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The Musical Brain: a Study

into Musical Perception

and Memory

By Martha Nye

Canterbury Christ Church University

Department of Music and Performing Arts

Bachelor of Music

Word Count: 11, 552

Date of Submission: Friday 3rd

May 2013

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Abstract This paper explores the neurological basis for the perception and memory for pitch, pitch

relationships and melodies. The phenomenon that musicians with similar training and

expertise excel in different areas of music leads to a question: if the training is similar, then

how is trainee or his methods different? This research explores the difference between, and

reasons for aptitude in, aural recall and sight-reading. The study shows the brain areas and

processes specific to music and the flexibility of musicians’ methods. The findings lead to a

personal understanding of proficiency or ineptitude in these skills.

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Table of Contents

Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 4

Musical Neurophysiology ..................................................................................................................... 5

Chapter 1 – Pitch and Melody ..................................................................................................... 8

Recognition of Pitch ............................................................................................................................. 8

Memory Systems for Pitch ................................................................................................................. 11

Absolute Pitch ..................................................................................................................................... 14

Melody and Pitch Recognition ........................................................................................................... 16

Immediate Recall of Melodies ............................................................................................................ 18

Chapter Summary ............................................................................................................................... 21

Chapter 2 – Melody and Harmony ........................................................................................... 23

Melodic Contour ................................................................................................................................. 23

Scale Structure and Tonality ............................................................................................................... 24

Musical Notation and Structure .......................................................................................................... 27

Chapter Summary ............................................................................................................................... 34

Chapter 3 – Music in Action ....................................................................................................... 36

Sight-Reading and Working Memory ................................................................................................. 36

Imagery and Mental Rehearsal ........................................................................................................... 37

Brain Function and Structure .............................................................................................................. 40

Chapter Summary ............................................................................................................................... 40

Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 42

References ....................................................................................................................................... 44

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Introduction From the age of 18, my interest in brain organisation, function and mechanisms has grown,

especially in the field of music. Music has an emotional effect, an automatic effect and often

an unnoticed effect on our thoughts and feelings. The fact that music seems a phenomenon,

separate and far less understood from other brain studies, has appealed to me and led me to

search into the anatomical relationships of musical activity in the brain. My first interest was

that of ability – why could I easily pick up instruments, the reading of musical notation and

the act of singing when my peers, exposed to a similar level of musical activity, could not?

Why can I, after a similar amount and intensity of training to my sister, sight-read to near

perfection when she cannot? Yet she excels in aural tests, such as immediate recall of

melody and rhythm, and I perform poorly. What is it about our brains and their structure and

organisation that leads us to excel in different aspects of music? Which parts of my brain

have developed further or lesser to my sibling’s?

The study of memory has long interested me, both inside and outside of music, and

memory is intrinsically linked to the method and efficacy of perception and coding. A

particular issue of mine is that I cannot, and never have been able to, sing or play back a

melody I have just heard. As a music student I daily engage in many musical activities,

often spending a large proportion of my day exercising those musical structures in my brain.

I wanted to know which parts of my brain are stopping me either properly encoding or

remembering pitches and pitch sequences. The study of perception of melody may explain

to me where the deficiencies are. Perhaps the part of my brain which is lacking is also

implicated in other non-musical functions which are poor in performance, and this study

will lead me to understand where I excel and where I do not, and why.

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Musical Neurophysiology Music neurophysiology is an excellent tool for exploring brain structure, function and

organisation. Despite the fact that many become involved in musical training, only a small

percentage of the population develop a proficiency in music, which suggests that there is an

innate predisposition to musical skill or that something in a musician's brain plasticity is

different in nature to a non-musician’s (Peretz and Zatorre 2005). Similarly, the study of

brain organisation is a useful aid to the study of how the brain functions in music. Studies of

brain anomalies show the use of neural networks for music that are separated from non-

musical auditory and vocal functions. Using these two together we can discover some

neurological roots to a very human trait (Peretz and Zatorre 2005).

Many different parts of the brain are found to have been active during activities of

music processing. Just from the first sound entering the ear, structures like the cochlea,

brain stem, mid brain nuclei and mid brain cortex are activated and in a very short space of

time lead to perception. Different parts of the brain are involved in stages of the musical

processing sequence, and there has been evidence of segregation between these mechanisms

(Peretz and Zatorre 2005). The organisation of the systems within the cochlea (See Figures

1 and 2) appears to correspond to frequencies. The basal parts respond to high frequencies

while the apical parts respond to lower frequencies (Weinberger 1999). Music is processed

like any other auditory information, through the ascending auditory pathway to the auditory

cortex. The cortex is on the superior temporal plane within the Sylvian fissure, demonstrated

by the thick line on Figure 3. The primary auditory cortex is in the superior temporal gyrus,

numbered 41 and 42 on the diagram (Figure 3). Laterally positioned to the primary auditory

cortex are the secondary auditory cortical areas (Stewart et al 2006).

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In order to recognise and analyse musical information entering the brain the musical

working memory system must produce an internal representation. This trace must be

independent of the ‘superficial variations’ like dynamics and reverberation because music

relies on the relationships between the pitch values and not the independent pitch values. In

Figures 1 and 2:

Powerhousemuseum.com

(2001) and Skidmore.edu

(n.d.). Inner ear structure

showing the position of

the cochlea and its relation

to brain structures.

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other words, it is recognition of the relationships between the pitches that make a melody

familiar (Peretz and Zatorre 2005).

Figure 3: a diagram of the brain areas.

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Chapter 1 – Pitch and Melody

Recognition of Pitch Pitch is one the fundamental elements of music, along with rhythm, and yet their processing

functions appear to be independent, whilst still relying on each other to make a melody.

Jones and Boltz found that in fully functioning brains, perception and memory of pitch is

quite rhythmical - perhaps aided by the rhythm – but that brain damage can cause a

deficiency in pitch comprehension and perception while the metric and rhythmic skills

remain intact (Peretz and Zatorre 2005, 91). This has been shown in a case study by

Fasanaro et al (1990). The subject was a 72-year-old professional musician playing several

instruments and was experienced in sight-reading. He suffered a loss of strength to his right

side and space-time disorientation. Neurological examinations showed mild right

hemiparesis, a weakness on one side of the body, including reduced sense of touch, sight

and a difficulty reading and naming. A brain scan showed decreased density in the

temporoparieto-occipital region (the junction between temporal, parietal and occipital

areas), with damage in the left medial region and splenium (in the very centre of the brain).

The following table (Table 1) shows how he performed in the musical ability tests and how

his pitch abilities are far decreased in comparison to his rhythmical abilities.

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A logical suggestion to make following this evidence is that pitch and rhythm

dimensions use separable subsystems within the musical mechanisms. Griffiths, Johnsrude,

Dean and Green (1999, in Peretz and Zatorre 2005) discovered similar activation patterns in

the brain in tests of pitch and time discrimination. Recall is never note perfect while it can

be harmonically and metrically consistent (Sloboda and Parker 2005). Evidence suggesting

that the operations are separable suggests that the brain areas that they do share are capable

of several simultaneous functions.

In studying how we compute pitch we can see that the right temporal neo-cortex,

located in the transverse temporal gyri, is heavily implicated. It is easy to see the function of

brain areas when comparing brain-damaged subjects to undamaged subjects. In a study by

Milner in 1962, those with focal brain excisions in the right temporal area were found to

have worse pitch relationship skills than those with excisions in the left. The impairment

was more than just a deficit in pitch discrimination, suggesting that it is implicated in more

than just this function (Peretz and Zatorre 2005, 91).

Table 1: Fasanaro

et al (1990, 268)

case study. A

table presenting

the results of the

subject’s musical

ability tests.

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In Heschl's gyri, (the area containing the temporal gyri in Figure 3), damage in the

right anterolateral section can cause further damage to pitch processing. Perception of notes

missing their fundamental is difficult, but subjects with this damage seem to be better at

determining the direction of pitch (Peretz and Zatorre, 2005). For recognition of a

frequency, the fundamental tone is not crucial as it can be identified without. For lower

notes, the high frequencies are more important and for high notes, the lower frequencies are

more dominant (Pierce 1999).

The posterior secondary auditory cortex may be involved in the analysis of pitch, as

it was shown to be active when comparing complex tones (a tone with harmonics), which

include some spectral change. Manipulation of this pitch leads to more response in the right

auditory regions, with manipulation of pitch height activating the posterior section and

analysis of pitch chroma (its qualities) taking place in the anterior section (Peretz and

Zatorre 2005, 92). All of this evidence points to the right secondary auditory cortex’s role in

processing of pitch relationships. This occurs even when attention is directed elsewhere as

Tervaniemi (2003) showed with electroencephalography (EEG) and magneto-

encephalography (MEG) scans, where activity in the brain was still occurring, although to a

lesser extent. In Tervaniemi’s studies, she found that ‘temporally and spectrally complex

sounds as well as their relations are automatically represented in the human auditory cortex’

(Tervaniemi 2003, 294) and that musical sounds are distinct from phonetic sounds in their

neural representations. The brain has an ability to encode and analyse complex sounds even

when the subject is focused on another task, and musical sounds continue to be differently

analysed (Tervaniemi 2003).

Pitch relationships include the intervals between them, and there are several means

of pitch and interval identification. ‘Magnitude Estimation’ occurs when the listeners group

close frequencies into the same magnitude (pitch) and then jump to another magnitude when

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the pitch gets too far out of range. ‘Absolute Identification’ is a skill held by those with

absolute pitch. These people can identify approximately 75 items, compared with those who

do not possess absolute pitch who can identify approximately 5 items. In interval

recognition for those with absolute pitch, ascending and descending intervals may be

perceived as the same, as it is merely the pitch categories that are needed for recognition.

The musicians tested could recognise the intervals (even those only with relative pitch) from

unison to a major tenth with 100% accuracy. ‘Category scaling’ meant the participants

shifted slightly narrower or wider intervals into equal temperament (Burns 1999, 221).

Memory Systems for Pitch Memory for pitch is a crucial part to our perception, comprehension and analysis of pitch

and melody. Whilst the distinct scale steps are not coded in the memory trace, they must be

perceived in order to make the representative trace, built on a framework of tonality and

contour (Dowling 1978). Music unfolds and develops over a time period, and therefore our

auditory mechanisms must maintain information correctly in order to relate certain elements

to those previous and subsequent. Deutsch (1970) found in her studies that the systems for

maintenance of pitch are dissociable from other memory parts, similarly to its perception as

we have seen above. A melody is analysed in terms of its pitch, dynamics, duration,

harmonic and melodic intervals, durational relationships, timbres, metre and other musical

elements by subdivisions, and each subdivision contains information on pitch, duration or

other elements. These are stored in parallel and the outputs combine at the time of retrieval

(Deutsch 1970). When one is determining whether two pitches are the same, the task

remains easy after a short interval. Although decay of the memory trace may have started, it

is not significant. When other tones are interpolated within a five-second delay, the task

becomes very difficult. The more tones that are interpolated, the more difficult the task

becomes. Pitch memory here is subject not only to time decay, but to interference. If

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difficulty arose from distraction of attention, then interpolated material of all kinds would

result in memory loss, but this did not happen. If it were held in a store with limited

capacity, then other non-musical materials would also be forgotten in the overload, but this

did not happen. A specialised pitch system is becoming overloaded with pitch information

only (Deutsch 1970).

This theory was tested in four groups. They were presented with a test pitch, a five-

second interval, and then a comparison pitch, which they then had to compare to the test

pitch. In group 1) six tones were interpolated in the interval before pitch comparison; in

group 2) six numbers were spoken in the interval before pitch comparison; in group 3) they

had the same as number 2, but were requested to both compare the pitches and recall the

numbers spoken in the interval; and in group 4) they were required to recall the numbers and

not compare the pitches. Table 2 shows the results.

Since group 3 had to memorise both numbers and pitches and had comparable pitch

memory impairment to group 2, and recalled numbers equally well as group 4, this shows

the different information was likely coded in separate systems. Group 1 had pitch memory

impairment from interpolated pitch, but no group had pitch memory impairment from

interpolated speech. Impairment could not be due to the lack of rehearsal as when speech

was interpolated error was far smaller. This suggests that pitch was processed in a

Table 2: Percentage error in

groups 1 to 4 (Deutsch 1970).

Group 1 shows substantial

impairment on pitch memory,

groups 2 and 3 show minimal

pitch memory impairment and

groups 3 and 4 show comparable

number recall error.

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specialised system, which was subject to interference from other pitch material, but not non-

musical material such as the spoken numbers (Deutsch 1970).

Deutsch (1973) also tested the error rate in pitch comparison when interpolated tones

were displaced by an octave. The tones of the same octave caused the greatest interference,

but the tones of the octave above were also highly disruptive. The least interference came

from the octave below. This could be explained by a suggestion that higher pitches attract

more attention, or that there is an independent process for interval analysis that is separate to

that of octave generalisation (Deutsch 1972) (and as we know this happens automatically

(Tervaniemi 2003)), meaning it becomes difficult to manage both tasks. The highest error

came from the test by Deutsch in 1974 when interpolated tones were played from all three

octaves, as the interval size was the largest (Deutsch 1999, 400).

Zatorre et al (1994) found that several regions are activated when working memory

load is high and that the frontal cortical region and posterior temporal regions are activated

in working memory for tones. Through measurements of Cerebral Blood Flow (CBF)

Zatorre and his team concluded that specialised neural systems that dealt with perceptual

analysis of melody were placed in the right superior temporal gyrus and pitch comparison is

computed in a specialised system in the right prefrontal cortex while retention of pitch

involves the right temporal and frontal cortices.

The auditory cortical areas are involved in high-information-load rehearsal, such as

in sight-reading, where one needs to retain pitch information while new information is

presented. In a study by Gaab et al (2003), subjects listened to six tones and were required

to judge whether the first and last tones were the same or different. Analysis of the

comparison caused activation patterns in the superior temporal gyrus and left inferior frontal

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gyrus, among other regions, measured through functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

(fMRI) scans. These studies point to the existence of a working memory pitch subsystem.

Absolute Pitch A working memory pitch subsystem would involve the analysis of single pitches and related

pitches using the skills Relative Pitch (RP) and Absolute Pitch (AP). RP is the ability to

calculate pitches from their relation with a known pitch. The ability to recognise a pitch

without reference to another is known as perfect or absolute pitch (Bermudez and Zatorre

2009). Those who possess this trait report that it was not a learnt ability and that it was

acquired incidentally, which suggests they have a predilection affecting their perception of

information. It is likely that these ‘cognitive inclinations’ (Bermudez and Zatorre 2009) are

a part of the developmental, tuitional and genetic influences that lead to the development of

AP. Predispositions are very likely to be involved. Baharloo et al (2000) found sibling

recurrence of AP to be quite high. This suggests an innate neural substrate interacts with the

environment at a certain time in development. All possessors have been engaged in early

musical training (from under the age of six). This is when the central nervous system is most

adaptable and there seems to be more effect on the structures associated with the musical

activity at this age (Altenmueller and Schneider 2009). In their study of 113 siblings of AP

possessors, 50% also had the youthful training, and 50% of those also reported possessing

AP.

Miyazaki (1992) reported that AP impeded the development of RP, which is a more

important skill in musically meaningful situations. AP possessors were slower to recognise

or calculate intervals when the starting note was ‘out of tune’, suggesting that they were

perceived as two separate tones rather than a tonal relation. Several of the participants

counted up from one recognised note to the next in order to calculate the interval. However,

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many musicians have both AP and RP. AP was seen to be more prevalent in those deemed

to be extremely talented musicians and performers.

The brain activity of those possessing AP can be contrasted with those who do not,

as there is reduced electrical brain activity used in the working memory tasks of those

possessing AP. There also seems to be distinctly less response to pitch change. The right

frontal cortex, involved in monitoring pitch information in the working memory, is also less

active in those with AP. This suggests an element of efficiency or a lack of sensitivity, as

there is less analysis of pitch to be done (Peretz and Zatorre 2005). This is likely linked with

the categorical representation of pitch associated with AP as opposed to the continuous

trace, which allows for RP recognition. The right superior temporal gyrus and right inferior

frontal regions are activated when music is presented, and these are implicated in the

analysis of tonality. A link to tonal processing suggests that the initial perception of pitch

and auditory information is no different for a possessor of AP. The difference came when

single pitches were presented and activity in the left posterior dorsolateral frontal cortex was

noted in AP groups but not RP groups. This portion of the brain is associated with

conditional associative learning - learnt associations between a task and the appropriate

response (Sacchietti et al 2008; Zatorre et al 1998) - which may lead to a definition of AP as

the link of a stimulus (the pitch) to a response (the label or pitch name). This area was also

active in both groups when judging major or minor chords, which leads the authors to a

hypothesis that this area is implicated in verbal-tonal associations (Zatorre et al 1998).

The evidence of functional differences in the brain suggests that there may also be

some structural differences. A lateral asymmetry of the auditory cortical areas, which has

been evident in many studies, seems to be present in those possessing AP. There appears to

be either an enhancement of the left hand side or conversely a reduction on the right hand

side, which causes the difference (Keenan et al 2001). It is speculated that the early musical

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training is an influence of structural development. The size of the right-hand side was far

more consistent in the AP musicians tested than the left compared to the non musicians and

the RP musicians, suggesting that it is a ‘pruning’ of the right hand side which is the

influence on the development of AP (Keenan et al 2001, 1407).

Melody and Pitch Recognition In order to recognise melodies, a long-term trace of the pitch/time relations must be made

and maintained. Music is not based on a semantic system like language and instead the

representation must be one of form and structure. Melodies can be recognised at any pitch

and so are remembered as schema, not the absolute pitches, involving the intervals, contour

and scale degree context (Snyder 2009). We cannot use meaning to remember the melody –

meaning is conveyed through other means, such as our associations with memories and

emotions. As melodies are recognisable in different transpositions and with tempo and

instrumental change, the traces are likely to be abstract (Peretz and Zatorre 2005).

Processing of the semantics of music takes place in the middle temporal gyrus and the left

anterior temporal area (Koelsch and Siebel 2005).

However, Halpern discovered that we do often preserve some of the surface features

of music such as dynamics, tempo and some retention of the absolute pitch of tunes despite

insufficient verbal or visual cues for the pitch (Halpern 1989). Our memory’s duality in this

respect parallels our perception of music. We will never process every detail but we must be

aware of and consider the surface details of each unique performance of a piece. Pitch and

precise tempo can be retained in some form, but the memory of the entire piece is

remembered as more of a ‘gist’. The trace follows the structure of organisation (Peretz and

Zatorre 2005, 97) and uses the surface elements in order to relate these sections (Lamont

and Dibben 2001), which are used depending on the piece’s most memorable elements.

Lamont and Dibben (2001) also found that listeners are less likely to use more complex

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musical points, such as motivic development, in order to create mental representations of the

work. However, in order to appreciate and understand a unique performance, the surface

details like tempo and absolute pitch are required to be analysed. Both the structural and

surface details can be retained.

Further support for a musical memory subsystem comes from lesion studies. The

perception can remain intact whilst recognition of familiar melodies becomes impossible.

Sometimes this is even limited to music. Peretz (1996, 484) studied one lady who had a

bilateral auditory cortex lesion and was considered amusical (an inability to comprehend or

respond to music). She had a normal memory for lyrics when spoken, but was unable to

recognise the corresponding melodies. She had no other non-musical auditory deficits or

visual deficits, suggesting the damage was limited to this musical function. Zatorre and

Samson in 1992 found that after a right-sided temporal lobe lesion, retention of musical

memory quickly deteriorates. However, this right side is not as critical when the melody is

highly familiar. When recognition of a novel melody becomes difficult after damage to the

right temporal lobe, the left temporal lobe is used (Peretz and Zatorre 2005).

Bower in 1991 believed that mood might also have an effect on our memory for

music. Participants were placed in a positive and negative mood and then listened to a

melody judged as being happy or sad. In recognition there was a mood congruency effect

whereby the sad melodies were remembered better by those who were placed in a negative

mood, and vice versa (Houston and Haddock 2007). Houston and Haddock also found that

mood congruency effects are present in verbal and visual memory. This relates to the

activity on the right and left side of the amygdala that affects our moods, and this is held

deep inside the brain and connected to the auditory cortex (Scott et al 2000).

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Immediate Recall of Melodies Aural tests in instrumental exams require candidates to sing back a phrase or two after two

presentations. In the vast majority of my musical exams, I either just passed or failed on

these sections, so free recall is not a skill I have mastered. In music, free recall is an

interesting point of study when looking at the memory trace and the influences on and

products of the recall.

A study by Sloboda and Parker (2005) took eight young subjects, four who were

classified as musicians (trained performers) and four who were considered non-musicians

(they had not received any training but enjoyed listening to music). They listened to

excerpts from folk melodies. This study is interesting as they used real melodies as opposed

to pitch sequences designed specifically for the task, and is therefore more likely to show

how we react to and recall existing music. The excerpt was played six times and then the

subject was required to recall the sequence through singing six times. The authors found that

recalling more than one melody in a single session caused interference between the

materials, and so only the first melody recall was used in analysis. There was an intriguingly

high level of ‘intersong contamination’ (Sloboda and Parker 2005, 76), which was

unexpected.

The sequence was the first three phrases of the song ‘Sailor’, a Russian folk song

which was unfamiliar to the subjects. There were 21 notes, arranged in two-bar phrases, in

the form A1A2B. Section B shares much of the rhythmic patterns with A and so to an ear

attuned to Western tonality and structure, the melody would have been easily understood

and the structural groupings were clear. Transcriptions of the recalls were generated. Where

some subjects transposed their recall, it was ignored as unintentional and showed that

coding was in the context of pitch relationships, not actual pitch (Sloboda and Parker 2005,

77).

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Firstly melodic contour was analysed. A melodic contour template was drawn up for

the three phrases and the subjects’ recalls were compared. Each correct note within a pattern

received one mark. When presented as a percentage, they found wide-ranging scores from

0-88%. Interestingly an example from one subject shows a very low melodic accuracy

score, but the subject seems to have created a new melody on the harmonic structure of the

original – this is analogous to linguistic recall, where it is possible to recall a sentence that

means the exact same thing but may contain very few of the same words: this new melody

essentially means the same thing (Bower 1976, cited in Sloboda and Parker 2005, 74).

Another subject’s recall seems to be based on the third phrase, which is section B, the

section containing different material to the previous two phrases. The third phrase recalled is

sometimes based on phrase one but the phrases have been rearranged. If the individual

phrase recalls were marked on the phrase they most resemble in the original, the score

becomes 57% as opposed to the original 2% (Sloboda and Parker 2005, 80). The subject's

initial error of recalling the third phrase first is maintained throughout the recalls, showing

how persistent a recall schema can be. This is most evident in the recalls of the other

melodies tested (which were not used in analysis), as the recalls were so disturbed by the

first melody that the materials became mixed through of the stubbornness of the recall

schema.

Looking at how a subject may improve over trials, it was found that while the notes

matching the melodies rose, the number of notes produced rose, too, meaning accuracy

stayed around the 50% mark. There is a constant freedom on the recall, which shows that

our recall is not highly restricted by the original surface material that we encode, suggesting

that it is not an absolute trace that we create. As discussed previously, our memory is much

more abstract (Peretz and Zatorre 2005, 97), based on underlying structures.

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Is the A1A2B harmonic and melodic structure helpful in recalling the melodic

patterns? The similarity between the phrases must be measured. If the structure is preserved

in recall, then phrase three will be significantly less similar than phrase two to phrase one. In

the authors’ analysis of the original, it was indeed shown that phrase three was less similar

but in the results, it is seen that the subjects make phrase three more similar to phrase one

than in the original, but phrase two is still more similar to phrase one than phrase three. This

evidence points to the structure being reproduced, but that the recall is far less varied

structurally, which shows a tendency of memory towards simplification (Sloboda and Parker

2005 , 85).

A search between the two groups should show a difference between the musicians

and non-musicians. Musicians outperformed on all analyses except the consistency in

breathing places, yet interestingly the superiority was not always significant. In summary,

the recall of a melody was never note-perfect. Recalls were closely related to the original

melody in many ways but the best-retained element was the metrical structure. They all

retain a feeling of four in a bar, and this excellent performance on metre memory is

indicative of the primary use of metre as a structure for melodic comprehension and recall.

The phrase divisions (which is governed by harmony and metre) are also particularly well

adhered to, and the A1A2B structure is maintained even when the melody itself is incorrect.

However, the harmonic and melodic patterns are of varying degrees of accuracy throughout

the subject sample. It suggests that harmonic and melodic structures can be attained

independently of the rhythm, supporting Griffiths et al’s (1999, cited in Peretz and Zatorre,

2005; Fasanaro et al 1990) view that pitch and rhythm and pitch and metre may be separable

in brain function. And furthering this idea, it seems that harmonic structure can be separable

from melodic information (Peretz 1993). Several subjects’ recalls showed a very different

melody that fitted the harmonic structure, and it was common for rhythm, metre and

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harmony to all remain intact while there were large variations on the melody. This retention

of harmony was the only significant difference between musicians and non-musicians,

suggesting training in Western music increases one's understanding of and memory for

harmonic and tonal structures (Sloboda and Parker 2005, 89).

This evidence suggests that we form models of structure in our memory where

surface detail is not retained (Peretz and Zatorre 2005; Sloboda and Parker 1985). Recall

involves filling in structural sections adhering to the 'rules' in that section. Different amounts

of training allow us to be sensible to the levels of structure. Due to this, the musicians can

code those harmonic relationships that are too complex for the non-musicians to

comprehend. However, there are certain elements that can be processed by both groups,

such as the basic melody and rhythm and the ascents and descents that are responsible for

the melodic contour. The main points of perception and memory for music that have been

discussed previously are here shown in action.

Chapter Summary In this chapter we have seen that the brain areas most implicated in the processing of

pitch are the right temporal cortex, in the anterolateral section, and particularly the superior

temporal gyrus as this contains the auditory cortex (Peretz and Zatorre 2005). Also

implicated are the left medial area and the splenium, an area deep inside the brain

‘underneath’ the auditory cortex. The junction between temporal, occipital and parietal

regions is also important, as damage here is correlated with a deficit in pitch processing

(Fasanaro et al 1990). In the right secondary auditory cortex, the anterior portion deals with

pitch chroma whilst the posterior portion deals with pitch height (Peretz and Zatorre 2005).

Melody is recalled as a series of pitch relationships, and the underlying structures such as

rhythm metre and harmony are much better recalled than the actual melody, even though the

melody is the most apparent factor in the music. Recall schemas are based on structures, not

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the surface features and musical training increases your understanding and therefore

memory for these structures (Sloboda and Parker 2005).

Deutsch’s 1970 study shows that non-musical information doesn't interfere with

pitch, while musical analysis does, supporting the specialised system for the memory of

pitch and melody. Zatorre et al (1994) show us that working memory load activates auditory

areas in the superior temporal gyrus, meaning the auditory cortices are implicated in high-

load musical working memory, supporting the separate subsystem hypothesis also presented

by Gaab et al (2003). If there is indeed a musical memory subsystem, it is active in the

auditory cortex and the right temporal lobe, with longer-term musical memory leaning

toward action in the left temporal lobe. This side deals with language (Scott et al 2000) and

semantics (Koelsch and Siebel (2005) implicated the left anterior temporal lobe in their

study), and therefore musical semantics relating to our associations.

For AP possessors, there is reduced brain activity for working memory compared to

those not possessing AP. This is related to the categorical representation of pitch in AP as

opposed to a continuous trace for RP, which requires more maintenance of information.

When a single pitch is presented, AP possessors show action in the left posterior dorso-

lateral frontal cortex, which works with stimulus and response processes, in this case pitch

and pitch label. There is brain asymmetry in possessors suggesting that the smaller right-

sided auditory cortex may influence AP development.

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Chapter 2 – Melody and Harmony

Melodic Contour Another method in which our brain processes melody is through the perception and memory

of melodic contour. The melodic contour is such a strong element in memory that a

reproduction of a non-Western melody, by a Westerner, would be produced with Western

elements, and yet the contour of the melody would be intact (Dowling 1978). Dowling

(1978) also points out that if the rhythm is incorrect or the intervals are displaced by an

octave (octave displacement: Deutsch (1972)) the tune may still be recognised. Deutsch

(1972) discovered when playing 'Yankee Doodle' with the notes randomly chosen from any

of three octaves, recognition was inhibited but still possible. She concluded that interval size

and preservation of contour are the most distinctive features for memory in our memory

trace. Long (1977) conjectured that a melodic contour with more directional change was less

effective in aiding the memory of pitch because more attention is required to the interval

size, where as a smoother, perhaps ‘V-shaped’, contour would create a shape memory trace

rather than intervallic memory trace.

The right superior temporal gyrus is strongly implicated in contour perception and

memory. Interval relations that make up the contour are processed in both the right and left

temporal gyri as discussed by Vignolo (2003), who found that the difference in accuracy in

the interval testing between those with right hemispheric lesions and those with left was

insignificant. Patel and Balaban in 1998 showed the cooperation between left and right

hemispheres in the processing of simple melody sequences (Peretz and Zatorre 2005, 92).

This asymmetry in the functions is already apparent in the tests on infants conducted by

Balaban et al (1998). The study found that reaction to a change that alters the contour of a

melody was stronger when presented in the left ear, while an interval change that preserved

the melodic contour provoked a stronger reaction when presented to the right ear (Balaban

24

et al 1998, 48). This is consistent with asymmetry in contour and intervallic change

discovered in adults but Anderson in 1994 (Balaban 1998, 48). This evidence suggests that

perception of contour may be stronger on the right-hand side of the brain (as the information

came from the left ear) and that memory for contour is stronger on the left-hand side. Once

again, encoding of both contour and intervals does not require the attention of the listener

(Tervaniemi 2003).

A study by Epinosa and Gernstein in 1988 used three-note series in all of their

permutations (ABC; ACB; BAC etc.) and found local networks of neurons processing these

series, and they discovered up to 24 neurons spiking simultaneously. The effect of one

neuron’s activity on another was specific to each sequence: neuron-spike patterns of one

tone changed depending on the preceding tone (ABC compared to BAC). Connections

between the tones depended on the pattern of the tones, which points towards contour being

coded at a neuronal network level (Weinberger 1999).

Scale Structure and Tonality The scale structure involved in a tonal melody is a useful tool for listeners in the perception

and memory in pitch sequences and it is often learnt implicitly and used automatically to

influence incoming pitch, melody and interval information (Tillmann and Bharucha 2000).

Tonality can provide a ‘cognitive landmark’ (Snyder, 2009) and when compared with non-

musicians, although musicians' recall of music is superior, Cook found in 1987 that it is less

superior when they are presented with an atonal sequence (Lehmann et al 2007). Brain

damage can inhibit tonal knowledge while the interval and contour perception are spared

(Peretz 1993). In a case study by Peretz (1993) the subject who had a lesion in the left

temporal lobe and right frontal-opercular region (which includes the right temporal gyri)

could no longer judge the difference between tonality and atonality, and had a reduction in

pitch memory, but could still perceive the pitches and melody contour. There may be

25

specialised neurons for processing of scale structure because it can be separable from other

functions. Janata, Birk, Van Horn, Leman, Tillmann and Bharucha (2002) suggested that the

medial prefrontal cortex was associated with knowledge of the key and tonality of a piece,

maintaining a tonality map. The authors discovered that the connections to the medial

prefrontal cortex were mainly coming from areas associated with auditory processing, and

that this auditory task-related activity was seen mainly in the right hemisphere of the

anterior superior temporal gyrus (Janata et al 2002).

Long (1977) conducted an experiment whereby he tested the effects of melody

length, contour, tonal structure and musical ability on memory for pitches within melodies,

which is different to other studies testing a sequence recall ability. Unsurprisingly, two of

the three groups that were comprised of mostly music students performed far better than the

one group consisting of mostly non-music students, supporting the view that musical

training would increase memory for pitch. Memory may be dependent on the learned

musical systems. He found that the length was not significant but that the tonality of

melodies, as opposed to atonality of others, increased the ease at which the pitch was

remembered. The learned system of tonality was a great aid to this memory (Long 1977).

A knowledge of tonal and harmonic principles lead to expectancies in harmonies.

Tramo, Bharucha and Musiek studied brain damaged subjects in 1990 and found that they

retained the ability to generate chord expectancies after a bilateral lesion in auditory cortex

but were deficient in pitch processing and had difficulty in judging intonation (Peretz and

Zatorre 2005, 93). Deviation from the chord expectancies causes robust potentials in the

brain, in the inferior frontal areas where the neurons generate a response. Koelsch, Gunter,

van Cramon, Zys-set, Lohmann and Friederici in 2002 showed that this happens bilaterally

(Peretz and Zatorre 2005, 93). The right hand side is typically implicated in yes/no decisions

and perhaps in inhibition responses to risk, which may be linked to the surprise of a

26

harmonic deviation. The left hand-side is used in language functions and grammar (Scott et

al 2000), which corresponds to the ‘grammar’ of music, and the change in direction for the

music. Our grammar of music however, is limited to the musical culture in which we are

saturated. A Western-cultured person would reproduce a melody of entirely non-Western

elements inside the Western tonality schemes (Dowling 1978). Bartlett and Dowling in 1980

(Shuter-Dyson 1999) saw a recognition of key change, when the key was distant, in children

as young as 5 whilst children aged 9-10 showed a 90% accuracy in identifying a tonality

change.

Consonance and dissonance naturally play a part in our perception and recognition

of pitch relations. Intervals that are consonant have a simple frequency ratio (for example,

the fifth is 3:2) and dissonant relations have more complex frequency ratios (16:15 for the

minor second). The superior temporal gyri are again implicated here as dissonance appears

to be computed bilaterally in this area, possibly by specialised mechanisms. Fishman,

Volkov, Noh, Garell and Bakken in 2001 found dissonance caused activity in the temporal

gyri, but not consonance (Peretz and Zatorre 2005, 94), and a bilateral lesion of the auditory

cortex (inside this gyrus) has the effect of a loss in the subject's sense of dissonance (Peretz

et al 2001, in Peretz and Zatorre 2005, 94).

Some questions brought up here by Peretz and Zatorre (2005) are that of the point in

perception where computation of dissonance is critical, and whether our sensitivity is to

dissonant noises in general or to dissonant pitch relations. Is our definition of dissonance

down to our natural auditory-musical functions, or is it through learned associations? Lynch

and Eilers in 1991 tested western children's judgment of dissonance in western and Javanese

music, and found that while the western music was more accurate, they performed better

than the chance accuracy (predicted accuracy if purely guesswork) (Carterette and Kendall

27

1999, 731), so there is some argument for a innate sense of dissonance, but with greater

sensitivity in the familiar and learned contexts.

Musical Notation and Structure Tonal structure's role in memory has already been discussed, which has its largest effect in

aural presentation. Does the visual representation have an effect on our memory similar to

that of the musical structure? Standard notation represents musical pitch and rhythm in a

visual manner. Ordered and 'good' musical structure is remembered far more easily than

'bad' or random structure (Halpern and Bower 1982).

Halpern and Bower used an interesting experiment on chess experts and chess

amateurs by Adriaan de Groot in 1965 showing results in how they perceive and remember

patterns. He found that to remember patterns and moves both during and after play, chess

Grand Masters use chunking, a memory method involving grouping information together to

create one 'chunk', rather than several smaller ones. The amateurs did not do this. It suggests

that other experts, such as musicians highly skilled in reading of notation, would also use

chunking in perception (in tasks like sight-reading) and memorisation while amateurs would

not. However, de Groot found that the experts’ memory is superior in meaningful patterns,

but no better than the amateurs’ when the patterns were random. Halpern and Bower (1982)

believed it would be the same for musicians when musical patterns and structures were

ordered and meaningful through a visual presentation.

In Halpern and Bower’s experiment they used sets of ten crotchets with no

accidentals or repeated notes and they were placed into pairs of 'good' structures and 'bad'

structures with very similar contours and intervals, meaning they are visually similar. These

melodies were judged to be 'good' or 'bad', both visually and aurally, by separate groups of

musical graduates and expert performers. The 'good' were judged significantly better than

the 'bad', which confirms their classification on both visual and aural presentation. They

28

were also judged equally in visual complexity by non-musicians. 'Random' melodies were

composed in addition to the 'good' and 'bad' with larger intervals and more contour changes.

In the pilot study they discovered some possible encoding methods for the notation. Halpern

and Bower had a group of twelve musicians and twelve non-musicians. A slide of a 'good' or

a 'bad' melody was displayed for five seconds, and then recalled after a delay of fifteen

seconds. They found that musicians were overall better at recall than non-musicians and that

the 'good' melodies were overall remembered far more accurately than the' bad'. Whilst the

musicians remembered the 'good' melodies more than the 'bad', the non-musicians

performed equally poorly on both the categories, which supports the judgement that the

melodies were equally complex visually. The musicians’ memory for the 'bad' melodies was

better than the non-musicians’ performance on the 'bad'

In the second experiment, Halpern and Bower (1982) further investigated the effect

of the musical structure on the notation. Since the musicians recalled 'bad' melodies better

than the non-musicians, what kind would they recall equally? Random note placement in the

random melodies causes a far greater interval size average, which leads to an increase in

complexity of the visual presentation. This should affect both groups as while the non-

musicians only use visual regularity, musicians use both visual and musical regularity. The

random note placement inhibits the musical regularity as well as the visual. The musicians

showed that they performed well for 'good' melodies as they had both good visual and

musical regularity, moderately for the 'bad' melodies, which also has good visual regularity

but poor musical regularity, and badly on the random melodies that lacked all regularity.

The non-musicians performed moderately, and equally so, on the 'good' and 'bad' melodies

and badly on the random melodies. The musical differences had no effect on the non-

musicians, only the visual differences, and so they were worst performers on the random

melodies as there was little visual structure. Musicians were only mildly superior to the non-

29

musicians on the random melodies, as there was no musical or visual regularity to follow,

which means melody had to be remembered in terms of pitch names. This was unfamiliar to

the non-musicians, probably explaining their poorer performance.

Absolute accuracy on recall was initially scored, but this did not allow for near

misses (like placing a note one line too far down on the stave) or for meaningful musical

mistakes (such as octave displacement), so the memory for the overall visual representation

of notation was difficult to judge. Instead it was marked on similarity – a melody placed

consistently one note too low on the stave in recognition would have been marked zero on

absolute, but actually it is very close to perfect so the memory was very good. This was

marked out of ten. The non-musicians scored 2-3/10 and the musicians’ score was far more

wide-ranging, but none were approaching perfect. The musicians’ scores were as predicted,

but their advantage over non-musicians decreased from 'good' to 'bad' to random. Their

similarity points were far higher than the non-musicians'. Musicians made some musical

errors. Often when memory was not intact, musically sensible substitutes were inserted. In

other examples, notes were encoded as an F major triad, for example, but recalled in the

wrong order. This is an example of the chunking of patterns within melodies. There were

fewer of these mistakes in the less structured 'bad' melodies as compared to the 'good', as

there was less musically structural information to encode.

Even when the recall was immediate, the musicians were better at recalling the

'good' melodies, which shows the immediate use of the learned structures as a framework

for memory. The effect of musical structure on working memory for pitch is shown in sight-

reading experiments by Sloboda (cited in Gabrielsson 1999, 512) where musicians

processed the music as a series of groups, both structural and musical. After a very brief

exposure to melody, the musicians were superior in recall of the simple patterns, and

reported that they seemed to be obvious in their patterns and groups.

30

Two characteristics are likely to be helpful in memory for pitch sequences. Firstly,

the ease with which you can group the melody into sub-patterns and secondly the number of

patterns that are likely to be formed. Following the theory that musicians will use chunking

to remember patterns, the more easily sectioned melodies should be easier to remember, and

even easier if there are fewer chunks of information to maintain. It is expected that chunk

size is related to expertise (Lehmann et al 1007, 112). In a well-structured melody,

groupings would be easier and fewer, and thus more easily remembered than poorly

structured 'bad' melodies. Visual cues are unlikely to indicate the groupings, so non-

musicians, who are relying on the visual structures, are unlikely to use this method of

memory for recall.

Using the same 'good' and 'bad' melodies from the previous tests, Halpern and Bower

(1982) presented these melodies on a sheet of paper in a random order to a group of subjects

(seven musicians and seven non-musicians) and instructed them to use vertical lines to

group the melodies as they wished. Consistency of absence or presence of a particular

division for both groups was marked along with the average number of groups for each

melody and the number of divisions each subject gave each melody (Table 3). Interestingly,

the difference between the two groups on consistency in the 'good' melodies was

insignificant, and in fact it was the non-musicians who were more consistent in their choices

for groupings. However, the non-musicians' choices seemed not to be musical decisions and

the consistency came from decisions like a visual division where the direction of the note-

stem changed. Another interesting finding was that the 'good' melodies were no more

consistently grouped than the 'bad' melodies, for either group, which shows that the musical

structure which makes it 'good' is not a visually obvious element, and therefore is not seen in

the 'good' melodies by the non-musicians, and that a musical division may be subjective and

differently judged by different musicians.

31

To see whether the musicians were using the chunking strategy, recall scores from

immediate recall of melodies were compared with the grouping consistency marks for each

melody. As expected, the non-musicians showed no correlation between their grouping

consistency and accuracy in immediate recall whilst there was a significant correlation for

the musicians, pointing to a suggestion that chunks that are clear in the melody are used to

ease the memory process when a quick glance is the only presentation.

When there are fewer chunks, there is less information to maintain. Musicians

marked a significantly lower number of musical groups or chunks in the 'good' melodies

than the 'bad' melodies, but for the non-musicians it was the other way around. This was

explained after exploring the number of stem direction changes for each group of melodies

and the 'bad' melodies had fewer changes than the 'good' melodies. This shows the

importance of the musical structures for the musicians over the easier visual structures like

the grouping of the stem changes. The non-musicians were relying heavily on the visual

grouping strategies over musical groupings, as they showed a very high correlation between

the individual grouping numbers for each melody and the mean average throughout the

whole group. This suggests they used the same stimulus to mark segmentation in the

melody. The average number of groupings for each melody was then compared with the

recall marks and there was no correlation for the non-musicians. Clearly the stem direction

segmentation was not a method that was implemented by or that helped the non-musicians'

Table 3: Mean

consistency score

and number of

groupings for good

and bad melodies.

Halpern and Bower

(1982).

32

recall performance. The musicians showed a significant negative correlation between

number of groupings and performance in both delayed and immediate recall (in which it was

even more significant), meaning they made fewer groups and therefore performed better.

The musicians grouped musically, not visually, and could take advantage of these groupings

in memory.

The inconsistency in the musicians’ groupings may have come from the lack of

musical features other than pitch. Segmentation, patterns and phrases are usually indicated

by larger scale contours and rhythms, neither of which are present in these melodies. The

fact that they ignored the visual cues of the stem directions (whilst the non-musicians took

advantage of this and consequently were more consistent) can explain the lack of

consistency through the group.

These experiments showed the negative correlation between the number of chunks

and recall accuracy in musicians' recall and therefore that chunking was a tool used by the

musicians, knowingly or otherwise, in order to recall melody. These relations are stronger

when the recall is immediate which, along with the findings that well-structured melodies

aid recall, show the very important and fast influence on memory trace that musical

structure can have, suggesting very early use of 'music-specific encoding' (Halpern and

Bower 1982, 46). It also shows that the non-musicians do not use these strategies, which

suggests either an innate brain function or an element of training is involved.

The 'grammar' of music (Halpern and Bower 1982, 47) has been learnt by the non-

musicians (to some extent) through listening to music and this is clear from the inter-

participant reliability of the non-musicians judging whether the melodies were 'good' or

'bad'. They were relatively consistent in deciding which were 'good' and 'bad', even though

the 'bad' were not 'blatantly discordant' (Halpern and Bower 1982, 47). Musicians have also

33

gained this understanding and built upon it through their training, strengthening their

expectations and knowledge of structures and activities. This includes the names of relations

and structures, which can aid their memory for these features and elements of music. The

knowledge of the grammar involved in a 'good' melody and their associative knowledge of

how it is presented visually means recognition of groupings, patterns and structures occurs

immediately. Patterns which are well known (such as triads, or rising scales) can aid the

expectation of what is to come, and this would explain the existence of musically sound

mistakes in recall of melodies - the errors are not haphazard and come from interference

from similar musical patterns stored in the long term memory (Sloboda 1978). A melody is

presented as a ‘hierarchy of subsequences’ (Deutsch 1980, 2) and structure is utilised in

recall. Deutsch also found that the unstructured sequences caused a much heavier memory

load. The expectancies are quickly confirmed and the tonal hierarchy also helps us to

organise these chunks to aid the memory (Deutsch 1980). The chunks and musical structure

are often interlinked so when one strategy fails in retrieval, another can be used (Lehmann et

al 2007, 120).

Some studies suggest that the music is not stored in a simply visual or aural form but

in a more abstract manner recording contour (Dowling 1978) and tonality (as this is a well-

defined mental structure on which to place the melody) (Dowling 1978) along with other

musical elements. Sloboda’s 1978 example of 'chunks' is the sequence [C-D-E-F-G-D-B-C],

coded as:

a) C scale rising to dominant;

b) falling dominant chord;

c) return to tonic.

A novice musician unaware of tonal structure might encode:

a) C up to G;

b) G down to D;

34

c) D down to B;

d) B up to C.

This comprises of more chunks and they have no connecting link between then. A

non-musician might then code the contour and approximate notation, as he has no access to

abstract frameworks. One builds an expectation on what you can see, and with confidence in

your training you may not need to consciously look at all the information (Lehmann et al

2007, 116; Tervaniemi 2003). Halpern and Bower (1982) suppose that the musicians use

these abstract methods and musical names rather than attempting to 'hear' the music in their

heads as this might cause interference (Sloboda and Parker 2005) as one would be

essentially sight-reading the presented melody, not concentrating on the memory trace.

Chapter Summary This chapter has shown the importance of preservation of contour for memory and for

recognition. The right superior temporal gyrus is activated in both perception and memory

for melodies and contour. The right brain seems to accommodate contour change while the

left preserves and recognises contour. The connections (interval change and direction)

between the pitches cause neurons to behave differently, which brings contour to a neuronal

level of perception, meaning it is a very detailed part of the function.

Tonal structure seems to be learnt automatically and acts as an aid in memory for

music. From brain damage studies we saw that a bilateral lesion in the temporal lobe led to a

loss of pitch and tonality recognition, but the tonal processing function remained, suggesting

that musical perception and memory belong to separable systems. A bilateral lesion also led

to a deficit in pitch processing but the ability to generate chord expectancies was retained,

showing that harmonic systems may be separable from the melodic systems. The right

anterior superior temporal gyrus is connected to knowledge of tonality (as well as working

memory) and so must be instrumental in sight-reading. The inferior frontal region is

activated in harmonic deviance bilaterally – on the right side because of surprise (linked to

35

risks) and the left for the analysis of change in 'grammar'. Bilaterally, the superior temporal

gyrus is activated in dissonance – the right side for musical sound and the left for grammar

or semantics.

The tonal structure plays a big part in a musician's memory for music, and while the

visual structure can help (as 'bad' melodies were recalled better than 'random' melodies in

Halpern and Bower's 1982 experiment) it is secondary to music. The grouping of the

melodies showed that chunking, expectations and tonal knowledge are all methods

employed to remember a melodic sequence.

36

Chapter 3 – Music in Action

Sight-Reading and Working Memory Sight-reading is an important musical activity, which involves very brief and complicated

processes in the brain. The sight-reading of music is functionally and neurally different to

our reading of words. For example, in some brain damage studies Cappelletti, Waley-

Cohen, Butterworth and Kopelman in 2000 found that symbol reading can remain intact

while musical notation reading is inhibited (Peretz and Zatorre 2005, 101). fMRI scans

revealed the involvement of the right occipital temporal region in deciphering musical

notation (Schon et al 2000, in Peretz and Zatorre 2005, 101). Sight-reading requires vast

amounts of information to be processed in a very short time for temporary use. One must

interpret both pitch and rhythm, sometimes on more than one stave, comprehend and

implement a key signature and metre and recognise the familiar patterns. Often these are

perceived peripherally, meaning errors that occur are 'musically meaningful' as they fit into

the perceived structure (Sloboda 1977, in Sloboda 2005, 40). The optimum time span for the

working memory to process music is 5-8 seconds and the surface detail is therefore partly

set-aside in order for the larger-scale structure to be comprehended (Snyder 2009). A

performance plan for motor translation must be created and the brain must anticipate correct

continuance of the piece in order to recognise mistakes automatically, using expectations

and imagery.

As has been discussed, some of these actions are distinguishable neurophysically.

After brain damage, pitch and rhythm perception can become separated (Fasanaro 1990).

There can be damage at different levels of perception and decoding, even as early as the

visual perception where pitch and rhythm are presented in different manners. It may happen

later on, when the brain attempts to create an imagined representation. Pitch is encoded

differently for different people. Some may give note names while others would use a motor

37

function (like pressing the key on a piano) so it could be one of these functions that is

damaged (Peretz and Zatorre 2005, 102). However, since many can sight-read in different

media, through singing or several instruments, representation of pitch is likely to be quite

abstract and unrelated to the medium of performance. Koelsch and Siebel (2005) implicated

the frontal, parietal and premotor cortical areas in working memory, along with the

cerebellum.

According to McPherson in 1993, sight-reading is one the five skills all musicians

should possess (Kopiez et al 2006). Activities and skills relevant to sight-reading are aural

imagery, sight reading experience, your style of thinking and possession of an external locus

of control (Kornicke 1995, in Kopiez et al 2006). Sloboda (1974) noted that one’s ability to

read ahead is a condition and a sufficient short-term memory buffer must be present in order

to read ahead whilst playing the previous music. He also suggested that being left-handed

may be an advantage as left-handed people generally have less of a handicap on their right-

hand side than right-handed people do on their left side. Kilshaw and Annett in 1983 also

found that musical imagery appears to be highly related to sight-reading, as efficiency in

this department may help to hear the music and understand how it should sound before it is

executed, all within the small space of time (Kopiez et al 2006).

Imagery and Mental Rehearsal Musical working memory is essential for musical imagery, described as imagining music or

its attributes without hearing it (Peretz and Zatorre 2005, 97). Perceptual defects and

imagery defects are often found in common when a lesion in the auditory cortex is present,

which supports the view that imagery uses the perceptual mechanisms. In some tests with

brain imaging, it was discovered that the secondary auditory cortex is activated in both

imagery and rehearsal of melodies (Halpern and Zatorre 1999). They confirmed their

predictions that the right associative auditory cortex (which provides a realistic experience

38

for the brain) accompanies musical imagery, and that the imagery cues retrieval from the

‘musical semantic memory’ (Halpern and Zatorre 1999, 702) and this increases CBF in the

right inferior frontal region and bilaterally the middle frontal region. When there is no need

for ‘semantic retrieval’ then the left frontal area is recruited. However, it is the associative

auditory cortex, not the primary, which is active in the imagery. They used melodies both

with and without lyrics. Those with lyrics activated the temporal cortex bilaterally whereas

those without activated the right temporal cortex. The right auditory cortex activation

supports the hypothesis that the right hemisphere mechanisms process the tonal information

(Halpern and Zatorre 1999, 702).

Highben and Palmer in 2004 found when they removed the auditory feedback of

rehearsal and requested the participants to imagine the feedback, that performance was

poorer than after rehearsal with the auditory feedback. This shows that the auditory

feedback is important for a successful performance. The pianists with excellent aural

imagery were least affected by the removal, supporting the view that aural imagery involves

the same brain sequences as actual aural information (Palmer 2005).

Janata (2001) found that the imagination of the continuance of a melody (where they

omitted an unexpected note) showed similar electrical functions in the brain to when

perception of a real tone occurs, which suggests that the auditory mechanisms which are

responsible for perception are also involved in imagery (Halpern and Zatorre 1999).

The neural networks involved in musical ability can be studied by teaching non-

musicians to play music (Peretz and Zatorre 2005). Musically untrained subjects were

allocated two hours of piano for five days, which, besides resulting in vast improvement in

performance, also resulted in increased activity in the motor areas associated with hand

muscles. Primary motor cortex neurons also showed increased activity, and repeated

39

information input to the motor cortex resulted in long-term potentiation of the motor

neurons (Pascual-Leone 2001). Interestingly mental practice (‘the imagined rehearsal of a

motor act with the specific intent of learning or improving it’ (Pascual-Leone 2001, 321))

has similar effects:

‘Studies of regional Cerebral Blood Flow (rCBF) suggest that the prefrontal and

supplementary motor areas, basal ganglia, and cerebellum are part of the network

involved in the mental simulation of motor acts. Therefore, mental simulation of

movements activates some of the same central neural structures required for the

performance of the actual movements. In so doing, mental practice alone seems

to be sufficient to promote the modulation of neural circuits involved in the early

stages of motor skill learning. This modulation not only results in marked

improvement in performance, but also seems to place the subjects at an

advantage for further skill learning with minimal physical practice. The

combination of mental and physical practice leads to greater performance

improvement than does physical practice alone, a phenomenon for which our

findings provide a physiological explanation" (Pascual-Leone 2001, 321).

This shows the quick effects of training on brain plasticity. There are several

differences therefore in the way that musicians and non-musicians use the musical

mechanisms in the brain and listen to music. It seems that musicians recruit more neural

tissue for the activities and are more analytical in their listening. However, this is not

exclusive to musicians as non-musicians have shown that they too consider interval size

both consciously and automatically (Tervaniemi 2003). Even so, Peretz and Babai in 1992

found that musicians are more flexible in their listening, using their learned tonal and

structural knowledge to decide which method would be most appropriate for coding,

analysis and memory-trace generation (Peretz and Zatorre 2005, 105).

40

Brain Function and Structure It is clear there is right-sided asymmetry for pitch-based processing but music uses a vast

network of regions on both right and left sides of the brain. Music and the activities

involved are both complex and numerous and it is not clear which part of the brain are

music-specific. Many of them share neurons and systems with other functions. For example,

Koelsch (2002) found that harmonic deviation activates Broca's area inside the frontal lobe,

which is a region associated with language, suggesting an element of syntactical procedure.

However, the area is vast, and could easily accommodate several networks, meaning the

musical function and the language function could be entirely unrelated in this area (Peretz

and Zatorre, 2005). The brain's structural adaptions to each function happen at a gross

structural level and appear during early-aged training (Altenmueller and Schneider, 2009).

Chapter Summary The studies in this section have shown that the auditory cortex is implicated in the imagery

of music and in working memory with the frontal, parietal and premotor cortical areas and

the cerebellum. Imagery needs the perceptual mechanisms in order to occur, like mental

rehearsal, which involves the primary motor cortex and the right associative auditory cortex

is involved in musical imagery. For musical semantic retrieval the right inferior frontal

region and bilateral mid-frontal region are used. When lyrics are used in perception, the left

and right auditory cortices are both involved as the left deals with language while right deals

with sound (in this case tonal information), and when without lyrics, only the right side is

used. In comparison with actual aural feedback, imagery causes the same activation in the

brain, and similarly when imagining a continuing melody, the same activation appears as

when actual perception is occurring.

Many separable processes are involved in sight-reading, but for them to work

simultaneously, one must have an ability to read ahead, an adequate short-term memory

41

buffer and knowledge of the musical tonal and structural and frameworks to aid imagery and

generate accurate expectations.

42

Conclusion

During this study, many activities and processes have been addressed in order to understand

the human brain’s means of dealing with musical information. It has led me to some

conclusions about my own patterns of perception, analysis and memory.

I may have been more able than my peers to acquire musical skills because my entire

family is musical. It is not necessarily genetic, but environmental. Studies have shown that

much musical information can be processed automatically, and therefore knowledge can be

unknowingly assimilated. Being surrounded by music in my very early years and onwards

must have had an effect on the development of musical structures and functions in my brain.

My ability to sight-read is likely due to a combination of things, but I believe the

main one may be an efficient short-term working memory buffer. This allows me to process,

perceive and reproduce the many facets of music in a very short space of time, and its

efficiency allows me to do this accurately. I have found in other areas of life, I am very able

to ‘juggle’ tasks: I can participate in several conversations, talk and read simultaneously and

even in more academic situations like mathematics, several activities were easily possible.

In comparison to my cognitive style, my sister cannot concentrate on more than one task,

but can concentrate for much longer. During aural recall, she can keep her mind on the

presented material without thinking about other things, and there are fewer facets to

perceive in this fashion of presentation. She is able to hold the information and recall it with

better accuracy. However, she cannot comprehend all the information involved in sight-

reading fast enough to reproduce the music accurately. A secondary reason could be an

aptitude in musical imagery. As I am very able to “hear” the music as I read it, it will aid my

understanding of the piece, and help to build those expectancies built on tonal frameworks.

When required to sing back a presented melody, I am aware that whilst the contour

of the recalled melody is usually correct (as was the case in Sloboda and Parker’s 2005

experiment), the tonal structure often is not. As I don’t have absolute pitch, my analysis of

43

pitch relations and intervals to generate a trace, but these are based inside a tonal structure,

and it appears that the frameworks that I have understood and maintained are not being used

to aid my memory, unlike perception during sight-reading.

I think my abilities come down to my preference for the visual presentation of

music, as opposed to aural presentation. Essentially, aural recall and sight-reading amount to

the same processes – perception and reproduction. However, aural recall requires fast

perception, memory and recall of aural information, whereas sight-reading requires fast

perception of a larger amount of information through written music followed by

reproduction. Learning a piece of music by ear is impossible for me, and I find it incredibly

difficult to perform the most basic analysis without reading the score. In other tasks, such as

learning languages, I could pronounce and remember the word if I saw it. In an informal test

on myself, I could remember musical phrases such as in Halpern and Bower’s experiment

(1982) through seeing the musical patterns and chunks – a combination of the musical and

the visual methods. I think perhaps my difference in skill is not due to musical memory or

analysis, but a failing in aural perception, and a balancing superiority in visual perception.

Many brain areas, methods, processes and contextual effects (such as mood at the

time of testing) have an effect on performance and skill in music, so it is impossible to

pinpoint the reason for the difficulties I and other musicians have in certain activities, but

through knowledge of my own processes and through this study of perception and memory,

I think I have uncovered a path towards the answers.

44

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