Music, Language, and the Brain

by Aniruddh D. Patel

In the first comprehensive study of the relationship between music and language from the standpoint of cognitive neuroscience, Aniruddh D. Patel challenges the widespread belief that music and language are processed independently. Since Plato's time, the relationship between music and language has attracted interest and debate from a wide range of thinkers. Recently, scientific research on this topic has been growing rapidly, as scholars from diverse disciplines, including linguistics, cognitive science, music cognition, and neuroscience are drawn to the music-language interface as one way to explore the extent to which different mental abilities are processed by separate brain mechanisms. Accordingly, the relevant data and theories have been spread across a range of disciplines. This volume provides the first synthesis, arguing that music and language share deep and critical connections, and that comparative research provides a powerful way to study the cognitive and neural
mechanisms underlying these uniquely human abilities.

Winner of the 2008 ASCAP Deems Taylor Award.

Genres: Music, Science, Psychology, Nonfiction, Linguistics, Neuroscience, Language

528 pages, Hardcover

First published November 5, 2007

Reviews

[Stuart · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most impressive book on the subject I've read. Not an easy read and not for most readers, but the far ranging surveys of scientific studies makes a good case for the linking of music and language. My notes:

Octave & 5th very common
Most scales 5 - 7 notes
Most scale intervals between 1&3 semitones (2 common)
Most scales are asymmetric-exceptions are Whole tone(6) and Slendro(5)
Asymmetric scales help identify relation to tonic though cultural conditioning trumps in pattern recognition

Tabla, Tibetan chant, Didgeridoo & Jews Harp rare cases of timbre used as defining structural element
P. 33 timbral modulation

P. 71 - parallels between music and speech sound elements - music uses pitch, speech uses timbre

P. 96 - def of rhythm - systematic patterning of sound in terms of timing, accent, & grouping OR a systematic temporal, accentual, & phrasal patterning of sound

People prefer:
1-beats coincide w note onsets
2-beats coincide w longer beats
3-regularity of beats
4-beats align w phrase beginning
5-beats align w harmonic change
6-beats align w onset of repeating melodic patterns

Grouping perceived after lower, louder sounds or changes in intensity, duration, pitch, & timbre

Languages traditionally have been rhythmically grouped as stress-timed & syllable-timed, but the deeper grouping is by vowel/consonant % vs. variability

P.137-rhythm hypothesis - infants can only distinguish between languages of different rhythmic classes

In contrast to music, rhythm tends to be a consequence rather than a construct of speech

Durations in language and music rhythm match by country-composers may have language rhythm in their ears when writing
Long-short duration word groupings in Japanese and short-long in English match rhythmic groupings in respective music
Periodicity doesn't appear to play a part in speech rhythm

P.224-Melody
-implicit statistical learning in one domain (speech) may influence the creation of rhythmic & tonal patterns in another domain (music)

P.233-Melodic Contour Deafness Hypothesis-tone deafness affects contour perception in both music and speech though speech has more robust way to deal with it because pitch change seldom affects meaning

P.244-sequence in language influences meaning; in animals like whales & birds only identifies dialect of where they are from and meaning is either territorial warning or sexual advertisement

P.259-order & meaning in music based on tension/release; reordering would produce different meaning

Structure physicalist or cognitivist? - octave/5th likely physical. More complex structure likely cognitive/cultural conditioning-there are cultures where scales have little relation to overtone series yet have a tonal center.

P.264-syntactic ambiguity not wanted in speech but may be desirable in music

Similarities: hierarchical structure - multiple level of organization-morphemes>words>phrases>sentences / tones>chords>progressions>keys
-"A linear sequence of elements is perceived in terms of hierarchical relations that convey organized patterns of meaning"
Language-conceptual structure of reference
Music-pattern of tension & resolution
In both, parts can substitute out
-same harmony, different chords
-same sentence structure, different words
Recursive structure-noun phrase within larger noun phrase; tension/release phrase within larger tension/release phrase

Similarities: logical structure-both contrast structure w elaboration
Grammar-verb agreement similar to harmonic agreement

Neural-Shared Syntactic Integration Resource Hypothesis-music & language have different domain specific representations but share neural resources for activating and integrating these representations during processing

P.282-hypothesis that when building sense of key, unexpected note or chord creates a processing cost due to tonal distance like distance cost in language between noun/verb/object

P.300-Meaning
Music can not translate from one culture to another (translating Beethoven into Gamelan) as language can
People can still appreciate music from another culture even if perception is wrong (Westerners hearing Gamelan end of phrase as downbeat)
"Music can have meaning for a listener simply because of it's sonic logic, without knowledge of the context that gave rise to the music or of an insider's understanding of it's cultural significance"

11 types of musical meaning:

1) structural interconnection of elements-"embodied" meaning; self-referential; intrinsic; introversive; intramusical

Eduard Hanskick"The Beautiful in Music" 1854-musical aesthetics should be rooted in structure

P.307-study shows that large scale structure such as pieces longer than a minute starting & ending in same key couldn't be perceived by highly trained musicians, even scrambling sections

Some argue that structural beauty can produce emotions

2) music expressing emotion
-some studies showing cross mapping between western, Indian & Javanese expressive states - ex. Happy=fast, bright, higher, less complex

3) Experience of emotion in listener - chills can be elicited in some listeners by sudden change in harmony, a violation of expectation (can occur in happy or sad music)

4) Motion-make listener want to move or music sounds like it's moving

5) Tone Painting

6) Musical Topics-dance forms, hunt music, pastoral, march

7) Social Associations-linking to cultural, ethnic or group identity

8) Imagery & Narrative

9) Association with Life Experience

10) Creating or Transforming the Self-creating an identity; entering a trance (Bali trance music)

11) Musical Structure & Cultural Concepts-cycles in Gamelan relate to cycles in their calendar and lining up of cycles/dates create important coincidences
-western sense of societal progress reflected in harmonic progression

Musical meaning
-instr music lacks semantic content but suggests semantic concepts
-leitmotifs communicate semantic meaning in opera, film
-music meaning is much less specific and compositional-no system of structured combinations of semantic parts
Pragmatics-drawing inferences and filling in the gaps not provided by semantics
Kehler applies Hume's categories to language
1) resemblance-categorizing & correspondence
2) cause/effect
3) contiguity-sequence of events
Musical coherence requires connections between segments that link into larger whole
1) resemblance-parallelism (similarity), contrast, elaboration
2) cause/effect-result, violated expectation
3) contiguity-temporal sequence-patterns or themes happen in specific order not because of intrinsic internal logic but because that is order culture has specified

Hypothesis-brain processes music instr as superexpressive voices-the emotion perception modules don't recognize difference between vocal and other acoustic expressions as long as cues are same

Music & evolution - neither adaption nor frill - something we invented that transforms life - has the power to change very structures of our brains

Beat based rhythm-not related to language processing

Synchronizing to a beat doesn't appear until age 4 though infants can perceive differences in duration, tempo and grouping structure

Thai elephant orchestra can play at rhythmic regularity individually but not together

Crickets synchronized really all readjusting to others to be first to appear most attractive for mating - unintended synchrony

Fireflies flash together but within small tempo range, non complex rhythms

No examples of animals being taught to move to a beat

Evidence that humans have been shaped by natural selection for language, but not yet for music

[Kaitlyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first thought after finishing this: WHEW. What a mental workout. This took about a month and a half to get through, which, for a book that I was reading on a semi-daily basis throughout that, is a hell of a long time. Still, totally worth it.

Although it's not a pop science book, it's still accessible for those not in the field of neuroscience or linguistics. However, I'm not sure how readable or enjoyable this would be for someone without any exposure to general music theory and/or linguistic terminology or ideas. I have a long classical musical background and have read a fair share of linguistics stuff, and it was still a challenge.

I think what makes this a more valuable (and more difficult) read is the amount of detail throughout. Patel thoroughly discusses the implications, potential weaknesses, and possibilities of the current research. While there are a lot of new concepts and terminology to deal with, the writing is very clear.

Overall, this is an extremely informative and well-written book, but definitely not for the casual reader.

[Quiver · Rating 5 out of 5]

Comprehensive, yet readable overview of the language-music relations from a cognitive perspective.

[Jeremy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book reads like a dry, extended literature review of unremarkable research on music and linguistics. I found Chapter 2 quite intriguing, but the rest of the book is full of underwhelming, half-baked, and half-explained theory. There are some exciting ideas sprinkled throughout, though, but the author usually gives no more than a reference to outside material.

A lot of the “scientific” results mentioned in this book feel like weak confirmations of what musicians and non-musicians alike know intuitively. I’ve become convinced that philosophical or speculative writing on music is more illuminating than scientific studies, which often seem awkward and poorly-designed.

[Lodi Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably still the best collection of research on the link between music and language so far compiled. Extremely exhaustive, it only lacks a more approachable tone, as it could turn very "heavy" to read even if you're from the field. I'm personally not a fan of works that tend to remain niche despite not being technical enough, hence my 4 starts instead of 5. But a great work indeed.

[Ana Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wouldn't have imagined our brain hold such connection with music. I was fully aware of the fact that music is an essential part of all of us, but understanding the way it affects and alters us to such a deeper level has been enlightening. It is an incredible reading and resource for all of us out there trying to unravel the complexity of these two mysteries, the brain, language, and music.

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

A range of fascinating topics here. I preferred the early material on processing, perception, and comparisons with other species more than the later topics on therapeutic angles, even though those are useful and potentially the most relevant.

[Pondheron · Rating 5 out of 5]

A comprehensive well narrated book about musicality or human music ability. Looks at music from many perspectives nature, nurture, brain plasticity, brain structure etc - highlighting important work in cognitive neuroscience research generally and music perception in particular.

[Benitez Bryn2 · Rating 5 out of 5]

this article ispretty much well written

[Kendra Carter]

Love the neurological understanding on how the Brain uses and processes music

[Sal · Rating 4 out of 5]

I want to put thus aside and reread it again soon. It was full of information- and some certainly beyond my retention levels, but that is in me, hence the need to reread

[Will · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Linguistic and musical sound systems illustrate a common theme in the study of music-language relations. On the surface, the two domains are dramatically different. Music uses pitch in ways that speech does not, and speech organizes timbre to a degree seldom seen in music. Yet beneath these differences lie deep connections in terms of cognitive and neural processing. Most notably, in both domains the mind interacts with one particular aspect of sound (pitch in music, and timbre in speech) to create a perceptually discretized system. Importantly, this perceptual discretization is not an automatic byproduct of human auditory perception. For example, linguistic and musical sequences present the ear with continuous variations in amplitude, yet loudness is not perceived in terms of discrete categories. Instead, the perceptual discretization of musical pitch and linguistic timbre reflects the activity of a powerful cognitive system, built to separate within-category sonic variation from differences that indicate a change in sound category. Although music and speech differ in the primary acoustic feature used for sound category formation, it appears that the mechanisms that create and maintain learned sound categories in the two domains may have a substantial degree of overlap. Such overlap has implications for both practical and theoretical issues surrounding human communicative development.

In the 20th century, relations between spoken and musical sound systems were largely explored by artists. For example, the boundary between the domains played an important role in innovative works such as Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire and Reich's Different Trains (cf. Risset, 1991). In the 21st century, science is finally beginning to catch up, as relations between spoken and musical sound systems prove themselves to be a fruitful domain for research in cognitive neuroscience. Such work has already begun to yield new insights into our species' uniquely powerful communicative abilities."

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

An thorough, meticulous, nearly exhaustive review of the research on how the brain processes music and language. It's a tiring read, free of much one might call "style", but the chapter on Meaning masterfully pulls together the loads of information presented in the previous chapters. The book ends up being more suggestive than conclusive, but if you are interested in, for example, how the "music" of poetry is processed by the brain, this is the book for you.

[Citra]

Tough I really want to read this book, the price is quite expensive for me, so I should wait until I have a chance to buy this book. But from what I've read about this, it seems that this book's price is worthed to buy.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A scholarly study by a neuroscientist of core aspects of being human. Patel argues that language use arose via natural selection but the evidence on balance indicates that music and musical affinity are side-effects rather than direct effects of selection.

[Scott Miles · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an incredible resource! This book reads like a 520-page "Nature Reviews Neuroscience" paper, and a well-written one at that. Up-to-date, thorough, scientifically balanced, and intellectually bold, this is a volume that I hope will guide my own research for years to come.

[Kalle Oskar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Patel's work is a dense study that musicians might understand, or neurobiologist might understand - at least in part. The Rhetorician doesn't quite get it. I'm working at understanding, but it is a difficult work. The struggle may be repaid sometime.

[Fredcritter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having been impressed by Aniruddah Patel when I heard him speak at a conference, I bought this book. Unfortunately I discovered that I am neither knowledgeable nor smart enough to understand or ever to continue to read it. It's very technical.

[Everett Charters]

Wonderfully written just too technical for my poor little brain.

[Nguyễn Thanh Tùng · Rating 5 out of 5]

I want to discover more about the link between music and language.This book is really useful and helpful to me.

[Umma]

I've always been fascinated by linguistics, music and computation. This book was great at feeding my curiosity into some of those subjects.