Arrgh, how irritating!
Last week I clearly remember hearing a piece on NPR (my lovely wife corroborates this, btw) that reported on recent neurological research into the ways that music lights up the motor center of the brain, and now I can’t find it. The researchers were particularly impressed with the fact that it’s hard to not tap your foot along to music (true, but sort of makes you say “duh”).
I’ve been reading an essay by Richard Middleton (p.104) in which he argues for a gestural metalanguage for doing music analysis, and reflecting on how it relates to this nice bit of brain science. More than the actual physical reaction to music, I’ve been thinking about how I imagine movement when I hear music. I also dig it that this points to a nice way of getting past the mind/body dualism.
Anyway, if anyone out there has a ref. for the actual bit of research I heard about on NPR, I’d love a citation–simple searches have not yet turned it up.
This sounds similar to Daniel Levitin’s work–he wrote a book released recently called _This is Your Brain On Music_ that has a chapter on foot tapping.
But searching for him on NPR links to an old piece about attaching sensors to Keith Lockhart…
Thanks, I’ll check it out.
GS
A good place to dive into the enormous hard-scientific literature on music cognition would be:
Bharucha, J.J. et al. 2006. “Varieties of Musical Experience,” Cognition.
It includes a discussion, toward the end, of both literal and metaphorical motion as experienced in music.
Best I could find–Oliver Sacks talking about his new book Musicophilia on WNYC…
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2007/06/08/segments/71874
I think I’ve got another piece of your puzzle, sent to me by my brother and about to be posted on the BP blog (probably not until Friday though.)
Jeff provided tidbits from this research:
Rosenkranz K. Williamon A. Rothwell JC.
Motorcortical excitability and synaptic plasticity is enhanced in professional musicians.
Journal of Neuroscience. 27(19):5200-6, 2007 May 9.