The Differences Between Musicians ’ and Nonmusicians ’ Brains

As musicians, we subject our brains to a regime of training that is virtually unparalleled in its intensity and duration, not to mention the level of exquisite perfection we are expected to attain. Most of us started our instruments when we were very young, have practiced daily for hours ever since, and will continue to do so for many more decades. There is no other field that demands this sort of commitment or the high level of performance from our ears, hands, and mouths that we easily take for granted. This is bound to leave an impact on the functioning of our brains. In fact, neuroscientists see musicians as a ready-made experimental group to study what happens to the brain when it undergoes this kind of rigorous training. How the brain learns is one of the mysteries of neuroscience and scientists have turned to studying us to help answer some of their questions. What they’ve found is fascinating, but musicians rarely find out about it because neuroscience studies are really hard to read. In this paper, I hope to describe (in an intelligible way) the findings of neuroscientists working in this field to help musicians better understand themselves and their audiences, both musicians and non-musicians’ alike. I will divide this discussion into two parts: functional differences (differences in the way musicians’ brains respond to music) and structural differences (actual differences in the brain itself, not just how it responds). Finally, I will look at the phenomenon of perfect pitch and what has been discovered about how it works. Hopefully, you will come away with a new appreciation of your brain and how you have sculpted it, figuratively and literally, in all your years of practice and study to be a musician.