UF PRISM

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“We humans are a musical species no less than a linguistic one” (Sacks xi) 

My first memory of music consists of running away from the keyboard as a preschooler. All the other four-year-olds sat patiently in front of their plastic pianos, fumbling fingers plunking dissonantly on the keys, but I–the free spirit–could not be contained. I scrambled away, desperate to escape to the playground, but the teacher always managed to intercept me and drop me back on the little stool with a sigh of exasperation. It seemed I could not evade the piano, despite my best efforts. 

Music continued to pursue me. I learned to sit still for piano lessons, but I was too proud to fumble my way through a piece. I quit violin after a few months, tired of the screeching, discordant tones that were the only product of my hard-won calluses. Choir kept my interest in music alive, though my love for singing did not always equate with a dulcet voice. Any pieces I played on the piano were pounded out aggressively, as if the music was a mallet inside my chest, barely keeping the steady beat in my desperation to let it out. 

As time went by, the mallet grew gentler, the rough stone smoothing as it wore down to the musical gem in the center. My fingers became lithe and capable of eliciting half-decent melodies, though there was little chance of them ever rivaling Mozart’s. My voice softened and sweetened, and where I used to bellow with gusto, I instead coaxed a melody out patiently. I no longer minded the piano, and I dearly loved to sing.

I realize now where my deep frustration with piano lay. I didn’t understand music. I couldn’t figure out why playing those fast songs with banging notes made my little seven-year-old body want to jump up and dance, why a haunting song in the key of B flat could make me cry. I knew music was meant to be beautiful, but when I tried to recreate it, my stumbling notes couldn’t compare. My piano teacher often complimented me on the emotion I imbued into a piece, but I wanted more than just emotion. 

I wanted to be a prodigy. And since perfection wasn’t an option, I resisted. 

And then, at age fifteen, I found myself running to the keyboard. The early years of high school had brought on a deluge of unexplored emotions and adolescent drama, clattering down with all the force of a rainstorm. Suddenly, my piano–my cage, my nuisance–became a haven through the storm. I distinctly remember the first time I sat in front of the dusty keyboard that had been forgotten in my older brother’s room. My fingers plunked out a clumsy melody, and my voice tied words together in a nonsensical rhyme scheme. 

I wasn’t a prodigy. It wasn’t a masterpiece. But the melody line unraveled my thoughts piece by piece, each note soothing some irritated spot on my soul. There was no need for the music to be anything but what it was: a releasing, an understanding of my feelings. 

Up until then, I had been searching for a perfect string of notes, King David’s alleged secret chord. But it wasn’t until I composed this broken melody that I understood the nature of music. 

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“Music calls to both parts of our nature–it is essentially emotional, as it is essentially intellectual” (Sacks 312)

Music is universal. The abundance of Spotify subscriptions and sold-out concerts alone highlight the love the majority of the world holds for this art form. However, I doubt that when asked to list one’s reasons for loving music, an average person would include any of these responses:
“I cried during this song because the Bb on the piano had an added seventh tone.” 

“I love to dance to this song because it has a rhythm of 140 bpm.” 

“This song made me happy because the singer had perfect technique.” 

Instead, you might hear: 

“I cried during this song because it reminded me of my childhood.” 

“I love to dance to this song because my friends and I grew up dancing to it together.” 

“This song made me happy because something about that guy’s voice is so soothing!” 

And often, you’ll hear this: 

“I don’t know why, but this song always makes me really emotional! There’s just something I love about it.” 

You don’t have to understand the technical aspects of music to enjoy or gain something from it. All you know is how music makes you feel. That was the X factor I kept underestimating. My piano teacher liked to hear me play, not because I played perfectly but because I played passionately. There is something intrinsically emotional about music which plays a significant role in our enjoyment of it. 

But how can a string of sounds elicit such a guttural reaction? Why can it make us cry or sing or dance? What makes a concert crowd so infectious? And what makes a musician’s brain so special that a neuroscientist can identify it right away? 

Perhaps the best place to begin is the brain. 

There is no music center in the brain. The field of neuroscience has spent decades mapping out the functions of different cortical areas, matching brain activity with behavior. For example, Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas are necessary to the understanding and production of language. When those areas are damaged, different forms of aphasia (loss of language) may appear. 

However, there is no specific hotspot for music. Part of what makes music special ties back to this fact. When one plays or listens to music, activation spreads across the whole brain. 

Take a musician sight-reading a piece on the piano for the first time. The eyes follow the sheet music, which correspond with the occipital lobe. The ears listen closely to the melody line, hunting for a flat tone as the auditory cortex flurries with activity. The motor cortex coordinates the fingers as they dance over one another and keeps the foot moving up and down on the pedal in a steady rhythm. The cerebellum and the frontal lobe strive to synchronize movements, looking to the next series of notes and planning accordingly. More and more cortical areas become involved, as both the muscle memory comes into play and the explicit memory of what the musician knows the piece is supposed to sound like. All of this activity makes musical performance perhaps “the most intricate, complex integration of expert perceptual, motor, cognitive, and emotive skills” (Parsons).

To put it simply, the brain lights up like a glow stick. 

Because of music’s widespread influence, it plays an extremely significant role in the neuroplasticity of the brain. Let’s take the previous example of aphasia resulting from damage to Broca’s or Wernicke’s area. These patients may have lost the ability to speak fluently, but many are overjoyed to find they can still sing (Sacks 223). As Oliver Sacks explains it, “the words are still ‘in’ them, somewhere, even though it may take music to bring them out.” Therapists use these melodies to reteach people–with varying levels of success–the intonations and rhythm of speaking.  

A similar miracle can be seen in those with different versions of dementia. Known as the man with a seven second memory, Clive Wearing has virtually no recollection of previous memories beyond knowing his deep love for his wife, Deborah. And yet, when placed in front of a piano, he can play page upon page of music with all the talent and emotion of a master. For reasons we are still trying to decipher, “musical perception, musical sensibility, musical emotion, and musical memory can survive long after other forms of memory have disappeared” (Sacks 373). 

Music’s profound impact on memory can be seen just through the vast musical library stored in our brains. A popular song that you haven’t heard in a decade can pop into your head, and you remember every single lyric. A catchy melody has a tendency to cement itself into our minds, making it an incredible tool for memory. Memorizing the periodic table or the fifty states and capitals sound like daunting tasks until the words are put to music. 

But again, beyond the technical knowledge you might have of a song, you remember how a song makes you feel. Certain melodies have an uncanny ability to transport you to a moment in time. A song from your childhood plays, and you get hit in the face with nostalgia; or a sad ballad comes to sit with you, like a friend who holds your hand while you cry. Other times, a completely novel piece is played, one that should have little to no impact, and yet you feel like it’s a song you’ve known all along, one to which you deeply relate. 

Why does this happen? Music itself, especially when it’s solely instrumental, doesn’t have any specific meaning. Music is literally just swells of sound interweaving with one another without any inherent significance. Despite this, there seems to be some intangible element about it that has the power to rewire the brain and soothe the soul. 

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“‘Every disease is a musical problem; every cure is a musical solution’” 

(Sacks 274)

Laughter–and music–are the best medicine. The growing field of music therapy offers the hope of healing to many who feel their situation is hopeless, like a panpharmacon for the brain. It has the power to “kickstart a damaged or inhibited motor system into action again” as it keeps in rhythm with the “silent music of the body” (Sacks 257, 270). Rhythm plays an important role in reteaching people how to walk or to speak with prosody. Even imagining music has the power to activate the same “motor cortex and subcortical motor systems” a live melody would (Sacks 262). It has soothed Tourette’s, Parkinson’s disease, aphasia, dementia, the list goes on and on. 

I would also argue that music has an incredible propensity for quieting the mind and untangling emotions. Whether instrumental or lyrical, different songs–sometimes inexplicably–resonate deep within us. Music acts as a unifier, celebrating differences while also stripping humanity down to its shared sentimental core. Every culture sings of love and grief, joy and sorrow. This art form has the power to shatter an apathetic shell to reveal the floundering heart within for one, while bringing a smile to another’s face when she can’t help but dance. It is not the perfection of the notes or the clarity of the instrument; it is the underlying emotion, woven through the melody.

Music is communal. Certain rhythms are infectious, making it nearly impossible to not dance along at a concert. There’s a strange “‘marriage’ of nervous systems, a ‘neurogamy,’” that occurs in a crowd of people listening to music as they dance, sing, and stomp to the same beat (Sacks 266). And in that, there’s a union of souls. I can’t help but go back to my night at the Eras Tour this April, singing the song “marjorie” with a crowd of strangers and watching the tears fall in unison. Our heartbeats shared a metronome in that moment, and I was left crying at the end of the song, feeling raw and beautifully human.

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“There is clearly a wide range of musical talent, but there is much to suggest there is an innate musicality in virtually everyone” (Sacks 101) 

“One does not need to have any formal knowledge of music–nor, indeed, to be particularly ‘musical’–to enjoy music and to respond to it at the deepest levels. Music is part of being human, and there is no human culture in which it is not highly developed and esteemed” (Sacks 385)

So what is the point of all this? Why does it matter that music is woven through our neural pathways? Why care about the link between emotion and melody lines? And what do you stand to offer to this art form? 

I believe the answer to be quite simple. Sing with abandon, even if you think your voice is terrible. Dance, ignoring any clumsiness. Play an instrument, even if the first few weeks of learning make you want to run from the keyboard. And, of course, listen to music you love, and share it with others. If eyes are like peeking through a window into the soul, music is an invitation inside. 

We live in a world supersaturated with talent, intelligence, and incredible feats that make the ordinary seem so bland. Any hopes of being the best are confounded, almost instantly. We know what the best singers and players sound like, so why should we ever contribute our music? How could we possibly compare? 

We don’t. And that’s not the point. Music is not about a perfect chord. It’s about community, about emotional expression, about healing the rifts in our brains and our hearts. It’s a haven to run to when language can’t express our thoughts the way a melody can. 

We are not all meant to be Mozart, but that does not mean music is not meant for us. Many of us are musical nonprodigies. Whatever melody you store in your heart may not be worthy of a great symphony, but it is worthy of being played, sung, and enjoyed. And when you sing it, sing passionately, not perfectly. 

References

Parsons, L. M., Sergent, J., Hodges, D. A., & Fox, P. T. (2005). The brain basis of piano

performance. Neuropsychologia, 43(2), 199–215. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2004.11.007.
Sacks, Oliver. Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain. Picador, 2008.

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