Musical Brain Power

I have been unable to play the violin for 11 weeks now. People ask me, ‘Are you going crazy?’ Well, I have to admit, sometimes I wonder. I haven’t been bored for one minute, but I have had more than one moment that feels like madness. Time is one problematic area for me. Its not just a question of having trouble remembering what day it is. Time sometimes seems to kaleidoscope so that, for example, I won’t be able to remember whether something happened yesterday or last week. Perhaps you will tell me that is just due to lack of routine. Maybe. But there are other things. I had to phone a shop 3 times in a row, because I kept giving them the wrong phone number. I just couldn’t remember my own number. That’s not normal, for me.

So I am left wondering, what does this tell me about how my brain works - or rather, doesn’t work? I was particularly excited to hear a lecture from Dr Katie Overy (from the Institute for Music in Human and Social Development) on ‘Music and the Brain’ during the ‘Arts in Prison’ conference that I attended in Edinburgh last week. (Or was it last month?) Research shows that music can facilitate the learning of verbal language, memory and motor skills - and that’s just for starters. One of the reasons that music is so powerful is because it seems to involve more parts of the brain than any other human activity. Another point that came glaring out of the lecture at me was that musicians brains seem to differ from non-musicians brains, [would SCO Management have anything to add to that?] possibly because musical training changes the brain function and structure.

But I think the most important thing that I heard in the lecture was that the most powerful musical experience is to be found in hearing it performed live . That’s because hearing someone’s music is to hear another’s presence. Playing music together - synchronized group music activity - is said to enhance co-operative social behaviour within the group. So that’s why I am off this evening to hear my colleagues presence in Beethoven 8 - because they are fantastic, I miss them, and the experience of hearing them play will, as I now know, literally do me some good.