Perceiving brain rhythms and how we process music

The fact that I am a musician myself made this article extremely interesting for me to read as it dealt with how there are ways in which our brain works in synthesizing and creating rhythms in order for us to be able to identify not only music, but speech as well. There also happens to be a difference in this process based on whether or not you are a musician. In a research experiment where different melodies were given to musicians and non-musicians, only the musicians showed oscillations that synchronized with the unusually slower pieces of music. The results suggest that this difference is due to the idea that non-musicians are actually unable to process music as a smooth continuous melody and instead, perceive it as individual notes. We know that brain rhythms precisely synchronize with speech, but we are not entirely sure what role such cortical brain rhythms play when it comes to the more complex sounds like music and that is why more research needs to be done. It was very interesting to see how the article mentioned that musicians are better at sound detecting and grouping sounds of music and speech compared to those who are non-musicians. In other words, the study found that musicians have more potent oscillatory mechanisms than those who are not.


http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151026171752.htm