A. Sensory Motor Rhythm

B. Epsilon Wave

C. Solfeggio Wave

Below are the detailed summary:

Music and Brain Technology

First Evidence

Neurobiological Aspects of Neurologic Music Therapy

Benefits of Music on the Brain

November 4, 2010 by Bill Jenkins, Ph.D. Educators, researchers and education policy-makers have long discussed the benefits of structured music education. In today's environment of shrinking district resources, the arts are often early arrivals to the budgetary chopping block. Certainly, math, science, language arts and social studies are essential subjects, but we must also understand exactly what is lost when we cut arts programs. When we let go music education, we let rest layers upon layers of essential learning.

We lose proven benefits to learning and brain function. Through the mechanisms of brain plasticity, music contributes to the development of listening and cognitive skills essential for language.

Transfer of cognitive skills: Music has been shown to affect how the brain processes pitch, timing and timbre. Along with describing music, these are also key elements of speech and language—that are positively affected by musical training.

Better recognition of "regularities": The human brain is wired to filter regular predictable patterns out from the noise surrounding us (e.g., we can pick out a friend's voice in a room filled with many other sounds and voices.) Musical training enhances this cognitive ability.

Kraus and Chandresekaran end their article with a discussion of the implications for education. All of the skills and abilities discussed above clearly have the potential to impact student success and achievement "by improving learning skills and listening ability, especially in challenging listening environments." Whether considered as content, as skills or as brain processing exercise, the benefits of music should be carefully weighed as we evaluate its place in the school day.

Listening to music feels good, but can that translate into physiological benefit? Levitin and colleagues published a meta-analysis of 400 studies in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences, suggesting the answer is yes.

In one study reviewed, researchers studied patients who were about to undergo surgery. Participants were randomly assigned to either listen to music or take anti-anxiety drugs. Scientists tracked patient's ratings of their own anxiety, as well as the levels of the stress hormone cortisol

"The results:

The patients who listened to music had less anxiety and lower cortisol than people who took drugs. Levitin cautioned that this is only one study, and more research needs to be done to confirm the results, but it points toward a powerful medicinal use for music. "The promise here is that music is arguably less expensive than drugs, and it's easier on the body and it doesn't have side effects," Levitin said. Levitin and colleagues also highlighted evidence that music is associated with immunoglobin A, an antibody linked to immunity, as well as higher counts of cells that fight germs and bacteria.

More: How music changes the brain

Brain regions involved in movement, attention, planning and memory consistently showed activation when participants listened to music.

HSP: Height Sensory Perception

HSP is an acronym for heightened sensory perception. KIBS has found that through training, we can increase the amount of sensory information available to consciousness. For example, we have found that HSP trainees can recognize colors, shapes or letters, without ordinary amounts of visual sensory input. As yet we do not know what sensory modality or brain mechanism mediates HSP. Based on training experience, we are confident that it is not the unique gift of a few special people but rather an undeveloped potential of the brain, available to anyone in principle. The HSP development program includes both physical and mental trainings. The landmarks reached prior to development of HSP are stress management, emotional self-control, absence of negativity, self-confidence, and power of concentration. KIBS is currently conducting research on the rate of development of HSP skills, neural mechanisms of HSP (as demonstrable by functional MRI), and electroencephalographic correlates of HSP. She also says scientists have found that music stimulates more parts of the brain than any other human function. That's why she sees so much potential in music's power to change the brain and affect the way it works. One technique, known as melodic intonation therapy, uses Music to coax portions of the brain into taking over for those that are damaged. In some cases, it can help patients regain their ability to speak And because of how we associate music with memories, Mannes says such techniques could also be helpful for Alzheimer's patients. Many musicians have an instinctive understanding of how musical sound interacts with our bodies. They know — they feel — that sound impacts our bodies in a way no other art does. Opera singer Irene Gubrud says, "As a very young child, I experienced who I was through sound. I felt whole."

Impacts of Music on Babies In Womb

This human relationship to sound starts early. The fetus begins to develop an auditory system between seventeen and nineteen weeks. Already, we are in a world of sound, of breath and heartbeat, of rhythm and vibration. But how do we know what the fetus actually hears? Until recently, there were different theories. Some doctors thought that the fetus could hear only some frequencies, probably high ones. It certainly wasn't known whether we could hear and respond to music before birth until the groundbreaking research of Sheila Woodward, a South African, who wanted to know more about musical sound in the womb. She was a young scientist in the early 1990's — and pregnant; she wondered what music her own child was being exposed to before birth. In her studies at the University of Capetown, she worked with the Institute of Maritime Technology to adapt an underwater microphone so it could be placed in the uterus.

Her team came up with a tiny waterproof hydrophone, about two inches long, that doctors found safe enough to put inside the womb. As part of Woodward's research, this miniature microphone was inserted through the cervix into the uterus of a mother in early labor and placed alongside the neck of the unborn child. The mic recorded exactly what was audible inside the uterus as Woodward played music, sang herself, and had the mother sing. "The big question," she says, "was, 'Does music really exist in the womb and is it very different from the way we hear it in the outside world?'

Just because the sound of music exists in the womb doesn't necessarily mean that the fetus hears it. Yet, the "startle response" of the fetus was measured as well, and Woodward's team found that when music is played, the fetal heart rate becomes slightly elevated. Woodward says it was clear from the fetus reacted, as if to say, "Something's happened and now there's music!" Other studies show that even if only the mother hears music — if she has headphones on, and it is music that she finds soothing — the baby's heart rate lowers while the mother is listening. If the mother finds a certain piece of music stressful, the baby's heart rate goes up. So the fetus is echoing the mother's response to the quality of the music.

Woodward is convinced that we begin learning about music even before birth. She points out that even when music that can penetrate the womb is absent, the fetus is surrounded by those natural rhythms of the body — heartbeat and pulse and breath.

Less recently, archaeologists have discovered ancient flutes — one of which is presumed to be the oldest musical instrument in the world — that play a scale similar to the modern Western scale.

Effects of Music

The Influence of Music on Neurons Anisha Chirmule Luciano Pavarotti once said “if children are not introduced to music at an early age, I believe something fundamental is actually being taken from them”. People are surrounded by music everyday; it affects mood, concentration, creativity, and even the ability to learn. How can a combination of a few notes have such a profound effect an on individual’s ability to learn? When in infant is born, there are billions of nerves and nerve connections in the brain that are necessary for survival. These neural connections are formed through experiences and strengthened through repetition. An infant is exposed to new situations everyday that affect the nerves in their brain, and once these connections are formed it is very difficult to reverse or rewire them. Listening to music helps to create and strengthen more neural connections because nerves that deal with the auditory system of the brain are being activated in order to hear the music.

Music is a stimulus that needs to be processed by the brain because we have receptors for sensing and reacting to music. The act of processing this stimulus influences the neural connections in the brain and therefore affects other neural connections which in turn affect the outputs of the body. The Mozart effect is a phenomenon that states when an individual listens to short bursts of music, their intellectual and motor abilities increase and become more efficient.

It has a profound effect on young children because their minds are still developing at a rapid rate and their neural pathways are easily influenced. The music composed by Mozart has a 60 beat per minute pattern that is repeated throughout his pieces. This pattern activates the action potentials in the right and left hemispheres of the brain and it strengthens the connections between the neurons that connect the two halves. Strengthening of the neural connections leads to more efficient information processing because the brain must concentrate on comprehending multiple stimuli and it therefore becomes capable of multitasking. The ductility of an infant’s brain must be utilized to its fullest potential, because unused nerves are rendered useless.

New neural pathways must be formed for the brain to comprehend what it is reading. These new pathways would affect the pre-existing connections and therefore many other outputs of the nervous system would be affected. Reading music increases creativity and the plasticity of neural connections because an individual must think in another mindset to understand what is presented. The plasticity is affected because not only do new neural connections need to be formed based on new experiences and stimuli, but the old pathways need to be remembered as well.

William Shakespeare once wrote, “If music be the food for love, play on”. Well, I say if music be the food for new neural pathways and increased intellectual abilities, by all means, play on.

Music research indicates that music education not only has the benefits of self-expression and enjoyment, but is linked to improved cognitive function (Schellenberg), increased language development from an early age (Legg), and positive social interaction (Netherwood). Music listening and performance impacts the brain as a whole, stimulating both halves the analytical brain and the subjective-artistic brain, affecting a child’s overall cognitive development and possibly increasing a child’s overall intellectual capacity more than any other activity affecting the brain’s bilaterism (Yoon).

How does music stimulate the right and left hemispheres? We often hear about an analytical person, like an accountant, being left-brained while a more “free spirit”, like an artist or poet, is considered “right-brained”. Yet music research indicates that the average professional musician or composer, despite incorrect personality stereotypes, encompasses both the analytical traits of the left brain and the more creative aspects of the right brain.

The right hemisphere engages in synthesizing several different parts to create a cohesive whole when processing new information (Williams). Almost nonlinear in processing information, the right brain is adept at visual imagery. The left hemisphere, sequential and linear in its data processing, moves step by step when processing new information (Williams). Just like any part of the body, any activity that stimulates the brain helps increase its overall functionality. While most activities like visual art, computing, and language largely work in only one hemisphere, music is one of the few activities that stimulates both sides of the brain.

The right brain, often considered the more subjective and creative hemisphere, focuses on the melody in music. The left hemisphere, considered the analytical part of the brain, is responsible for the understanding of musical structure and motor skills, such as playing the violin (Yoon). Rhythmic structures uniquely affect the brain extensively, such as supplementary motor areas and the basal ganglia, especially when compared to musical styles lacking a steady beat pattern (Phillips-Silver). Nonmusical activities, such as walking or martial arts, also aid the brain bilaterally when combined with a steady rhythm (Manjul).

Music Listening vs. Music Performance/Activity

Music research indicates that both music listening and music performance have significant benefits. Several years ago popular culture was abuzz with the Mozart Effect, the incorrect notion that simply listening to Mozart for several minutes a day increased a child’s IQ on a permanent basis. While subsequent music research indicates Mozart Effect does not exist, there have been several studies that indicate the listening to music does have significant physiological benefits.


The act of listening to music has several noted benefits (Yoon):

Music research on music education suggests that musical activities like dancing, playing an instrument, and singing demonstrate long term benefits in memory, language development, concentration, and physical agility. (Netherwood, Schellenberg). Added memory and language skills help the average musician gain a better understanding of human language than those who do not engage in musical activities. (Moreno) Long term cognitive and language skills increased for student musicians who maintained long term commitments to music by studying an instrument or engaging in vocal performance.

Key Points : Music research shows that music education benefits students notably by its positive effects on the brain’s functions.

Some key points to remember :