by Michael Pelster
 Tony
Ciccoria
 Pp. 3-8 of Musicophilia
 Video of Sacks discussing this incident
Pp. 30-40 of Musicophilia
 “musical imagery has a range no less varied than
the visual” (30)
 “Since the mid-1990s, studies carried out by
Robert Zatorre and his colleagues, using
increasingly sophisticated brain-imaging
techniques, have shown that imagining music
can activate the auditory cortex almost as
strongly as listening to it. Imagining music also
stimulates the motor cortex, and conversely,
imagining the action of playing music stimulates
the auditory cortex.” (31-32)



The White Christmas’ effect
“When the then universally known Bing Crosby version of
the song was played, some subjects ‘heard’ it when the
volume was turned down to near zero, or even when the
experimenters announced they would play the song but
never turned it on. Physiological confirmation of such
‘filling in’ by involuntary musical imagery has recently
been obtained by William Kellely and his colleagues at
Dartmouth, who used functional MRI to scan the auditory
cortex while subjects listened to familiar and unfamiliar
songs in which short segments had been replaced by gaps
of silence. The silent gaps embedded in familiar songs
were not consciously noticed by their subjects, but the
researchers observed that these gaps ‘induced greater
activation in the auditory association areas than did silent
gaps embedded in unknown songs, this was true for gaps in
songs with lyrics and without lyrics.” (33)
 Musical
imagination governed not only by the
auditory and motor cortices but also the
frontal cortex (choosing and planning) (33)
 “We are on much richer, much more
mysterious terrain when we consider tunes or
musical fragments we have perhaps not
heard or thought of in decades, that
suddenly play in the mind for no apparent
reason . . . Sometimes the reason or
association is obvious, or seems so.”
 Personal examples and 3-question test
Purpose of internal musical imagery?
 “‘It alleviates boredom, makes . . . Movements
more rhythmical, and reduces fatigue.’ It buoys
the spirits, is intrinsically rewarding. Music
drawn from memory, he writes, ‘has many of the
same effects as real music coming from the
external world.’ It has the additional bonus of
drawing attention to otherwise overlooked or
repressed thoughts, and in this way may serve a
function similar to that of dreams. All in all,
Storr concludes, spontaneous musical imagery is
basically ‘beneficent’ and ‘biologically
adaptive.’ (39)


“Our susceptibility to musical imagery indeed
requires exceedingly sensitive and refined
systems for perceiving and remembering music,
systems far beyond anything in any nonhuman
primate. These systems, it seems, are as
sensitive to stimulation from internal sources—
memories, emotions, associations—as to external
music. A tendency to spontaneous activity and
repetition seems to be built into them in a way
that has no analogue in other perceptual
systems. I see my room, my furniture every day,
but they do not re-present themselves as
‘pictures in my mind.’ Nor do I hear imaginary
dog barks or traffic noises, or smell aromas or
imaginary meals cooking, even though I am
exposed to such perceptions every day” (39-40).
 Alzheimer’s

video
 Personal
Story
 Parkinson’s Disease

two videos
 Relative
Pitch (my definition): the
continuum of abilities to ascertain intervals,
melodies, and harmonies through reference
to other pitches
 Demonstration
 Absolute Pitch (my definition): the (much
more unusual) ability to identify pitches or
produce pitches without any external
referent
Not due to differences in the auditory system
 Related to musical experience (certain pitches
more easily identified than others)
 Speakers of tonal languages
 Genetics?
 There appears to be a critical period (between
approximately ages 2-5) in which absolute pitch
can be acquired through early musical training.
However, early musical training does not
guarantee acquisition of this ability.
 Unlearning theory?
 Two videos



pp. 94-97
Using MRI morphometry, Gottfried Schlaug at Harvard
and his colleagues made careful comparisons of the
sizes of various brain structures. In 1995, they
published a paper showing that the corpus callosum,
the great commisure that connects the two
hemispheres of the brain, is enlarged in professional
musicians and that a part of the auditory cortex, the
planum temporale, has an asymmetric enlargement
in musicians with absolute pitch. Schlaug et al. went
on to show increased volumes of gray matter in
motor, auditory, and visuospatial areas of the cortex,
as well as in the cerebellum. Anatomists today would
be hard put to identify the brain of a visual artist, a
writer, or a mathematician—but they could recognize
the brain of a professional musician without a
moment’s hesitation” (94)

“The anatomical changes they observed with
musicians’ brains were strongly correlated with
the age at which musical training began and with
the intensity of practice and rehearsal. . . .
Using five-finger piano exercises as a training
test, [Alvaro Pascual-Leone at Harvard] has
demonstrated that the motor cortex can show
changes within minutes of practicing such
sequences. Measurements of regional blood flow
in different parts of the brain, moreover, have
shown increased activity in the basal ganglia and
the cerebellum, as well as various areas of the
cerebral cortex—not only with physical practice,
but with mental practice alone” (94-95).

“Can musical competence be seen as a universal
human potential in the same way as linguistic
competence? There is exposure to language in
every household, and virtually all children
develop linguistic competence (in a Chomskian
sense) by the age of four or five. This may not
be the case with regard to music, since some
households may be almost devoid of music, and
musical potential, like other potentials, needs
stimulation to develop fully. In the absence of
encouragement or stimulation, musical talents
may not develop. But while there is a fairly
well-defined critical period for language
acquisition in the first years of life, this is less so
for music” (95-96).
 Nature
article by Rauscher, Shaw, and Ky in
1993 claimed that listening to Mozart
boosted spatial reasoning scores.
 Pop science appropriated this study by
claiming that listening to Mozart had a
mystical effect that increased intelligence
(not true) more than transiently (also not
true).
 Study has not met the test of time. Current
theories link the temporary effect on visuospatial reasoning to improvements in
mood/arousal.
 Let’s
listen to some music.