Play music… | learntolearn.com

Article last edited on February 4, 2017 by Admin

Our brain has an astonishing ability to adapt, allowing any neophyte pianist to generate, after only 20 minutes of playing the instrument, nerve connections between the cerebral regions of hearing, sensory perception and movement.

In the context of the practice of a high-level instrument, the nervous system touches its own limits, underlines Professor Eckart Altenmüller, neurologist at the Institute of Physiology of the music and medicine of the musician from Hanover. Musicians practicing series of complex movements subject their hearing to constant attention. So when this sense gains in precision, its associated brain region develops and gains ground.

Fortunately, this ability of the brain to change is not confined to a given period of our existence but is preserved throughout our lives. For a beginner adult pianist, the first twenty minutes of exercises are enough to induce ramifications between different regions of his brain. After 5 weeks, the process of adaptation to this new practice continues: an activation of the regions of the brain which control the hand is observed, when the subject simply listens to music, and the activation of the regions of hearing is , conversely, caused by playing on a mute keyboard.

Finally, for experienced musicians, the brain tends to focus on very specific instruments. In the trumpeter, for example, certain nerve cells will react more intensely to the sound of a trumpet than to that of a violin.

These various observations ultimately have a special significance for musicians: they do not only practice their instrument diligently, but also by listening to and observing other musicians.

Text: Mathilde Renault

Origin: – French Embassy in Germany / ADIT – http://www.bulletins-electroniques.com/actualites/50919.htm

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