major 7^th, minor with major 7^th, diminished 7^th, major 6^th, minor 6^th). There were some tricky moments – notably the descending form of the augmented scale – but the vast majority seemed simply to be lying in wait, pret a siffler.

“Wait a minute,” I hear you cry, “you know the sound of these through your musical explorations over the years and have the benefit of a practised ear.” This is true but what is also true is that I’d have struggled to sing them.

What intrigues me is that the entire musculature of whistling seemed in place, benefiting from neither interest nor training and must therefore be hard wired. Was there a time when it was commonly used for communication than today? Many will already have come across Silbo-Gomero, the whistling language used mainly by shepherds communicating with one another across the valleys of La Gomera Silbo. Does anyone out there know if this practice was once more widespread?

There’s an interesting article on studies of brain patterns decoding whistling here suggesting that those who perceive music as a language process it using different brain regions.

Why not test your aural recognition of scales and modes here?

* I was the only person using the steam room at this point.

Thanks to Ewan McIntosh for a link to a Times Online article I’d otherwise have missed concerning Leonard Sax’s book Boys Adrift: The Five Factors* Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men

This is a massive field and one upon which I do not feel qualified authoritatively to comment. However, one claim in the article (not indicated as being a direct quote from the book) stopped me in my tracks and that was that boys do not hear as well as girls. My initial reaction was one of disbelief as my my experience of the playing by ear vs. playing from written music divide suggests that boys massively outnumber girls in preferring the former. There are side-effects: their reading suffers, but their memory improves. For a while the feeling of incongruity was amelioated by the realisation that there is a world of difference between simply having a musical ear and being disposed to listening to instructions in class. However, the more I thought about this, the more omnipresent listening skills appeared to be:

• part of the selection process for instrumental instruction involves a multiple choice listening test
• much further down the line, Listening forms 1/3 of SQA Music courses and exams
• all external exam bodies include some kind of aural testing
• ensemble skills rely on a mixture of reading and taking cues through listening to the other parts
• although written parts convey expressive ideas, many decisions are arrived in rehearsal without further writing – the participants simply listen and remember

Instrumental instruction requires such a level of listening that, were that statement in the article to be true, girls would simply outnumber boys when it comes to lasting the course. I looked at the statistics for the five schools in my orbit and compiled the following:

Primary School 1 Boys 8.7% Girls 91.3%

Primary School 2 Boys 50% Girls 50%

Secondary School 1 Boys 62.5% Girls 37.5%

Secondary School 2 Boys 47.5% Girls 52.5%

Secondary School 3 Boys 50% Girls 50%

N.B. No pupil was sawn into fractions in the compiling of these statistics.

I’d be very interested to see a breakdown of statistics for other instruments taught by either gender. It should be borne in mind that other factors come into play e.g. which instruments have been taught in feeder primaries and how many musicians of either gender are already in the system when they arrive in secondary school, where the full compliment is on offer.

* Dr. Sax lists the The Five Factors Driving the Decline of Boys as:

Video Games. Studies show that some of the most popular video games are disengaging boys from real-world pursuits.

Teaching Methods. Profound changes in the way children are educated have had the unintended consequence of turning many boys off school.

Prescription Drugs. Overuse of medication for ADHD may be causing irreversible damage to the motivational centers in boys’ brains.

Endocrine Disruptors. Environmental estrogens from plastic bottles and food sources may be lowering boys’ testosterone levels, making their bones more brittle and throwing their endocrine systems out of whack.

Devaluation of Masculinity. Shifts in popular culture have transformed the role models of manhood. Forty years ago we had Father Knows Best; today we have The Simpsons.

It’s always nice to have your intuitions nudged in the general direction of scientific fact by reputable specialists. That’s why I was delighted to read on Simon Ager’s excellent blog Omniglot about a new book by Oliver Sacks called Musicophilia.

I’ve long been persuaded by the parallels between music and language so I’ll be very interested to read about this, and the many other aspects of music, mind & brain from the neurological point of view.