About how the human brain works when dealing with music.
On this issue I will avoid going into depth neurological aspect.
I would just mention some aspects established by the most modern scientific studies, which are of great help to increase the efficiency in learning the language of music, at any level.
First, it is worth pointing out that part of our brain is structured, from birth, to decode the purely musical language, well distinctly from the area designed for spoken language.
This part should be stimulated immediately (in the opinion of Edwin E. Gordon, directly from the prenatal period until the eighteenth month of life) to naturally develop its full potential.
Conversely, the early "non exposure" to musical stimulus, would cause a transfer of musical abilities to those of the "spoken word" with a consequent more or less definitive loss, of the full potentiality in the field of music.
The only exception is the exposure to "tonal" languages (Vietnamese, Mandarin Chinese, etc.), where is vitally important the intonation of the spoken language. In fact, in this way, both brain areas above mentioned, are simultaneously stimulated.
It is not a coincidence that among people who adopt these languages is much more common the possession of the so-called "perfect pitch", that is to say "the ability to distinguish instantly, and without thinking, the exact pitch of each note without the need to make comparisons with an external standard", as defined by the neurologist Oliver Sacks in his book "Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain" (2007).
Our brain is able to process music as a "language" in the broad sense.
By that, I point out immediately a clear parallelism, but not enough considered, between the two processes:
learning of "spoken" and "musical" languages.
If we learn to speak by juxtaposing certain words, why should we not be able to learn to communicate using defined sequences of notes? The basic process is the same for both languages :
- EXPOSITION TO A STIMULUS IN AN INFORMAL AND NON STRUCTURED MANNER :
(We learn to speak without studying BEFORE the grammar and syntax in a formal way = we learn to make music, even if we do not have any formal instruction about it.)
- IMITATION :
( We start to speak repeating what we listen = we start to sing and play "by ear".)
- UNSTRUCTURED CORRECTION:
(With minimal external support, practice and unstructured repetition.)
- STORAGE:
(None of us needs to read what he said nicely chatting with a friend, so it should be the same with the music playing!)
Another important question is:
"How much information can store our brain?"
Storing information corresponds to the generation of an interaction between the neurons.
The brain has a minimum of 100 000 000 000 (one hundred billion) neurons.
Each neuron can interact in various ways with a number of other neurons, between 1 and 100 000.
In 1974, the amount of possible interactions was assessed by a number consisting of 1 followed by 800 (eight hundred!) zeros.
The estimated number of atoms in the known universe is huge: 1 followed by 85 zeros.
But the number of possible interactions between individual neurons in a brain, makes the number seem like a trifle!
So the "space" that we have in our brain to store new information is virtually unlimited, especially when compared with our current life expectancy.
In addition, the number of interactions assumed in 1974 has been proven to be greatly underestimated.
HOW TO STUDY MUSIC (.. AND NOT ONLY..)
I'll start with a phenomenon well-known to everyone, I hope.
When we were children, we learned and stored with exciting speed and ease.
Just a little older, this "miraculous" ability seems to be considerably decreased, even worse in adulthood.
Why?
First cliche: The more knowledge we store less "space" available to new concepts remains in our brain, so that the effort required to learn and retain informations increases significantly, decreasing the efficiency of the process .
WRONG! Absolutely false.
Our capacity to store new information is virtually unlimited.
So what is the reason for this decline?
Basically, it is given by two factors:
- A REDUCED CAPACITY TO ACHIEVE AN "ABSOLUTE CONCENTRATION"
- THE USE OF WRONG LEARNING METHODS.
The prominence of these factors, it can be easily understood by remembering (..if you can ..) when, as children, we were particularly busy in any activity.
At that time, there was nothing but "our business" and the universe around us was part of this activity.
The activity "is" the universe itself.
Have you ever noticed the exaggerated reaction of a child if you try to take away the object with which he's interacting?
I want to emphasize that the child sees the activity "belonging to the universe" and I am not saying he is abstracting from the rest to take care only of the object itself.
That's what "adults" say, observing the child from outside.
In fact there is a huge difference between the ability to isolate ourselves from the outside to focus on a specific action, and act in a way that such action is quite an unique thing with what surrounds us.
In this situation, we are facing a case of what I define as "absolute concentration".
I'll make an example because I'm not sure that all of you exactly remember (unfortunately) this special sensation.
Here is a case that concerns me personally:
I was playing something on the piano at home, I had almost five years old.
I remember that I fixed my attention on the sound sensations that I felt playing two different notes at the same time.
Meanwhile, my aunt cooked pancakes and some light filtered through the window.
Well, more than forty years later, if I smell pancakes, I hear these notes and I have the impression to see the same light from the window.
My brain indissolubly linked these three things and has greatly improved my memory, thanks to a well-known phenomenon,
characterized by mixing together the different sensory messages: the synaesthesia.
The type of memory that results is called synaesthetic memory.
This trivial example just to say that the "associative and synaesthetic memory" of the children works fine and nobody should give a boring course on how to develop it.
His nice feature is that it works very well even in adulthood, or better "would work" if there were not some study's methods and some type of education to restrain its effective use.
A child does not even attempt to isolate his activity from the rest.
It just fits "the rest" in its operations, significantly enhancing the experience.
For an adult, on the other hand, is usually recommended to focus on a particular action and to isolate themselves from the rest, not knowing that by doing so, it will weaken the acquisition.
It's fun to remember that Bach seemed to be able to compose his music (and WHAT music ..!) quietly immersed in the confusion generated by his large family, without giving the idea to be mentally isolated from the surrounding world.
Returning to the question of "absolute concentration", it is clear that forcing the abstraction from the surrounding environment, to increase the concentration and therefore the learning, it becomes an extremely strenuous exercise.
Just because we are designed to be immersed in the world around us, to be part of it and to collect all the changes.
This attitude should be supported without resistance, because it is the main source of the powerful synaesthetic memory.
Rowing against what is natural, always generates an energy expenditure.
THE ENERGETIC BALANCE
We perceive our energy as a resource with a limited availability.
Therefore, even unconsciously, we always keep into account the amount of energy required by any activity, in function of the available amount of energy.
If our personal budget says that we have enough energy to expend in an activity, getting a useful result, then we will decide to engage in this activity. Otherwise we will give it up, finding useful to preserve our energy for other more profitable activities.
This mechanism is primordial, therefore very powerful.
It is certain that if we engage in a new activity using the wrong method, energy expenditure will certainly increase, exacerbating the result of the energy budget and so, sometimes, we give up pursuing the activity for a methodological error.
Not satisfying or opposing the natural process by which our brain focuses in the learning stages, it disfavours that we called "absolute concentration", typical of children.
With age, what distracts us from the highly effective learning system that we used as children?
I leave the question open!
Does it seems interesting to you?
MY TWO BASIC THEOREMS
1 - THE SPEED OF LEARNING OF A SPECIFIC SKILL, IS DIRECT FUNCTION OF THE PERCEIVED ENERGY AVAILABILITY, USEFUL TO LEARN THE SKILL ITSELF.
2 - THE PERCEIVED AVAILABILITY OF ENERGY USEFUL FOR LEARNING IS INVERSELY PROPORTIONAL TO THE AGE.
It was pointed out the idea of the perception of the available energy and not an absolute value of this energy.
But perception is modifiable.
This is the "core" of the subject.
The presumed level of difficulty for the activity and the personal motivation, affect perception of the available energy.
Everything is considered easy for a child.
For a child's motivation is limitless.
And that's the key.
It seems more and more interesting, isn'it?
