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Rhythm, Music, and the Brain: Scientific Foundations and Clinical Applications
With the advent of modern cognitive neuroscience and its new tools of studying the human brain "live," music as a highly complex, temporally ordered and rule-based sensory language quickly became a fascinating topic of study. By studying the physiology and neurology of brain function in music, we can obtain a great deal of knowledge about the perception of complex auditory sound stimuli; time perception and rhythm processing; the differential processing of music and language of two aural communication systems; biological substrates of learning versus innate talent in the arts; and processing of higher cognitive functions related to temporality and emotion. The main goal of the book is to bring the knowledge in the arts and the sciences together and review systematically our current state of study about the brain and music, specifically in rhythm. This book will be of interest for the lay and professional reader in the sciences and arts as well as the professionals in the fields of neuroscientific research, medicine, and rehabilitation.
247 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 7, 2014
There's a conception of the scientist as a lone, Einsteinian-type figure, bravely forging his way into the intellectual unknown. In truth, however, science proceeds along at a far more modest pace. A team of researchers might observe a relation between, say, music therapy and stroke-victim rehabilitation. Another scientist, working in a slightly different field, hypothesizes that the mental hardware used for processing rhythmic cues involves motor neurons. Someone else draws an inference between the two. So on and so forth.
Hence why legitimate scientific texts, such as Michael H. Thaut's Rhythm, Music, and the Brain: Scientific Foundations and Clinical Applications, often reach such admirable levels of rigour. But for someone like myself, who was raised on the pop-science gems of A Brief History of Time and A Short History of Nearly Everything, it also explains why legitimate scientific texts can be so awfully dull to read.
Rhythm, Music, and the Brain, which surveys the present state of rhythm-related neuroscientific research, is divided into nine chapters; but unless you're a neuroscientist or a neurologic music therapist (yes, it's a real job title), most of the interesting content falls within the first three. In these, Thaut explains which musical concepts (beat, pulses, meter, etc.) hold neurological significance. Pretty neat stuff, actually. And he also provides a fascinating overview of musical aesthetics, ranging from Kantianism to more recent attempts at psychobiology.
(He even reads Kant's categories as an anticipation of later psychobiological accounts of perception, an interpretation which is as enticing as it is most definitely inaccurate.)
The remainder of the book is spent investigating the therapeutic and medicinal applications of the neuroscience of music. Here, Thaut presents his claims systematically, rigorously and (surprise, surprise) tediously, as the following passage amply demonstrates:
Perhaps I really need to revise my policy of finishing every single book that I start. In any case, Rhythm, Music, and the Brain, which I would often pick up for some late-night reading, boasts the auxiliary function of being quite the effective sleep-aid.
Hence why legitimate scientific texts, such as Michael H. Thaut's Rhythm, Music, and the Brain: Scientific Foundations and Clinical Applications, often reach such admirable levels of rigour. But for someone like myself, who was raised on the pop-science gems of A Brief History of Time and A Short History of Nearly Everything, it also explains why legitimate scientific texts can be so awfully dull to read.
Rhythm, Music, and the Brain, which surveys the present state of rhythm-related neuroscientific research, is divided into nine chapters; but unless you're a neuroscientist or a neurologic music therapist (yes, it's a real job title), most of the interesting content falls within the first three. In these, Thaut explains which musical concepts (beat, pulses, meter, etc.) hold neurological significance. Pretty neat stuff, actually. And he also provides a fascinating overview of musical aesthetics, ranging from Kantianism to more recent attempts at psychobiology.
(He even reads Kant's categories as an anticipation of later psychobiological accounts of perception, an interpretation which is as enticing as it is most definitely inaccurate.)
The remainder of the book is spent investigating the therapeutic and medicinal applications of the neuroscience of music. Here, Thaut presents his claims systematically, rigorously and (surprise, surprise) tediously, as the following passage amply demonstrates:
The periods of rhythmic stimuli and their corresponding responses play a dominant role in the planning and execution of motor events. Evidence for this comes from several sources. The fact that a constraint on the response period (as provided by the stimulus period) results in a well-defined optimization problem allows for a mathematical analysis that results in the complete specification of the three-dimensional coordinates of an upper-extremity movement trajectory. Thus, the result of study 1, in which mid-arc position variability is decreased, is a natural outcome of the response period constraint provided by the metronome.
Perhaps I really need to revise my policy of finishing every single book that I start. In any case, Rhythm, Music, and the Brain, which I would often pick up for some late-night reading, boasts the auxiliary function of being quite the effective sleep-aid.
January 6, 2011
A great reference on how sound induces and shapes movement. Scientific studies on how the injured brain that engages in music can be changed by that experience.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews